SPACE: THE FINAL STAGE OF COLONIALISM
We are approaching a great shift. A shift in our culture, a shift in our economies, and a shift in our very way of life. The world’s economy has reached an ouroboric stage where it no longer has any more new places to consume. The rivers of profit are beginning to dry up for the main economic powers of the globe. Marx showed that profit within capitalism has a tendency to fall overall. While it may experience small booms and increases here and there, nothing can match the profits gained at the inception of capitalism so many decades ago. Why is this? Because capitalism constantly requires new innovations to gain a hand over competitors. During these brief instances, profit increases, until all competitors gain the same advantage and the playing field is level one again. Most of the time, these advantages come from the exploitation of cheaper and cheaper labor, with capitalism building a hierarchal pyramid of oppression and continually expanding the base to encompass new people and nations. Marx eloquently outlined this in The Communist Manifesto where he states:
“The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire
surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions
everywhere.
The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character
to production and consumption in every country…All old-established
national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new
industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by
industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the
remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter
of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new
wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes.”
Moreover, this function also serves to relieve the pressure on the workers within imperialist nations, thereby removing some of the class antagonism directed towards them and transferring it to another entity. The result is a more complacent working class, and less chance of a socialist revolution taking place. This is telling through the words of British pro-imperialist and statesman, Cecil Rhodes, justified the importance of imperialism:
“I was at the East end of London yesterday and attended a meeting of the unemployed.I listened to the wild speeches, which were just a cry for “bread”, “bread”, “bread”, and on my way home I pondered over the scene and I became more than ever convinced of theimportance of imperialism…. My cherished idea is a solution for the social problem, i.e., in order to save the 40,000,000 inhabitants in the UnitedKingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands to settle the surplus population, to provide new markets for the goods produced by them in the factories and mines. The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question. If you want to avoid civil war, y0u must become imperialist.”
Rhodes’ words are very revealing as to what imperialism means for capitalists. It illustrates their dependency on imperialism to continually sustain our system. If capitalists want to keep order, they must find ways to alleviate the pressure of those they are exploiting…by exploiting others underneath the exploited. However, we have now reached an era where much of the globe is tied up in this series of interactions. As Lenin said:
“Capitalism has grown into a world system of colonial oppression and of the financial strangulation of the overwhelming majority of the population of the world by a handful of “advanced” countries. And this “booty” is shared between two or three powerful world plunderers armed to the teeth…” – V.I. Lenin ” Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism
Capitalism is facing a greater threat than ever before: itself. By its very own logic, capitalism must begin a new cycle of oppression, increasing the exploitation of the same groups over and over again in a cyclical order until it consumes itself and all of us. Now in order to maintain itself, capitalism has two options: either use colonialist forms of exploitation at home through the use of an all-encompassing state (fascism) or let itself die. Logically, the former is the likelier path, and we do indeed see this beginning in places like Europe and the United States, where far-right wing governments are slowly taking hold. But what if there was a third option? Just as Marx could have never predicted the rise of imperialism and it’s prolonging effects on worker revolution, Lenin could have never predicted that there would be a new land ripe for colonization and exploitation: space.
As it stands, space can provide the newest delay to the death spiral of capitalism, perhaps by even centuries. As I’ve illustrated before, the vast quantities of wealth houses in asteroids and the potential for creating new nations of people and new colonies on foreign worlds prime for exploitation and labor could usher us into a new stage of colonialism. This, combined with what we now know of colonialism and imperialism’s purpose, would provide competing corporate oligarchies around the globe to expand the base of their pyramid of oppression and recreate the vast colonial empires of the 20th century on a far greater and profitable scale. Thus, it is no coincidence that space exploration has suddenly become a hot topic for corporate entities, such as SpaceX and BlueOrigin.
So instead of allowing our exploitative system to continue, what is to be done? Instead of allowing the rich to keep getting richer, we can use the profits and technological benefits of space to smash the base of this pyramid of oppression, and finally, break the wheel of exploitation. It is important for us to work toward a future where space is colonized and explored in a sustainable and equitable manner so that humanity as a whole can benefit from its fruits. We must realize the world’s common people are ultimately prisoners to this vicious cycle, and even if somehow the Warden can get a grant to feed us more often or give us a new rec hall, we are still in chains. The system can never be saved, its effects can only be prolonged and eventually, the system will reach a time where there will be nothing left to consume but itself and us until both cease to exist. So let us stop the cycle now and cease this endless loop of lunacy before the snake finally consumes its whole tail.
https://sites.psu.edu/tovarishspeakspolicy/2019/09/27/space-the-final-stage-of-colonialism/
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