A theory of imperialism

摘要

This is not a book that will be read widely, not merely because of the obscure nature of the subject but also because of the authors' style of exposition. The subject belongs to the era when socialism and its variants expressed the policies of many recently independent countries. Despite decades of planned development, largely shunning any foreign investment or technology, many countries, unable to tackle the problems of poverty and lack of resources had to open up their economies starting from the 1980s including China which continues with its own form of communism. All of them have been able to bring millions out of poverty, a fact that has been ignored. But according to the Patnaiks, new imperialism took shape in the form of the metropolis (i.e. countries in the temperate zone) dominating the periphery (the tropics).