SOUTH AFRICAN SUBIMPERIALISM

Abstract

If modern imperialism necessarily combines neoliberalism and
“accumulation by dispossession” in peripheral sites like Africa along
with increasing subservience to the USA’s indirect, neocolonial rule,
the next logical step is to locate South Africa’s own position as regional
subimperial hegemon within the same matrices. That requires
identifying areas where imperialism is facilitated in Africa by the
Pretoria-Johannesburg state-capitalist nexus, in part through Mbeki’s
New Partnership for Africa’s Development and in part through the
independent (though related) logic of private capital. Finally, in
response to this subjugation, we can consider what kinds of analyses,
strategies, tactics and alliances are being posed by serious African antiimperialists.
First, however, we must clarify imperialism’s militarist
and geopolitical inclinations.