• s0ykaf [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      the least exciting one, but as a "sub-imperialist" country i guess it's the best we can do for now

      still sucks ass to put my hopes on a lib, but at least he might stop the depredation of our public universities (that has been scaring the fuck outta me as an aspiring researcher)

        • s0ykaf [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          brazil has always been an agent of american imperialism in the region - yes, even during the PT era, despite the rhetoric (though a lot less actively so, it was more like "leaving it alone", such as maintaining the collaboration between our federal police and the FBI/other american agencies - funnily, this eventually led to lava-jato)

          when it's the actual right-wing in power and not just the center it becomes pretty active, such as bolsonaro's government helping the bolivian coup

          in economic terms, the relationship between our multinationals and the rest of SA (and all of latin america, really) is very much the same as any other kind of regional imperialism and it worsened in the PT era - large companies, heavily supported by public banks, going into neighboring countries and corrupting politicians, draining resources, destroying the environment, not sharing any kind of technical knowledge, etc (in fact, this was worse than what china does in africa - which is kinda funny as most people will love lula and call him anti-imperialist and yet will hate on china for being a "terrible exploiter of africans" when their economic relations tend to be a lot more mutually beneficial)

          tbh, generally speaking, the takes on the PT era coming from brazilian marxists tend to be very different from those coming from foreign marxists

          • Vncredleader
            ·
            3 years ago

            Oh I get all that. I was iffy on the sub part. Much of SA has been explicitly imperialist upon their own neighbors right?

            • s0ykaf [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              oh i see

              well imperialism requires a certain stage of development, so for instance bolivia can't really be imperialist towards ecuador

              the sub part is because sub-imperialism is a specific category coming from ruy mauro marini's work, it requires a concerted effort between monopolies, finance capital and governmental agencies from countries that, despite reaching a stage of development where this is made possible, are still stuck in a dependent relationship with the imperial core

              so they get into in a weird spot where they both collaborate and compete with the core, think of it as a sort of antagonistic cooperation, rather than separate entities acting in different spheres

              • Vncredleader
                ·
                3 years ago

                But Chile can be imperialistic towards Bolivia and Peru like in the Pacific War. Brazil certainly engaged in imperialist actions in the 1800s. The sub-imperialism term is neat, but I would still call those acts imperialist, and say Bolivia can be imperialist towards Ecuador even if not itself independent in the imperial core. The thing that comes to mind is Brazil's actions in the war of the Triple Alliance with the posturing to the UK to drop its attempts to push Brazil around. They have to compete with Britain, but they do so by engaging in imperialism locally