The literature on imperialism suffers from a fundamental confusion about the relationship between capitalism and imperialism. The aim of this paper is to remove this confusion.
The outcome of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which concluded over the weekend in Paris, has been hailed almost universally by politicians and the press as a triumph of international collaboration that will pull mankind back from the brink of ecological disaster.
The Paris Agreement has mostly been greeted with enthusiasm, though it contains at least one obvious flaw. Few seem to have noticed that the main tool mooted for keeping us within the 2℃ global warming target is a massive expansion of carbon trading, including offsetting, which allows the market exchange of credits between companies and nations to achieve an overall emissions reduction. That’s despite plenty of evidence that markets haven’t worked well enough, or quickly enough, to actually keep the planet safe.
During his visit to Moscow, Secretary of State John Kerry talked at length with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and came out of those talks with a shocking declaration that “the United States and its partners are not seeking regime change in Syria.”
On the imperial side, there reigns a state of total confusion. With regard to the contradictory declarations by US leaders, it is impossible to understand Washington’s objectives, if indeed there are any. At the very best, it would seem that the United States are allowing France to take certain initiatives at the head of one part of the Coalition, but even there, we do not know their real objectives.
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