ABSTRACT
The imperialism of the United States of America, above all, counts in current thought and usage [in der heute üblichen Vorstellungs-und Redeweise] as the most modern imperialism, because it is principally an economic imperialism, and thus appears to distinguish itself from other forms, especially from every military imperialism. The economic stands in the foreground to such a degree that it is sometimes even used to deny the fact of imperialism at all, in that economy and politics are opposed to one another on the basis of an inherited nineteenth-century antithesis, and the economic is situated as something essentially non-political, the political as something essentially non-economic. In this way a famous political economist and sociologist, Joseph Schumpeter, could still express the view, in the year 1919, that what the Anglo-Saxons do, in contrast to what the Prussians and other militarists have done, is ‘by definition’ [‘begriffsnotwendig’] never imperialism but something essentially different, because it signifies only economic and therefore peaceful expansion.
