ABSTRACT
The brief accounts of Amritsar and Peterloo underscore concern for imperialism as an aspect of a general problem, namely the use of force or coercion in social organization. The coercive impact of scarcity is in part sublimated in traditional relationships, which have as their rationale the repetition of historically sanctioned behavior including collective welfare through kin groups. In contrast, territorial aggrandizement has central to imperialism as embodied in the empires formed in the history of the world. The neoclassical view of freedom and coercion is part of the vision of exchange as a private activity relatively unencumbered by governmental authority. The pejorative view of imperialism is forcefully expressed in a literature that originated in analyses of the economic crises of capitalism. The Eurocentric bias of imperialism may be diminishes by viewing it as a relationship in which A dominates, controls, or coerces B, preventing from acting in its own interests or compelling it to act in the interests of A.
