Veblen Thorstein

“Imperialism is dynastic politics under a new name, carried on for the benefit of absentee owners instead of absentee princes; but so far as regards its bearing on the material fortunes of the underlying community it all comes to the same thing. All the civilised nations are beset with imperialistic ambitions, and so far as their limitations will permit them they are all occupied with imperialistic schemes; that is to say schemes for the benefit of their vested business interests, masked as schemes for the aggrandisement of the nation.

There is a growing need of such national aids to busi-ness. A business corporation as such is restricted by certain large fornalities of common honesty, the ob servance of which is not contemplated when business is done in the name of the Nation. The Nation, being in effect a licenced predatory concern, is not bound by the decencies of that code of law and morals that governs private conduct. So the national pretensions make a convenient cover for such adventures in pursuit of gain as run beyond the pale. These adventures in business, as well as the national pretensions, unavoidably run at cross purposes with one another; the abiding purpose of all competitors being to get whatever may be got at the cost of their neighbors or at the cost of those industrially backward peoples who have something to lose. It is the foremost aim of the imperialistic statesmen to extend and enlarge the advantages of such of the nation's business men as are interested in gainful traffic in foreign parts; that is to say, it is designed to extend and enlarge the dominion of the nation's absentee owners beyond the national frontiers.”
― Veblen Thorstein