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Marxist Theories of Imperialism: A Critical Survey
Offers a unique account of Marxist theories of Imperialism. It has been fully updated and expanded to cover all the developments since its initial publication and will be essential reading for any student of Marxism or Imperialism.
316 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
April 14, 2025
Brewer cooks, plain and simple. A must read for anyone genuinely interested in understanding imperialism.
March 20, 2021
An excellent survey which covers a lot of ground and is very concise. The critique is sharp ( really brutal in Lenin's case) but at the same time things are explained well and can be understood by a beginner( like me!) . Great introductory material!!
January 25, 2023
A useful overview of a lot of thinkers. 3 stars because the author takes a lot of swipes at various people but doesn’t really establish his own position. It took me to the end of the book to realize he’s just seething about Third World Marxism and any theories that support its claims. Don’t care, didn’t ask, plus you’re British!
May 2, 2023
The author makes the concepts put forward by various theorists in an accessible manner. However the selection of these scholars rather leaves out countries those are victims of Imperialism by large. Only publication cited more than one time from these nations are from EPW, regarding the Capitalism in Indian Farming debate (which the authors says is just semantics and uninteresting but was a major churning point in Indian Marxist scholarship, parts of the debate are reproduced in Reading India: Selections from Economic and Political Weekly, Volume II for those interested), and makes rather blaring mistakes about Indian History ( for example the year of indpendce is wrong and the British crown taking over control of India from EIC was apparently just because it had a large territory with no reference to first war of independence.) There are a few Latin American scholars but all material about Africa comes from scholars associated with the countries that colonies the region being discussed.
December 16, 2024
Brewer provides a remarkably concise summary of Marxist (and adjacent) thinkers on Imperialism from Karl himself to what he dubs the 'classical Marxist theory of imperialism' developed around the turn of the 20th century as well as the dependency theorists which predominated the radical 60's and 70's. Contra the other reviewers here, I found him for the most part to be pleasantly sympathetic to the many writers he covers, although the work certainly lives up to it's claim to being a 'critical survey'.
Brewer's initially focuses his wrath on 'under-consumptionist' theories which he ascribes to Luxemburg, Hobson, and Baran. The thrust of this approach is trying to prove that capitalism requires foreign markets to survive; he summarizes a simple version of as follows: "(1) monopoly increases the share of profit, and concentrates it into fewer hands; (2) a large fraction of monopoly profit is saved, so saving tends to increase; (3) domestic investment opportunities are limited (it is sometimes also argued that monopoly reduces investment), so saving tends to outrun investment; (4) excess saving produces a chronic lack of demand, unless some outlet is found; (5) capital export can provide an outlet for excess saving." Brewer argues that this ignores the introduction of more capital-intensive methods of production and economic growth which he believes the increased saving will create.
Much of the invective against Brewer must be prompted by his rather dismissive treatment of Lenin, despite his pre-emptive defense that his arguments are not a "criticism of Lenin, but of the orthodox Marxist tradition which turned it into a sacred text" and I'm inclined to agree with his assessment that his "pamphlet has been treated with a reverence it does not deserve." He brings attention to the fact Lenin's 'Imperialism' openly declares itself a popular outline, and serves merely as a synthesis of the ideas already developed by Hobson and Bukharin (who himself mostly repackaged & organized those of Hilferding). He points out that despite Lenin defining imperialism as 'the monopoly stage of capitalism' implying the various tendencies he outlines stem ultimately from the consolidation of monopolies, he fails to explain why. Lenin states capital export, is necessary because capitalism becomes 'over ripe' due to the 'backward stage of agriculture' and 'impoverished state of the masses' which indicates he concurs with Hobson's under-consumptionism but which Brewer says is in contradiction with the arguments he advanced against the Narodnik's in 'the Development of Capitalism in Russia' (who believed capitalism could not develop due to a lack of a home market owing to the poverty of the masses).
Brewer demonstrates Lenin's thinking was in stark contrast with later dependency theorists, focusing on his statement to the effect that capital export only arrests development in the advanced countries at the expense of "expanding and deepening the further development of capitalism throughout the world." He further indicts Lenin for introducing a form of apocalypticism into Marxism, where one sees crisis and the breakdown of capitalism around every corner crippling their analysis and making them unable to explain or respond to its continued survival. And yet, despite all the criticism, Brewer defends Lenin against Bill Warren (who he is otherwise in general agreement with) who charges him with introducing the belief that capitalism is unable to develop the countries of the third-world (he instead traces this idea back to the Comintern in the 1920s, and then identifies Paul Baran as being the first person to give it theoretical backing).
Partisans of dependency theory will take issue with Brewer as his sympathies obviously lie with the 'classical theory' that capitalism is perfectly capable to extending itself into the underdeveloped states, and especially with the thinking of Bill Warren who heralded imperialism as a progressive force. The statements Brewer makes in the conclusion are very much dated. He says that Marxists in the 60's and 70's predicted continued US dominance and saw little chance of underdeveloped countries improving their relative position, and that "both predictions look pretty doubtful now." He confidently asserts that "US hegemony in the capitalist world is clearly over, so the fiercely independent states of the Third World can play off one capitalist power against another," and yet in just over a year after the second edition of this work was published in 1990, the USSR would collapse and Japan would enter what we now call the 'lost decade'; American hegemony was triumphant. Likewise, after the 1997 financial crisis ended the rapid growth of the Asian tigers, not a single underdeveloped country has managed to achieve rapid growth besides China. While that example does indeed invalidate the dependency theorists (China did the very opposite of 'de-linking') one does wonder if people like Baran and Frank (who once subtitled a book 'Underdevelopment or Revolution') had a point when they said underdeveloped countries need to pursue socialism.
While the book is overwhelmingly devoted to examining other people's theories and poking holes in them, when Brewer resolves to make his own contributions they are very interesting. During his treatment of Arghiri Emmanuel (which was on the whole very respectful) he endeavored to construct his own model based on his that serves to reinforce Emmanuel's claim that high-wages beget high-wages. He introduces 'non-traded goods' into the model and uses them to explain how investment will flow into the high-wage countries (as they have to be produced locally) in order to meet the higher demand. Later on, he makes the very interesting observation that when Europe and America industrialized, the world economy was not integrated. Transport was expensive and risky, basic goods and means of production were produced locally, competition from abroad was limited, and capital was relatively immobile. This meant capitalist development created an independent bourgeoisie. Thus its highly dubious if industrialization on the pattern of Britain is even possible today; underdeveloped countries face stiff competition from the advanced centers, thus industrialization requires displacing imports or breaking into export markets, as opposed to the easy process of displacing primitive craft industries (as occurred in Europe).
Brewer does make a few errors I only caught because of my extensive prior reading of Lenin and Engels, which does make me wonder if he made similar errors concerning other thinkers which I missed. On P. 125 he says Lenin drawing on Engel's statements about the English working class becoming more and more bourgeois is inconsistent with his statement that "the economic possibility of such bribery, whatever its form may be, requires high monopolist profits" because at the time (1858) Britain was not dominated by monopolies. This was indeed made possible by monopoly; England's industrial monopoly worldwide. As Engels explains in his 1885 article 'England in 1845 and in 1885' "during the period of England’s industrial monopoly the English working-class have, to a certain extent, shared in the benefits of the monopoly." Likewise, on P. 131 he says Lenin "vehemently rejected any idea of ultra-imperialism", but in the introduction he penned to Bukharin's 'Imperialism and the World Economy' he says "Can one, however, deny that in the abstract a new phase of capitalism to follow imperialism, namely, a phase of ultra-imperialism, is "thinkable"? No... There is no doubt that the development is going in the direction of a single world trust that will swallow up all enterprises and all states without exception." Lenin simply believed the capitalist system would implode before then. On P. 198 he unconvincingly proposes (following Warren) that dependency theory emerged because it fulfills the interests of the third-world bourgeoisie (this is despite it's main proponents being western academics, such as Frank, Wallerstein, and the like).
Brewer's survey is indispensable for those trying to understand imperialism, as he quickly brings you up to speed with all the various theoretical approaches (and points out their flaws along the way), although in the 30 odd years since this works second edition one can easily see the issues with his conclusions.
Brewer's initially focuses his wrath on 'under-consumptionist' theories which he ascribes to Luxemburg, Hobson, and Baran. The thrust of this approach is trying to prove that capitalism requires foreign markets to survive; he summarizes a simple version of as follows: "(1) monopoly increases the share of profit, and concentrates it into fewer hands; (2) a large fraction of monopoly profit is saved, so saving tends to increase; (3) domestic investment opportunities are limited (it is sometimes also argued that monopoly reduces investment), so saving tends to outrun investment; (4) excess saving produces a chronic lack of demand, unless some outlet is found; (5) capital export can provide an outlet for excess saving." Brewer argues that this ignores the introduction of more capital-intensive methods of production and economic growth which he believes the increased saving will create.
Much of the invective against Brewer must be prompted by his rather dismissive treatment of Lenin, despite his pre-emptive defense that his arguments are not a "criticism of Lenin, but of the orthodox Marxist tradition which turned it into a sacred text" and I'm inclined to agree with his assessment that his "pamphlet has been treated with a reverence it does not deserve." He brings attention to the fact Lenin's 'Imperialism' openly declares itself a popular outline, and serves merely as a synthesis of the ideas already developed by Hobson and Bukharin (who himself mostly repackaged & organized those of Hilferding). He points out that despite Lenin defining imperialism as 'the monopoly stage of capitalism' implying the various tendencies he outlines stem ultimately from the consolidation of monopolies, he fails to explain why. Lenin states capital export, is necessary because capitalism becomes 'over ripe' due to the 'backward stage of agriculture' and 'impoverished state of the masses' which indicates he concurs with Hobson's under-consumptionism but which Brewer says is in contradiction with the arguments he advanced against the Narodnik's in 'the Development of Capitalism in Russia' (who believed capitalism could not develop due to a lack of a home market owing to the poverty of the masses).
Brewer demonstrates Lenin's thinking was in stark contrast with later dependency theorists, focusing on his statement to the effect that capital export only arrests development in the advanced countries at the expense of "expanding and deepening the further development of capitalism throughout the world." He further indicts Lenin for introducing a form of apocalypticism into Marxism, where one sees crisis and the breakdown of capitalism around every corner crippling their analysis and making them unable to explain or respond to its continued survival. And yet, despite all the criticism, Brewer defends Lenin against Bill Warren (who he is otherwise in general agreement with) who charges him with introducing the belief that capitalism is unable to develop the countries of the third-world (he instead traces this idea back to the Comintern in the 1920s, and then identifies Paul Baran as being the first person to give it theoretical backing).
Partisans of dependency theory will take issue with Brewer as his sympathies obviously lie with the 'classical theory' that capitalism is perfectly capable to extending itself into the underdeveloped states, and especially with the thinking of Bill Warren who heralded imperialism as a progressive force. The statements Brewer makes in the conclusion are very much dated. He says that Marxists in the 60's and 70's predicted continued US dominance and saw little chance of underdeveloped countries improving their relative position, and that "both predictions look pretty doubtful now." He confidently asserts that "US hegemony in the capitalist world is clearly over, so the fiercely independent states of the Third World can play off one capitalist power against another," and yet in just over a year after the second edition of this work was published in 1990, the USSR would collapse and Japan would enter what we now call the 'lost decade'; American hegemony was triumphant. Likewise, after the 1997 financial crisis ended the rapid growth of the Asian tigers, not a single underdeveloped country has managed to achieve rapid growth besides China. While that example does indeed invalidate the dependency theorists (China did the very opposite of 'de-linking') one does wonder if people like Baran and Frank (who once subtitled a book 'Underdevelopment or Revolution') had a point when they said underdeveloped countries need to pursue socialism.
While the book is overwhelmingly devoted to examining other people's theories and poking holes in them, when Brewer resolves to make his own contributions they are very interesting. During his treatment of Arghiri Emmanuel (which was on the whole very respectful) he endeavored to construct his own model based on his that serves to reinforce Emmanuel's claim that high-wages beget high-wages. He introduces 'non-traded goods' into the model and uses them to explain how investment will flow into the high-wage countries (as they have to be produced locally) in order to meet the higher demand. Later on, he makes the very interesting observation that when Europe and America industrialized, the world economy was not integrated. Transport was expensive and risky, basic goods and means of production were produced locally, competition from abroad was limited, and capital was relatively immobile. This meant capitalist development created an independent bourgeoisie. Thus its highly dubious if industrialization on the pattern of Britain is even possible today; underdeveloped countries face stiff competition from the advanced centers, thus industrialization requires displacing imports or breaking into export markets, as opposed to the easy process of displacing primitive craft industries (as occurred in Europe).
Brewer does make a few errors I only caught because of my extensive prior reading of Lenin and Engels, which does make me wonder if he made similar errors concerning other thinkers which I missed. On P. 125 he says Lenin drawing on Engel's statements about the English working class becoming more and more bourgeois is inconsistent with his statement that "the economic possibility of such bribery, whatever its form may be, requires high monopolist profits" because at the time (1858) Britain was not dominated by monopolies. This was indeed made possible by monopoly; England's industrial monopoly worldwide. As Engels explains in his 1885 article 'England in 1845 and in 1885' "during the period of England’s industrial monopoly the English working-class have, to a certain extent, shared in the benefits of the monopoly." Likewise, on P. 131 he says Lenin "vehemently rejected any idea of ultra-imperialism", but in the introduction he penned to Bukharin's 'Imperialism and the World Economy' he says "Can one, however, deny that in the abstract a new phase of capitalism to follow imperialism, namely, a phase of ultra-imperialism, is "thinkable"? No... There is no doubt that the development is going in the direction of a single world trust that will swallow up all enterprises and all states without exception." Lenin simply believed the capitalist system would implode before then. On P. 198 he unconvincingly proposes (following Warren) that dependency theory emerged because it fulfills the interests of the third-world bourgeoisie (this is despite it's main proponents being western academics, such as Frank, Wallerstein, and the like).
Brewer's survey is indispensable for those trying to understand imperialism, as he quickly brings you up to speed with all the various theoretical approaches (and points out their flaws along the way), although in the 30 odd years since this works second edition one can easily see the issues with his conclusions.
January 26, 2023
Lives up to its name as a "critical" survey as the author isn't shy at putting across their criticisms of each and every theory that is surveyed, although their historical revisionism and unbased criticism of Lenin and Third World Marxism gets tiring at times
Criticism aside I thought the author did well in clearly presenting a wide range of theories in a logical manner
Criticism aside I thought the author did well in clearly presenting a wide range of theories in a logical manner
January 2, 2025
This book provides you with a concise and clear understanding of varying theories of imperialism in the Marxist tradition. Brewer makes his biases towards thinkers such as Brenner, Bill Warren, and Political Marxism clear as opposed to dependency and world system theorists such as Frank Gunder and Wallerstein. Rather than focusing on the totality of theorists' thoughts on imperialism, he focuses on key works that illuminate much of the proposed mechanisms at play. While this cuts much of the filler that may exist, it at times leaves him with inadequate critiques of what some may have believed. This is shown particularly in his critique of Lenin's understanding of the Labour Aristocracy.
His critiques of underconsumptionist crisis theories and 'monopoly capital' are insightful, while his positive remarks towards Bill Warren's complete disavowing of dependency theories of imperialism leave me at a pause. Bill Warren completely forecloses any possibility of unequal exchange and imperialism as defined very generally as one nation dominating another, instead reducing his analysis to the quality of capital relations as one that inherently improves on relative exploitation and thus productivity and innovation. Warren did not live long enough to see the long waves of development and de-development present, so one cannot completely fault him for this perspective, especially with the industrialization that arose in the Third World which ran contrary to many dependency thinkers. However, his argument was nonetheless made in such a way that one can extrapolate his analysis to today. How can we explain the uneven development in the region particularly the underdevelopment of certain nations right next to regional powers? An example of this is Bangladesh's continued focus on labour-intensive (light) industries such as garment production next to China's rise to more capital-intensive (heavy) industries. Here he evidently lacks a historical analysis, one that does not flatten out differences based on who holds capitalist social relations and who does not.
Moving on, Brewer's emphasis on how to define and understand the implications of capitalist social relations piqued my interest with his brief survey of Marxist debates on Indian agriculture and the mode of production present. I felt there was an injustice to how rushed the chapter felt, but no survey book (unless completely dedicated to that debate) would have given it the attention it deserved. On the other hand, his critique of the historic capitalism thesis is strong and persuasive, as I feel he correctly points out the conceptual reduction of capitalism to quantified exchanges rather than a quality, in which the ways individuals in a society interact to produce and reproduce holds explanatory significance.
To end this review, his discussion of the imperialist appropriation of profits and the implied insignificance relative to the mode of production present in explaining underdevelopment is interesting. Ultimately I reject this, and I believe any serious thinker should be able to understand the international determining elements in depressing _social forces of development_, as well as the vulnerable and (dare I say) dependent situations poor countries face that result in the siphoning of labour hours through unequal exchange, which could have instead been used productively for their domestic markets. Both the mode of production and unequal exchange must be understood as co-determining elements of underdevelopment, as one country does not exist in isolation absent of any geopolitical agendas both in their local articulation of social relations of production and exchanges with the global market. As of now, I believe Samir Amin sufficiently highlights this well, although Brewer has ironically sparked my interest in Baran's conception of irrational waste in capitalism despite his harsh critiques.
His critiques of underconsumptionist crisis theories and 'monopoly capital' are insightful, while his positive remarks towards Bill Warren's complete disavowing of dependency theories of imperialism leave me at a pause. Bill Warren completely forecloses any possibility of unequal exchange and imperialism as defined very generally as one nation dominating another, instead reducing his analysis to the quality of capital relations as one that inherently improves on relative exploitation and thus productivity and innovation. Warren did not live long enough to see the long waves of development and de-development present, so one cannot completely fault him for this perspective, especially with the industrialization that arose in the Third World which ran contrary to many dependency thinkers. However, his argument was nonetheless made in such a way that one can extrapolate his analysis to today. How can we explain the uneven development in the region particularly the underdevelopment of certain nations right next to regional powers? An example of this is Bangladesh's continued focus on labour-intensive (light) industries such as garment production next to China's rise to more capital-intensive (heavy) industries. Here he evidently lacks a historical analysis, one that does not flatten out differences based on who holds capitalist social relations and who does not.
Moving on, Brewer's emphasis on how to define and understand the implications of capitalist social relations piqued my interest with his brief survey of Marxist debates on Indian agriculture and the mode of production present. I felt there was an injustice to how rushed the chapter felt, but no survey book (unless completely dedicated to that debate) would have given it the attention it deserved. On the other hand, his critique of the historic capitalism thesis is strong and persuasive, as I feel he correctly points out the conceptual reduction of capitalism to quantified exchanges rather than a quality, in which the ways individuals in a society interact to produce and reproduce holds explanatory significance.
To end this review, his discussion of the imperialist appropriation of profits and the implied insignificance relative to the mode of production present in explaining underdevelopment is interesting. Ultimately I reject this, and I believe any serious thinker should be able to understand the international determining elements in depressing _social forces of development_, as well as the vulnerable and (dare I say) dependent situations poor countries face that result in the siphoning of labour hours through unequal exchange, which could have instead been used productively for their domestic markets. Both the mode of production and unequal exchange must be understood as co-determining elements of underdevelopment, as one country does not exist in isolation absent of any geopolitical agendas both in their local articulation of social relations of production and exchanges with the global market. As of now, I believe Samir Amin sufficiently highlights this well, although Brewer has ironically sparked my interest in Baran's conception of irrational waste in capitalism despite his harsh critiques.
December 11, 2025
It might be the most useful book I have read this year. A very in depth survey of the major theorists of imperialism theory. The early sections from Marx through Bukharin, Lenin and Hilferding up to Baran and Sweezy were really illuminating.
Brewer is extremely negative about most of the writers in this book and he gives a poor take on Lenin in my opinion. He really hates Wallerstein and dependency theory but he does have some strong arguments that I think he mainly took from Robert Brenner. I think a Marxist reader just needs to keep in mind that Brewer was a British orthodox economist so he is inevitably going to come down strongly on all of these theories. But his explanations of the basic trajectory and disagreements between the major theorists is well worth working through his biases.
Brewer is extremely negative about most of the writers in this book and he gives a poor take on Lenin in my opinion. He really hates Wallerstein and dependency theory but he does have some strong arguments that I think he mainly took from Robert Brenner. I think a Marxist reader just needs to keep in mind that Brewer was a British orthodox economist so he is inevitably going to come down strongly on all of these theories. But his explanations of the basic trajectory and disagreements between the major theorists is well worth working through his biases.
October 1, 2020
I read significant sections of this to inform my Honours essay. It’s an extremely useful book for that purpose and I would like to revisit it one day and read it in more depth. It’s very technical - not light reading, dives straight in to the intricacies of Marxist economics.
March 21, 2023
A necessary critical look at the field’s historiography.
June 14, 2024
Useful survey. To be read critically, introduced me to Rey’s concept of articulation which I’d like to read more about.
June 11, 2025
Overly critical at times but a fair assessment overall. Keep in mind this reduces a lot of thinkers down to a few pages so it misses out on a lot of detail.
July 27, 2025
Very good introduction to marxist tradition and orthodox economic thinking through the lens of imerialism.
April 13, 2017
In my opinion this is probably the best introduction to Marxist theories of imperialism. Although Marxist interpretations are now getting somewhat dated and typically strike new students as obscure and esoteric, a book such as this is important to read if only to understand the common popular explanation (often attempted by politicians and pundits today) that imperialism was all about economic profit and exploitation. It is probably not very much of a stretch to say that Marxist interpretations of empire will return in due course, especially if economic conditions remain uncertain, as they are now. To some extent economic explanations have already returned and gained a wide following, largely (but not exclusively) owing to the influential interpretation of imperial expansion put forward by Peter Cain and Tony Hopkins in _British Imperialism, 1688-2000_. Getting familiar with the content of Brewer's book will establish a pretty sound basis for considering other theories.
May 31, 2007
Great Survey of Marxist international political economy up to the 80s... if you want to get a dope intro to the most important Marxist thinker, then this book is awesome... Also the section on Marx is a great and concise breakdown of Marx's labor theory of value, theory of value, use value vs. exchange value, and all that stuff that is usually really confusing.
to-keep-reference
October 18, 2016... un útil resumen de los debates (sobre el imperialismo desde Kautsky a Lenin).
Imperio Pág.166
Imperio Pág.166
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