Canadian capital and secondary imperialism in Latin America

• Published in: Canadian foreign policy journal Vol. 25; no. 1; pp. 72 - 89
• Main Authors: Gordon, Todd, Webber, Jeffery Roger
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Ltd 02-01-2019
• Subjects: Capital; Capitalism; Imperialism; Investments; Political economy; Scholarship; Social classes; Transnationalism; Canada; Latin America
• ISSN: 1192-6422; 2157-0817
• DOI: 10.1080/11926422.2018.1457966

The last several years have witnessed a renewal of critical scholarship that understands Canada as a secondary imperialist power. While conceptualizations of Canada as a dependency of the United States have lost intellectual ground in the Canadian political economy literature, the rejection of the notion that Canada is imperialist has more recently drawn on the transnationalization thesis found in, inter alia, Robinson and Sklair. This article refutes these central premises. It argues, first, that Canadian capital can be measured as "Canadian." In turn, because there is a Canadian capitalist class we need to theorize its relationship with the Canadian state. Second, this Canadian capitalist class pursues its interests abroad, with the support of the Canadian state, as a secondary imperialist power within the hierarchical world system. Third, expansion of identifiably Canadian capital abroad is exemplified in Canadian investment trends in mining and finance in Latin America in recent decades.