How America Became Capitalist: Imperial Expansion and the Conquest of the West

• In Event: 4447 - Open Topic on Marxist Sociology

Abstract

How America Became Capitalist: Imperial Expansion and the Conquest of the West

This study looks at the ways the rise of capitalism transformed the social logic of empire-building across the ever-expanding American West. From Ohio and Kentucky, to Missouri and Texas, to Colorado, Montana, and California, and beyond, ‘the west’ was an ever re-defined category by the American white-settler colonialists who built empire across the continent. But the social logics pushing expansion were not necessarily always capitalist. This study argues that the path of empire developed through a process in which a ‘society with capitalism’ gradually became a ‘capitalist society’. Central to this were race, gender, and a wide variety of labor forms which capital utilized. From racialized slaves, to women oppressed by the patriarchal household, to Irish and Chinese immigrant workers, capitalism on the expanding western frontier was built through a wide variety of racialized and gendered labor forms.

The study concludes by examining how the west—from the grain producing states of the Midwest to the mining industries of states such as Colorado and Montana, realized the combination of empire and capitalism as the power of capital—from railroad and mining companies to agribusiness—took control of western space, pushed the removal of native peoples, and built empire in its own image.

Author

• James Parisot, Drexel University