Conceptualising British Imperialism

Abstract

This chapter establishes the theoretical framework for the analysis of Britain’s relationship with Malaya. It accomplishes this by first providing an assessment of the current scholarship on British imperial economic relations. These accounts are argued to be problematic and an alternative, open Marxist approach is developed. This approach argues that imperialism is a relationship between two states, undertaken as part of a strategy designed by state managers of the dominant state with a view to achieving adequate conditions for the reproduction of capitalist social relations.