New Imperialists : Ideologies of Empire

Lal’s fundamental assertion is that the choices of “optimizing agents”
will always lead to outcomes that are good for all. The proof he offers is
simply that these were the choices that were made and therefore they
must be the best decisions. It is, in other words, completely tautological.
This position also contains an unspoken assumption on how the real
world relates to the model. Due to the “imperfections” that exist, the free
market, if left to its own devices, will automatically tend towards (evolve
in) a direction to reduce those imperfections. Variants of this argument
are repeatedly found throughout the neoclassical approach. Indeed,
much of the current economic literature is devoted to explaining how the
real world spontaneously develops institutions to reduce market “imperfections”
automatically.
In the final analysis, therefore, neoliberalism is nothing more than an
assertion of faith based on false assumptions. It can be essentially
reduced to the (unproven) belief that the unfettered spread of exchange
relations will automatically produce the best result through the
unintended consequences of selfish acts. The only way to reach that
conclusion is by making a series of assumptions that do not fit with the
real world.
While the assumptions and conclusions of neoliberalism are plainly
false, it remains to be asked where these ideas come from. They did not
just emerge from the heads of economists such as Deepak Lal. What is it
about the capitalist system that produces a particular ideology like
neoliberalism, and how is this ideology related to the current form of
imperialism?
THE CIRCUIT OF CAPITAL
HANIEH: Praising Empire 177
The neoliberal view asserts that the purpose of production under
capitalism is exchange, and that our individual consumption choices
drive this production. The reality is exactly the opposite: the aim of
capitalist production is the accumulation of profit and it is production
that shapes our consumption choices.
One way of picturing this production process is suggested in Karl
Marx’s notion of the circuit of capital. Marx understood capitalism as a
system driven by the pursuit of profit with an inherent tendency to
expand its spatial borders while reducing the temporal distance between
places. 23 Capitalist economic ideology can therefore be interpreted in