I have complained about it before but I heard on of the guests from guerrilla history on the deprogram make this argument and it made me want to gouge my eyes out. This kind of trans historical argumentation is both stupid and unmarxist, just stop! Sorry I felt the need to vent.
These states were not imperialist and they weren’t settler colonies. This framing doesn’t make any fucking sense when transfered to a medieval context. Like the best you could say is that the Italian city states represented an early firm of merchant capital, but even then that is an incredibly complex phenomenon that has only a tenuous connection to modern capitalism. Calling these city states early capitalism is just a fancy way of saying “lol u hate capitalism yet you exchange good or service! Curious!”
Seriously just stop. I don’t know why this set me off but it was like a week ago and I am still mad about it.
You can only call it imperialism if it’s made in the Imperi region.
If you are trying to argue continuity of specific phenomenon between timeperiods, then yeah it needs to be specific if you want to draw concrete informational value from the analysis. If you want to say all intergroup violence for some kind of gain throughout history is the same then yeah sure the crusades and modern imperialism are the same.
With peculiar, idiosyncratic definitions of words, we end up with empires without imperialism, and fascism without fascists. Maybe someone will soon propose communism that’s independent of communists, or maybe they already have.
If one nation conquers another nation with the intention of fully integrating it into the former’s economic, cultural, and political systems, rather than just being an ally or a tributary, is that too broad or too narrow of a definition of the process of an empire?
I wouldn’t call the crusader kingdoms part of an empire but it’s a lot more than simply “intergroup violence”.
Not really sure what you are arguing? The crusader kingdoms in the Levant were trying to secure holy sites for pilgrimage as their primary goal and function at the outset.
