The United States and Neocolonialism

There is a long history of colonialism that extends back to before the United States even became its own country. For one, The United States started out as a royal colony of Britain, but even after independence, the United States would eventually develop imperialist tendencies of its own in intervening in the rest of Latin America and other island nations in the Pacific. Originally because of mercantilism, the drive to maximize the amount of exports, countries create colonies and occupy foreign lands to control access to more resources and expand economically. This inherently necessitates an exploitation of those colonized lands, for they only exist to provide for the settling country's economic wellbeing. After World War 2, however, many of the colonies created around the world started to be dismantled, as those colonized countries began revolting against their oppressors in a rising trend of decolonization.

Is colonialism over? Probably not.

The theory of neocolonialism posits that colonialism has merely evolved into another stage of imperialism. Specifically, neocolonialism is defined as the continuation of the economic model of colonialism even after a formerly colonized territory has achieved independence. The theory primarily looks at African countries, which were expected to develop and become more like modern, Western countries soon after decolonization. However, this did not happen, raising questions about the lingering economic exploitation from colonialism.

One way that neocolonialism perpetuates itself is through dependency theory, which states that the underdevelopment of these former colonies persists because highly developed countries are still able to dominate these underdeveloped countries with cheap manufactured goods, forcing those underdeveloped countries to focus on the only thing they had: raw materials. This unequal trade relationship mirrors the colonialism that once dominated these countries.

The United States plays a particularly sinister role in this neocolonialism, still maintaining a policy of interventions in Latin American and African countries, and exploiting these countries well into the 21st century. Colonialism is not over. The fundamental relationship between developing and developed countries still remains strong in the form of neocolonialism.

http://science.jrank.org/pages/7920/Neocolonialism.html