How did the colonizers benefit from imperialism?

Colonizers benefited immensely from imperialism. In many circumstances, the colonies served as a source of raw materials to feed the growing industrial capacities of the home countries. Many European countries had already cut all of their old-growth forests by the Age of Exploration—the New World provided a nearly endless supply of these forests that could be used to build new ships for both war and commerce. The New World also provided new sources of farmland; much of this farmland was located in areas with warmer climates, thus giving the colonizing nations access to crops such as cotton, sugar, and tobacco. The New World also provided a new source of mineral wealth as well. Spain used South American silver to fund its wars on the Continent and the Mediterranean. As Britain colonized other areas around the world, it profited from gold rushes in Australia and diamond discoveries in Africa.

Colonization also provided a place to dump unwanted people. Britain used Australia as a penal colony. Britain was also able to use its American colonies as a place to dump religious dissidents and the poor who would otherwise give Britain social problems if they stayed in the home country. By using the New World as a dumping ground for its undesirable population, Britain was able to accomplish two things—occupy the New World and remove what it perceived to be a burden to society.

The other educator answer describes three important ways in which colonizers benefited from their imperial ventures. Indeed, military and economic motives in particular were a driving motive of imperialists. I would add to this one more benefit. Colonies provided imperial powers with a place to send unwanted members of their own society.

For instance, the seventeenth century was a bleak time in Great Britain. Poverty was rampant, and population growth meant that there were fewer jobs for the lower classes. This led to high levels of crime at home. English authorities and policymakers looked to North America as a solution. They encouraged many lower-class citizens to become colonists in the Americas with the hope that it would relieve population pressure at home. They were particularly pleased that religious dissenters, such as the Pilgrims, Puritans, and Catholics, were eager to leave Britain for the New World. They also sent convicts to their colonies. In fact, most of the early British colonists in Australia were convicted criminals sentenced to life in the penal colonies. This was seen as a more human form of punishment than imprisonment or execution. Furthermore, it created a simple way for the imperial power to establish a bigger foothold in the colonies.

Furthermore, primogeniture laws in Europe meant that there were few opportunities for aristocratic men with older brothers. Since they did not stand to inherit anything in their home country, the colonies presented them with new opportunities. In the colonies, they could create their own wealth and an opportunity for a better inheritance for their descendants.

There are at least three ways in which colonizers benefited from imperialism.  They benefited (or at least could potentially benefit) economically, militarily, and politically.

A major reason for imperialism was economic.  Colonizers were industrialized countries that needed sources of raw materials and new markets in which to sell their goods.  If they colonized countries that had resources that they needed, they could take those resources for themselves. They could produce finished goods and sell those goods back to the people in their colonies.  The colonized people would be a captive market, thus benefiting the colonizers.  For these reasons, industrialized countries often wanted to take empires.

A second reason for imperialism was military.  Powerful countries wanted to be able to project their military power around the globe.  When they took colonies, they could place naval bases in those colonies.  If England had, for example, a colony in Yemen, it could use that as a base for naval forces that would protect shipping that went between England and India through the Suez Canal.  In order to be more militarily powerful, European countries took colonies.

Finally, colonizers could benefit in political/prestige terms.  If a country had a large empire, it would seem much more important to other countries.  It would therefore have more political prestige and power.  This was another reason to have colonies.  In all these ways colonizers benefited, or at least felt that they benefited, from having colonies.   

Who benefited the most from imperialism?

Imperialism benefits the imperialist nation that oppresses the colonized people of another nation, territory, or land. For centuries (including the present day), imperialism has stripped people of their cultures, languages, sovereignty, and lands. It has stripped people and other living beings of their individual and collective autonomy and well-being.

For example, the United States is an imperialist country that has previously held colonial control over the Philippines and continues to colonize Puerto Rico (considered a territory of the US), Hawaii (considered a state of the US), and the indigenous nations of the lands forcibly considered to be the United States. In both Puerto Rico and Hawaii, there are decolonial and anti-imperialist movements from the people of these lands. In Hawaii, these movements include cultural organizing to preserve and encourage the use of the Hawaiian language among indigenous peoples of the islands as well as political organizing to push back against rampant tourism and exploitation of the land and people of Hawaii. In Puerto Rico, independence and decolonial movements have existed for decades with particularly strong militant and radical factions.

Of course, before the United States existed as an independent nation, the British empire colonized the lands now known as the United States, participating in a genocide that resulted in the death of roughly ninety percent of the indigenous populations of so-called North and South America. The British imperialism of this land in the seventeenth century directly led to the creation of colonial America and the eventual creation of the imperialist United States. The American Indian Movement (AIM) in the so-called United States was created in the 1970s to fight for political, social, and renewed cultural power within indigenous tribes currently colonized under US imperialism. These groups and peoples fight back against imperialism because it destroys the cultures, languages, ways of living, lands, resources, animals, plants, and peoples of the colonized lands.

This is an incredibly broad question, as imperialism has been implemented both officially and unofficially in many nations throughout the centuries. Generally speaking, the nations that benefit most from the political structure known as imperialism are the nations that act in an imperial capacity, more commonly known as empires. Specifically, it is the ruling class or government that benefits the most, rather than the collective populations of imperial nations. Somewhat key to the imperial prestige of a ruling class is a considerable wealth or social disparity, and often times, citizens of a lower class within an imperial country suffer to a similar degree as smaller countries that are being colonized. It is typically fear, religious incentive, a cult of personality, or a combination of the three that keeps the poor interested in maintaining the status quo.

Imperial countries often invade smaller countries with severely disproportionate means of defending themselves in order to ascertain raw materials that are plentiful in that particular area and are unclaimed by any entities operating within the same commercial web as the imperial country. This act is known broadly as colonialism. The degree to which natives whose land is being colonized are treated varies from polite dishonesty to outright genocide, but it is always the invading country that benefits the most; otherwise, there would hardly be a point in the transaction.

Imperial nations benefited from imperialism, which is why it happened in the first place. They benefited for a number of reasons. First, colonies provided outlets for manufactured goods. This happened at a time when many feared that the efficiency of new technologies might lead to surpluses which could have crippled economies. This was disputed at the time and since, but it is certain that the owners of major manufacturers benefited by having captive markets for their goods. 

Colonies also provided cheap raw materials. Big companies bought up large swaths of land in places like Africa and Latin America for mines, timber, and agriculture. These were acquired more cheaply, and under better terms, than they could have been domestically. In Latin America, for example, American businessmen owned vast sugar and fruit plantations. When these holdings were threatened by political instability, they turned to the United States government, who often supported them through military action. 

Colonies could often be seized for strategic purposes, another benefit to the parent countries. In order to guard access to its colony in the Philippines and markets in China, the United States took possession of islands like Hawaii (which also had rich sugar plantations) and Guam. These islands became the sites of naval bases like Pearl Harbor.

If it could be said that imperialism had any benefits for subject nations, these benefits largely accrued to elites who were chosen to serve as an administrative class. For the vast majority of colonial peoples, imperialism was a net negative that tended to impoverish the many at the expense of the few. Indeed, imperialism was mostly beneficial to corporations and business owners within the imperial nations themselves. 

Generally, the colonizing country benefits the most from imperialism. The main purpose of establishing colonies or possessions is so the colonizing country can benefit economically, politically, and militarily. Having colonies gives a country access to raw materials that can be used in their factories to make products. The colonizing nation can get these raw materials cheaper from their colonies than they could get if they bought them from another country. Plus, the colonizing country has a guaranteed market where they can sell their finished products.

Colonizing countries can benefit politically also. By having colonies, these countries tend to be leaders in the world politically. They control large amounts of land beyond their borders. This gives them the ability to influence, and sometimes to control, events throughout the world.

Having colonies also helps a country militarily. Colonial powers need to protect their possessions. By having colonies, they have places where their navy can resupply and refuel. These colonies can also serve as military bases. Having colonies makes it easier for a country to protect its trading fleet and its world trade.

While the colonies receive some benefits by being colonies, the whole purpose of establishing colonies is so the colonizing nation can benefit. Throughout history, many nations have tried to become colonial powers.

According to Hobson, who benefits the most from imperialism?

For John. A. Hobson, an early-twentieth century British economist and social scientist, imperialism represented a new kind of relationship that existed between nations. The rise of nationalism in Europe, he argues, which started with the French Revolution, had ironically led to a decline in “internationalism” because of the simple fact that individual nation-states were always engaging in economic and political competition with one another. This competition, which starts off as a series of vicious trade wars between nations of the European continent, ultimately spills over to the rest of the world, where various imperial powers use the raw materials and natural resources of their colonies to fuel competition in an ever-expanding market.

The people who most benefit from this process are those who Hobson (and many other Marxist theorists, for that matter) call the “captains of industry.” In his most important book on the subject, Imperialism: A Study, Hobson says

An era of cut-throat competition, followed by a rapid process of amalgamation, threw an enormous quantity of wealth into the hands of a small number of captains of industry.

As in all other matters, it is inevitably the capitalists who benefit from imperialism, colonial wars, and the emergence of national rivalries. Hobson’s arguments inspired an entire generation of Marxist revolutionary thinkers, including Vladimir Lenin himself. Specifically, in Lenin’s magnum opus, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, his arguments, which focused on the centrality of imperialist competition and the growth of a modern-day bourgeois elite that could stimulate wars essentially at will, were directly borrowed from Hobson’s thinking. Furthermore, Hobson’s idea that market interests essentially determine the nature and location of colonial warfare had tremendous influence on later theorists of capitalism, such as Karl Polyani, whose The Great Transformation made a very similar argument.

In short, imperialism, according to Hobson, benefits capitalist owners of production, captains of industry, and property owners more than anyone else.

John Hobson had strong views on imperialism. He believed that those who benefited from imperialism were the countries and the investors in the countries that were doing the colonizing. Hobson believed the talk about helping underdeveloped nations learn and grown from being a colony of a more developed nation was just a way to divert attention from the real goals of a country being imperialistic. It wasn’t about bringing civility and religion to different groups of people. It was all about economic gain.

Hobson believed countries used imperialism as a way to profit financially. He felt that countries and businesses could get resources cheaper from its colonies. He also felt that countries and businesses could benefit by having a guaranteed market where they could sell their products. This would allow the imperialistic country to benefit. Thus, it was those people who invested the capital that stood to gain the most by having their country support a policy of imperialism, especially if their country would use the military to protect their investment. If these investors could have more products being sold, they would profit from this arrangement.

Hobson believed that the groups that benefited the most from imperialism were the capitalist class or those who controlled the money and resources. His opposition to imperialism and to capitalism in general was formed over the years by studying the effects of both ideologies. He came to the conclusion that they were inextricably linked and complemented each other. For example his observation as a newspaper correspondent in South Africa covering the Boer War is a case in point. Hobson came to the conclusion that moneyed interests like Cecil Rhodes were manipulating British public opinion in order to fight the war. He believed this was done so that those interests could control the vast resources available in South Africa.