IMPERIALISMO. — The term imperialism designates a specific mode of action inspired by a precise theory: to speak of imperialism for the centuries preceding the nineteenth is inaccurate, both because it was only in the nineteenth century that a “philosophy” of imperialism arose, and because it was with the shifting quantitative balance of markets and the advent of the age of industrialism and colonialism that this philosophy found its inspiration while at the same time itself prompting action.
Imperialism was theorized by the will to power of F. W. Nietzsche, by the racism of G. R. Gobineau and H. S. Chamberlain, and by the nationalistic exaggerations of the second half of the nineteenth century; and it was put into practice by the overwhelming and convulsive economic pressure of the capitalist countries, by the ruthless seizure of markets, by navalism, and by English, French, Russian, Japanese, and German colonialism (Italian imperialism, proclaimed by A. Oriani and G. D’Annunzio, remained muted in practice, except for certain later aspects of the Fascist attempt in Ethiopia). Communism was among the most vigorous opponents of democratic-liberal imperialism (for Lenin, the most consistent theorist of the myth of imperialism’s collapse, imperialism is the final stage of capitalism, precisely because national capitalism on the rise, engaged in the struggle against feudalism, had been replaced by a defensive financial capitalism surviving beyond its own time); but communism ultimately created its own distinct proletarian form of Soviet imperialism.
Catholic theory is an unequivocal ideal and moral opponent of imperialism: it is enough to recall the work of Leo XIII, the encyclicals Quadragesimo anno (15 May 1931) and Caritate Christi compulsi (3 May 1932) of Pius XI, clearly opposed to banking imperialism and nationalistic imperialism (men who come together in prayer to the true God cannot promote nationalistic imperialism, precisely because it makes a divinity of each people), and finally the Christmas messages of Pius XII against the false notion that force creates law.