Market Patriotism and the “War on Terror” 111 Social Justice Vol. 34, Nos. 3–4 (2007–08) 111 Market Patriotism and the “War on Terror” Dave Whyte I was in the East End of London yesterday and attended a meeting of the unemployed. I listened to the wild speeches, which were just a cry for “bread,” “bread,” and on my way home I pondered over the scene and I became more than ever convinced of the importance of imperialism.... My cherished idea is a solution for the social problem, i.e., in order to save the 40 million inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands for settling the surplus popula- tion, to provide new markets for the goods produced in the factories and mines. The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question. If you want to avoid civil war, you must become imperialists.—Cecil Rhodes, 1895 (cited in Robbins, 1999: 93–94). T hIs sTaTEMENT sTaRKLy sUMs Up ThE EcoNoMIc IMpERaTIVE of LaTE BRITIsh imperialism. It sets out a perspective that was no doubt related to Rhodes’ personal role in British colonial expansion. as the founder of the British south african Trading company (and co-founder of the De Beers diamond com- pany), he obtained a British government charter that empowered the company to form armies and police forces to capture large parts of central southern africa with the aim of securing concessions for land and mineral rights. his colonial mission was, explicitly and directly, to expropriate and brutally suppress local populations for proit. Underpinning the mission was a belief in the cultural supremacy of the “anglo-saxon race,” and Rhodes (1877) argued that British imperialism was neces- sary to spread what he regarded as “the best, the most human, most honourable race the world possesses.” Rhodes’ colonial mission illustrates the close correspondence between the racism at the heart of the British Empire and the interests of the private proiteers in the form of the colonial corporations and the traders and merchants that prospered from British military dominance. a combination of economic and cultural-racial supremacy underpins all forms of imperialism. Rarely is it represented as explicitly as it is in Rhodes’ cherished idea. Imperial powers have tended to sugar the pill of colonial domination with the Dave Whyte is Reader in sociology at the University of Liverpool in the U.K. (e-mail: whyted@ liverpool.ac.uk). his research interests include safety crimes, corporate crime, the risk society, and crimes of the powerful.