The third world bourgeoisie, which in an earlier era, was opposed to imperialism and actively supported the non-aligned movement after decolonisation, has now, in the era of its new-found prosperity, little use for the term "imperialism." And the same is true of several middle class intellectuals in the third world who benefit from the burgeoning surplus value in the hands of the capitalists. Metropolitan capital in any case always sought to bury the term, and to convert economics into a branch of apologetics, where there would be no room for the concept of imperialism. What is worse, many radical and Marxist intellectuals in the advanced capitalist countries, under the influence of arguments of the sort mentioned earlier, are now moving away from the concept of imperialism. As a result the concept has few takers now. The question naturally arises therefore: can we still talk of imperialism? It turns out, as we shall see, that not only can we and should we talk about imperialism, but that capitalism without imperialism is inconceivable. One important reason for it can be stated as follows.

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