Artificial intelligence and the new imperialism

Let us imagine that we have established the world's most advanced democracy in a country, that we share the prosperity created by artificial intelligence fairly, and that we have created a system where citizens truly participate in economic and political decision-making processes.

But what if this prosperity is based on the mines, energy, data, and poverty of other countries? Can one country's utopia be built upon the exploitation of another? If so, what form will imperialism take in the age of artificial intelligence?

STAGES OF IMPERIALISM

Lenin defined imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism. A stage where monopolies, finance capital, the export of capital, and the division of the world among great powers are decisive...

However, if we consider imperialism as the seizure of other societies' lands, resources, people, labor, and the wealth they create, we see that it dates back much further than capitalism.

Ever since human communities began to create surplus products, who would seize this product and how it would be shared has always been a subject of conflict.

The Roman Empire was not capitalist. Neither were the Persian Empire or the Mongols... Then came the transoceanic voyages, the looting of the American continent, Africa, and the Far East by European countries advanced in maritime navigation such as England, Portugal, Spain, Holland, and Belgium... In addition to raw materials, the seizure of people as slaves, cheap labor, and sources of soldiers... Even going further to massacres of people amounting to genocide... These are also examples of exploitation from pre-capitalist periods. Similar examples can be multiplied.

With the Industrial Revolution, the economic logic of imperialism gained a new dimension. Industrial capitalism had two basic needs: cheap raw materials and markets where it could sell the goods it produced.

Cheap raw materials would be taken from colonies, processed in industrialized countries, and sold back to world markets as high value-added products. Colonialism was not just land occupation. It was the shaping of the international division of labor in favor of powerful countries.

The struggles for colonial division in the nineteenth century also became one of the important elements of the competition that led to the great wars of the twentieth century (World War I and World War II).

Imperialism changed its tools over time. It is not necessary to occupy with armies to control a country's resources, to get a share of the wealth it produces, and to influence its economic decisions. Multinational corporations, foreign direct investments, international financial markets, foreign debts, interest payments, technology dependence, patents, and trade agreements ensure the operation of a wide variety of exploitation mechanisms.

In every new period that emerged after technology and international developments, the tools of imperialism also diversified. Moreover, old tools were not completely abandoned. Military interventions, wars, regime change attempts, and power struggles over strategic resources continue.

On this subject, in my article titled “Slow War: How can a nation be taken over in 20 years?” published on July 13, 2025, I discussed a study by Patrick Van Hoeserlande, a Belgian military engineer who served within NATO. The author was discussing how a country could be occupied and brought under control through finance, economy, technology, education, culture, demography, and state institutions over a period spanning twenty years, without resorting to military occupation. This was a striking scenario showing that a country's sovereignty could be seized even without military occupation. (1)

To understand the economic power of imperialism, one must also look at the reserve currency system. The acceptance of the dollar as the international reserve currency at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, just before the end of the Second World War, allowed the US to sit on the throne of the imperialist system. Thus, the US maintained an important economic privilege that other countries did not possess.

Most of the world has to obtain dollars to carry out international payments and accumulate reserves. The US, on the other hand, can make international payments with its own national currency. This privilege increases the US's capacity to finance its external deficits. International demand for American government bonds also supports the US's borrowing conditions.

Let us briefly mention the characteristics of imperialism in the neoliberal period. The Cold War and the bipolar world ended. In a unipolar world, globalization was pursued with the development of trade and technology. Two basic features of the neoliberal period were that goods could be bought and sold freely without getting stuck behind customs walls, and capital could circulate freely.

In this period, finance capital came to the fore alongside industrial capital. The free circulation of capital both allowed for the exploitation of the cheap labor of countries to be exploited and weakened the economic and political independence of target countries by indebting them. In this period, the weight in the imperialist resource transfer mechanism shifted to indebtedness. “Indebt them, make them dependent on you, both earn interest income and use their natural resources cheaply.” In this period, regional proxy wars and regional unrest gained weight instead of major wars.

Now, in the new period, another power is being added to the military power-geopolitical superiority, industrial capital, and the power of finance capital of imperialism: The control of artificial intelligence, data, algorithms, and therefore people and societies...

THE US, CHINA, AND THE NEW POWER STRUGGLE

Two countries stand out in the artificial intelligence race: The US and China.

The US has a significant advantage with its large technology companies, advanced chip design, software infrastructure, data centers, and financial power. The US's record of imperialism is quite extensive... The Vietnam War, the Iraq Invasion, the Greater Middle East Project (BOP), military interventions in South America, and Gladio-type organizations in NATO member countries are the first that come to mind. The US took over the leadership of imperialism from England after the Second World War. As the world moves toward a bipolar order again, China is seen as a balancing hope in many countries around the world against the US's lawless, warlike, and aggressive attitude.

China is the other major actor in the artificial intelligence race with its industrial production, robot technologies, infrastructure investments, large domestic market, and the state's strategic guidance capacity.

China's lifting of hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty in about forty years, its successful application of state capitalism, and its social state policies to spread the achieved prosperity increase to the public cannot be ignored.

China does not have a dirty imperialist record like its rival, the US, for now. However, it would be an optimistic thought to accept all international economic relations that China has established in the last 20 years (such as BRICS, the Belt and Road Initiative, the International Payment System CIPS, and its presence in Africa) as egalitarian in advance.

We must also get to know and understand China closely. Speaking at the East-West Forum held in Istanbul at the end of September 2026, Chinese academic Zhang Weiwei, one of Deng Xiaoping's translators, argued that China approaches international relations differently from the West.

In his narrative, while the West looks at the world through friends and enemies, alliances and conflicts (wars), China sees countries as friends or potential friends; instead of wars and conflicts, it highlights the principles of mutual benefit, development, and multipolarity.

This is an important approach that shows how China defines itself... We hope this policy does not change during periods when China is the undisputed pole leader. To understand whether a country is establishing imperialist relations, we cannot be content with just looking at conflicts and wars. We must also look at the conditions of trade, the nature of investments, technology transfer, debt relations, and how the created value-added is shared.

Our question and the answer we are looking for is this: It is not which great power will dominate the world in the age of artificial intelligence, but how economic and political relations will be established between the great powers and other countries.

The Western world's record of imperialism is terribly bad... However, if we reduce the struggle against imperialism only to anti-Westernism, we discuss the owner of imperialism, not imperialism itself. Even if we speak of China with praise, I prefer to remain cautious.

OLD FINANCE CAPITAL, NEW TECHNOLOGY POWER

However, while looking at the struggle between the US and China, another possible conflict should not be overlooked.

Capitalism's traditional great wealth was formed through industrial production, banking, energy, trade, and financial markets. The wealth of established capital families grew over generations.

Now, alongside these, there are new technology billionaires. The owners of artificial intelligence, software, digital platforms, data centers, cloud computing, and high-tech companies... The wealth of the new dollar billionaires has surpassed the wealth of most traditional families that have been growing for generations...

Today's technology billionaires are not just very rich people. They control the infrastructures that can influence how humanity will produce, communicate, access information, and how economic decisions will be made in the future. A historical similarity can be established here.

Before the Industrial Revolution, the land aristocracy held a significant portion of economic and political power. The bourgeoisie, which rose with the development of industrial capitalism, changed the old power relations.

Could a similar conflict of interest now emerge between traditional industrial and finance capital and the new technology capital?

We cannot say that two separate capital classes are definitively facing off today. However, as technology develops, the struggle to have a say in political decisions may create new conflicts.

Is the artificial intelligence revolution bringing a new ruling class against the financial wealth and power accumulated for centuries? Can the power balances within capitalism itself change?

Since we are writing an essay, let's make the question a bit more provocative.

Even if today's American Central Bank, the FED, was established in 1913, the First Bank of the United States, established in 1791, and the Second Bank of the United States, established in 1816, are the historical predecessors of the FED. 20 percent of the shares belong to the American Treasury, and the remaining 80 percent belong to bankers. These banks had the right to print banknotes in exchange for gold and silver.

In the background of the establishment of the FED, there was the direct influence of major banking circles that controlled the American financial system. The 1910 secret Jekyll Island meeting, attended by a senator, a Treasury Department representative, and banker families, is an example of this confirmed by historical documents. As a result of discussions in 1913, in which powerful banking sectors, especially the Morgan and Warburg circles, were influential, the FED's founding law passed through Congress on December 23 and was signed by President Wilson.

Let us also recall that the draft at the 1910 Jekyll Island meeting was revised in favor of the government and accepted in 1913. The hybrid structure, established with the capital of private banks but with a board of directors (Federal Reserve Board) at the top appointed by the president, took over the control of the American monetary and financial system. The FED became the main institution in the management of dollar supply and monetary policy; it gained the authority to provide credit to the banking system and to influence money markets through government bonds.

Before Trump was elected president for the second time, the following news appeared in the Wall Street Journal in the US on April 26, 2024. Trump began preparing a 10-page plan that would eliminate the independence of the FED. At the end of June, he made very harsh statements about these preparations and the FED at election rallies. Trump's problems with the FED continue. While Trump opposes the digital dollar that the FED will issue, he encourages dollar-backed digital currencies that private companies will issue.

Legally, the FED is an independent central bank structured under the control of the American state. But in the end, it was established with the capital of regional commercial banks. (3)

Although the FED is an independent institution under public supervision, the weight of the major banking circles and families that were influential in the establishment of the FED in the US and world economy and politics should not be ignored... Traditional industrial capital and multinational American companies are also still on the scene for at least 4 generations.

Almost all of the new generation of technology giants started this business with a computer in their garage. They did not inherit a legacy. They possess much more wealth than the wealth of families that have accumulated wealth for generations or the wealth obtained by multi-partner companies.

The question is: Can there be a conflict of interest between two different wealthy segments? Can a new digital reserve currency emerge? Specifically, will the owner of the new digital reserve currency be traditional capital, or the new generation of technology giants that control the digital world?

These questions are, of course, the transition period questions of the artificial intelligence revolution. If, as the utopia predicts, artificial intelligence + robots provide a tremendous increase in production and people's needs are met without the need for people to work, then will money have any meaning?

Indeed, Elon Musk also says that in a future where artificial intelligence and robots can meet human needs, working will cease to be a necessity, and money may lose its importance. This prediction of Elon Musk describes “Utopian Communism,” if not by his own definition, then by the name we have provocatively given it. It also strengthens our question of whether a new conflict of interest will arise between old finance capital and the new technology power. We will come to Elon Musk's statements later.

The answers to these questions are important for understanding the wars in the world and the new tools of imperialism... We will continue to discuss imperialism in the age of artificial intelligence, its effects on developing countries and humans.

NOTES

(1) Meriç Köyatası, “Slow War: How can a nation be taken over in 20 years?”, 12Punto, July 13, 2025. https://12punto.com.tr/yazarlar/meric-koyatasi/yavas-savas-bir-ulus-20-yilda-nasil-ele-gecirilir-93126 The study discussed in the article: Patrick Van Hoeserlande, How to Conquer a Nation in 20 Years?

(2) Meriç Köyatası, “Trump, customs duties and what will happen? The US is not running a foreign trade deficit.. 12 Punto April 6, 2025.” https://12punto.com.tr/yazarlar/meric-koyatasi/trump-gumruk-vergileri-ve-neler-olacak-abd-dis-ticaret-acigi-vermiyor-ki-80704 and “Searches for a new reserve currency: If Keynes were alive... There is a smell of gunpowder in the air, no to war”, 12Punto, April 13, 2025. https://12punto.com.tr/yazarlar/meric-koyatasi/yeni-rezerv-para-arayislari-keynes-yasasaydi-havada-barut-kokusu-var-savasa-hayir-81604

3 The 12 Federal Reserve Banks were established with the capital of member commercial banks in the region. and these banks formally own the FED's stock. The shares of these banks cannot be bought and sold like normal company shares and provide limited management rights. The portion of the system's net earnings after legal dividends and other obligations is transferred to the US Treasury.