Colonialism and Neocolonialism

Video Transcription

[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to this episode of Sociology, Studies of Society. Today's lesson is on colonialism and neo-colonialism. As always, don't be afraid to pause, stop, rewind, even fast forward to make sure you get the most out of this tutorial.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So today is a really brief tutorial. And we're just looking at two different ways of looking at global poverty. The first one is colonialism. So colonialism is when a country expands and takes over another country for economic gain. And with that, they're going there, and they're actually settling there, and that helps them increase their economical gain.

Now, colonialism really, traditionally, you can think of it as European nations going out and expanding, and taking over other parts of the world. In fact, in a period of about 20, 30 years Africa went from a place where almost every area was independent to all but two nations being claimed by European ones.

Second one is neo-colonialism. Well, neo-colonialism is saying that global power now is really based-- not based on nations. It's based on these really powerful corporations. And we're talking about multinational corporations.

So it's not about an American, or Americans, or the culture of America, or even an American company going out and taking advantage of the people. It's actually these multinational corporations. And they're going out and they're expanding. They're using their influence and power to stay powerful and take advantage of others.

So today's take-away message-- we just looked at two different terms today. We looked at colonialism, which is when a country expands and takes over another country for economic gain. And then we looked at neo-colonialism, and that's when it's not a country doing this economic taking over. It's actually a corporation.

Well that's it for this lesson. Good work. And hopefully, you'll be seeing me on the screen again soon. Peace.