Imperialism newly made power and violence themselves the conscious aim of the state

Evidence

The new feature of this imperialist political philosophy is not the predominant place it gave violence, nor the discovery that power is one of the basic political realities. Violence has always been the ultima ratio in political action and power has always been the visible expression of rule and government. But neither had ever before been the conscious aim of the body politic or the ultimate goal of any definite policy. For power left to itself can achieve nothing but more power, and violence administered for power’s (and not for law’s) sake turns into a destructive principle that will not stop until there is nothing left to violate. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 373

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the conceptual break of imperialist philosophy: violence and power as ends rather than means.
• XREF: Supplies causal vocabulary for how the state’s expansion logic later enables mass exclusion in the totalitarian imaginary that Islamophobia readings build on. — connects to: Lenin defined imperialism as the monopoly stage of capitalism, making war endemic to it — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 254; Capitalist power infected and colonized state, deliberative, and propaganda powers. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 839; Ahmad frames the modern world epoch through imperialism, decolonization, and socialist struggle. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 51