Absentee Capitalism and the Politics of Conrad's Imperial Novels

The nature of Joseph Conrad's critique of imperialism, given his novels' pervasive racism, persists as a source of debate. This essay argues that three of his imperial novels, Lord Jim, Nostromo, and Victory, take aim at an emerging system of imperialism organized around the modern, investor-owned corporation. This system, referred to here as "absentee capitalism," was replacing the nineteenth-century British system of relatively small, family-based firms. The novels idealize the family-owned firm as having a presence of material value, meaning, and affect that contrasts with the wasted value left in the wake of absentee capitalism's invisible and ever-changing network of social relations. According to this interpretation, Victory, which has been marginalized in Conrad studies, takes on renewed import for its insight into the relation among imperialism, romance, and modernism in Conrad's oeuvre.