The word, imperialism, for most people, especially people of a progressive nature, has negative connotations associated with it, primarily because imperialism, depending upon the nature and the extent, can signify the taking of, explicitly or implicitly, foreign sovereign territory, as well as having undue influence upon economic and trade policies within other sovereign nations, so as to favor the imperialist power at the expense of that domestic nation. So too, the power of imperialism applied, almost always means the corrupting of the subject nation under the implicit threat that those that do not kowtow to the imperialistic power will suffer the indignity of dismissal from office from their respective nation, irrelevancy, imprisonment, or even death, unless they comply.
In today's world, we do not often hear the word, imperialism, but instead we hear of the fact that the entire world is now interconnected, and that the globalization in which trade is conducted by nation to nation, is supposed to be of a great benefit to mankind. While to a certain extent, globalization has its place, especially in the sense that trade can be a wonderful tool, to expand markets, as well as to provide potential cost savings to countries as well as people; the actually globalization as is currently exercised between nations is not now, actually fair in structure, or fair in its benefits.
In point of fact, those that make the rules of globalization are those that benefit the most from globalization, for many reasons; such as, for instance, domestic industries, especially those domestic industries in smaller nations, which do not yet have the infrastructure or capital to expand such, leaving them oftentimes eviscerated by globalization because modern nations have both the infrastructure and capital to significantly undercut domestic industries, so that, the importation of those goods into the subject nation, effectively puts small time operators out of business and out of employment. So too, even in industries that benefit from globalization in the sense that more business is generated, and/or more exports are created, don't necessarily benefit as much as they could, especially when the lion's share of profits and benefits actually goes to the country that loans out the money, or sells the equipment, thereby leaving a much smaller piece of pie for those that actually take the risks and exert the labor.
The thing about globalization is that it is all about expanding markets, primarily and specifically for domestic industries of the global behemoths, so that those industries can thereby expand their profits and benefit greatly when other nations open up new markets and new opportunities for them. So too, globalization allows the extraction of mineral resources of poorer and undeveloped countries by richer nations, in which, the nations with the knowhow, equipment, infrastructure, financing and connections are able to structure the business deals wholly in their favor, all under the aegis of providing material aid to those that do not yet have the wherewithal to do any better.
The true bottom line about globalization is that the rich and powerful nations see globalization as a construct that will permit these nations to continue to be rich and powerful, at the expense of smaller and unsophisticated nations that are treated as countries to be exploited and globalized for the expressed benefit of the imperialistic powers. The fact of the matter is that if globalization was actually a level playing field, meant to give all countries a fair and equal opportunity to market their resources and capabilities, then those countries with historically low GDP rates would be accelerating their growth at astonishingly high rates, but most are not, because globalization as currently exercised is a form of exploitation, and those that exploit, unfairly augment their growth, at the expense of those that are exploited.