113 lines
7.8 KiB
Plaintext
113 lines
7.8 KiB
Plaintext
Rethinking Imperialism
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<p>One of the effects of the Soviet meme war I’ve been writing about<br />
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recently is that to most educated Westerners it is absolutely taboo to<br />
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think that Western imperialism might have been a good thing. Since<br />
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the end of World War II, even conservatives have generally conceded<br />
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this point, as a way not to look reactionary with respect to a class<br />
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of controversies that seemed safely dead. Why defend imperialism when<br />
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your country no longer has either the desire or the capability to<br />
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engage in it?</p>
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<p><span id="more-270"></span></p>
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<p>Unfortunately, as I <a href='http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=38'>observed<br />
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in 2002</a>, some parts of the Third World have now become so<br />
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dangerous to the whole world that some kind of neo-imperialism seems<br />
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to be required of us as a matter of self-defence. Or, as I put it a<br />
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few months before the second Iraq war began,</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>In the 19th century, the Western powers built empires for prestige<br />
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and economic advantage. In the 21st century, we may be discovering<br />
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that we need to get back into the imperialism business as a matter of<br />
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survival. It may turn out that the 20th century was an interlude<br />
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doomed to end as cheap transportation made the world smaller and<br />
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improving weapons technology made large-scale destruction inexpensive<br />
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even for barbarian thugs like Saddam Hussein.</p>
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<p>Envy the British of Sir Richard Burton’s time. They could conquer<br />
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half the world for simple gain without worrying about the<br />
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Fuzzy-Wuzzies or the Ndebele aerosol-dropping pasteurella pestis on<br />
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Knightsbridge. We — and I mean specifically the U.S. now —<br />
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may have to conquer the Islamic world a second time, simply because<br />
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the risks of war and the moral hazards of imperialism are less<br />
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threatening than the prospect of some Allah-crazed Islamofascist<br />
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detonating a knapsack nuke on the Smithsonian Mall.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>I was only a little ahead of the curve on this one. In the war<br />
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year of 2003, historian Niall Ferguson came at the same question from<br />
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a slightly different angle in <a href='http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0141007540/202-3481020-8738217'>Empire:<br />
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How Britain Made the Modern World</a> and, later, in <a href='http://www.nrbookservice.com/products/bookpage.asp?prod_cd=c6480'><br />
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Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire</a>. A summary of his<br />
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argument can be <a href='http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i29/29b00701.htm'>read here</a>.<br />
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Ferguson makes a strong case that the British Empire was, despite<br />
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obvious flaws, a good thing for the world. In 2006 that seems an even<br />
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more difficult case to refute than it did three years ago — one<br />
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doubts, for example, that an Iran still run by the British would be<br />
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threatening to nuke Israel.</p>
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<p>Ferguson goes on to argue explicitly that the U.S. has a global<br />
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empire, that contrary to the fulminations of remnant Marxists this is<br />
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a <em>positive</em> development, and that we’d bloody well better get<br />
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good at running it. I’m not so sure about that; writing as an<br />
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economist rather than a cultural historian, I have <a href='http://esr.ibiblio.org/index.php?p=190'>argued</a> that U.S.<br />
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hegemony has neither the intentions nor the structural features of<br />
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empire. (Analysis continued <a href='http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=191'>here</a>.)</p>
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<p>For libertarian reasons, I hope the U.S. hegemony can continue to<br />
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get away with not having the structural features of empire. Because,<br />
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in the long run, empire is bad for the imperialist country itself on<br />
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many levels ranging from economic to moral. Imperialists have to spend<br />
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a lot of blood, treasure, and talent maintaining their dominion; the<br />
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common end result is that the home-country economy is hollowed out and<br />
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the imperial class becomes lazy and parasitic. Former imperial powers<br />
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tend to degrade into stultified, shambolic backwaters absorbed in<br />
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tattered dreams of past glory.</p>
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<p>Still, at this point in world history it’s fair to reopen the older<br />
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question: was imperialism so bad for the natives? Are there cases where<br />
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they should have been grateful to be overrun and ruled by foreigners with<br />
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Maxim guns? Are there cases where they were grateful, and even still are?</p>
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<p>Actually, the answer turns out to be yes. The two most conspicuous<br />
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cases I know of are the Phillippines and Belize — both places where a<br />
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primarily non-European population looks rather fondly on its colonial<br />
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occupiers. Some parts of what was formerly French West Africa have<br />
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positive memories as well.</p>
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<p>Very few places other than the Phillippines ever had the good luck to<br />
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be colonized by Americans, and it’s indicative of the ‘good luck’ that<br />
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almost all of them are parts of the U.S. now and the natives’<br />
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descendants have full citizenship and are more numerous and wealthier<br />
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than when they were at time of first contact.</p>
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<p>But, as Ferguson eloquently argues, the British empire was<br />
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generally a pretty good deal for the natives. Railroads, sanitation,<br />
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and the rule of law count for rather a lot. And by objective measures<br />
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like incidence of famine, warfare, and civil disorder much of Africa<br />
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(and Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and Southeast Asia) has been worse off<br />
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since independence than under colonial rule.</p>
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<p>More generally, whether imperialism was a good thing our not<br />
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depends on who the imperialists were. All were bad some of the time,<br />
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but only some were bad all of the time. Japanese imperialism was a genocidal<br />
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nightmare, and the Russian Empire’s brutality was limited mainly by<br />
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its incompetence. What the Belgians got up to in the Congo doesn’t<br />
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bear much thinking about either.</p>
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<p>But the Germans, despite nasty spots like the Herero massacres,<br />
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weren’t too awful. Nor the French; they, like the British, believed<br />
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in a <em>mission civilatrice</em> and usually behaved<br />
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accordingly. Another objective check on this is that France still has<br />
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overseas departments in the Third World that are in no hurry to get<br />
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out from under the supposed yoke of European domination.</p>
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<p>I think Niall Ferguson is correct when he argues that what made the<br />
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British Empire mostly a good thing was the presence of a strong<br />
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classical-liberal critique of empire from within itself. The effect<br />
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was that the British were unable to resist demands for autonomy and<br />
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liberty from their subject peoples once those subjects had become<br />
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civilized enough to make those demands in the language of classical<br />
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liberalism.</p>
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<p>What was true of the British is even more true of the U.S., as (for<br />
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example) the independence of the Phillippines demonstrates. In Iraq,<br />
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which opponents of the U.S. repesent as an imperial adventure, there<br />
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has never been any question that the Iraqis would swiftly form their<br />
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own government and have political independence from the U.S.; the<br />
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option of ruling the country through proconsuls as we did for years<br />
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after WWII in Germany and Japan wasn’t even on the table.</p>
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<p>A kinder, gentler, imperialism? Yes, actually; but, as Ferguson<br />
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and I have pointed out, the U.S.’s behavior is still continuous with<br />
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the entire history of Western imperialism, with all the promises and perils<br />
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that implies. Which means that, rather than accepting the simple<br />
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“imperialism = evil” equation dinned into us us by the Soviets and<br />
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their apologists, we need to learn from that history and, as much as<br />
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possible, try to avoid the bad parts and replicate the good.</p>
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