Rootsie

I'm reading an analysis of imperialism. The author starts by looking at the income Great Britain derived in the years of its greatest imperial activity (1870-1903) from trade back and forth with its 'possessions' in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.

He shows that it wasn't much. And then when you factor in the other economic, social, political, and moral costs, it was a bust. If you're ranging across the globe flexing your military might, a lot of problems at home are going unaddressed. Duh.

So, what's the payoff? Who wins? Well duh again: who wins are the ones with a lot of extra income lying around just begging to generate more. And for them, imperialist interventionism is the big jackpot: railroads to build, resources to rape, free labor to exploit...God Save the Queen!

The author suggests that what a sponsor-nation like Great Britain receives in return for pouring money into its military and establishing autocratic structures oversees to control those 'sullen natives' is:

 --the undermining of popular democracy at home (blowback from the practice of repression overseas)
 --governmental takeover by the plutocrats to safeguard their interests, hijacking the multi-party system through corruption so that all political parties are imperialist parties with various twists
 --rampant militarism
 -- a tax structure that subsidizes the rich and punishes the poor
 --the breaknown of social reform and infrastructure
 --crude 'survival of the fittest' ideology
 --imperialist control of the media, systematic miseducation of the people

This is according to J.A. Hobson in his book Imperialism, published in 1905.

100 years later, all we can add is that it is 100 years later. European powers have solved the problem of losing their workforce to the military by letting the U.S. fight their wars for them. The one 'internationalism' that has taken hold of the Western imagination is that of the trans-national corporation.

Autocracy abroad dissolves democracy at home. Of course imperialism is anti-democratic and of course its victims overseas are not the only victims. To make the game go, the whole democracy thing has to go too.

"...It is at least probable that the body of workers in different countries who fight and pay for wars would refuse to fight and pay...if they were allowed to understand the real nature of the issues used to inflame them."

I think I was saying that to somebody just yesterday.

. . . and so enter in the religious push of the current administration . . . afraid that their hedonistic liberal free for all economic orgy value system is trickling down to the populace, they feel the need to stem this tide by pushing a religious agenda to keep the people "in line." this is the great contradiction that leo strauss (godfather of the neo-con philosophy) hoped to solution with ideas about there being a strict dividing line between the "philosopher-kings" and the masses - the gov't must appear outwardly to be in line with what was perceived as  common person's value system - god, patriotism, and country. these were the great opiates of the masses and a focus on these symbols kept the people focussed rather than sliding into the inert, spoiled state that comes with becoming too comfortable with too many conveniences and access to information which would undermine faith in these unifying concepts of god and country. the esoteric "truth" could not be allowed to trickle down to the masses as the profane would simply not "be able to handle the truth."

 

as you point out above:




http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,439766,00.html (http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,439766,00.html)