If you want to be poor, fight for independence

[abradley]

On a couple of threads I've experienced posters claiming people are fascists, Nazis, ect without explaining why these claims. One case in point was Patton, he was called a Nazi because he appointed ex Nazis as city officials when he liberated areas, why would he do that? Simple, he would rather have non Nazis but the alternative were the communists the Nazis had wiped out non Nazis, so he appointed Nazis and when a viable alternative became avail he appointed them. Makes sense to me.

Just now I posted a video by Niall Ferguson, a reply sez "this Niall Ferguson is a convinced neo-imperialist ... oh oh."

Hmmmm, decided to check his 'neo-imperialist creds' and found this bit of common sense:

04/25/2002

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If you want to be poor, fight for independence
Freedom from empire was the ambition of every colonised country, but in a second extract from this new book the historian argues that independence does not necessarily lead to prosperity.


THOUGH WILLING TO USE military power to effect changes of government in rogue regimes and failed states, America has little appetite for nation building, a euphemism for taking over and running countries in the aftermath of regime changes. As far as Bush is concerned, the American presence in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq is no more than a temporary expedient, paving the way back to self-government.

But is it right to think of national independence or self-determination as a universally viable model? Might it not be that for some countries some form of imperial governance, meaning a partial or complete suspension of their national sovereignty, would be better than full independence, not just for a few months or years but for one or more decades?

Since the end of the Second World War, a mixture of European exhaustion, non-European nationalism and American idealism has created the maxim that it is imperialism that causes poverty and wars and that self-determination will ultimately pave the way to prosperity and peace. But this has proved to be false. The coming of political independence has brought prosperity to only a small minority of former colonies. And although the former imperial powers no longer fight one another, decolonisation has in many cases been followed by recurrent conflict between newly independent states and, even more often, within them.

Nor has the disappointment ended there. Self-determination was supposed to go hand in hand with democracy. But decolonisation has often led not to democracy but, after the briefest of interludes, to indigenous dictatorships. Many of these dictatorships have been worse for the people living under them than the old colonial structures of government: more corrupt, more lawless, more violent. Indeed, it is precisely these characteristics that explain why standards of living have worsened in many sub-Saharan African countries since they gained their independence. Most of the former colonies of the Middle East are wealthier only because nature endowed some of them with underground deposits of oil, full exploitation of which came only after they had gained their independence. But with few exceptions their politics are little better than despotisms.
(Continued)
http://www.niallferguson.com/journa...if-you-want-to-be-poor-fight-for-independence

 

[Senethro]

Should cross-post this as useful example for the boomer thread...

 

[Cutlass]

NF isn't widely respected. He gets more wrong than right.

If you want to be poor, have a government that is not a functioning representative democracy with as broad of voting rights and as fair of elections as possible. That's the route to prosperity. Wherever these conditions are not true, it is vastly more difficult for a nation to become, or remain, prosperous.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I remember when Empire came out. In the introduction he was complaining about the way British imperial history was taught. In particular he complained about an article on h2g2 which he described as a BBC educational site for children. Although owned by the BBC at that time h2g2 is a site ran by and for fans of Douglas Adams and its articles are often satirical. Was his mistake deliberate misrepresentation or just sloppy fact-checking? Neither inspire confidence in him as a serious historian.

 

[innonimatu]

NF isn't widely respected. He gets more wrong than right.

That is saying too little. He's a complete scumbag because he has to know it's wrong, but keeps spewing his poisonous propaganda. The guy is not ignorant and is very well connected... While it is true that a minimum of population is necessary for an independent country to succeed, and good resources help a lot, even countries without resources (think Singapore) sometimes succeed.

Colonial rule was not nice. It was always, always, a caste system with the locals below the colonial administrators and the place ran for profit extraction. In Africa in particular there was no such thing as benign colonial rule, ever. The most that can be said is that sometimes the colonial rulers were no worse than the ones they replaced. In the Americas the colonial rule came together with large-scale wiping out of local populations, sometimes accidentally, sometimes deliberately (where it resisted conquest). I can't say I'm sorry that the Aztecs were wiped out together with their bloody culture, and the conquerors certainly had allies among the former victims of the aztecs. Neither colonial conquest not rule were black-and-white processes, but they did entail exploitation, otherwise it wouldn't have been worth it to do the thing!

When former colonies achieved independence, many were cut away under conditions that set them up to fail in the short term. Many colonial territories were not that profitable for the masters running them, some were indeed unattractive. Lose one key territory and you may as well cut the losses and grant independence to those around that cease to make sense as colonies: that explains some post-colonial disasters and the "haste" with which the british and french decolonized. Neo-colonialism explains other disasters: in newly independent countries there is not a large pool of prospective leaders, it's easy enough to corrupt or trick the new leaders. And sometimes they turn out to be quire stupid on their own, of course.
But when none of these happens, when former colonies are doing well... there's always the military option. Suez, what does that say? Suez failed, but only because other outside powers intervened, otherwise Egypt would have been crushed. For a more recent crushing of an excessively independent former colony, see Libya. Its financing extended to other african countries was causing trouble for France's hold over its informal empire there, and its example of commercial alliances and import of expertise from Asia was a dangerous bad example.

Being independent is complicated first and foremost because the former empires, and newer empires, are still very much active and willing to destroy challengers who seem in risk of being successful. And this is where the likes of Ferguson come in: he provides the ideological justification, the propaganda, for this destruction. Wars against former colonies, and continued interference lest they become successful and rivals in the international stage, require public consent. Ferguson's narrative about those former colonies being run by evil dictators, bing badly run, ultimately being "failed states", creates a predisposition on the public to accept a need for intervention in those "poor countries"... for their own good, of course!

I'd rather have Kipling, he at least could write nicely.

 

[zazazuzu]

You seem to be operating under the common misconception that the motivating forces behind these independence movements had anything to do with economic 'prosperity'.

When one's nation, or, indeed, "race", has been subjugated by another, prosperity is defined by independence from that subjugation.

 

[uppi]

Imperialism is dictatorship on a larger scale. It can work as long as the rulers are benevolent and competent. But sooner or later you will have rulers that fail in one of those categories (or both). This usually leads to increased support for independence and once this has significant support, the situation becomes unstable: Repression will decrease the prosperity and increase the support for independence. If you answer that with further repression things go downhill until the situation is irrecoverable.

In other words: Imperialism is a ticking bomb and it is only a question of when - not if - it will explode.

 

[abradley]

Imperialism is dictatorship on a larger scale. It can work as long as the rulers are benevolent and competent. But sooner or later you will have rulers that fail in one of those categories (or both). This usually leads to increased support for independence and once this has significant support, the situation becomes unstable: Repression will decrease the prosperity and increase the support for independence. If you answer that with further repression things go downhill until the situation is irrecoverable.

In other words: Imperialism is a ticking bomb and it is only a question of when - not if - it will explode.

Wonder if Rome knew that Imperialism is a ticking time bomb. What was it 800 years of Imperialism?

An 800 year ticking time bomb.

 

[innonimatu]

It exploded many times... it was just that in every year of the many emperors they all were greedy and went for grabbing the whole empire.

 

[abradley]

It exploded many times... it was just that in every year of the many emperors they all were greedy and went for grabbing the whole empire.

Why were their colonies begging for Citizenship?

 

[Cutlass]

Wonder if Rome knew that Imperialism is a ticking time bomb. What was it 800 years of Imperialism?

An 800 year ticking time bomb.

When Rome worked, it worked by making the imperial possessions work the same as the core of the empire. Rome, when it worked, did not treat the periphery as a place to rob resources from the core for.

The early modern and modern era's version of imperialism was to control a territory, and it's people, for the purpose of robbing it for resources for the core. Now sometimes they built infrastructure to do that. And sometimes they set up a somewhat efficient administrative state to do that. And sometimes they set up an efficient policing administration to do that. But in all cases they were controlling people for the purpose of stealing from them.

And eventually the locals fought back.

 

[Hygro]

Live free or die.

Sometimes you might need to cast out a series of oppressors one after another, not pine for the previous one.

 

[Cutlass]

Why were their colonies begging for Citizenship?

Equal legal standing would have allowed them a chance to fight the exploitation.

 

[innonimatu]

When Rome worked, it worked by making the imperial possessions work the same as the core of the empire. Rome, when it worked, did not treat the periphery as a place to rob resources from the core for.

Er... it very much did treat the provinces as a place to be robbed. It was just terribly effective at massacring any rebels! Eventually the empire got so big that they had to expand citizenship in order to stabilize it. But the extractive mode could and did last for a long time. Just as the imperial age in modern times lasted some three centuries in the Americas and only ended (or rather, changed a lot) because of wars among imperial powers. And about one century elsewhere, and started to crumble for the same reasons. Don't underestimate the effectiveness of violence!

Why were their colonies begging for Citizenship?

Technically their colonies would not have to beg for citizenship because they were already colonies of citizens. Roman colony meant that its inhabitants were roman citizens.
But you mean their conquered territories. Because it was one way to have some legal protection from the depredations of provincial governors. Exactly because roman conquered territories were what we now would call colonies. And those that won rights had to fight for them, or had to have others scare the romans into granting them. The Social War in Italy eventually led to expansion of roman citizenship across Italy, even as the Republic shifted its predatory activity to newer conquests around the Mediterranean. It took a few centuries for emperors to reorganize administration and tax collection and then finally extend citizenship broadly across the empire: when it no longer meant exemption from taxes!

I think that was Samuel E. Finer who essentially described pre-modern governments as a scheme for extracting taxes/resources from a population in order to pay the military force necessary to extract resources: the coercion/extraction cycle. An over-simplification, but broadly true.

 

[H4run]

When Rome worked, it worked by making the imperial possessions work the same as the core of the empire. Rome, when it worked, did not treat the periphery as a place to rob resources from the core for.

The early modern and modern era's version of imperialism was to control a territory, and it's people, for the purpose of robbing it for resources for the core. Now sometimes they built infrastructure to do that. And sometimes they set up a somewhat efficient administrative state to do that. And sometimes they set up an efficient policing administration to do that. But in all cases they were controlling people for the purpose of stealing from them.

And eventually the locals fought back.

If there is a distinction between colonialism and imperialism is basically this. It is more like a project of capitalization and exploitation of resources than regional expansion, it can even be tackle by a private company. It must be in general more draconic

 

[AmazonQueen]

I remember an Indian writer (can't recall who) who said the Mughals may have been foriegn invaders, corrupt and wasteful, but at least the money stayed in India. Whose benefit the British ran India for was never more clear then during the Bengal Famine of 1943. An estimate of over 45 trillion $ in modern terms lost to India in 173 years of British rule has been made. https://www.businesstoday.in/curren...ion-from-india-in-173-years/story/292352.html

 

[Hrothbern]

Why bother with all the many inconveniences of adding a territory to your imperial territory, if you can benefit from the income potential anyway, to the advantage of your mother-country.
Big Corporates with gunboat and or debt-traps in the background have (currently) less inconveniences.

A lot changed since and during Sumer, Rome, Medieval and the colonial time.
In those periods tax income (money, goods, soldiers) and special products (minerals, spices, etc) was mainly generated by land-ownership. The amount and choice of territory mainly based, besides military strategic strongholds, on the economical balance of tax and military cost, also with respect to rivals (preventing them from becoming stronger or being close to your core regions). At some moments in history religious motives played a big role in expansions.

The need to control by being in that "foreign territory" to control the benefits, to protect that "foreign territory" from rivalling empires, has practically gone.
The disadvantages since roughly 1920 of adding that "foreign territory" to your own "territory" are big for the existing imperial citizens, because those new citizens will have in principle the same rights as the citizens of the motherland.

The voting rights of new citizens will change the balance of power and money distribution in the mother country + added territory and likely much of the traditional culture.
The geographical location (=segregation) of the new territory will hinder the cultural integration and likely also the economical integration. Local self-determination will have strong support of the new citizens anyway.

Adding territory and new citizens is most likely a lose-lose and not a win-win.
Unless there are compelling sentiments on both sides to want to tackle the hurdles in a rapid pace, instead of slowly converging (East-Germany unification an example how difficult that fast-track is). And how about Puerto Rico ?

The challenge for people who believe in a more just world is how to organise the self-determination in regions and how those regions work together.

 

[uppi]

Wonder if Rome knew that Imperialism is a ticking time bomb. What was it 800 years of Imperialism?

An 800 year ticking time bomb.

Rome wasn't imperialist in the modern sense.

For once, they managed to integrate much of the conquered territory and had problems where integration was unsuccessful.

I suspect, history would have been very different if the English had given equal rights to everyone under their rule. A parliament dominated by Indian and African MPs would have made it very interesting.

 

[Lexicus]

When Rome worked,

Specifically what period are you referring to here? I would argue that by the definition you advance in that post there was never a time when Rome worked; its imperial project was always about looting the peripheral territories.

If there is a distinction between colonialism and imperialism is basically this. It is more like a project of capitalization and exploitation of resources than regional expansion, it can even be tackle by a private company. It must be in general more draconic

The key difference between modern imperialism (ie, that "round" of imperialism and colonization which is defined by the late-19th century "Scramble for Africa") and "old" imperialism is that for almost all of human history imperialism was defined by exercising control over trade flows. The Roman Empire and other empires before manipulated exchange to benefit the "core" territory (in Rome's case, the urbs of Rome itself and later the whole territory of Italy). In the early modern period this was defined by the mercantilist obsession with maintaining trade surpluses and building up specie. This mercantilist obsession was briefly superseded by a more idealist concern with "free trade" which fell away as distributional struggles emerged out of the general slowing-down of economic growth during the successive economic crises of the late 19th century. The colonial empires emerged as notionally autonomous blocs, with each metropole striving to use its colonial territories as the means of achieving autarky and strategic independence.

At any rate what occurred in the latest round of classic imperialism was that empire ceased to be defined merely by trade flows and began to be defined also by investment flows. This observation was first made by Charles Conant in 1900 (well before either the revolutionary Lenin or the social democrat Hobson) in The United States in the Orient: the Nature of an Economic Problem. That book contains a number of interesting tables that demonstrate the explosive growth of international investment in the last decades of the 19th century, and explains this growth in investment flows in terms of the growth of surplus capital in the metropolitan territories.

Interestingly, other work has been done far more recently demonstrating that measured as a percentage of GDP today's "globalization" still fails to match the 19th-century one in magnitude. Useful corrective for those who characterize modern globalization as irreversible or as representing some kind of unprecedented change.

I suspect, history would have been very different if the English had given equal rights to everyone under their rule. A parliament dominated by Indian and African MPs would have made it very interesting.

Also interestingly, this option was explicitly rejected by the French for their West African possessions after World War II, and for this exact reason: the prospect of democratic politics dominated by the former colonial subjects was intolerable.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

That is saying too little. He's a complete scumbag because he has to know it's wrong, but keeps spewing his poisonous propaganda. The guy is not ignorant and is very well connected... While it is true that a minimum of population is necessary for an independent country to succeed, and good resources help a lot, even countries without resources (think Singapore) sometimes succeed.

I like it when you're on fire. great post, too.