7 ms·

Imperial Delusions

76 points by hhs 5y ago

inglor_cz 5y ago
"ideology of moral purpose and historical necessity" Incidentally, that sounds a lot like the ideology that sustains the existence of the EU now. Of course, the EU empire works in a different way; economic hostility towards outsiders (high tariffs and compliance cost when importing anything), access to a big common market and a lot of subventions for the insiders. It might be the first attempt to build an empire on money only. Edit: This seems to be a very controversial comment, swinging from 3 to -2 within mere minutes.
- bserge 5y ago
  Yeah? Heard of the USA, China, India, Russia and pretty much any other regional and world power ever?
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Indeed I have. What is your point? Can you express yourself more clearly and without the passive-aggressive tone?
    - bserge 5y ago
      No, I don't argue with ridiculous shit. > Of course, the EU empire works in a different way; economic hostility towards outsiders (high tariffs and compliance cost when importing anything), access to a big common market and a lot of subventions for the insiders. It might be the first attempt to build an empire on money only. All of the states I listed do the same. EU empire, my ass. Find something useful to do with your life.
  - senthil_rajasek 5y ago
    What makes you think India is building an empire? I believe that they are focussed on lifting their masses out of poverty.
    - DetroitThrow 5y ago
      I think his point was demonstrating that the EU and militaristic and colonial empire of the former UK have very limited similarities other than they both represent entities with international economic power to some degree. A ridiculous notion in the context of history and reality. He goes on to ask "what's your point?" which leads me to believe he knows how ridiculous his comparison is but is just making it in bad faith.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        "making it in bad faith. " No, I wanted him to actually list some counterpoints, not just asking pointed questions without concrete points. You cannot answer a "Ha, have you heard of X?" question in any meaningful way.
        DetroitThrow 5y ago
        I keep seeing people claim there is no bad faith approach being made on their end on HN and instead flipping the accusation on another person and claiming their post is indecipherable, even when opposing person's argument is quite clear if even a small effort is taken to gleam meaning from it. I'm not going to pretend that person spoke in hieroglyphs, and if you are, then it's clear you are speaking from a place of bad faith. I've even spelled it out to you and you've refused to address the original person posing the question and instead brow beat on what you think you can get away with regarding nettiquette - the most uninteresting part of the conversation possible.
    - peteretep 5y ago
      Are we saying a country with 1.4bn people, 22 official languages, 5 major religions, over 100 ethnic groups isn’t an empire? Before the Raj, most of it was the Mughal Empire (1500-1800). Before that, the Delhi Sultanate, pretty definitely an empire (1200-1500). The only thing missing is the nomenclature.
      - senthil_rajasek 5y ago
- hardlianotion 5y ago
  The British Empire was a pretty good go at building a money-focussed empire
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    True, but they willingly resorted to raw force if deemed necessary. I wonder if the EU is going to cross that Rubicon one day, too. There is a significant ideological penalty against it, because one of the founding ideas is that cooperation prevents wars.
    - rantwasp 5y ago
      the EU is not an empire. and it’s members are loosely coupled at best. Look at what happened to the UK: they just got their toys and left. the EU just does not have the cohesion to act like and empire and conquer anything. It’s more like a big market
      - namelessoracle 5y ago
        So was the US once. All it takes is a big external or internal threat to get power centralized....
        navaati 5y ago
        Let's just hope it'll be done without a Civil War, then...
        rantwasp 5y ago
        yes but no. us was formed roughly around the same time (+/- couple hundred years). the states in the EU have a long history (thousands of years) and a long tradition of doing things their way. i’m not ruling out the possibility but I think it’s highly unlikely
    - robertlagrant 5y ago
      Every country resorts to force if it deems it necessary.
- croes 5y ago
  Great Britain conquered other nations because of their ideology, that's completely different to the EU or which country did it conquer?
- hkt 5y ago
  It tells me really quite a lot that your response to an article about the British empire is to bash Europe. There is no "EU Empire" any more than the US is an empire composed of its states. The fact is that the EU is a political entity which confers (nominal) equality on its members. There's no colonial style relationship there at all. Nobody is being robbed of their rights except British people who can't use the ECJ anymore.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Have you mistaken me for a Brit? I am not and I never even visited Britain in my life. From a random Czech point of view, EU is the most relevant big entity involved in my life right now, so of course it is on my mind, especially when the ideas of moral purpose and historical necessity are explicitly mentioned. That is the tenor of the pro-EU argumentation, yes. As far as colonial style relationships go ... once again: this is an economic empire built on money and thus the colonial style relationships are built on money as well. Just look at the internal flows of money within the Union. A lot of the total profit accrues to big holdings in a few countries.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- lucian1900 5y ago
  That’s certainly part of it. But the EU is certainly an imperialist block in the purely economic sense as well, just like the US or Britain. After all, wealth is extracted towards the centre through the low wages of workers in the periphery (especially Eastern Europe).
  - laurencerowe 5y ago
    The EU has always made substantial transfers from richer to poorer countries (though its budget is only about 1% of GDP.) Being in the EU has been pretty good for the Eastern European countries that joined, both purely financially and in securing their democracies, just as it was for Spain and Portugal which have made substantial progress in catching up with the likes of France and Italy since they joined in 1986. Sadly the same can't be said for the single currency - which many Eastern European countries haven't yet joined. Greece is perhaps the main counterexample in that its GDP per capita is no higher compared to France than it was when it joined (its GDP dropped by a huge amount since the 2008 crisis.) Imagine if something similar would have been possible in the Americas.
    - lucian1900 5y ago
      The transfers don’t even compare to how much our labour is exploited. The difference in wage for the same work is the main tool used for this. Another is forcing our countries into privatisation, deregulation and austerity. We’re much worse off than before 89 and the EU is a large part of the reason why. Another is the IMF.
      - laurencerowe 5y ago
        At least in GDP per capita terms, Poland has caught up with Portugal and Czechia has caught up with Spain. Meanwhile Ukraine, which was not on the EU track and was about as rich as Poland in 1989, saw a much longer drop in GDP after 1989 and its GDP per capita is now just 1/3rd of Poland's. It's difficult to imagine how Eastern European countries would have fared better had they not joined the EU. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?time=1968..2018&country=ESP~PRT~GRC~FRA~ITA~POL~CZE~UKR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2...
- mwfunk 5y ago
  As long as "money" means "everyone's money" and not "money for oligarchs", then that's infinitely better than what nations and empires have historically been built on: ethnicity, religion, geography, tribal identity, etc. You basically described every modern nation since 1776, and explained the purpose of international trade agreements. Governments (ideally) exist to allow everyone to coexist and peacefully do business with each other and not hurt each other, and ideally the only points of contention are drawing the lines at which people are considering to be hurting one another. Ideally. In practice everyone falls short of course, but that's why ideals exist, to have goals to try to live up to.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Various oligarchs sucking from the subvention teat are absolutely everyday occurrence east of the Elbe. It seems to be a feature of the system. Some of them even start or own big political parties.
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  > economic hostility towards outsiders Completely incomparable. Economic protectionism vs. invading, colonizing, and enslaving huge portions of the world.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Times have changed, methods have changed, too. Google does not invade or colonize anyone and yet their control over spread of information is probably better than whatever former great powers could boast. In the same way, countries like Greece can be kicked around by troika without a single shot fired.
    - nradov 5y ago
      In what sense was Greece kicked around? They could do whatever they wanted. But when they asked other countries for huge loans, naturally the lenders imposed some conditions to ensure repayment.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        Greece was in a situation where it theoretically could do whatever it wanted, but practically most of the choices led to immediate chaotic bankruptcy and were even legally undefined. There was, for example, no legal way to reintroduce the drachma. That is not a meaningful choice in my view. That is "standing with your back to a wall".
- locallost 5y ago
  I'd say almost all countries hold this view that what they do is justified by good intent, their higher moral values etc, whereas it doesn't apply to others. But it only becomes relevant if the country has actual power. The colonial Britain obviously had a lot of power so it's easy to find examples of "imperial delusions". The same is true for other countries today, or a union of countries. But the actual countries that are delusional change based on how much power they have at that time.
- derriz 5y ago
  Well it's very incidental. The EU is a completely voluntary association. There are those that left freely and there are others who want to join and its powers and purpose is driven by treaties agreed by all members. Being a colony of the British empire was nothing like this and the quote explains a justification for expansionist military imperial behaviour which has no analogue that I can see in the way the EU was formed.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    "The EU is a completely voluntary association." Not for the members who accepted euro as a currency. There is literally no legal way out of the euro, it is meant to last forever. And a country leaving the EU, but staying in the eurozone as a full member is a completely unchartered territory.
    - fulafel 5y ago
      Sovereign countries can exit anything they decide to, unless overpowered by force.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        Now the question is: are you still a sovereign country if you pooled your currency with N other countries that exert a common decision power through a central bank over it? Having power over your own currency, in good or bad, is a typical attribute of being sovereign. There are minor exceptions (like Kosovo adopting euro unilaterally), but they are very untypical.
        gambiting 5y ago
        Were you forced to do that, or was that a sovereign choice? The answer lies there.
        inglor_cz 5y ago
        I am not even sure if we agree on the question, much less answer. Some sovereign choices in history have proven to be "Hotel California"-style: joining a scheme was a sovereign choice, but leaving it not so much. An obvious example is the US which does not let the constituent states secede, even though they joined the Union voluntarily. In a similar vein, Scotland joined the UK voluntarily (though in serious economic crisis), but it cannot just leave on its own when it decides to. The process of joining the euro has been constructed as one-way only. There are no legal mechanisms to get rid of this obligation once you join. Euro is intended to last forever.
- mustafa_pasi 5y ago
  I am no great fan of the EU, but the EU as a whole does not engage in much imperialism, besides that forced on it by the US.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Look at the Western Balkans. Russia, China, Turkey and the EU play a game of influence there, leading to some very weird spending. Given how the region usually works, bribes must be involved. This definitely looks like low-key imperialism, because the EU does not really have a reason to pay for an absurdly expensive Chinese-built highway in Montenegro, other than limiting influence of a competing power in that territory.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      "Very wierd spending" is not, in and of itself, imperialism. The Western Balkans and Turkey are the EU's immediate neighbors. Does the EU seek influence over what happens in such neighbors? No doubt. Does that count as imperialism? Not so clearly. Russia is a major power, with the potential to be a major energy and military threat to the EU. Does the EU seek to drive the outcome of interactions with Russia? No doubt. Does that count as imperialism? No.
- Bronze_Colossus 5y ago
  I do not see the EU even close as an empire. Are you perhaps British? Or Greek? The EU don't even have a common foreign policy or a cohesive monetary policy across its member countries. The EU is imo a protective "members only club" if you're in you get good deals if you're not then tough luck.
  - the-dude 5y ago
    My guess he is Czech. I have heard similar sentiments from former East Bloc's. I can't blame 'em.
    - gambiting 5y ago
      I always find it surprising when people call Czech Republic or Poland "eastern block". Those two couldn't be possibly more central European if they tried. Czech Republic especially reaches only marginally more east than Germany, and I doubt you'd call Germans "eastern Europeans".
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        Historical reasons. For 40 years, the continent was split right in the middle. Back then, it was absolutely natural to speak about the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, possibly with neutral Austria and Switzerland as the weird exceptions. Of course there are huge differences between, say, Czechia and Moldova, but we were part of a single allied bloc controlled by a single power for two generations, so there are some similarities as well. You can see some of them until today in architecture etc.
        gambiting 5y ago
        I mean I'm Polish, and perhaps wrongly, but I have never thought about myself as Eastern European - for me that means Belarussians, Ukrainians, Romanians......for me "central European" is completely the right term for Poland, Slovakia and Czechia, but I understand it might not be the commonly accepted view.
- TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
  The EU is an interesting creature. It's not exactly an empire, but it's not quite not an empire either (both when you look at intra-EU relations and relations with third countries), and it is definitely a club of many former imperial powers who get to collectively set global policy.
- somewhereoutth 5y ago
  "Peace and prosperity from the Atlantic to the Urals, from the Sahara to the Arctic Circle. A new Rome for a new age."
- atc 5y ago
  One of the reasons I voted to leave it as a Brit.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
mgh2 5y ago
Nonpaywall link please?
boberoni 5y ago
You can read the full article on this Archive.is link: https://archive.is/ZhAxp https://archive.is/ZhAxp
KaiserPro 5y ago
how the british justified their empire, in the 1930s. that last bit is important. Like most things, the justification changed over time. In the 16th century, it was all about the king trying to finance his massive spending habit. Then it was about trade. Then it was about re-enforcing that trade. Then the east india company fucked up, and india because a colonial possession. Then the missions tried to convert the heathens. after that I'm not sure. We don't teach empire at all. The problem is that nowadays its difficult to find readable history that isn't there to either totally damn or justify the empire. Even less so ones that draw on first party sources from the british and locals.
- mutatio 5y ago
  I think you're missing the main reason, competing empires on Britain's doorstep. The British Empire didn't exist in a vacuum. Much like American Imperialism vs. Soviet Russia.
- rovek 5y ago
  I feel this about anything I read about empire in the last few years. I enjoyed Paxman's book Empire for the very reason that he mocks the self-righteousness of the "heroes of Empire", their "divine mission", the way the country at home responded (or didn't care at all anymore) but doesn't shy away from giving the same critical eye to the colonised people.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    >but doesn't shy away from giving the same critical eye to the colonised people. That's a common approach in certain academic and popular works about colonialism and Empires. And it's not much different to "giving the same critical eye" to the the rapist and the rape victim.
    - rovek 5y ago
      Analogies tend to remove any meaningful detail from a situation, as in this case
Tycho 5y ago
This is the central theme of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
- dgregd 5y ago
  It is worth to add the Joseph Conrad was a Pole whose family fought against Russian colonialism.
rvba 5y ago
When we talk about Britain and their former empire, it is worth noting that times might have changed, but they still plunder their former colonies by providing tax evasion services. If you are some warlord, dictator or just dirty businessperson, Britain will gladly launder your money through one of its multiple territories such as Jersey, Guernsey or whatever - which is some island whose sole export is providing "tax advisory" (which means not paying any taxes at all). There is also the City of London Corporation with its secret laws and treaties, which doesnt seem to be controlled by UK government, basically group of friends with everyone in each pocket - instead of sending gunboats to plunder countries, they now use the banking system: dirty money comes in, clean money comes out, with minimum taxation. Yet they sit on moral high ground, about supposedly helping third world. Books like "Treasure Islands" tried to shine some light on this - author even claimed that if Britain and its various island stopped the money laundering, then Africa wouldnt need external help - the untaxed money would be taxed and used for own people. Sadly the topic of rampant and blatant tax evasion is swept under the rug, since multiple countries provide it (UK, Cyprus, Ireland, even Delaware..). There are some movements to get some common CIT rate, but those tax havens will probably find ways.
Mizza 5y ago
How is this any different than how the US maintains its empire now? David Brooks' column in the NYTimes this week is the same thing - using the excuse of LGBT rights to justify American colonial projects in Iraq, Afhanistan and Palestine, with an eye on Iran, China and Cuba. Use force to show the savages how it should be done. Empire has always been forged in the name of social justice. See the (racist) 1899 political cartoon, "The White Man's Burden." As I read Adolph Reed say recently, ideology is the mechanism that harmonizes the principles that you want to believe you hold with what advances your material interests. Same old story.
lordoftheknow 5y ago
>>While he was only a peasant, not a professor of history, the Mahatma responded coolly Is the author as ignorant as the target of his article ? Gandhi was a lawyer.
- ripe 5y ago
  The author is Niall Ferguson, so I am guessing that the reason is not ignorance, but prejudice in support of the author's agenda, which in this case is an apologia for Britain's empire. Ferguson writes good stories but will often bend the truth. For example, in 2009 he wrote in Newsweek about the US administration's economic policies. His facts were mostly made-up. See his takedown by economists, for example: Krugman, Paul (2 May 2009). "Liquidity preference, loanable funds, and Niall Ferguson (wonkish)". The New York Times.
known 5y ago
Why Upper caste Hindus in India hate Churchill https://archive.is/XlOXf https://archive.is/XlOXf

76 points by hhs 5y ago

"ideology of moral purpose and historical necessity" Incidentally, that sounds a lot like the ideology that sustains the existence of the EU now. Of course, the EU empire works in a different way; economic hostility towards outsiders (high tariffs and compliance cost when importing anything), access to a big common market and a lot of subventions for the insiders. It might be the first attempt to build an empire on money only. Edit: This seems to be a very controversial comment, swinging from 3 to -2 within mere minutes.

bserge 5y ago
Yeah? Heard of the USA, China, India, Russia and pretty much any other regional and world power ever?
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Indeed I have. What is your point? Can you express yourself more clearly and without the passive-aggressive tone?
  - bserge 5y ago
    No, I don't argue with ridiculous shit. > Of course, the EU empire works in a different way; economic hostility towards outsiders (high tariffs and compliance cost when importing anything), access to a big common market and a lot of subventions for the insiders. It might be the first attempt to build an empire on money only. All of the states I listed do the same. EU empire, my ass. Find something useful to do with your life.
- senthil_rajasek 5y ago
  What makes you think India is building an empire? I believe that they are focussed on lifting their masses out of poverty.
  - DetroitThrow 5y ago
    I think his point was demonstrating that the EU and militaristic and colonial empire of the former UK have very limited similarities other than they both represent entities with international economic power to some degree. A ridiculous notion in the context of history and reality. He goes on to ask "what's your point?" which leads me to believe he knows how ridiculous his comparison is but is just making it in bad faith.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      "making it in bad faith. " No, I wanted him to actually list some counterpoints, not just asking pointed questions without concrete points. You cannot answer a "Ha, have you heard of X?" question in any meaningful way.
      - DetroitThrow 5y ago
        I keep seeing people claim there is no bad faith approach being made on their end on HN and instead flipping the accusation on another person and claiming their post is indecipherable, even when opposing person's argument is quite clear if even a small effort is taken to gleam meaning from it. I'm not going to pretend that person spoke in hieroglyphs, and if you are, then it's clear you are speaking from a place of bad faith. I've even spelled it out to you and you've refused to address the original person posing the question and instead brow beat on what you think you can get away with regarding nettiquette - the most uninteresting part of the conversation possible.
  - peteretep 5y ago
    Are we saying a country with 1.4bn people, 22 official languages, 5 major religions, over 100 ethnic groups isn’t an empire? Before the Raj, most of it was the Mughal Empire (1500-1800). Before that, the Delhi Sultanate, pretty definitely an empire (1200-1500). The only thing missing is the nomenclature.
    - senthil_rajasek 5y ago
hardlianotion 5y ago
The British Empire was a pretty good go at building a money-focussed empire
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  True, but they willingly resorted to raw force if deemed necessary. I wonder if the EU is going to cross that Rubicon one day, too. There is a significant ideological penalty against it, because one of the founding ideas is that cooperation prevents wars.
  - rantwasp 5y ago
    the EU is not an empire. and it’s members are loosely coupled at best. Look at what happened to the UK: they just got their toys and left. the EU just does not have the cohesion to act like and empire and conquer anything. It’s more like a big market
    - namelessoracle 5y ago
      So was the US once. All it takes is a big external or internal threat to get power centralized....
      - navaati 5y ago
        Let's just hope it'll be done without a Civil War, then...
      - rantwasp 5y ago
        yes but no. us was formed roughly around the same time (+/- couple hundred years). the states in the EU have a long history (thousands of years) and a long tradition of doing things their way. i’m not ruling out the possibility but I think it’s highly unlikely
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    Every country resorts to force if it deems it necessary.
croes 5y ago
Great Britain conquered other nations because of their ideology, that's completely different to the EU or which country did it conquer?
hkt 5y ago
It tells me really quite a lot that your response to an article about the British empire is to bash Europe. There is no "EU Empire" any more than the US is an empire composed of its states. The fact is that the EU is a political entity which confers (nominal) equality on its members. There's no colonial style relationship there at all. Nobody is being robbed of their rights except British people who can't use the ECJ anymore.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Have you mistaken me for a Brit? I am not and I never even visited Britain in my life. From a random Czech point of view, EU is the most relevant big entity involved in my life right now, so of course it is on my mind, especially when the ideas of moral purpose and historical necessity are explicitly mentioned. That is the tenor of the pro-EU argumentation, yes. As far as colonial style relationships go ... once again: this is an economic empire built on money and thus the colonial style relationships are built on money as well. Just look at the internal flows of money within the Union. A lot of the total profit accrues to big holdings in a few countries.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
lucian1900 5y ago
That’s certainly part of it. But the EU is certainly an imperialist block in the purely economic sense as well, just like the US or Britain. After all, wealth is extracted towards the centre through the low wages of workers in the periphery (especially Eastern Europe).
- laurencerowe 5y ago
  The EU has always made substantial transfers from richer to poorer countries (though its budget is only about 1% of GDP.) Being in the EU has been pretty good for the Eastern European countries that joined, both purely financially and in securing their democracies, just as it was for Spain and Portugal which have made substantial progress in catching up with the likes of France and Italy since they joined in 1986. Sadly the same can't be said for the single currency - which many Eastern European countries haven't yet joined. Greece is perhaps the main counterexample in that its GDP per capita is no higher compared to France than it was when it joined (its GDP dropped by a huge amount since the 2008 crisis.) Imagine if something similar would have been possible in the Americas.
  - lucian1900 5y ago
    The transfers don’t even compare to how much our labour is exploited. The difference in wage for the same work is the main tool used for this. Another is forcing our countries into privatisation, deregulation and austerity. We’re much worse off than before 89 and the EU is a large part of the reason why. Another is the IMF.
    - laurencerowe 5y ago
      At least in GDP per capita terms, Poland has caught up with Portugal and Czechia has caught up with Spain. Meanwhile Ukraine, which was not on the EU track and was about as rich as Poland in 1989, saw a much longer drop in GDP after 1989 and its GDP per capita is now just 1/3rd of Poland's. It's difficult to imagine how Eastern European countries would have fared better had they not joined the EU. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?time=1968..2018&country=ESP~PRT~GRC~FRA~ITA~POL~CZE~UKR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2...
mwfunk 5y ago
As long as "money" means "everyone's money" and not "money for oligarchs", then that's infinitely better than what nations and empires have historically been built on: ethnicity, religion, geography, tribal identity, etc. You basically described every modern nation since 1776, and explained the purpose of international trade agreements. Governments (ideally) exist to allow everyone to coexist and peacefully do business with each other and not hurt each other, and ideally the only points of contention are drawing the lines at which people are considering to be hurting one another. Ideally. In practice everyone falls short of course, but that's why ideals exist, to have goals to try to live up to.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Various oligarchs sucking from the subvention teat are absolutely everyday occurrence east of the Elbe. It seems to be a feature of the system. Some of them even start or own big political parties.
throwawaygh 5y ago
> economic hostility towards outsiders Completely incomparable. Economic protectionism vs. invading, colonizing, and enslaving huge portions of the world.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Times have changed, methods have changed, too. Google does not invade or colonize anyone and yet their control over spread of information is probably better than whatever former great powers could boast. In the same way, countries like Greece can be kicked around by troika without a single shot fired.
  - nradov 5y ago
    In what sense was Greece kicked around? They could do whatever they wanted. But when they asked other countries for huge loans, naturally the lenders imposed some conditions to ensure repayment.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      Greece was in a situation where it theoretically could do whatever it wanted, but practically most of the choices led to immediate chaotic bankruptcy and were even legally undefined. There was, for example, no legal way to reintroduce the drachma. That is not a meaningful choice in my view. That is "standing with your back to a wall".
locallost 5y ago
I'd say almost all countries hold this view that what they do is justified by good intent, their higher moral values etc, whereas it doesn't apply to others. But it only becomes relevant if the country has actual power. The colonial Britain obviously had a lot of power so it's easy to find examples of "imperial delusions". The same is true for other countries today, or a union of countries. But the actual countries that are delusional change based on how much power they have at that time.
derriz 5y ago
Well it's very incidental. The EU is a completely voluntary association. There are those that left freely and there are others who want to join and its powers and purpose is driven by treaties agreed by all members. Being a colony of the British empire was nothing like this and the quote explains a justification for expansionist military imperial behaviour which has no analogue that I can see in the way the EU was formed.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  "The EU is a completely voluntary association." Not for the members who accepted euro as a currency. There is literally no legal way out of the euro, it is meant to last forever. And a country leaving the EU, but staying in the eurozone as a full member is a completely unchartered territory.
  - fulafel 5y ago
    Sovereign countries can exit anything they decide to, unless overpowered by force.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      Now the question is: are you still a sovereign country if you pooled your currency with N other countries that exert a common decision power through a central bank over it? Having power over your own currency, in good or bad, is a typical attribute of being sovereign. There are minor exceptions (like Kosovo adopting euro unilaterally), but they are very untypical.
      - gambiting 5y ago
        Were you forced to do that, or was that a sovereign choice? The answer lies there.
        inglor_cz 5y ago
        I am not even sure if we agree on the question, much less answer. Some sovereign choices in history have proven to be "Hotel California"-style: joining a scheme was a sovereign choice, but leaving it not so much. An obvious example is the US which does not let the constituent states secede, even though they joined the Union voluntarily. In a similar vein, Scotland joined the UK voluntarily (though in serious economic crisis), but it cannot just leave on its own when it decides to. The process of joining the euro has been constructed as one-way only. There are no legal mechanisms to get rid of this obligation once you join. Euro is intended to last forever.
mustafa_pasi 5y ago
I am no great fan of the EU, but the EU as a whole does not engage in much imperialism, besides that forced on it by the US.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Look at the Western Balkans. Russia, China, Turkey and the EU play a game of influence there, leading to some very weird spending. Given how the region usually works, bribes must be involved. This definitely looks like low-key imperialism, because the EU does not really have a reason to pay for an absurdly expensive Chinese-built highway in Montenegro, other than limiting influence of a competing power in that territory.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    "Very wierd spending" is not, in and of itself, imperialism. The Western Balkans and Turkey are the EU's immediate neighbors. Does the EU seek influence over what happens in such neighbors? No doubt. Does that count as imperialism? Not so clearly. Russia is a major power, with the potential to be a major energy and military threat to the EU. Does the EU seek to drive the outcome of interactions with Russia? No doubt. Does that count as imperialism? No.
Bronze_Colossus 5y ago
I do not see the EU even close as an empire. Are you perhaps British? Or Greek? The EU don't even have a common foreign policy or a cohesive monetary policy across its member countries. The EU is imo a protective "members only club" if you're in you get good deals if you're not then tough luck.
- the-dude 5y ago
  My guess he is Czech. I have heard similar sentiments from former East Bloc's. I can't blame 'em.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    I always find it surprising when people call Czech Republic or Poland "eastern block". Those two couldn't be possibly more central European if they tried. Czech Republic especially reaches only marginally more east than Germany, and I doubt you'd call Germans "eastern Europeans".
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      Historical reasons. For 40 years, the continent was split right in the middle. Back then, it was absolutely natural to speak about the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, possibly with neutral Austria and Switzerland as the weird exceptions. Of course there are huge differences between, say, Czechia and Moldova, but we were part of a single allied bloc controlled by a single power for two generations, so there are some similarities as well. You can see some of them until today in architecture etc.
      - gambiting 5y ago
        I mean I'm Polish, and perhaps wrongly, but I have never thought about myself as Eastern European - for me that means Belarussians, Ukrainians, Romanians......for me "central European" is completely the right term for Poland, Slovakia and Czechia, but I understand it might not be the commonly accepted view.
TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
The EU is an interesting creature. It's not exactly an empire, but it's not quite not an empire either (both when you look at intra-EU relations and relations with third countries), and it is definitely a club of many former imperial powers who get to collectively set global policy.
somewhereoutth 5y ago
"Peace and prosperity from the Atlantic to the Urals, from the Sahara to the Arctic Circle. A new Rome for a new age."
atc 5y ago
One of the reasons I voted to leave it as a Brit.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

mgh2 5y ago

Nonpaywall link please?

boberoni 5y ago

You can read the full article on this Archive.is link: https://archive.is/ZhAxp https://archive.is/ZhAxp

KaiserPro 5y ago

how the british justified their empire, in the 1930s. that last bit is important. Like most things, the justification changed over time. In the 16th century, it was all about the king trying to finance his massive spending habit. Then it was about trade. Then it was about re-enforcing that trade. Then the east india company fucked up, and india because a colonial possession. Then the missions tried to convert the heathens. after that I'm not sure. We don't teach empire at all. The problem is that nowadays its difficult to find readable history that isn't there to either totally damn or justify the empire. Even less so ones that draw on first party sources from the british and locals.

mutatio 5y ago
I think you're missing the main reason, competing empires on Britain's doorstep. The British Empire didn't exist in a vacuum. Much like American Imperialism vs. Soviet Russia.
rovek 5y ago
I feel this about anything I read about empire in the last few years. I enjoyed Paxman's book Empire for the very reason that he mocks the self-righteousness of the "heroes of Empire", their "divine mission", the way the country at home responded (or didn't care at all anymore) but doesn't shy away from giving the same critical eye to the colonised people.
- coldtea 5y ago
  >but doesn't shy away from giving the same critical eye to the colonised people. That's a common approach in certain academic and popular works about colonialism and Empires. And it's not much different to "giving the same critical eye" to the the rapist and the rape victim.
  - rovek 5y ago
    Analogies tend to remove any meaningful detail from a situation, as in this case

Tycho 5y ago

This is the central theme of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

dgregd 5y ago
It is worth to add the Joseph Conrad was a Pole whose family fought against Russian colonialism.

rvba 5y ago

When we talk about Britain and their former empire, it is worth noting that times might have changed, but they still plunder their former colonies by providing tax evasion services. If you are some warlord, dictator or just dirty businessperson, Britain will gladly launder your money through one of its multiple territories such as Jersey, Guernsey or whatever - which is some island whose sole export is providing "tax advisory" (which means not paying any taxes at all). There is also the City of London Corporation with its secret laws and treaties, which doesnt seem to be controlled by UK government, basically group of friends with everyone in each pocket - instead of sending gunboats to plunder countries, they now use the banking system: dirty money comes in, clean money comes out, with minimum taxation. Yet they sit on moral high ground, about supposedly helping third world. Books like "Treasure Islands" tried to shine some light on this - author even claimed that if Britain and its various island stopped the money laundering, then Africa wouldnt need external help - the untaxed money would be taxed and used for own people. Sadly the topic of rampant and blatant tax evasion is swept under the rug, since multiple countries provide it (UK, Cyprus, Ireland, even Delaware..). There are some movements to get some common CIT rate, but those tax havens will probably find ways.

Mizza 5y ago

How is this any different than how the US maintains its empire now? David Brooks' column in the NYTimes this week is the same thing - using the excuse of LGBT rights to justify American colonial projects in Iraq, Afhanistan and Palestine, with an eye on Iran, China and Cuba. Use force to show the savages how it should be done. Empire has always been forged in the name of social justice. See the (racist) 1899 political cartoon, "The White Man's Burden." As I read Adolph Reed say recently, ideology is the mechanism that harmonizes the principles that you want to believe you hold with what advances your material interests. Same old story.

lordoftheknow 5y ago

>>While he was only a peasant, not a professor of history, the Mahatma responded coolly Is the author as ignorant as the target of his article ? Gandhi was a lawyer.

ripe 5y ago
The author is Niall Ferguson, so I am guessing that the reason is not ignorance, but prejudice in support of the author's agenda, which in this case is an apologia for Britain's empire. Ferguson writes good stories but will often bend the truth. For example, in 2009 he wrote in Newsweek about the US administration's economic policies. His facts were mostly made-up. See his takedown by economists, for example: Krugman, Paul (2 May 2009). "Liquidity preference, loanable funds, and Niall Ferguson (wonkish)". The New York Times.

known 5y ago

Why Upper caste Hindus in India hate Churchill https://archive.is/XlOXf https://archive.is/XlOXf