What It Means for a State to Be an Imperial Power - Essay Example

Imperialism is a term in the public dis that invites a wealth of negative connotations, regardless of the context in which one uses the term. It invokes imagery of superpower conquest of vulnerable, primitive people, and the exploitation of natural resources to feed commercially hungry and greedy industrial nations. Aside from these value-laden, extravagant representations of abuse and mistreatment, the issue of imperialism deserves a dispassionate look into what it means (both in the past and in the present) for a state to be an imperial power: extending its political reign across cultural and social boundaries. Like many other terms in the popular lexicon, imperialism is one that finds its use in bolstering the emotional appeals of populist arguments. Rarely are the words “imperial” or “imperialism” found in rational debate about political life and moral obligations; this is because these terms have grown to adopt connotations that hold purely emotional value for those who use them. That is, an accusation of imperialism is an accusation of civic viciousness: the will to destroy native cultures and to bind indigenous populations commercially to Western capitalism, itself an enslaving and demeaning force in the world, according to the worldviews of those of who use “imperialism” as an all-encompassing emotional plea. However, the meaning of the term is quite different from how it is used in public discourse, reflecting a changing philosophical attitude of the history from which the world has seemingly emerged and actually causing a fundamental misunderstanding of one’s own social history in which “imperialism” referred to something concrete and not just purely theoretical. Regardless of what imperialism means to most people who use the word in common speak, its actual historical definition is quite clear: it is the belief in empire-building, the policy of extending the rule or influence of a country over other countries or colonies (Schurmann). As such, a belief is not a terrible thing in the world; it is only a mental idea, much like the idea of murdering someone ought not to be a crime. Of course, this belief in empire-building can, in some cases, be inspired by a best-intentions philosophy: that it is the moral duty of strong, capitalist nations to bring their way of life to primitive, warn-torn cultures in order to modernize these groups. This belief, known as the White Man’s Burden, has become associated with Eurocentric racism and the Eurocentric aspiration to dominate the developing world. However, moral systems that value the duty of acting altruistically and with concern for other human beings, and the intention (or motivation) of the act being considered, praise this attitude of Burden as morally upright, not considering whether the view itself is misguided or wrong. From the perspective of the believer in imperialism, and despite the views of the opposing ideology, modernizing primitive cultures through imperialism is the morally responsible thing to do given the alternative: letting these primitive cultures underutilize the natural resources they have access to and continue to fight over regional conflicts. From this perspective, imperialists found it necessary to paternalistically intervene on the behalf of primitives to settle their conflicts and absorb their cultures underneath a capitalist hierarchy. Since the origin of the phrase “White Man’s Burden” from Rudyard Kipling’s poem, the phrase and concept behind it have roused a range of strong emotions. Inevitably, the issue of political sovereignty and the rights of a people will always evoke fervent passions in people; however, the issue of the White Man’s Burden in particular suggests that the White man’s way of life is superior, which not only diminishes people of other ethnic backgrounds’ abilities to politically rule themselves, but also their religious and cultural practices. The Burden does this through a fundamentally Christian need to help one’s fellow man: doing so in a way, however, that does not necessarily respect his way of life or his personal beliefs. As such, like the rich to the poor in the same country, one country has the obligation to help the less fortunate one, regardless of whether the latter really wants to be helped. Of course, this moral argument for imperialism more times than not failed, insofar as it increased the suffering and pain for those living in “less civilized” nations. For instance, the tribes and societies within Africa are still fighting over borders set by European colonial powers through the period of European imperialism from 1870 to 1898 (Napp). And, regardless of the concept of the White Man’s Burdens, the motives for empire-building were not always morally justifiable by the ethical values of the time period. In fact, there are a number of different kinds of imperialism as defined by social theorists, ranging from cultural to linguistic to scientific to economic imperialisms. These different manifestations of the belief in empire all inevitably cause different kinds of effects when brought to fruition in reality. Particularly, in economic imperialism, one country creates an unequal economic relationship with another state, based on domination and subordination. Within this context, one theorist defines imperialism in terms of “a species in a genus of dominance and power relationships” (Galtung 81). Unlike imperialisms inspired by the White Man’s Burden, it seems this kind of economic imperialism is justified solely in the economic benefit to one state as the detriment of another. This is the kind of popular conception of imperialism that exists today (the neo-imperialism) in the absence of the kind of political racism and exploitation exemplified by the philosophy of the Burden. Economic imperialism evokes an image of exploitative capitalism in the minds of many with cosmopolitan sympathies; that is, pictures of sweatshops and poor working conditions in underdeveloped countries immediately come to mind for those who regard economic imperialism as a necessary component of global capitalism: the search for the lowest cost of production to meet the highest volume of market demand. In this case, elements of racism are kept to a minimum; all that is important to the imperialist is the economic utility of creating an economic hierarchy within the foreign state. Of course, people are likely to confuse colonialism and imperialism, if because of nothing else, the near equivalence of the two terms’ connotative meanings. Any uninformed person will likely have trouble identifying the difference between the two concepts, and, in particular, the different kinds of economic systems they manifest in the conquered/colonized state. Theorists who deal with this distinction consider both imperialism and colonialism to be purely economically motivated, but also culturally embedded (Green). According to the literary theorist Edward Said, imperialism is “the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory”, to be contrasted with colonialism, which is always a consequence of imperialism. Colonialism, according to Said, is “the implanting of settlements on distant territory” (Said 9). Regardless of the differences in motivations between an imperial and a colonial attempt, what is different between the two practices is what is hoped to be achieved. In both cases, Said says, economics plays a central role. Certainly, economics—not purely moral beliefs—will determine whether an imperialist conquers a distant territory. Nevertheless, moral arguments provide an excellent emotional appeal for those who do not understand the economics of imperialism or deem it to be immoral. The Industrial Revolution, which provided the most profound shock to European society since the Renaissance, forever changed the process of Eurocentric imperialism. That is, rather than spreading European economic interests to foreign lands through force to exploit the natural resources inherent to the region, it became more economically feasible to leave the government out of such economic interests, and to simply bring rigid capitalist hierarchies to these regions absent the use of force. But while the exploitation of natural resources began within the private sphere, this led to the same kind of economic imperialism witnessed for hundreds of years before, only without the use of military or political force (Watts). Yet this is not to suggest the application of economic imperialism in the modern era to Third World countries has brought a cultural, economic, or even political deficit to those countries. Ultimately, it is the choice of people within the Third World to accept or decline the economics of being controlled by foreign investors which such investment is not accompanied by foreign armies, as was the case in the imperial era for much the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Economics is the free choice between the benefits and costs of two alternatives, and even today, Third World countries continue to choose and improve from the adoption of Western values like capitalism and individual rights. Damage from imperialism was done only when these choices were not the conquered people’s to make. In the mind of the First World public, there is little to be offered in terms of the “benefits” of imperialism, especially given the resistance to thinking in terms of benefiting from exploitation. Nonetheless, regardless of one’s opinion on economic imperialism in past centuries, the advantage brought on by Western-style capitalism in underdeveloped countries has been profound. Contrary to the image of wage slaves in sweatshops, Cambodian works actually have to bribe factory insiders with a month’s salary just to get hired (Sowell). This is because the economic alternatives to not working are far worse than laboring in the conditions those in the United States deplore. The high demand for jobs in Cambodian “sweatshops” suggests one thing about imperialism: despite its unequal power relationships, or corrupt motivations, or evil history of exploitation, what remains from this profoundly negative legacy is an overall improvement in the lives of Third World workers relative to the alternatives they would face in a reality in which the West did not share (or force) its ideologies and resources. This is not to justify imperialism by any means of the imagination; however, to mistake a historical concept with its public meaning and connotation is a grievous academic mistake. Works Cited Galtung, Johan. "A Structural Theory of Imperialism." Journal of Peace Research 8(2) (1971): 81-117. Green, Joyce A. "Towards a Detente with History: Confronting Canadas Colonial Legacy." International Journal of Canadian Studies 12 (1995): http://sisis.nativeweb.org/clark/detente.html. Napp, E. European Imperialism in Africa, 1870-1898. Lecture. White Plains, NY: White Plains Public Schools, 2009. Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Random House, 1994. Schurmann, Franz. "Faith in God and Empire-building Travel on the Same Road." 27 September 2002. New America Media. 13 April 2010 . Sowell, Thomas. Third World Sweatshops: Why Cambodian Workers Bribe for Sweatshop Jobs. 27 January 2004. 13 April 2010 . Watts, Sara. "The West in the Age of Industrialization and Imperialism." 2007. Wake Forest University, Department of History. 2010 . Read More