A LANDING SPOT GUEST POST BY MATTHEW DUNNYVEG
Are Liberals Imperialists?
--By Matthew Dunnyveg
In Medieval times, power was divided up between the First Estate (Church) and the Second Estate (monarchies and aristocracies). To keep their predatory tendencies in check, the first two estates were generally forbidden from engaging in the very lucrative pursuits of manufacturing, commerce, and finance.
These activities were not forbidden to the Third Estate (commoners), and soon they had far more money than the first two estates, and the power that went along with it. This is why big business owning government is the very essence of liberalism. As in the time of the Tsar, liberals were very influential even with little popular support, and no formal power. Money talks.
As for trade, the US is the perfect example of liberals being the modern imperialists. Did not US imperialism start with that group known to history as the progressive liberals? Was not US foreign policy prior to then what liberals like to deride as "isolationism", or minding our own business? Is not the welfare state the postmodern version of the old liberal "white man's burden" that Kipling so eloquently extolled?
Today's postmodern imperialism is actually far superior to the old formal imperialism for the owners of manufacturing, finance, and commerce. Liberal elites that owned European governments demanded that the places where they had invested money into resource extraction be protected from the natives and other European powers. And, of course, they wanted a controlled market to sell their goods to the natives. The problem with the old imperialism is that it was expensive and gave liberals a bad name (see Chomsky's early writings on liberal depredations in the Third World). It also limited a country's liberal elites to trade with their own country's colonies.
Postmodern liberal imperialism, under the internationalist auspices of the WTO, made it personally advantageous for liberals to claim status as anti-imperialists. What this new "open door" trade regimen did was to make the entire world the personal colony of every liberal elite. Neither has postmodern imperialism stopped liberal oppression of Third World peoples. Rather, liberalism has seen to it that non-elite white people are treated even shabbier than the liberal elites' Third World subjects.
These activities were not forbidden to the Third Estate (commoners), and soon they had far more money than the first two estates, and the power that went along with it. This is why big business owning government is the very essence of liberalism. As in the time of the Tsar, liberals were very influential even with little popular support, and no formal power. Money talks.
As for trade, the US is the perfect example of liberals being the modern imperialists. Did not US imperialism start with that group known to history as the progressive liberals? Was not US foreign policy prior to then what liberals like to deride as "isolationism", or minding our own business? Is not the welfare state the postmodern version of the old liberal "white man's burden" that Kipling so eloquently extolled?
Today's postmodern imperialism is actually far superior to the old formal imperialism for the owners of manufacturing, finance, and commerce. Liberal elites that owned European governments demanded that the places where they had invested money into resource extraction be protected from the natives and other European powers. And, of course, they wanted a controlled market to sell their goods to the natives. The problem with the old imperialism is that it was expensive and gave liberals a bad name (see Chomsky's early writings on liberal depredations in the Third World). It also limited a country's liberal elites to trade with their own country's colonies.
Postmodern liberal imperialism, under the internationalist auspices of the WTO, made it personally advantageous for liberals to claim status as anti-imperialists. What this new "open door" trade regimen did was to make the entire world the personal colony of every liberal elite. Neither has postmodern imperialism stopped liberal oppression of Third World peoples. Rather, liberalism has seen to it that non-elite white people are treated even shabbier than the liberal elites' Third World subjects.
