Thought-Factory.net Philosophical Conversations Public Opinion philosophy.com Junk for code
hegel
"When philosophy paints its grey in grey then has a shape of life grown old. By philosophy's grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk." -- G.W.F. Hegel, 'Preface', Philosophy of Right.
RECENT ENTRIES
SEARCH
ARCHIVES
Library
Links - weblogs
Links - Political Rationalities
Links - Resources: Philosophy
Public Discussion
Resources
Cafe Philosophy
Philosophy Centres
Links - Resources: Other
Links - Web Connections
Other
www.thought-factory.net
'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx

Empire & the US « Previous | |Next »
September 13, 2004

This review in The Nation of a number of recent books says what many deny. And it says it simply:


"Suddenly everyone has discovered, and accepts as a commonplace, that the United States possesses an empire. For some our newly acknowledged imperial status is a source of celebration, for others of lamentation, but it is in any case something that cannot be denied. It is no longer even a choice, but rather a simple reality.....The empire is what it is, and the power realities will not be greatly different even if the name is euphemized and the personalities who direct it are changed. How long it will last rests in good measure on how well it is managed."

Anthony Steel goes on to add:

"We are in the early stages of imperial self-recognition. Americans are only just beginning to understand the role their nation plays in the world, and the price incurred by that role. That acknowledgment is late in coming because we have been brought up on an image of ourselves as rebellious colonists winning liberation from the clutches of imperial Europe."

So how do they understand America to be an empire? Steel says:


"If the emerging American empire was not based on the formal acquisition of territory, a territorial concept was inherent in the construction of economic and political control. This was the continuation and expansion of the prewar pattern. Following World War I the United States--unlike its French, British and Japanese allies--claimed no spoils from those it had defeated. Instead it focused on economic expansion (and continued suzerainty over Latin America). Its goal then, and now, was a global Open Door for American trade and investment."

Steel says that American foreign policy is about advancing the economic and political interests of the dominant groups within the United States. The disappearance of the long-term serious rival made no significant difference in the American project for a world conducive to US economic and political goals. But it did restrict the agenda.

The US is a great imperial power with global interests to protect and advance.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:53 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)
TrackBack

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Empire & the US:

» the new crusade from Public Opinion
The Americans are in a state of denial about Iraq.They are in a situation where their crusade to democratise the [Read More]

 
Comments

Comments

Hmm.

Yes. Three things come to mind.

1) Can the Imperial America thesis be advanced without the American Exceptionalism mythos? Suppose "yes" -- isn't the nascent self-recognition that these books point toward based on an acceptance of the idea that America stands apart? This does not necessarily imply that America, by virtue of its once-cherished image as scrappy underdogs, is different from other, past empires because of its Jeffersonian democracy. Rather, the very fact that America is waking up to its imperial stature indicates its difference, and its difference requires explanation (assuming a certain amount of value-neutrality in our examination). Suppose "no" -- how can we explain the sudden irruption of the idea of American Empire if America is like every other empire that ever existed? How can an empire become an empire if it is in denial of its imperial nature? Or perhaps the Imperial America thesis requires a judicious selectivity on this question -- and thus taking up a little of both suppositions?

2) Is there imperial difference? What is the essence of empire? What is the relation of "empires" to "empire" as species to genus? Euphemisms, personalities, and management matter, don't they? Is empire necessarily oppressive? Can we differentiate one from the other, i.e., a taxonomy of empire? Is a empire with its foundation in capitalism and commerce different than one in conquest and bondage?

3) Is it possible for an empire to voluntarily relinquish its imperial domination? Does the empire treat its subjected domains as objects for the satisfaction of desire? Can it treat subjects as anything other than objects? How did an empire come to know itself? Is imperial self-knowledge possible? Is the insight of imperial self-knowledge anything other than self-recognition as the essential being? Wouldn't that then imply that imperial self-knowledge is not really knowledge, but instead, something else entirely?

On the first point America is indeed different from the European empires of the 19th century. Australai was part of the British empire. that empire was about territory.

Steel shows the difference lies in the way that the US advances its economc and political goals.

An example would be the Free Trade Agreement with Australia, where Australia has to adapt itself to the US way of doing things.


On the second point Hardt & Negri's Empire offers an account of Empire in postmodernity that moves beyond the US as empire.

On the third point ---dunno.