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

America's empire « Previous | |Next »
November 26, 2006

America's current quest to install a system of international law and order in the 21st century---a pax Americana--can, and should be, understood in terms of the United States essentially being an empire, even if the US has no colonies, and it does not annex foreign territory. As Howard Brasted observes in a review of some books on empire at the Australian Review of Public Affairs the US:

...does preside over a network of client states, seeks to expand its frontiers of global power by means of market forces, corporate capitalism, and international monetary organisation, and it regularly sends in gun-ships and guided missiles to topple recalcitrant regimes or prop up friendly ones. It stations significant troop numbers in Asia, Europe and the Middle-East and maintains military outposts---some 725 of them according to one tally---in more than half the countries of the world. In Ferguson's view this is imperialism 21st century style.

The reference is to Niall Ferguson's Colossus: The Price of America's Empire. Since 1991 the word 'empire' now refers to the maintenance of American supremacy in a world of nations. Regardless of any proclaimed commitment to the concept of a self-governing world, self-aggrandisement and self-interest largely informed American expansionism. In short the United States is more imperialistic than Americans have cared to recognise.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:27 AM |