March 2006 #4

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Empire building is not something politicians are keen to discuss these days. In particular as we commemorate the third anniversary of the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq and lets not forget Afghanistan, it is worth highlighting an underlying theme in all the bluster and spin coming from the offices of John Howard, George Bush and Tony Blair. 

I was interested to hear the Premier of Queensland, Peter Beattie, talking about the aftermath of the cyclone that has devastated northern Queensland. He made the following observation on the ABC’s “AM” program the day after the cyclone passed. He had seen the damage to property and said, “… people's homes have been smashed, they've lost everything. I mean, when you lose your roof and the water pours in it destroys everything from your memories, your photographs, right through to your refrigerator. It really sort of strips away all the things that we regard as civilisation.” 

When reflecting on Beattie’s words it became apparent that he, like so many of his political colleagues, and particularly those involved in the current round of empire building, share the same opinions about what civilization is all about. 

Back in the 18th century, England was at a crisis point. After 200 years of conquering other races, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children, developing a global slave trade and opening up new ways for traders to plunder and trade their ill gotten gains, the British Empire and in particular some of the wealthy elites, were struggling. At home the shift from a rural, agrarian economy to an industrial economy was causing some headaches for the ruling elites. Internal production of basic foodstuffs was being threatened by cheap imports and the losers in this deal were the long established local merchants while the winners were the new international traders. 

The internal economy of England was being turned on its head as that nation engaged in the newly emerging global trade. The population was growing rapidly and in some quarters concerns were raised that very soon population growth would outstrip the ability to produce enough food for the domestic population. This line of argument got a huge boost when, in 1798, the Reverend Thomas Malthus published his treatise “An Essay on the Principle of Population”. 

In this work he took a very narrow view of how the world worked. Using some dodgy mathematics and an extremely narrow focus, he proposed that within a short time England would run out of productive agricultural capacity and the ability to feed the population. 

Being a Reverend he argued that the two ways in which a population could be controlled would be through ‘natural’ means. There were two halves to this theory. The first was that the upper classes would exercise “moral constraint” and limit the size of their families. The second, because the lower classes could not lift themselves out of their “vice”, was that “famine, misery, plague and war” would take care of them. He advocated high density housing and the release of “the plague” into these areas to check the rapid population growth among the poor. 

While all this seems a little far removed from the current empire building fad it is, in fact, the underlying principle behind it and the foundation of the ideology that blinds our leaders to the carnage we have allowed them to inflict on faraway peoples. In order to “sell” the idea of empire to the British elites in 18th and 19th centuries, the empire builders had to convince the wealthy to invest in the ships, armies and weapons they needed to plunder the wealth of the colonies. The wealthy, not the most keen group to part with their cash, in turn got the politicians to impose heavy taxes on the people.  

The spin the empire builders spun to the wealthy was that by expanding they would gain even more wealth through returns on their investment. To the general population the spin was focused on the “threat” posed by “foreigners” ready to “invade” or in some other way threaten their way of life. If this wasn’t enough for the masses, then the spin doctors appealed to their ethical values and spruiked the value of spreading “civilization” around the globe. Sound familiar?  

It should. In the modern context the US economy is, to be blunt, stuffed. With the rise of the Asian economies and a reinvigorated Europe, the US, like Britain 200 years ago is suffering from its own isolationist policies and lack of engagement with the world. Lack of engagement on anyone else’s terms that is.  

Like England before it, powerful domestic, protectionist lobby groups in the US demand the empire expand and impose it’s might in order to protect their wealth. However, just like England before it, the true motivations for empire are never revealed. Like Britain before it, the US is attempting to establish secure, reliable routes for its basic goods. In this case oil. The US, like Britain before it, has sold it’s ‘bold adventure’ to the masses, this time draped in vague rhetoric about ‘bringing democracy to the world’. Why ‘democracy’? 

Using Peter Beattie’s words, we find that in the modern world ‘civilisation’ is measured by the number of photographs and refrigerators one owns and not by the compassion, empathy and peace you try and build with others through democratic principles. Civilisation, according to the political class, is to be measured not in the destruction of communities of human beings but measured by the loss of possessions and goods. It is not to be measured in the injuries and deaths caused by wars or natural disasters. Rather, things like “famine, misery, plague and war” are the lot of those doomed to remain oppressed while their rulers, in the Empire’s capital, look around and say, “All is well in our house for that is what ‘democracy’ has bought us”. 

Howard, Bush and Blair lack the same foresight and imagination as Malthus. They are short sighted, intellectually impoverished and morally corrupt men who are surrounded by like minded people who believe that empire is power. Like Beattie they measure civilization by the wealth the sweat of our brows creates for them and not by the connections we share as communities and citizens of nation states.  

Malthus’ theories were discredited by the development of industrial processes. While there are inherent problems in what has occurred through those processes, the point is that his shortsighted proclamations were made redundant very quickly. It is my hope and the hope of millions of others that the proclamations of our current rulers are also soon discredited. 

If your dream is for a peaceful, compassionate, open and empathetic democracy in which the least are always considered when decisions are made and if you, like me, dream of a time when the children and women and men in far away nations are free from the yoke of empire, then my hope for us both is that we find the strength to continue to oppose the empire builders and their narrow view of the potential we call the future of civilisation.