Private Sector Imperialism-2

January 31, 2005

[ Contents | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 ]

Other forms of imperialism exist besides the commercially-motivated variety; strategic motives probably were more important in the UK conquest of Sudan, for example, than any profit to be had there.¹ The US campaigns (1, 2) against the Seminole, or against the Sioux (1, 2) were populist measures backed by agrarian or Jacksonian ideology; they became lucrative long after the fact. Advocates for imperial policy included Ruskin, the conservative "Socialist," and Paul Doumer, the liberal-socialist governor of Vietnam.

In many cases, as I've mentioned, the state took action after the lobbying efforts of business interests-the British in Cape Province, the French in Vietnam, the Dutch in Indonesia... However, the nature of private-public sector relations is much dynamic than is usually described in political debate: the private sector anticipates the movements of the public, often as an opportunity, not as a problem. Typically, anti-government rhetoric by conservative business interests (e.g., the Heritage Foundation and the Manhattan Institute; see profiles linked) is reliably oriented to liberate and empower those who already have power.² For all that, it's reductionist to declare that private commercial gain is always at the back of predatory state behavior.

However, this sequence of entries is going to be about private sector imperialism. (As a matter of a fact, in the next part I shall become very specific.)

In recent years this has become an urgent matter, since the technology seems to be favoring imperialism once again. Imperialism had subsided in the 18th century and early 19th century as a result of retrenchment in the colonies and wars among the European powers. In the 1850's, a new wave of colonialism began, accompanied by relatively free trade and peaceful diplomatic relations in Western Europe; the French conquest of Annam (Vietnam), the 2nd Opium War, Suppression of the Sepoy Mutiny, French operations in Lebanon, British operations in Southern Africa and Nigeria, and so forth, all stepped up during this time. The 1850's period of European expansion ground to a halt with the eruption of a proxy war between France and Austria (over Italy), then clashes among the German powers, and finally, the Franco-Prussian War. During this time (1859-1871) colonialism in Africa and Asia wound down³ The project of colonialism was trans-European in character, impeded by wars among the European powers, stimulated by peace and deepening capital markets. After the Franco-Prussian War, the French Navy resumed conquest in Vietnam, the Dutch resumed their expansionism in Sumatra, the Royal Niger Company consolidated its grip on Nigeria, and the UK invaded Sudan; then came the Berlin Conference, the partition of Africa, and a period of feverish single-minded devotion to imperial expansion to 1911. At this point, the expansion stopped because there was almost nowhere left to colonize. What was left included costly and depleted spots such as the Q'ing Empire (in which European powers enjoyed all or most of the privileges of empire, with few of the costs), Siam (whose Chakkri Dynasty succesfully played the French off the British-at considerable cost), Abyssinia (whose negus negisti, Johann, and Menelik II, enjoyed significant British patronage), and those perverse basket cases, Ottoman Turkey and Qejar Persia (which were quasi-European empires, and retained as buffer zones).

Such eviscerated empires as these were not vibrant enough to stand up to powers such as Russia or the UK, although occasionally they could form alliances with Germany or France. Their preferred modus operandi was to act as enforcers for the newer empires in clearly defined spheres: thus, the Manchurian rulers of China and their landlord allies among the Han defended German privilege in Shantung, British propinquity in the Pearl Delta or Weihaiwei, French pre-eminence in Guangxi and Hainan, Japanese suzereignity in Fujian...and effective Tibetan and Mongolian independence.

In Latin America, the elites were predominantly European; in some case, this bordered on being true in every sense of the word, not merely the ethnographic sense. But even then, the encroachment on chronically underdeveloped countries where Europeans constituted a minority-Mexico, Peru, Brazil and Venezuela-ran along institutional channels. The countries between the two tropics were permanently stuck with the rule of doctrinaire "libertarians," sometimes with the most extreme anti-regulatory, anti-tariff, anti-labor constitutions ever seen anywhere on earth. Invariably, what little capital accumulated was promptly exported to countries with industrial policies, like the United States, and later re-imported under the auspices of North American or Western European merchant bankers. This was imperialism without the interstate violence; the violence was intra-state-the genesis of the death squad.

Many on the left naturally argued, as WW1 approached, that imperialism was leading the Great Powers to war. There was something to this, since the grievous deterioration in diplomatic relations between Prussia (on the one hand) and Russia and Great Britain (on the other) was accompanied by Wilhelm II's drive to acquire colonies. Yet Wilhelm's colonies were delineated by international treaty; it seems unlikely that WW1 would have erupted over colonies 29 years after Africa was partitioned, or that ten million European soldiers would be killed over the disposition of Tanganyika. Moreover, the colonials themselves had drifted into relations of friendship and cooperation, unlike their ancestors of the 17th century. Europe was a cooperative union with a single empire now; Sweden, Switzerland, pre-'85 Belgium, pre-'95 Italy, and other countries without possessions of their own made fortunes, specialized in supplying the needs of those who did.

The shock of WW1 was felt by the old regime of capital; after 80 years it was ejected from the driver's seat of the trans-European colonial project. Militant opposition to imperialism, combined with the vast new post-war bureaucracies required for the modern nation-state, looked as though they slammed the door shut on any future version of the East India companies. At the same time, capitalists were confined to an adversarial relationship with the national governments, with great new technical horizons for expansion, but limited political ones. In exchange, the empires were taken under the receivership of the several European powers, modernized, rationalized, standardized, and glamourized. Imperialism was now a temporary transition to economic rationalism, with the end in view. It was put on the same footing as the liberal-radical mandate system of the League of Nations (maps, 1, 2).

The great wall between the public and private sectors was now an official reality. Underneath, however, a river of pipes and wires flowed.

(Private Sector Imperialism-3) NOTES: 1 "The Turkiyah, 1821-1885," "The Mahdhiya, 1884-1898," (Library of Congress Country Study, Sudan); "The Mahdhist Jihad 1881-1885" (which features the astonishing datum that 500,000 Mahdhist forces were wounded or killed in those four years-i.e., 10% of the Mahdhist state's population, and 5 times the size of its armed forces). Despite this, the Mahdhist state defeated the British (to 1898) and lanched unsuccessful invasions of Abyssinia and Eritrea.

3 A notable exception was the interval 1862-1866, during which war over Austrian Italy susbsided and the Powers invaded Mexico. France's Napoleon III, who only lately had abetted the liquidation of Austrian control over northern Italy [*], now reconciled with the Habsburgs by putting the Archduke Maxmillian in power as emperor of Mexico. The scheme was ruined partly by the extremism of Maxmillian's Mexican supporters (who found him too moderate), partly by the ability of Mexico to sustain guerrilla wars of extraordinary duration, and partly by the eruption of war between Prussia and Austria