American imperialism: an appeal to wealthy Americans to correct historical injustices
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By Adam Wadley Contributing writer for End the Lie [caption id="attachment_41346" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The Ottoman Empire in the 16-17th century"] [/caption] I’m writing this article about American imperialism for people who don’t think America is an empire, and also for people who do recognize that it is an empire, and might enjoy a creative spin on how to approach the topic. First, I’d like to explain why I wrote this, which is not just to make people feel bad, and make me feel better for recognizing how guilty we are. I do not believe all evil in the world comes from America, or that America has not made the world better in many ways. That said, the wealth disparity both within America, and between America and the rest of the world, is totally unjustified and represents the efforts of the powerful to shift the terms of trade in their favor, and this is what I mean when I say imperialism. Now, normally when we start talking about American imperialism, we enter the conversation at one of two places: the Middle Eastern wars or the Spanish-American war. There is a point behind each of these that I’d like to address. Starting the conversation around Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan, this conversation will quickly become very muddy. There are a lot of things that we don’t know about the situation in the Middle East, and so it is hard to categorically say what is and is not necessary. That said, I think that this warfare is a teachable moment about the history behind the historical conflict between people of the Middle East, lumped together as Muslims, and the people of Europe, lumped together as Christians. This extends all the way back to the conflict between the Roman Catholic Church and the Ottoman Empire (see above), founded on a Caliphate. It even goes back farther, probably. Most liberal historians start the critique of American Imperialism around the time of the Spanish-American war, when America gained control over Cuba (which it soon officially “released”) and the Philippines (which it did not “release” for quite a while). The reason that I emphatically disagree with this historical assertion is not because I do not find these acts to be imperialistic. They are. Instead, I see no reason not to brand the subjugation of the entire middle band of North America AS “Imperialism.” This is one of my central points, and it is hard to overstate the importance of it: it is easy to take America for granted, but it is an extremely large country. Let us remember that white people come from Europe. Great Britain wound up creating four large overseas territories dominated by whites: The United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Each of these places was once inhabited by a totally different group of people, whose culture and livelihoods were destroyed. We can agree the America was part of the British Empire prior to its independence, but many may not understand why I believe the subjugation of the American continent to be a matter of Empire. The power of The United States can be summed up as follows: European technology and knowledge combined with large amounts of land, natural resources, and relatively little internal strife. The US is an historically unique country, because it is the largest and most developed empire to come into existence after the industrial revolution. Remember that Europe suffered two major destructive episodes with 20 th Century technology, while America has not had to fight on its own continental territory since its Civil War, which ended in 1865. America’s population is 300 million and its area is 3.79 million square miles. Is there any surprise that it took over the mantle of most powerful empire from Britain, which currently has only 130,395 square miles and 62 million people to work with? We can easily see the advantages over Europe: one language and one government (after the Civil War, the states cannot really be said to be sovereign), with no history of disputed borders among whites. Conquering the area of the continental US, holding it, and developing it was quite an accomplishment, and is deserving of the title of “imperialism.” We do not call the United States an Empire because it is formally a republic, but remember that those whose consent is required for its government are white, and that the land’s original inhabitants were brown. The states do not dispute their borders, and very few serious politicians believe the federal government to be illegitimate. That said, this harmony among whites hides the valid objections of “minority” populations: Native Americans, African-Americans, and Central/South-Americans. I will go through these objections very briefly in order to outline the main points. Native Americans were forced off their homelands by white settlers, and were taken advantage of through their signing treaties they could not read, subjection to alcohol to which they had no tolerance, the breaking of treaties that were enacted, and smallpox infected blankets. The indigenous people were often told that if they went a bit further west, America would leave them alone, but obviously this never happened. Next, it is important to remember how crucial slave labor was to the construction of the American nation, and how cruel the “all men are created equal” line in the Declaration of Independence is. Even after slavery was ended, African populations in America were brutally suppressed from voicing their political opinions or interfering with or participating in the government of the United States. To this day, most of the people punished under the criminal justice system are black. The key point here is that the laws as written can favor one party, making the point not that blacks break laws, but that the laws were written so that they would. A historical event most are unaware of is the 1846-1848 Mexican-American War. Many Mexicans cherish the slogan “we didn’t cross the border- the border crossed us!” because during this war, America claimed territory that belonged to Mexico; when Mexicans attacked U.S. soldiers in disputed territory, the war was started and used as an excuse to grab California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and New Mexico away from Mexican control. It is crucial to critically examine the borders and laws of the United States as they stand, and not take them for granted, with the government duty-bound to protect them. How did it come to this in the first place, and was it just? It is clear that warfare specifically, and the use of force more generally, was very important in the formation of the United States. So often higher-ups pooh-pooh the notion of American militarism by pointing out that as a function of GDP , American military spending is not that high. Again, this takes for granted the current stature of America, which is in fact highly anomalous, and required great barbarity to attain. Still, it is very important that the U.S. has developed such a large economy, and I think that lets it engage in a lot of economic imperialism. I would argue that America mainly thrives by its economic imperialism. It has by far the world’s largest economy, which means that it engages in the most trade. On that note, let’s introduce the concept of hegemony: Hegemony refers to when one nation or social group subjugates the rest of society and the world in a kind of indirect imperial dominance. I believe that U.S. trade is hegemonic since it is much easier for other countries to go along with us, and thus get to trade with us, than resist, thus not being able to trade with us or our allies - this is what trade “sanctions,” or embargoes against specific nations, are all about. The proof of United States economic imperialism is in the status of the Dollar as the world’s reserve currency. It might be argued that the economic system of the world is necessarily hinged around the United States, as the globe’s most prosperous and stable economy. To this I would counter that it need not be so that other countries would feel compelled to buy so much of our debt. It is not a secret that the United States has enjoyed massive trade deficits since the 1970s; I say “enjoyed” because what “trade deficit” really means is that the value of the goods imported vastly exceeded the value of the goods exported, which reminds me of the practice of imperialism. The United States may dictate the terms of trade, and in its favor! Other nations must comply, and do so at a disadvantage. One key aspect of United States hypocrisy is the emphasis on “Free Trade.” If the US were really a Christian nation, it would have adopted the notion that one should correct one’s own faults b