This total douchebag Dinesh D’Souza argues that US attempts to colonize others is somehow beneficial to us? That Obama is somehow less American for opposing colonialism? (If it is even true)
How was Iraq beneficial to the US?
This is an argument I want to have if any conservative wants to defend D’Souza.
Can you share a cite, with some excerpts that you find troubling?
I am not going to defend Mr. D’Souza, but I understand his point of view – or at least I think I do. He would say he is taking the long view, looking not at the short-term impact of colonial policies on cultures but rather their long-term consequences. And while he has a point in some cases, I think his essential errors are twofold. One is the moral error. While D’Souza (and I) may have benefited from colonial practices that were inflicted on our ancestors, those practices greatly harmed persons who were alive at the time. Secondly, he is cheery-picking, looking only at a few instances of colonialism rather than the majority.
The name of his article is “Two Cheers for Colonialism,” by the way.
ETA: Here is a link.
Is colonialism really practiced any more? i.e., actually sending large numbers of people from the home country to live in farms or own factories in the foreign country?
I think we need another term, to indicate that we are asserting a greater role in their internal affairs, the economics, their trade, etc. Perhaps “imperialism” is closer, although that, too, has connotations to a style of foreign influence that aren’t much in vogue today.
Including other countries and the economies in our “sphere of influence” is pretty much okay, so long as it isn’t done by gunboat diplomacy. Giving other countries “most favored nation” trade status as an incentive to allow our companies to hire their workers can have huge benefits for both. (While not necessarily being very good for our workers…)
“Free Trade” is kicked around a lot, and “Free Trade Zones” or “Common Markets” are popular. These are ways in which various rich countries can vie for influence in various poor countries. It is a kind of interference in domestic affairs, but, hey, it’s a whole lot better than supporting rebels out in their hinterlands!
Try neocolonialism. I agree that the OP’s use might be infelicitous, but givne that she or he was riffing on D’Souza, and D’Souza used “colonialism” in his article, it’s understandable.
Free Trade is a diplomatic way to say “lets usurp (privatize) their resources”.
used as a sentence — “Iran should be more free trade”.
I think it is incontestable that the USA’s global strategy for quite a number of decades has been firmly rooted in neocolonialism. Our culture has become remarkably ubiquitous in many diverse locales and with the ability of our military to project deadly force to virtually any place on the planet, we have developed the functional and political wherewithal to forge a “New American Century”. In my opinion, this is a serious strategic error on the part of the leadership of the USA.
Other, more elder, cultures take poorly to being bruited about as if they were pewter pieces on a sand table. Just because the USA can destroy any other nation’s armies (with two possible exceptions) doesn’t make our political aims righteous. We don’t have all of the answers, and applying the solutions crafted in our nation for our nation’s needs to those of another is rarely an efficacious strategy. The assumed superiority of our global position has led many, if not most, leaders to embrace a kind of “white man’s burden” approach to many complex situations.
This is one perspective that Mr. Obama brings to the equation that has been sorely lacking for a long time. The idea that America doesn’t have all the answers to the world’s problems and that only by working with other cultures as equals can any long-lasting solutions be found is one that is hard for the neoconservatives who are True Believers in ‘The New American Century’ to accept.
It is a genuinely valid policy point that should be debated more openly. I am obviously in agreement with Mr. Obama and disagree with people like Messrs. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld when it comes to this matter. But, it is a considerably more important kind of discussion point than that of anyone’s tax returns or remarkable oratory, because it goes to the heart of the country’s direction in foreign policy.
Do we continue to ‘go it alone’ and treat all with whom we disagree as enemies, or do we return to a more sane approach to treating allies as equals and extending our ideas through goodwill and assistance rather than cruise missiles and ground troops?
Finally, as was mentioned elsewhere, the USA was founded as a rebellion against colonialism.
Perhaps, we should examine our true roots before assuming we know what is best for everyone.
Um… A little one-sided, perhaps? Free Trade is also a way to say, “Let’s deal with the people without having to deal with the government.” It’s an improvement over having hugely interventionist and highly corrupt governments that charge large fees or tariffs or otherwise make it hard for outsiders to do business.
Sure, there are limits, and there are problems. It can be done well, however. The Maquiladora phenomenon in Tijuana had a lot of promise. It led to a significant improvement in the standard of living for Mexicans in that region.
I see it as a Scylla and Charybdis. Excessive privatization of resources is a bad thing…but so is excessive nationalization of resources. Somewhere in the middle, you get a working opportunity system. Jobs for locals, with room for personal growth and advancement.
(I used to work for a company that ran a large Maquiladora factory in TJ. As time went by, we found we had to pay higher and higher wages, to keep our workers. What would happen, otherwise, is that they’d work for us for a year or two, build up their skills…and then leave and go and start their own companies! It was slowly evening out the previous vast gulf between the two national economies. It was good for everyone!)
(Also, I’m proud of my company, as we voluntarily followed California’s much more strict environmental rules. We could have gotten away with dumping pollutants under less strict Mexican rules…but we took a “good neighbor” policy and didn’t. This earned us much good-will from the Mexican government.)
It had better rhythm when it was titled “The white man’s burden”
Best. Typo. EVAR. Maybe the best of all possible typos.
No? Yeah, I guess not. Pretty good typo, though.
Like the guy who had to drink a bunch of barium to get a high colonial.
The article was written more than ten years ago. The theories have been tried and found wanting.
Colonialism? I feel like I opened a zombie thread from 1901.
D’Souza makes an amazingly poor argument in his essay:
Does D’Souza not understand the position he’s arguing against? The anti-colonialists claim that the West conquered other countries and imported their wealth back to Europe. I’m not saying they’ve proven their case but they do present a case.
But D’Souza apparently doesn’t understand the argument. “If the West took all the wealth from the rest of the world, then how did the West get richer while the rest of the world got poorer? Huh? Explain that.”
The anti-colonialists are scratching their heads and saying, “What you just said did explain it.”
[quote=“Little_Nemo, post:14, topic:634155”]
The anti-colonialists claim that the West conquered other countries and imported their wealth back to Europe. I’m not saying they’ve proven their case but they do present a case.
[snip]
[quote]
But D’Souza apparently doesn’t understand the argument. “If the West took all the wealth from the rest of the world, then how did the West get richer while the rest of the world got poorer? Huh? Explain that.”
I don’t particularly care to read it, but this actually makes absolutely good sense, because wealth is not something which can be taken. It can be destroyed, shared, or even voluntarily moved - but it cannot be stolen. Wealth is not “stuff”. Stuff is in fact a trivial portion of wealth, and to the expect “stuff” left colonial countries, it tended to benefit them economically becaus they were paid pretty well for it - much better than they would have gotten otherwise. That’s how the colonialists got the locals to
The original mercantilists who advocated colonialism, as well as the anti-colonialists who about three centuries late argued against them (when colonialism was essentially going away anyway :rolleyes: ), both thought of wealth as something tangible. Wealth was the gold and spices. They didn’t get that wealth was the productive value of the whole country. They kept believeing they were putting one over on the natives and colonists everywhere… when generally that’s what kept . Likewise, the idiots were cutting their own throats by not encouraging local industries, but that’s whole 'nother issue.
In short, if wealth were something which was taken and removed as the anti-colonialists thought, then when the colonies were abandoned, two thigns would have happened: the locals would suddenly find themselves far richer, andf the Europeans much poorer. Neither happened.
smiling bandit: (Fun name for a participant in a thread about the seizure of wealth!) The way I’d heard it – and this may be junk history – is that the flow of Aztec and Incan gold to Spain was responsible for Spain’s very sudden rise to European prominence and wealth. When the flow was reduced, Spain fell back into mediocrity.
Gold may not be “wealth” per se, but since it was the major measure of wealth, a nation that stole a large amount of it could fund a wealthy life-style.
(Secondarily, Spain used the gold to build an army and navy, and used those to beat up on everyone in sight – Sack of Rome, etc. – and that is a secondary way in which their wealth was amassed.)
i.e., I think you aren’t entirely correct in saying that “Wealth cannot be taken.” I think Spain, in the sixteenth century, did exactly that!
I do understand Dinesh D’Souza’s point (though after finishing his simplistic essay I was surprised to learn he was a Hoover fellow), but I don’t see any simple answers one way or the other. Certainly a 2002 essay can’t be expected to reflect U.S. behavior in Iraq or Afghanistan. Only a clown, idiot, or hypocrite could defend America’s “neocolonial” efforts in those countries.
I won’t comment in detail on Mr. Bandit’s essay – as I said, I see no simple answers one way or the other – but have to point out one peculiarly blatant fallacy.
If gold and other valuables (easily extracted ores, trees, slaves when they were “legal”) constitute a country’s wealth – and they certainly do when poor infrastructure means labor has minimal value – then colonialists certainly did take and remove wealth. One wonders what Mr. Bandit was thinking when he wrote “the locals would suddenly find themselves far richer.” Does he think the colonialists returned the gold and other metals when they left?
I think I have read this piece before, I interned in a think tank in 2002, and I read many such articlestge. I certainly recall that the viewpoint expressed herein were quite common. This was the era of theories of pre emtive war and benefits of interference. These theories remained popular until the died a sudden death circa 2004.
As it is, this essay is quite dated, it’s main premise has been tried and found wanting. I do not think it merits much discussion or outrage.
The western nations got rich because of the industrial revolution. Not because of imperialism or colonialism.
It was not colonialism and conquest that made possible the rise of the West, but the reverse, it was the rise of the West (in terms of technology) that made possible the full extension of European power across the globe.
From 1750 to 1860 a huge industrial leap was made in the Britain, and by 1860 Britain produced over half of the world’s pig-iron, coal, copper, tin and lead. Most of Britain’s output was consumed domestically but in terms of foreign trade, 70-75% of it was done with independent countries. Trade with the empire only represented a very small percentage of the British economy.
He uses it “anti-colonialist” as a premise/slur in the anti-Obama new movie and the (widely debunked) book it’s based on. I think that’s why it’s getting play now.