This motif crops up from time to time in discussions I read and it got me wondering, whilst there are instances of theft from native populations due to unequal treaties, how is it theft if the empire in question was the government body and was responsible for the area it controlled?
Also, it’s not as if the resources of that area would not have been exploited by people in said country for the same purpose, so how is it any worse?
“the government body and was responsible for the area it controlled?”
By what authority does it control the area?
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Who appointed/elected them as government in the first place?
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Who should decide what is the best use of resources in any given area, to whose benefit?
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What happens to the value extracted from this resources, and who should decide that?
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Who should decide on future development of the economy and public services in any given area?
It depends on the context and circumstances, you get places which are outright conquered, and others where they’re invited to set up shop as long as the native ruling class gets its dues.
Native governments can be worse than the imperial one which replaces it.
What if that resource is only available due to imperial financing of research into extracting it?
The people who put in the capital and labour to extract the resources should be compensated for the effort they put in, and the decision again, is based on the premise an elite in the society wouldn’t do the same thing as an empire based company.
All highly dependent on circumstance
Well do you consider the Viking raids or that of the Huns to be just lawful gathering, I’m sure they did. Sure we can legalize forms of what is obviously theft, even if we legally exclude that activity as theft (as a piece of turd by any other name would smell as sweet).
As for if the natives would do the same, I think we have some evidence that it would not. Some gold rich countries have denied other countries mining privileges even though the country stands to get a substantial income from it while it lasts. But the local population pans for gold by hand, and has no desire to do any modern mining as that is also for future generations.
Ryan,
The argument - extortion of my neighbors’ property creates an entitlement to recover my costs - is not relevant to the OP.
The OP poses two issues - is it theft and a value judgement of the quality of government.
Were the governments of central America worse than that of Spain? I don’t see much difference between them. Both engaged in war, torture and religious human sacrifice. Both were orderly, god fearing societies. The only difference is that the Spanish deported resources while the Aztecs used them locally.
By what authority did Spain control central America?
The Spanish decimated the population with small pox then enslaved the remainder to remove all the silver and gold thus impoverishing the country for centuries.
Perhaps Spain is now entitled to recover it’s costs.
But smallpox wasn’t by design, that was merely by contact.
Hello uncivilized native person, we have decided that it is in your best interest to be part of our empire, and we hope that our large numbers or ships and guns, and most importantly our flagwill convince you that we are correct in our belief. As superior beings it is our solemn duty to turn you unwashed heathens into civilized laborers. In exchange for saving your souls and enlightening you to the greatness of our culture, is all of your mineral and ecological wealth, which you weren’t using anyway, and as a measure of our benevolence we have allowed you to extract for us. Do we have a deal? Yes? Good. Now bring me a cool drink, this white man’s burden does raise a frightful thirst.
I often invest several minutes to Google out articles that will refute an erroneous view like this.
But in this case, your claim is too absurd to waste a Google. Read about the British deliberately turning the Chinese into opium addicts so the Brits could profit with opium sales. Read about the Belgian Congo.
Recall the Spanish galleons in the Atlantic loaded with gold and silver: Were they sailing westward or eastward? Closer to the 20th century U.S., read about the United Fruit Company.
If I were to waste a Google I might link you to a paper showing that most of the Indian subcontinent was held to a food level just enough to prevent starvation while Britons profited.
Does any of this help?
Ryan,
Oh, small pox was just a spill over cost. Like the remnants of uranium mining on the Navajo reservation.
“how is it theft if the empire in question was the government body and was responsible for the area it controlled?”
Sorry to be repetitious, but by what authority did your ‘empire’ become responsible for the area? Spain/Mexico? Certainly not by discovery - the Mexicans had already discovered it.
It was obviously theft for the Cherokee to be removed from their privately owned houses, farms and stores. Not naked savages. Just folks like us.
But smallpox would have happened anyway if it was just limited to contact and trading and not colonisation.
They conquered the other empires in the area and therefore became responsible for the areas they previously governed, with the added situation of the area being depopulated due to no immunity against diseases from the old world.
Made me think of this:
Of course there were many types of empires. If the empire is taking resources from the absorbed or conquered areas and using it for themselves, it sounds a lot like theft.
The Spanish government actually made this argument. (Not about the smallpox, which as noted was seen as unconnected with the Spanish arrival.) Their reasoning was that they were delivering Christianity to the Native Americans. The gold, silver, and forced labor which the Spanish collected was worth far less than the eternal salvation which they were giving.
I basically agree it depends. The assumed example is European empires, which introduces a personal/emotional aspect for many people of European descent who feel strong pressure in their social circles to condemn their culture’s past by and large.
Let’s eliminate that by sticking to non European (or ‘non-white’) empires as examples. In which case I think it would indeed depend. Empires could indeed bring more advanced knowledge and forms of organization. Also the ability to protect and enforce order. I don’t think you can say as a hard rule than no subject people was ever better off under an empire.
And talking about ‘whose legal right’ to the resources and ‘theft’ is kind of silly over history in general. One primitive people that controlled a given area with valuable resources might just as easily have driven off/bumped off another primitive but perhaps less warlike people who lived in the same area quite recently before the empire arrived.
Obviously there were many cases where empires were heavy on coercion and light on providing any real benefit to subject peoples. Some largely eliminated subject peoples (either deliberately or through less deliberate spread of disease). But I don’t think you can say that no empire was ever beneficial for a subject people compared to the real alternatives at the time.
The question of the OP is: how is empire theft.
Answer: It is taking of property without legal title.
That is why I’m asking by whose authority did the empire gain control? If by invasion, it was theft. If by legal documents made outside of the country involved, it is theft. If by arbitrary exercise of authority (Jackson) it is theft. Maybe that’s OK, but it is still theft.
Does that in some way intersect with the definition of “theft”? No, it does not
Well, if you don’t want to be thieves you make them a business offer.
Yesterday was Australia Day here. It celebrates the white settlement of the country on that date in 1788.
However descendants of the people living here at the time see it slightly differently - Invasion Day protests held across nation and in London to challenge Australia Day date.
The legal argument seems weak in cases like this. As the OP noted, a government has the power to make any act legal just by declaring it so.
I feel a more useful standard for deciding what is right and wrong is reversibility. If a government is deciding whether an act directed at another country is right or wrong it should ask itself what its response would be if some hypothetical third country was directing the same act against them.
So if a country is thinking about taking over another country and is telling itself, “We’re not doing anything so bad. Sure, we’ll be running things in that country and taking out their raw materials but we’re going to be helping them to develop into a better place. They’ll actually benefit from us taking over.” they should ask themselves if they would be okay with more advanced country taking over their country for the same reasons.