Those are synonyms? I thought they were practically antonyms. And why would you think we are moving towards either?
Well, I meant a world ruled by corporations or syndicates. If the theory that you have read disagrees with my usage then I am not interested in backing up what I say based upon an old theory.
My definition is in a nutshell, feudalism where the property is not necessarily based upon land ownership, and isn’t limited to particular geographical locations or ethnocentric bonds. If you have a better word, by all means share it with me.
I think that is what we are entering into right now, the old nation-state structures are relevant in that they are syndicates, but their power is waning, and they are only as useful as the syndicates/corporations/institutions/conglomerates/cartels etc… find them to be.
The decline of the nation-state will be a long process, but we are in the first part which I see as the most dramatic portion of the ride. People will always have territory that they will maintain a power base with, that can be land, it can be mineral rights, it can be stocks and bonds, it can be administrator privileges in a computer system, it can be a bureaucratic stamp of approval necessary to initiate an action, it can be pat/matriarchy over a family, and various other forms of power, but I do not think that the past systems can really be relied upon as indicators of future performance, because near-instantaneous global communication was never a standard part of human activity until now.
So I go for multi-polar as I think it will be the best way to ease us into the globalised system where your location on the map or ethnicity will be less important when determining your status in society.
Did you ever pick up “A New World Order” by Anne-Marie Slaughter? btw? I really think you in particular would be into it.
Erek
Why…it was a serious question. Could you give some examples of American Imperialism on the rise in recent years? To me it seems to be at about the same level as always, especially considering US policy towards Central and South America during the 19th and 20th century. I assume you are using ‘Imperialism’ as “through indirect methods of exerting control on the politics and/or economy of other countries”, and not through “through direct territorial conquest”…and I assume you mean economic “empire” with reguards to the US.
So…please take the question seriously and give some examples of US imperialism on the RISE.
-XT
Crap…the quoted parts were from Wikipedia on Imperialism. My bad. 
-XT
Good point, xtisme. I was going to add the Fruit Company, but I forgot if it was the AFC or ABC? The one the CIA ran that did the imperialist dance through most of South America.
America’s always been a bit of a bully. Ask Teddy Roosevelt. And remember the Maine?
I don’t see any huge increase. I don’t think I like it. I don’t like the way we got into this war, but I don’t see anything that really even comes close to the Marshall Plan era, economically.
Our current occupation of Iraq is really a new thing. During the Cold War, we could make a case that any foreign military intervention was essentially defensive, i.e., a move to block Soviet aggression. That no longer applies. (We do have the “war on terror” but it is fairly obvious Iraq has nothing whatsoever to do with that.) In Iraq we have a war of aggression fought mainly to secure control of a foreign country’s most valuable resource, in this case, oil. That represents a revival of the kind of thinking that led Hawaii to be taken over as a coaling station for the U.S. Navy.
Er…I’m not sure I agree that Iraq is an indication of RISING (Economic/Political) Imperialism. Hell, I’m unsure its even a good example of Imperialism on the US’s part.
As for your Cold War comparison…even if I agree with you (which I don’t), that doesn’t take into account US economic Imperialism in the time frame I used as and example. Again, I don’t see US RISING Imperialism and your citing Iraq (a single example) doesn’t seem to indicate this. Perhaps you’d like to take ‘rising’ out and simply say that the US is still an economic/political Imperialistic power? Its a debatable point but I think you’d be on firmer ground with that. YMMV and all that.
-XT
What would you consider a good (post-Cold-War) example?
Well, its not really up to me to provide one…its up to you since it was your statement that the US has rising Imperialistic tendencies. Myself I don’t see it…thats why I asked. But then I don’t particularly think the US is currently imperialistic…and really hasn’t been since the gun boat diplomacy days in Central/South America. Even then it was pretty mild imperialism as far as these things go when compared to our Euro brethren, no?
Instead of throwing it back on me why don’t you show me how Iraq is: A) Imperialistic at all and B) How this one event shows a RISE in US Imperialism.
Seriously. You seem to think its a no brainer but really how is Iraq an indication of US imperialism? How does this one event, even if it was imperialistic, indicative of a rise in US imperialism?
-XT
I said only, “the U.S. is really starting to feel its imperial oats.” I.e., after the Cold War we found ourselves, for the first time in our history, the only remaining military power of global reach, and we immediately started to act as if that was a situation to be preserved and taken advantage of. The most significant thing about Gulf War I was the timing.
Using military force to secure control of a desired resource is classic imperialism. So is using military force to establish a permanent and effective presence in a strategically resource-rich region.
I would agree except for one thing…in ‘classic imperialism’ we would have used military force to secure control of said resource FOR us exclusively. At the least we would have forced Iraq to sell us their resource with extremely favorable trade conditions that were in our own favor a la the British. We have done neither afaik…in fact I don’t think we actually buy all that much oil from Iraq even today after the invasion.
-XT
I agree that post Cold War the US found itself the sole military superpower. I disagree that we immediately started to act more imperialistic. I think the US in the past, even before WWII when we were a major military power, arguably acted more ‘imperialistic’ than we do today…even though NOW we are pretty much the only military superpower AND an economic superpower with considerably more influence throughout the world. I’m not saying that your assessment of the US acting imperialistic is necessarily wrong today (its debatable certainly)…just that I don’t think the US is acting more imperialistic than it did in the past. I think that in fact we are acting less imperialistic these days just about across the board…even if I were to agree that Iraq is a good example. Again YMMV. 
-XT
Oh…and compared to EUROPEAN imperialism we are certainly pikers…even at our worst. Just wanted to toss that in. 
-XT
Because the insurgents keep blowing up the pipelines, I suppose. Still, it doesn’t matter much to whom Iraq’s oil is sold, so long as it is sold on the world market; oil is fungible and every available barrel lowers the average price. But the real point of the war was to secure the supply – mainly by establishing a U.S. “police station” at the fulcrum of the world’s richest oil-producing regions, and reducing the danger that some local government might try to withhold it for strategic purposes, or that some MENA country would collapse into chaos and keep everybody too preoccupied with survival to do any pumping or shipping.
James Howard Kunstler – www.kunstler.com – agrees with this assessment (see his recent “Clusterfuck Nation” columns) – and actually defends the war as necessary on that ground alone.
Sorry I missed this earlier. I wasn’t trying to gloss over anything; I was more wary of someone coming along to pedantically assert that in fact Rome did grant some freedoms to conquered peoples, yadda yadda yadda.
My point is still the same: it comes down to what one values. The good and bad things of either world model come in a package deal. If eliminating large-scale war is the highest good, then obviously the closer you get to a unipolar world the better. If, however, you’d prefer to see meaningful power vested in the most local level of government possible, then a multipolar world is better. And on and on with a whole host of variables.
Its hardly a text book example though of imperialism…no? And even if it was, its one example. Hardly the steep escallation that you seemed to be implying. All in all I still think our imperialistic tendencies (such as they were) were during the whole ‘gun boat diplomacy’ days. (You could probably make a better case with either cultural imperialism or economic with the US) Iraq’s are few and far between these days (and this is assuming I agree its a good example of imperialism).
-XT
Of course it’s a steep escalation! We never did anything like this during the Cold War! Even Vietnam wasn’t a war of naked aggression and occupation!
IR theory is a subtheory of political science. It has been historically dominated by a handful of mutually exclusive schools of thought that have, to be fair, undergone substantial change over the years. The wiki article is only minimally informative, but at least it links to summaries of some of the competing schools.
The “selectorate” is an idea from, in my opinion, the most interesting and useful realm of IR, that is, game theory. It comes from a book called The Logic of Political Survival. The linked review doesn’t do a bad job of laying out the central idea of the book.
In this context, the selectorate is the set of individuals who might find themselves in a winning coalition, that is, people whose support really matters to keep the incumbent in power. In the US, the selectorate (roughly speaking) is everyone who can vote, and the winning coalition is everyone who backs the winner. In North Korea, the selectorate is everyone in the communist party, and the winning coalition is a handful of extremely wealthy and powerful apparatchiks who keep the dictator in power. Finally, in Kenya, the selectorate is everyone who can vote, but since major elections are almost inevitably rigged, the winning coalition is composed of a few bureaucrats and wealthy campaign backers. The book argues that you can model a country’s domestic policies, tax rates, and the choice to go to war entirely based on the ratio of the winning coalition to the selectorate.
I confess my own bias: two of the books coauthors were my game theory and IR theory mentors in grad school. Nevertheless, it is a very good book and very rigorously argued. The authors also plainly state the limitations of their method and analysis and make plenty of suggestions for future work.
Brain? Remember the Maine.