In Robert D. Kaplan’s “Defense of Empire,” the author makes his position in the defense of empires clear early. He writes, “Throughout history, governance and relative safety have most often been provided by empires, Western or Eastern.” He argues that in between the times of imperial rule, chaos has ensued. While noting that the British Empire had its troubles, he notes its strengths, mainly that it brought stability and infrastructure that the regions had not known prior. He argues similar to Nail Ferguson that many of these empires such as those in India and China may have been cruel; they were less cruel than the alternative of individuals ruling their own borders. He goes on and shows how America has had its problems too, but it was under their imperial interests that intervention in humanitarian crises like Kosovo were made possible and would not have been otherwise. He then goes on and compares them to the alternatives; Nazis and communists who he says had little concern for governing but were driven by radical utopian ideals that were harmful to the vast majority under their yoke.
His main issue with imperialism is not that it is an exploitive or evil deed. His issue is that it is too expensive and an overly cumbersome foreign policy that is not sustainable because of how costly it is in terms of economics and manpower. He goes on to acknowledge these limits in the case of the U.S. and how expensive it would be to police the world and that they should be cautious where they engage militarily on the ground. However, he does say that the U.S. must continue to patrol the world because there are so many portions of the world, such as vast spaces in the Middle East, that are unable to have the components of a civil society.
In P.T. Bauer’s “The Economics of Resentment,” he intends to explore the relationship between colonial status and material progress. He is addressing the widespread sentiment since World War II that much of the former colonial world is poor and seeking material advancement, and that the west and colonialism are in large part responsible for this stagnation in material wealth. He first calls into the question the former of these assertions; that all poor countries are consciously trying to measure up to the wealth of others. He says that it is unlikely that these countries actually sit and compare themselves to distant nations. He also argues against the idea that the west is majorly to blame for the material stagnation of these groups. He gives examples of Ghana and others that show that a country is not doomed to stagnant economics just because they were a former colony but can actually outdo its neighbors who were not colonies. He argues that actually, colonization probably did not harm the economic and political difficulties of these nations but created foundations and networks that have allowed many of them to thrive in the post-war world. He argues that prior to colonization they were carrying with them burdens of inter-tribal conflict and were extremely backwards.
He writes that actually claiming that colonialism has had such an effect on these people is to strip their agency, seeing them as helpless in the face of their geo-political circumstances when in fact they exert agency on the direction of their nation. There are interests in the west to maintain and put forth an idea that colonization was the bringing of issues to the developing world. He seems to imply that it is in the best interest for American politicians and some groups that these countries stay poor and colonialism, a previous European system, is an easy way to affirm and explain the status quo. These people have come to power under the system of aid to impoverished nations and part of international bodies that work toward eradicating the vestiges of colonialism. In all, he argues not so much that colonialism is good but that it is not the end all explanation for the current circumstance. He is not saying that colonialism was good, but that circumstances existed prior to colonialism that can help explain the fractured nature of modern African and Middle Eastern society. Finally, he argues that there are actually groups that hope to see the narrative of underdevelopment to maintain because it allows them to work within groups that afford them power in trying to fix the problems of underdevelopment. Overall, he has an interesting argument that attempts to peel behind the layers and narrative that has led to a stripping of agency of the formerly colonized.
Both of these works stand very different from the writings of Mike Davis. Davis’ work, with its polarizing title including the word “holocaust.” Davis would disagree with both of the above writers. In regards to the good of colonialism, he would argue against it. While British colonialism was not as deliberate as Nazi Germany, he argues persuasively that British officials saw India as about to be lost in a famine but continued to not act and only worry about costs. They funneled away grains that could have fed people and worried about using the new technology and infrastructure to extract resources when they should have been helping. To David, colonialism is bad because that is what it is: an extractive relationship. It does not aim to improve the people. While it is apt to say they were not as deliberate as Nazi Germany, this comparison is not useful to Davis as it does not exonerate the truly exploitive actions of colonial powers.
In regards to the second reading, Davis would respond that it is not so much that people did not have agency in the case of being colonized but that the system was stacked so much against them that they had little recourse in the process. The system of infrastructure created by the British in places throughout India were never intended to help the Indian people but to feed the larger capitalist system they had become caught in. He would also argue that the author is revising pre-colonial history in a way that does not reflect the actual record. For example, as he shows prior to the incoming of the British colonial powers, Indian governments had ways to store food and knew how to deal with famines, which were a regular thing in their countries. However, the modern transportation systems supposedly helped bring them into the modern world in economics was actually the downfall of their ability to withstand the famine. They were no longer able to prevent the problems of the famine because of British colonialism, and were not saved by it.
Works Cited:
Davis, Mike. Victorian Holocausts. New York: Oxford, 2009.
