# Crosscurrents (Vol. 5 No. 2) **URL:** **Published:** January 1, 1988 --- “In the twentieth century no concept of political economy has caused more confusion than that of imperialism.” ## The Study of Imperialism In the twentieth century no concept of political economy has caused more confusion than that of imperialism. It has become an integral element in the ideologies of the Second and Third World nations and the subject of endless hairsplitting among their intellectuals and among the radicals of the First World. Moreover, beliefs about imperialism, as well as the actual residue of the “new imperialism,” have caused much bloodshed, from Africa to Southeast Asia and from the Middle East and Central Europe to Latin America. Most of the theoretical work on imperialism is rooted in the assumptions and observations surrounding the extranational British experiences in the latter half of the nineteenth century and up to the Great War. This is generally true, regardless of whether the theorists were, as E. M. Winslow classified them in his classic work, _The Pattern of Imperialism_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948), Marxist, Liberal, or Sociological. The Marxists, such as V. I. Lenin (author of _Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism_ \[various editions\]), Rosa Luxemburg, and Karl Kautsky, saw capitalism, as exemplified by the Britain of their day, to be dependent for its very existence on continued and accelerating expansion into new foreign markets. This, it seemed, could be done ultimately only by expanding and fighting with other “mother countries” over existing and prospective colonies. The Liberals, such as Richard Cobden and John Bright, saw the growth of the new British Empire during the mid-to late-nineteenth century as altogether anticapitalist and thoroughly detrimental to the interests of the vast majority of workers and capitalists alike. (Strong statements of European Liberal anti-imperialism can be found in _Western Liberalism_, ed. by E. K. Bramsted and K. J. Melhuish \[New York: Longman, 1978\], esp. pp. 278-383.) This view was echoed by such American observers as the businessman Edward Atkinson and the sociologist William Graham Sumner. (Sumner’s essay on the Spanish-American War, “The Conquest of the United States by Spain” \[various editions\], is a classic statement of Liberal anti-imperialism.) Later “New Liberals,” such as J. A. Hobson (_Imperialism_ \[New York: Pott, 1902\]), who advocated an “overproduction” theory of imperialism, sat confusedly somewhere between the Liberal and Marxist camps. (An important work inspired by Hobson is Parker T. Moon’s excellent _Imperialism and World Politics_ \[New York: Macmillan, 1926\].) Somewhat ironically, the Sociological approach is most ably represented by the great economist Joseph Schumpeter (see his essay, “The Sociology of Imperialisms,” in _Imperialism and Social Classes_ \[1919; New York: The World Publishing Co., 1955\]). According to this approach, imperialism was an atavism, a giant step backward after several centuries of progressive movement towards the modernism of free trade, the international rule of law, and the other elements of the Great Society. Although this vast edifice of theory has been built on the nineteenth-century British experience, few in-depth empirical studies of the period in terms of the actual profitability (how high and for whom) of imperialism have been written. Happily that has now been remedied by the publication of _Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire: The Political Economy of British Imperialism, 1860-1912_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) by Lance E. Davis and Robert A. Huttenback. This study finds that British capitalism as such did not gain at all and was in fact hurt by expansion of the Empire. As the Liberals had argued all along and as Davis and Huttenback demonstrate, the British Empire (and, by implication, all similar ventures in imperialism) served mainly to transfer wealth via taxes and access to scarce bank credit from taxpayers (workers and capitalists alike) to tax consumers (e.g., foreign service bureaucrats, the military, subsidized businesses, and holders of public debt). But the wealth-transfer gains were ephemeral at best. In the long run the pursuit of imperialism, as the Liberals had warned, only led to losses for all concerned. The role of war and statism in diminishing both liberty and economic prosperity deserves careful historical examination. Davis and Huttenback have made an important addition to that examination. (Also see Jeffrey G. Williamson’s study of the impact of the Napoleonic Wars on Britain, focusing on the “crowding out” effect of war financing: “Why Was British Growth So Slow before the 1820s?” in his _Did British Capitalism Breed Inequality?_ \[Boston: Allen \& Unwin, 1985\].) These issues can provide grist for many dissertations, term papers, and journal articles in economic and diplomatic history, historical sociology, and international studies. ## Betrayal of the Peasant The systematic impoverishment of peasant populations in many less-developed countries (LDCs)—and the consequent crippling of agricultural production—is one of the most significant factors in the economic and political misfortunes of these nations. Centralized states, an inheritance of colonialism, are typically organized and run by urban dwellers, who use the state powers and bureaucracies bequeathed by the departing Europeans to expropriate the agricultural surplus of the majority farming population. Monopoly state marketing-boards, for example, pay below-market prices for agricultural goods to subsidize the consumption of often-nonproductive bureaucratic elites. Unsurprisingly, farmers respond by producing less. (For a general study of kleptocracy in Africa, see, for example, Stanislav Andreski, _The African Predicament: A Study in the Pathology of Modernization_ \[New York: Atherton Press, 1969\]; also see P. T. Bauer, _Dissent on Development_ \[Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972\]. For an examination of the rational responses of peasants to incentives, see Samuel Popkin, _The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam_ \[Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979\].) One proposed solution to the resulting rural impoverishment has been land reform, a program carried out by the same states responsible for the expropriation of the production of the peasants in the first place. Economists John P. Powelson and Richard Stock (_The Peasant Betrayed: Agriculture and Land Reform in the Third World_ \[Boston: Oelgeschlager, Gunn \& Hain, 1987\]) have now shown how relying on states to carry out land reform often leads to consequences even worse than the condition it is intended to remedy. Thus, “Instead of benefiting the peasants—as they promised to do—many states undertaking land reform have enriched themselves. Thus land reform has become another policy instrument to skim off the ‘agricultural surplus.’” Powelson and Stock, in conjunction with other scholars, have provided very valuable case histories of land reform in sixteen nations, with brief treatments of eleven others. (The work of Powelson and Stock could profitably be read in conjunction with the detailed study by anthropologist Grace Goodell of the effects of land reform on one farmer in the Philippines, “Who Should Manage Mang Lino’s Farm? Mang Lino or the State?” _Research in Domestic and International Agribusiness Management_ \[1983\] Vol. IV.) This instrusion by the central state into social processes often generates in turn responses of “disengagement” from the state. In their study of the West African countries of Ghana and Guinea, scholars Victor Azarya and Naomi Chazan (“Disengagement from the State in Africa: Reflections on the Experiences of Ghana and Guinea,” _Contemporary Studies in Society and History_, January 1978) identify four such responses: “suffer-manage,” “escape,” “parallel systems,” and “self-enclosure.” The works cited above will prove useful to students of development economics, anthropology, sociology, political science, and related disciplines, providing a foundation for many profitable research projects. ## The Market vs. Racism The manifold relationships between forms of racial subjugation and the dynamics of both political and market systems have been examined by a number of historians and social theorists, notably Thomas Sowell in his _Ethnic America_ (New York: Basic Books, 1981) and _Markets and Minorities_ (New York: Basic Books, 1981). Recent scholarship has shed additional light on the dynamics of racial oppression, the role of state interventionism in its advancement, and the parallel role of market relations in mitigating or eliminating it. Historian Juliet E. K. Walker (“Racism, Slavery, and Free Enterprise: Black Entrepreneurship in the United States before the Civil War,” _Business History Review_ \[60\] Autumn 1986, pp. 343-382) has provided a very useful history of black entrepreneurship in the antebellum United States. Drawing on original research, Walker gives inspiring examples of how black entrepreneurs, both slave and free, used the market system to accomplish their own liberation. As Walker shows, “It was the very sanctity of private property in American life and thought that allowed blacks, slave and free, to participate in the antebellum economy as entrepreneurs,” often using their profits to purchase the freedom that was unjustly denied them. Walker’s study, rich in bibliographical references, helps to show the essence of entrepreneurial alertness within a private-property economy. Another scholar working on the dynamics of racial conflict, but concentrating on the role of state coercion in its furtherance, is economist Jennifer Roback. In her “Southern Labor Law in the Jim Crow Era: Exploitative or Competitive?” (_University of Chicago Law Review_ \[51\] Fall 1984, pp. 1161-1192) Roback shows how “Jim Crow” labor laws “can best be understood as attempts to enforce a labor-market cartel among white employers that could not be enforced in any other way.” Her “The Political Economy of Segregation: The Case of Segregated Streetcars” (_Journal of Economic History_ \[46\] December 1986, pp. 893-917) draws on newspaper and other accounts of streetcar segregation around the turn of the century in the southern United States. It shows that state coercion was necessary to overcome the naturally integrating forces of the market. As she writes of the case of the Augusta Railway and Electric Company in Georgia, “State legislation, public agitation, and a threat to arrest the president of the railroad were all required to induce them to separate the races on their cars. These pressures were political, not economic. That is, there was little or no concern that whites would stop riding the cars if the railroad failed to comply.” Students and scholars in social history, economics, economic history, and related disciplines will find in the work of these scholars ample suggestions of research opportunities, ranging from term papers to doctoral dissertations, journal articles, and books. ## Liberal History A classic work in liberal history, Alexander Rüstow’s _Freedom and Domination: A Historical Critique of Civilization_ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980) is now available in an inexpensive paperback edition. The book, a condensation of the original three volume German edition, provides a sweeping interpretation of human history, locating the source of domination in the original act of conquest at the foundation of the state. Rüstow, a professor of sociology at the University of Heidelberg and a leading German opponent of Hitler, approaches history as a “pathologist,” seeking the distant origins of the totalitarian horrors of the twentieth century. Rüstow leaves “no doubt of any kind about what I affirm and reject in the past, present, or future. I affirm freedom and reject domination, I affirm humaneness and reject barbarism, I affirm peace and reject violence. These pairs of opposites are the great poles between which the drama of human history is enacted.” Rüstow’s work should be read by students of history and all others who wish to understand the historical development of domination. _Freedom and Domination_ is available at a discounted price ($19.95; add $1.00 for U.S. surface mail, $2.00 for United Parcel Service, and $2.50 for foreign surface mail) from Laissez Faire Books, 532 Broadway, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10012 (orders may be phoned in toll-free: 1-800-238-2200, ext. 500). When ordering be sure to state the special ordering code: HSRR. ## Regulation vs. Free Speech: The Case of Broadcasting The determination of the content of messages broadcast through the electromagnetic spectrum by governments around the world, whether through state broadcasting operations or through licensing of private firms, has provided governments with a powerful tool of social control. Experience in the United States, where the broadcast media are licensed and regulated rather than owned outright by the state (with only a few exceptions), has generated a substantial debate over the applicability of the “print model” to the broadcast spectrum. Under current law, broadcasters do not enjoy the protection of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits Congress from making any law “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” This restriction on state power grew out of the English experience with licensing of the press, which generated results similar to today’s licensing of the broadcast media (see John Milton’s classic essay against licensing of the press, _Areopagitica_ \[various editions\]). A new book by the legal scholar Lucas A. Powe, Jr. (\*American Broadcasting and the First ## Amendment Amendment \[Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987\]) argues that, “Consistent with the English experience, abuses of licensing are an inevitable by-product of the decision to license and supervise the licensees. It is naive to assume that the safeguards presumed to be built into the system or some uniqueness of the American character could spare us from the political abuses of licensing a part of the press.” Students wishing to write on the relationship between state control and freedom of expression could profitably examine Powe’s legal and historical analysis in conjunction with the property-rights analysis in IHS Claude R. Lambe Fellow Milton Mueller’s work, “Reforming Telecommunications Regulation” (in Edwin Diamond and Norman Sandler, and Milton Mueller, _Telecommunications in Crisis: The First Amendment, Technology, and Deregulation_ \[Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1983\]). This issue offers many opportunities for research and publication in legal scholarship, history, engineering, political science, and economics. ## The Welfare State The activities of the modern welfare state, with its attendant enervating effects on its “clients,” have been studied and criticized from various perspectives by classical liberal scholars (e.g., Charles Murray, _Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980_ \[New York: Basic Books, 1984\]; in addition, Walter E. Williams, _The State Against Blacks_ \[New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982\] demonstrates the two-sided nature of the modern welfare state, consisting, on the one hand, of devices for exclusion of the poor from opportunities for economic advancement, and on the other, of dependency-creating dole programs or subsidized leaf-raking jobs). The social-welfare and improvement network that would replace a bureaucratic and coercive welfare system has, unfortunately, received less attention. The widespread participation in workers’ mutual-aid societies, for example, served as a means of providing assistance in the absence of coercive welfare programs. Such organizations have largely been supplanted by the welfare bureaucracy. (See, for example, W. K. Jordan’s _The Charities of London, 1480-1660_ \[London: George Allen \& Unwin, 1960\], P.H.J.H. Gosden’s _The Friendly Societies in England, 1815-1875_ \[Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1961\] and _Self Help_ (London: Macmillan, 1982), and David Green’s works, _Mutual Aid or Welfare State: Australia’s Friendly Societies_ \[Sydney: Allen \& Unwin, 1984\] and _Working Class Patients and the Medical Establishment: Self-Help in Britain from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to 1948_ \[London: Temple Smith, 1985\]. A useful, though uncritical, guide to scholarship in the area of philanthropy—as distinguished from self-help or mutual aid—is Daphne Niobe Layton’s _Philanthropy and Voluntarism: An Annotated Bibliography_ \[New York: The Foundation Center, 1987; available for $18.50 from the Foundation Center, 79 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003\].) With advancements in the theoretical understanding of both voluntary aid and coercive welfarism (for examples, see, respectively, Robert Sugden’s essays, “Voluntary Organizations and the Welfare State,” in Julian Le Grand and Ray Robinson, eds., _Privatisation and the Welfare State_ \[London: George Allen \& Unwin, 1984\], and “Who Cares?: An Economic and Ethical Analysis of Private Charity and the Welfare State,” IEA Occasional Paper 67 \[London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1983\]), the case for replacing coercion with voluntarism has been strengthened. Additional historical work complementing these theoretical developments is needed. Opportunities for historians—whether at the faculty, graduate, or undergraduate level—to investigate actual self-help and mutual-aid systems are available in virtually every country and city in the world. Another exciting challenge for liberal scholarship is the integration of the theory and practice of social welfare within the broader contexts provided by political economy and political and moral philosophy. A provocative new book attempting this from a socialist perspective is Bill Jordan’s _Rethinking Welfare_ (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987). While quite critical of classical liberalism (offering at times mere caricatures), Jordan attempts to combine his concern for mutual aid and voluntary self-help with his belief that a powerful state is necessary to guarantee the basic needs of citizens. Classical liberals may occasionally wince at Jordan’s unsympathetic portrayal, but he does attempt to take classical liberal approaches seriously, and to see them as competitors to statism as guarantors of a liberal, prospering, and just society. Jordan’s work suggests a research program that liberal scholars in sociology, social administration and social work, history, and political philosophy would do well to take up. ## Classical Liberalism, Libertarianism Surveyed A new book by political scientist Norman Barry traces the various strands of classical liberal thought. In _On Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism_ (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987) Barry carefully brings out the contributions of the eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment, the Chicago and Austrian Schools of economics, contractarianism, natural-rights doctrines, utilitarianism, and other thinkers and schools to liberal thought. Barry, author of _Hayek’s Social and Economic Philosophy_ (London: Macmillan, 1979) and _An Introduction to Modern Political Theory_ (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981), has provided a scholarly and highly recommended introduction to liberal theory. Another valuable introduction to classical liberal thought is _The New Enlightenment: The Rebirth of Liberalism_ (London: Macmillan, 1986) by David Graham and Peter Clarke. Written in conjunction with the English-language television series on liberalism, “The New Enlightenment,” the book offers a very readable overview of the development and contributions of classical liberalism in recent times. While tracing the roots of classical liberalism to the Scottish Enlightenment, the book unfortunately slights some of the other contributors to the liberal tradition, such as the French liberals of the nineteenth century. This flavors somewhat the account given of liberalism, rendering it more “cautious” than critical and liberating. All in all, however, _The New Enlightenment_ is a most enlightening introduction to classical liberal thought.