Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Imperial Delusions

nybooks.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 109 posts

Re: Imperial Delusions

#31

Post by KaiserPro »

how the british justified their empire, in the 1930s. that last bit is important.

Like most things, the justification changed over time. In the 16th century, it was all about the king trying to finance his massive spending habit.

Then it was about trade. Then it was about re-enforcing that trade. Then the east india company fucked up, and india because a colonial possession. Then the missions tried to convert the heathens.

after that I'm not sure. We don't teach empire at all. The problem is that nowadays its difficult to find readable history that isn't there to either totally damn or justify the empire. Even less so ones that draw on first party sources from the british and locals.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#32

Post by nradov »

inglor_cz wrote: post #25
derriz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's very incidental. The EU is a completely voluntary association. There are those that left freely and there are others who want to join and its powers and purpose is driven by treaties agreed by all members. Being a colony of the British empire was nothing like this and the quote explains a justification for expansionist military imperial behaviour which has no analogue that I can see in the way the EU was fo…

"The EU is a completely voluntary association." Not for the members who accepted euro as a currency. There is literally no legal way out of the euro, it is meant to last forever. And a country leaving the EU, but staying in the eurozone as a full member is a completely unchartered territory.

Laws are only binding on sovereign states to the extent they choose to follow. Any Euro zone country could simply change their internal laws to adopt a different currency. The EU has no way to stop that, although they could potentially impose some sanctions.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#33

Post by inglor_cz »

fulafel wrote: post #28
inglor_cz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The EU is a completely voluntary association." Not for the members who accepted euro as a currency. There is literally no legal way out of the euro, it is meant to last forever. And a country leaving the EU, but staying in the eurozone as a full member is a completely unchartered territory.

Sovereign countries can exit anything they decide to, unless overpowered by force.

Now the question is: are you still a sovereign country if you pooled your currency with N other countries that exert a common decision power through a central bank over it?

Having power over your own currency, in good or bad, is a typical attribute of being sovereign. There are minor exceptions (like Kosovo adopting euro unilaterally), but they are very untypical.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#34

Post by DetroitThrow »

inglor_cz wrote: post #26
DetroitThrow wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point was demonstrating that the EU and militaristic and colonial empire of the former UK have very limited similarities other than they both represent entities with international economic power to some degree. A ridiculous notion in the context of history and reality. He goes on to ask "what's your point?" which leads me to believe he knows how ridiculous his comparison is but is just making it in bad fa…

"making it in bad faith. " No, I wanted him to actually list some counterpoints, not just asking pointed questions without concrete points. You cannot answer a "Ha, have you heard of X?" question in any meaningful way.

I keep seeing people claim there is no bad faith approach being made on their end on HN and instead flipping the accusation on another person and claiming their post is indecipherable, even when opposing person's argument is quite clear if even a small effort is taken to gleam meaning from it.

I'm not going to pretend that person spoke in hieroglyphs, and if you are, then it's clear you are speaking from a place of bad faith. I've even spelled it out to you and you've refused to address the original person posing the question and instead brow beat on what you think you can get away with regarding nettiquette - the most uninteresting part of the conversation possible.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#35

Post by Darvokis »

inglor_cz wrote: post #7
hardlianotion wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The British Empire was a pretty good go at building a money-focussed empire

True, but they willingly resorted to raw force if deemed necessary. I wonder if the EU is going to cross that Rubicon one day, too. There is a significant ideological penalty against it, because one of the founding ideas is that cooperation prevents wars.

As climate change affects more and more of Africa and the Middle East, we're going to see the EU drift towards more of a cohesive nation state by necessity. Just a few million refugees from Syria sparked a tide of far-right movements across Europe. Just wait 'til tens or hundreds of millions stand at the gates, representing an existential threat. It's almost an inevitability.

I'm not talking about tomorrow or next year. More on a timeline of 20-40 years when we start seeing more profound global upheavals. The nature of the EU will change too.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#36

Post by inglor_cz »

mwfunk wrote: post #13
inglor_cz wrote: post #2

"ideology of moral purpose and historical necessity" Incidentally, that sounds a lot like the ideology that sustains the existence of the EU now. Of course, the EU empire works in a different way; economic hostility towards outsiders (high tariffs and compliance cost when importing anything), access to a big common market and a lot of subventions for the insiders. It might be the first attempt to build an empire on m…

As long as "money" means "everyone's money" and not "money for oligarchs", then that's infinitely better than what nations and empires have historically been built on: ethnicity, religion, geography, tribal identity, etc. You basically described every modern nation since 1776, and explained the purpose of international trade agreements. Governments (ideally) exist to allow everyone to coexist and peacefully do busine…

Various oligarchs sucking from the subvention teat are absolutely everyday occurrence east of the Elbe. It seems to be a feature of the system.

Some of them even start or own big political parties.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#37

Post by nradov »

inglor_cz wrote: post #27
throwawaygh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> economic hostility towards outsiders Completely incomparable. Economic protectionism vs. invading, colonizing, and enslaving huge portions of the world.

Times have changed, methods have changed, too. Google does not invade or colonize anyone and yet their control over spread of information is probably better than whatever former great powers could boast. In the same way, countries like Greece can be kicked around by troika without a single shot fired.

In what sense was Greece kicked around? They could do whatever they wanted. But when they asked other countries for huge loans, naturally the lenders imposed some conditions to ensure repayment.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#38

Post by namelessoracle »

rantwasp wrote: post #14
inglor_cz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but they willingly resorted to raw force if deemed necessary. I wonder if the EU is going to cross that Rubicon one day, too. There is a significant ideological penalty against it, because one of the founding ideas is that cooperation prevents wars.

the EU is not an empire. and it’s members are loosely coupled at best. Look at what happened to the UK: they just got their toys and left. the EU just does not have the cohesion to act like and empire and conquer anything. It’s more like a big market

So was the US once. All it takes is a big external or internal threat to get power centralized....

Re: Imperial Delusions

#39

Post by gambiting »

nradov wrote: post #32
inglor_cz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The EU is a completely voluntary association." Not for the members who accepted euro as a currency. There is literally no legal way out of the euro, it is meant to last forever. And a country leaving the EU, but staying in the eurozone as a full member is a completely unchartered territory.

Laws are only binding on sovereign states to the extent they choose to follow. Any Euro zone country could simply change their internal laws to adopt a different currency. The EU has no way to stop that, although they could potentially impose some sanctions.

I don't know why you're getting downvoted, it's exactly right. Poland agreed to adopt the Euro as one of the conditions of being accepted, and then the global financial crash happened and basically said you know what guys, we won't be doing that after all. If a country wants to stop using Euro they absolutely can - it was proposed as one of the solutions to the issue of Greek national debt, them going back to the lira, it didn't go through for many reasons but it definitely wasn't because "there's no legal way". There absolutely is.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#40

Post by somewhereoutth »

inglor_cz wrote: post #2

"ideology of moral purpose and historical necessity" Incidentally, that sounds a lot like the ideology that sustains the existence of the EU now. Of course, the EU empire works in a different way; economic hostility towards outsiders (high tariffs and compliance cost when importing anything), access to a big common market and a lot of subventions for the insiders. It might be the first attempt to build an empire on m…

"Peace and prosperity from the Atlantic to the Urals, from the Sahara to the Arctic Circle. A new Rome for a new age."
Post reply on HN