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Imperial Delusions

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Re: Imperial Delusions

#51

Post by hrh »

KaiserPro wrote: post #31

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 hea…

https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Niall-Ferguson/dp/0465023282

Solid author, genuine attempt objective history, the causes, the justifications, the sins, the benefits.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#52

Post by inglor_cz »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #43
inglor_cz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a very common practice for economies to peg their sovereign currency to a trading partner; there are on the order of 66 countries pegged to the US Dollar, and 20-odd pegged to the euro. If a country wanted to move off of the euro, it would be pretty easy to create a sovereign currency pegged to the euro 1:1 by the countries central bank. Then in the future they could simply unpeg (or change the rate) if that bec…

"it would be pretty easy to create a sovereign currency pegged to the euro 1:1 by the countries central bank"

How will you protect the peg? If moving off the euro is taken as a sign of your weakness, defending the peg against the market shorting you will bleed your central bank dry.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#54

Post by senthil_rajasek »

peteretep wrote: post #48
senthil_rajasek wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think India is building an empire? I believe that they are focussed on lifting their masses out of poverty.

Are we saying a country with 1.4bn people, 22 official languages, 5 major religions, over 100 ethnic groups isn’t an empire? Before the Raj, most of it was the Mughal Empire (1500-1800). Before that, the Delhi Sultanate, pretty definitely an empire (1200-1500). The only thing missing is the nomenclature.

There was no "India" before the British colonizers. So lets start from there.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#55

Post by gambiting »

inglor_cz wrote: post #50
gambiting wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find it surprising when people call Czech Republic or Poland "eastern block". Those two couldn't be possibly more central European if they tried. Czech Republic especially reaches only marginally more east than Germany, and I doubt you'd call Germans "eastern Europeans".

Historical reasons. For 40 years, the continent was split right in the middle. Back then, it was absolutely natural to speak about the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, possibly with neutral Austria and Switzerland as the weird exceptions. Of course there are huge differences between, say, Czechia and Moldova, but we were part of a single allied bloc controlled by a single power for two generations, so there are som…

I mean I'm Polish, and perhaps wrongly, but I have never thought about myself as Eastern European - for me that means Belarussians, Ukrainians, Romanians......for me "central European" is completely the right term for Poland, Slovakia and Czechia, but I understand it might not be the commonly accepted view.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#56

Post by laurencerowe »

lucian1900 wrote: post #12
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…

That’s certainly part of it. But the EU is certainly an imperialist block in the purely economic sense as well, just like the US or Britain. After all, wealth is extracted towards the centre through the low wages of workers in the periphery (especially Eastern Europe).

The EU has always made substantial transfers from richer to poorer countries (though its budget is only about 1% of GDP.) Being in the EU has been pretty good for the Eastern European countries that joined, both purely financially and in securing their democracies, just as it was for Spain and Portugal which have made substantial progress in catching up with the likes of France and Italy since they joined in 1986.

Sadly the same can't be said for the single currency - which many Eastern European countries haven't yet joined. Greece is perhaps the main counterexample in that its GDP per capita is no higher compared to France than it was when it joined (its GDP dropped by a huge amount since the 2008 crisis.)

Imagine if something similar would have been possible in the Americas.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#57

Post by hhs »

KaiserPro wrote: post #31

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 hea…

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

> after that I’m not sure.

This review covers some contemporary themes by discussing a book, “Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination”, which may be useful.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#58

Post by inglor_cz »

gambiting wrote: post #42
inglor_cz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Were you forced to do that, or was that a sovereign choice? The answer lies there.

I am not even sure if we agree on the question, much less answer.

Some sovereign choices in history have proven to be "Hotel California"-style: joining a scheme was a sovereign choice, but leaving it not so much.

An obvious example is the US which does not let the constituent states secede, even though they joined the Union voluntarily. In a similar vein, Scotland joined the UK voluntarily (though in serious economic crisis), but it cannot just leave on its own when it decides to.

The process of joining the euro has been constructed as one-way only. There are no legal mechanisms to get rid of this obligation once you join. Euro is intended to last forever.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#59

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Imperial Delusions

#60

Post by lucian1900 »

laurencerowe wrote: post #56
lucian1900 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s certainly part of it. But the EU is certainly an imperialist block in the purely economic sense as well, just like the US or Britain. After all, wealth is extracted towards the centre through the low wages of workers in the periphery (especially Eastern Europe).

The EU has always made substantial transfers from richer to poorer countries (though its budget is only about 1% of GDP.) Being in the EU has been pretty good for the Eastern European countries that joined, both purely financially and in securing their democracies, just as it was for Spain and Portugal which have made substantial progress in catching up with the likes of France and Italy since they joined in 1986. Sa…

The transfers don’t even compare to how much our labour is exploited. The difference in wage for the same work is the main tool used for this. Another is forcing our countries into privatisation, deregulation and austerity.

We’re much worse off than before 89 and the EU is a large part of the reason why. Another is the IMF.

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