81–90 of 109 posts
How is this any different than how the US maintains its empire now? David Brooks' column in the NYTimes this week is the same thing - using the excuse of LGBT rights to justify American colonial projects in Iraq, Afhanistan and Palestine, with an eye on Iran, China and Cuba. Use force to show the savages how it should be done. Empire has always been forged in the name of social justice. See the (racist) 1899 politica…
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How do you define an empire? Your definition is quite odd to me. India is structured like the USA, a collection of states, with central and regional powers. But they are very much internally focused, and rarely venture into global politics. They don’t intend to colonize any other states, nor make any attempts at militarizing anything outside their borders. I would find it hard to ever compare India to a British-like…
Do you believe it was an empire under the Mughals? If so, what's changed?
Also, for Indians, organizing into such a distributed state->central structure was the only way to survive after the British (an actual empire) had finished their colonial destruction. The Mughals violently acquired multiple regional monarchies, to be ruled by their monarchy.
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Do you believe it was an empire under the Mughals? If so, what's changed?
For starters, India now has a representative democracy? Empire usually means a monarchy. Also, for Indians, organizing into such a distributed state->central structure was the only way to survive after the British (an actual empire) had finished their colonial destruction. The Mughals violently acquired multiple regional monarchies, to be ruled by their monarchy.
So did the Romans for 500 years
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For starters, India now has a representative democracy? Empire usually means a monarchy. Also, for Indians, organizing into such a distributed state->central structure was the only way to survive after the British (an actual empire) had finished their colonial destruction. The Mughals violently acquired multiple regional monarchies, to be ruled by their monarchy.
> India now has a representative democracy So did the Romans for 500 years
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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.
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…
I feel this about anything I read about empire in the last few years. I enjoyed Paxman's book Empire for the very reason that he mocks the self-righteousness of the "heroes of Empire", their "divine mission", the way the country at home responded (or didn't care at all anymore) but doesn't shy away from giving the same critical eye to the colonised people.
That's a common approach in certain academic and popular works about colonialism and Empires.
And it's not much different to "giving the same critical eye" to the the rapist and the rape victim.
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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.
Meanwhile Ukraine, which was not on the EU track and was about as rich as Poland in 1989, saw a much longer drop in GDP after 1989 and its GDP per capita is now just 1/3rd of Poland's.
It's difficult to imagine how Eastern European countries would have fared better had they not joined the EU.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2...
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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 lir…
Greece's own currency was the Drachma. The Lira belonged to Italy.
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I feel this about anything I read about empire in the last few years. I enjoyed Paxman's book Empire for the very reason that he mocks the self-righteousness of the "heroes of Empire", their "divine mission", the way the country at home responded (or didn't care at all anymore) but doesn't shy away from giving the same critical eye to the colonised people.
> but doesn't shy away from giving the same critical eye to the colonised people. That's a common approach in certain academic and popular works about colonialism and Empires. And it's not much different to "giving the same critical eye" to the the rapist and the rape victim.