Colonialism and liberalism

[Monty Cantsin]

Does Colonialism and the racial exploitation on which it was built, demonstrate the bankruptcy of western liberalism with its strong defence of individual liberties?


(this is a question i have for political science, i was wonder if anyone had any opinions or works they think are Crucial for the topic - I should read so forth. )

[More Fire for the People]

Wretched of the Earth. Especially Sartre's preface.

[luxemburg89]

Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' raises some brilliant questions of colonialism and western thought towards the colonised groups.

[gilhyle]

My answer is no.....no more than supporting imperialism in the 'new world' in the 16th century showed the bankruptcy of the Catholic Church.

Liberalism was always internally divided on colonialism and on the extent they were willing to go for it. This reflects the high costs of colonial administration and the often questionable capacities of colonial regimes to extract surplus without falling into the Leopold-Congo type administration. But the divisions of liberalism on this reflected its organic ties to its class.

Bankruptcy is when a doctrine can no longer represent the class interests of its class. The defence of individual liberty remains the key to prosperity of the capitalist state, particulary with the schlerotic encroachment of bureaucracy and 'regulated markets' at all turns.

The greatest threat to liberalism in Europe at the start of the 20th Cent (i.e. the UK liberal party, the Third Republic in France and the Christian democrats) was the continued growth of social democratic movements, particularly after the collapse of the Second International in WW1. They have survived that threat by competing within the social democratic parties and the conservative parties.

Fascinating to see how being anti-liberal has become a catch phrase for the left in France as it is for the right in the US.

Liberalism now rarely has its own parties, but it is alive and well. It has become a cuckoo. Ignore it here, ignore it there, you will find it everywhere.

[apathy maybe]

Originally posted by Monty [email protected] 28, 2007 04:19 pm
Does Colonialism and the racial exploitation on which it was built, demonstrate the bankruptcy of western liberalism with its strong defence of individual liberties?


(this is a question i have for political science, i was wonder if anyone had any opinions or works they think are Crucial for the topic - I should read so forth. )
No. The colonialism of the French, Spanish and most other countries was not built on liberalism for one, and those countries were not liberal for most (or all) of their colonial history.

Great Britain is the only country which claimed to be liberal and also maintained a large empire, and even so I'm sure that the government didn't claim to be liberal. Merely the intelligentsia.

Anyway, I've actually just finished reading J.S. Mill's On Liberty, and he talks in there about uncivilised nations being the same as uncivilised people or children. Society doesn't let children do what they want, and neither should civilised nations let young nations do what they want.

He mentions Charlemagne and Akbar as rulers that an uncivilised nation should hope for.

It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that this doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties. We are not speaking of children, or of young persons below the age which the law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood. Those who are still in a state to require being taken care of by others, must be protected against their own actions as well as against external injury. For the same reason, we may leave out of consideration those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage. The early difficulties in the way of spontaneous progress are so great, that there is seldom any choice of means for overcoming them; and a ruler full of the spirit of improvement is warranted in the use of any expedients that will attain an end, perhaps otherwise unattainable. Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to an Akbar or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one. But as soon as mankind have attained the capacity of being guided to their own improvement by conviction or persuasion (a period long since reached in all nations with whom we need here concern ourselves), compulsion, either in the direct form or in that of pains and penalties for non-compliance, is no longer admissible as a means to their own good, and justifiable only for the security of others.
http://utilitarianism.com/ol/one.html