Book Spring 2005.Qxd

Niall Ferguson The unconscious colossus: limits of (& alternatives to) American empire What is an empire? In the words of ample, an empire could be an oligarchy one of the few modern historians to at- at home, aiming to acquire raw materials tempt a genuinely comparative study of from abroad, thereby increasing interna- empires, it is tional trade, using mainly military methods, imposing a market economy, serv- First and foremost, a very great power ing the interests of its ruling elite, and that has left its mark on the internation- fostering a hierarchical social character. al relations of an era . a polity that rules Another empire might be a democracy at over wide territories and many peoples, home, aiming to ensure security, provid- since the management of space and multi- ing peace as a public good, ruling mainly ethnicity is one of the great perennial di- through ½rms and ngos, promoting a lemmas of empire . An empire is by def- mixed economy, serving the interests of inition . not a polity ruled with the ex- all inhabitants, and fostering an assim- plicit consent of its peoples . [But] by ilative social character. a process of assimilation of peoples and The ½rst column reminds us that im- democratization of institutions empires perial power can be acquired by more can transform themselves into multina- than one type of political system. The tional federations or even nation states.1 self-interested objectives of imperial It is possible to be still more precise expansion (second column) range from than this. In the table below, I have at- the fundamental need to ensure the se- tempted a simple typology intended to curity of the metropolis by imposing capture the diversity of forms that can order on enemies at its (initial) borders, be subsumed under the heading em- to the collection of rents and taxation pire. Note that the table should be read from subject peoples, to say nothing of as a menu rather than as a grid. For ex- the perhaps more obvious prizes of new land for settlement, raw materials, treasure, and manpower–all of which, it Niall Ferguson is professor of history at Harvard should be emphasized, would need to University, senior fellow of the Hoover Institution, be available at prices lower than those and senior research fellow of Jesus College, Ox- established in free exchange with inde- ford. His latest book is “Colossus: The Price of pendent peoples if the cost of conquest America’s Empire” (2004). 1 Dominic Lieven, Empire: The Russian Empire © 2005 by Niall Ferguson and Its Rivals (London: John Murray, 2000), xiv. 18 Dædalus Spring 2005 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/0011526053887419 by guest on 27 September 2021 Table 1 Limits of An imperial typology (& alternatives to) American Metropolitan Self-interested Public goods Methods of Economic Cui bono? Social empire system objectives rule system character Tyranny Security Peace Military Plantation Ruling elite Genocidal Aristocracy Communi- Trade Bureaucracy Feudal Metro- Hierarchical cations politan Oligarchy Investment Settlement Mercantilist populace Converting Land Democracy Law ngos Market Settlers Assimilative Raw materials Governance Firms Mixed Local elites Treasure Education Delegation Planned All to local inhabitants Manpower Conversion elites Rents Health Taxation and colonization were to be justi½ed.2 ranging from slavery to laissez-faire, At the same time, an empire may provide from one form of serfdom (feudalism) public goods–that is, intended or unin- to another (the planned economy). tended bene½ts of imperial rule flowing Nor is it by any means a given that the not to the rulers but to the ruled and be- bene½ts of empire should flow simply yond to third parties: less conflict, more to the metropolitan society. It may only trade or investment, improved justice be the elites of that society–or colonists or governance, better education (which drawn from lower income groups in the may or may not be associated with reli- metropole, or subject peoples, or the gious conversion, something we would elites within subject societies–that reap not nowadays regard as a public good), the bene½ts of empire. or improved material conditions. Finally, the social character of an em- The fourth column tells us that impe- pire–to be precise, the attitudes of the rial rule can be implemented by more rulers toward the ruled–may vary. At than one kind of functionary: soldiers, one extreme lies the genocidal empire civil servants, settlers, voluntary associa- of National Socialist Germany, intent on tions, ½rms, and local elites can in differ- the annihilation of speci½c ethnic groups ent ways impose the will of the center on and the deliberate degradation of others. the periphery. There are almost as many At the other extreme lies the Roman Em- varieties of imperial economic systems, pire, in which citizenship was obtainable under certain conditions regardless of 2 For an attempt at a formal economic theory ethnicity. In the middle lies the Victori- of empire, see Herschel I. Grossman and Juan an Empire, in which inequalities of Mendoza, “Annexation or Conquest? The Eco- nomics of Empire Building,” nber Working wealth and status were mitigated by a Paper No. 8109 (February 2001). general (though certainly not unquali- Dædalus Spring 2005 19 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/0011526053887419 by guest on 27 September 2021 Niall ½ed) principle of equality before the law. tional wisdom on the Left is that the Ferguson on The precise combination of all these var- United States uses its power, wittingly or imperialism iables determines, among other things, unwittingly, to shore up the position of the geographical extent–and of course American corporations and the regimes the duration–of an empire. (usually corrupt and authoritarian) that All told, there have been no more than are willing to do the same.4 The losers seventy empires in history, if The Times are the impoverished majorities in the Atlas of World History is to be believed. developing world. Others would claim The question is whether the United that many millions of people around the States should be numbered among them. world have bene½ted in some way from Applying the typology set out in the ta- the existence of America’s empire (not ble, it is certainly not dif½cult to charac- least the Western Europeans, Japanese, terize the United States as an empire. It and South Koreans who were able to goes without saying that it is a liberal de- prosper during the Cold War under the mocracy and market economy (though protection of the American empire by its polity has some illiberal characteris- invitation); and that the economic los- tics, and its economy a surprisingly high ers of the post–Cold War era, particular- level of state intervention). It is primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, are victims not ly concerned with its own security and of American power, but of its absence. maintaining international communica- For the American empire is limited in its tions and, secondarily, with ensuring extent: It conspicuously lacks the vora- access to raw materials. It is also in the cious appetite for territorial expansion business of providing a limited number overseas that characterized the empires of public goods: peace, by intervening of the Western European seaboard. Even against some bellicose regimes and in when it conquers, it resists annexation– some civil wars; freedom of the seas and one reason why the durations of its off- skies for trade; and a distinctive form of shore imperial undertakings have tended conversion usually called Americaniza- to be, and will in all probability continue tion, which is carried out less by old- to be, relatively short. style Christian missionaries than by the How different is the American empire exporters of American consumer goods from previous empires? Like the ancient and entertainment. Its methods of for- Egyptian Empire, it erects towering edi- mal rule are primarily military in charac- ½ces in its heartland, though these house ter; its methods of informal rule rely the living rather than the dead. Like the heavily on corporations and nongovern- Athenian Empire, it has proved adept at mental organizations and, in some cases, leading alliances against rival powers. local elites. Like the empire of Alexander, it has stag- gering geographical range. Like the Chi- Who bene½ts from this empire? Some nese Empire that arose in the Chi’in era would argue, with the economist Paul and reached its zenith under the Ming Krugman, that only its wealthy elite dynasty, it has united the lands and peo- does–speci½cally, that part of its weal- ples of a vast territory and has forged thy elite associated with the Republican Party and the oil industry.3 The conven- 4 For two recent diatribes, see Michael Mann, Incoherent Empire (London: Verso, 2003), and 3 Paul Krugman, The Great Unraveling: Losing Chalmers A. Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire: Our Way in the New Century (New York: W. W. Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic Norton, 2003). (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004). 20 Dædalus Spring 2005 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/0011526053887419 by guest on 27 September 2021 them into a nation. Like the Roman ½cent–provided that you do not de- Limits of (& alter- Empire, it has a system of citizenship scribe it as imperial. What is not allowed natives to) that is remarkably open: Purple Hearts is to say that the United States is an em- American and U.S. citizenship were conferred pire and that this might not be wholly empire simultaneously on a number of the sol- bad. diers serving in Iraq last year, just as In my book Colossus, I set out to do just service in the legions was once a route that, and thereby succeeded in antago- to becoming a civis romanus.

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