Tuesday, January 13, 2004

The Bankrupt Policies of Empire

How the Economic Elite Profits from ‘Irrational’ Colonialism

By Mark Hand

The hundreds of billions of dollars that the U.S. government ultimately will spend on its imperial adventure in Iraq will prove a costly mess for the American taxpayer. This financial debacle is not unique to Iraq in 2004. Throughout history, empires have routinely failed to realize financial gains on their investments in colonial projects.

From a classical liberal standpoint, this trend would show that empires are irrational. But Michael Parenti, the noted political scientist and author, disagrees. Speaking Monday night at the OneDance: The People’s Summit in Santa Cruz, Calif., Parenti explains that one of the hallmarks of colonialism is how a government will raid the public treasury to conduct actions in far-away lands to benefit the economic elite back home.

By spending billions to oust Saddam Hussein and place the U.S. government in control of Iraq’s economy and resources, the U.S. ruling class is making a “great investment,” Parenti says. Maintaining a friendly regime in Baghdad and keeping the rest of the world safe for U.S. capital will prove “enormously profitable for the investing class” because the U.S. empire, as with previous world powers, “feeds off the republic’s resources,” he says. Expanding its empire may bankrupt the U.S. government, but at least the leaders of business will see windfalls in cash to enable them to continue lavishing their representatives in Washington with incentives to perpetuate the same policies that benefit the investing class.

Parenti, 70, says he grew up as part of a generation that was taught to think that the United States did not operate as an empire. The United States had “territories” and “possessions,” not colonies, he notes. But in recent years, it has become acceptable in establishment circles to call the United States an empire.

U.S. pundits regularly describe the United States, especially in the post-Cold War era, as a nation that has been reluctantly “thrust” into the role of leader of a new world empire. Are other nation-states doing this “thrusting”? Of course not, Parenti responds. It’s the managers of the U.S. national security state and economic elite who are defining this role for America.

The U.S. elite, as with leaders of previous empires, uses propaganda to convince the public that following an imperial path will benefit all sectors of the United States. With their nation’s current standing as the world’s only superpower, Americans often view their institutions and culture as unique. But Parenti counters that “in thinking we are so exceptional, Americans are so unexceptional.”

The U.S. elite also is talented at co-opting certain segments of the public, those who are normally disgusted by the dodgy nature of politicians, into supporting its harmful policies. By manufacturing foreign crises, the ruling elite can get a huge majority of the public, even the most skeptical, to fall into line, Parenti contends.

No longer a college professor or associated with an academic institution, Parenti spends much of his time writing books and articles and touring the country speaking to audiences about U.S. domestic and international affairs. His latest book, The Assassination of Julius Caesar, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in October 2003.

Mark Hand is editor of Press Action.

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