Empire Notes
Empire
Niall Ferguson
Introduction * To the British, as to people in the rest of the world, imperialism's golden age is now considered a stain on human history, an era of slavery and racism and the plunder of native lands and peoples. The notion that imperialism is inherently evil, and that no empire can be a good empire, is an axiom in today's geopolitics. * Examines the British Empire from an economic perspective, controversially concluding that the British Empire was, on balance, a good thing * Globalisation is the biggest thing that Ferguson thanks the British for * English language and ties to London made it possible * The Leftist opponents of globalisation naturally regard it as no more than the latest manifestation of a damnably resilient international capitalism. By contrast, the modern consensus among liberal economists is that increasing economic openness raises living standards, even if there will always be some net losers as hitherto privileged or protected social groups are exposed to international competition. * But economists and economic historians alike prefer to focus their attention on flows of commodities, capital and labour. They say less about flows of knowledge, culture and institutions. They also tend to pay more attention to the ways government can facilitate globalisation by various kinds of deregulation than to the ways it can actively promote and, indeed, impose it. * Ferguson concedes that slavery, racial discrimination and brutal response to insurrection were abhorrent but the free movement of goods, capital and labour, as well as the imposition of law, order and governance across the world were unparalleled triumphs * No one would claim that the piratical empire of the 17th century or the mercantilist one of the 18th century were forces for much more than expropriation, expulsion and enslavement. But by the early 19th century, the British Empire had mutated into the world's first liberal empire.
Niall Ferguson
Introduction * To the British, as to people in the rest of the world, imperialism's golden age is now considered a stain on human history, an era of slavery and racism and the plunder of native lands and peoples. The notion that imperialism is inherently evil, and that no empire can be a good empire, is an axiom in today's geopolitics. * Examines the British Empire from an economic perspective, controversially concluding that the British Empire was, on balance, a good thing * Globalisation is the biggest thing that Ferguson thanks the British for * English language and ties to London made it possible * The Leftist opponents of globalisation naturally regard it as no more than the latest manifestation of a damnably resilient international capitalism. By contrast, the modern consensus among liberal economists is that increasing economic openness raises living standards, even if there will always be some net losers as hitherto privileged or protected social groups are exposed to international competition. * But economists and economic historians alike prefer to focus their attention on flows of commodities, capital and labour. They say less about flows of knowledge, culture and institutions. They also tend to pay more attention to the ways government can facilitate globalisation by various kinds of deregulation than to the ways it can actively promote and, indeed, impose it. * Ferguson concedes that slavery, racial discrimination and brutal response to insurrection were abhorrent but the free movement of goods, capital and labour, as well as the imposition of law, order and governance across the world were unparalleled triumphs * No one would claim that the piratical empire of the 17th century or the mercantilist one of the 18th century were forces for much more than expropriation, expulsion and enslavement. But by the early 19th century, the British Empire had mutated into the world's first liberal empire.