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Headline in this morning's Telegraph ( a quite right wing, British, broadsheet daily) "Blair believes neo-colonialism is the solution." Talking about Afghanistan of course.
Originally posted by Sharkgrin
"IMHO, back in the 1700-1800 days of colonialism and mercantilism, companies like the East India Trading Company literally ran entire colonies and nations for the notion of development and the true purpose of squeezing a steady profit from under the military/police/mercenary protection of a sponsoring nation. I think the idea is pretty old, but uncommon in the last century since de-colonization."
I disagree. In the case of the British empire, it came into existence purely through naval superiority and the will to use gunpowder more offensivly than just for fireworks and often at the expense of more advanced or sophisticated socities.
I think colonialism is alive and well in this day and age and has been throughout the 20th century. Reading between the line I can see a lot of pro-imperial stuff coming out in the press. They seem to be telling us that the middle east is in need of civilising.
The thing is the evils that read about from old colonialism we can only understnd in a historical context. Societies are not very good at analysing themselves in the hear and now but I wonder how our descendants will think of us.
The playing field has changed somewhat in colonialism, the first world is less eager (believe it or not) to use overt military force. Preferring economic pressure, diplomatic pressure and PR and spin jobs. If anything the corporation rather than the nation state has become the coloniser. In the 70's and the 80's it was a case of find a down on it's luck country and exert financial pressure to let the corporation take what it wants from the country's natural resources. In the 90's that became more sinister with companies saying things like, yes we will inject capital into your country but you will teach what we say in your schools and part of that is loyalty to the company. And of course if the army do get called in, PR steps up to the mic and tells you that the Gulf war was not about oil. Right?
The great thing about all this is it sounds like some dystopian, cyberpunk future and when you mention it to people they don't believe you.
Originally posted by Traz
"Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling examines the concept in detail; his notion of "economic democracies" is stark raving beautiful in its simplicity."
It's been a while since I read that but I don't think that's the future we're looking at. Multinationals keep on getting bigger and bigger. As that happens you're choice become more homogenous. It strikes me (and if any of you're economist I'd be happy to be proved wrong on this) that the monopolistic actions of companies like Starbucks, Coke, McDonalds are actually detrimental to a free economy and that what we are looking it is a future of corporate feudalism. Anybody who's signed a contract to a big company recently will know what I'm talking about. It seems like you're giving them everything and receiving nothing in return. Perhaps we'll all get a place in corporate heaven.
Originally posted by the Humble Crab
"As far as you can tell, 911 bolsters the Government side considerably, increased military spending all round and less civil lib/red tape/regulation to operate under. But they're hand in hand on so many levels with these keiretsu ( ) that both sides have a field day, ordinary people pay for it."
Every explosion I see on TV in Afghanistan is some of my taxes going up in smoke. The arms companies will rake it in again. But then they are old school corporate in terms of cyberpunk. I was going to say something about information and possibly the redundancy of the heavy industry of the arms trade but I've totally lost my train of thought. Sorry. |
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) that both sides have a field day, ordinary people pay for it.