Imperialism

[The Architect Of Fate]

Should the world be single hegemony? or a bipolarity? or a collection of various competing states keeping each other in check? Or should the concept be done away with altogether? Should International Law be the decider of global order? Or should a Darwinist model of might makes right and survival of the most powerful states decided? Or is there another way the world geopolitical structure could be laid out? Thoughts?

[Thumpalumpacus]

A multipolar world means that it's difficult for one hegemon to rise to power, especially nowadays. But it also means that various little squabbles can become shitshows (cf. WWI). Might-makes-right is terrifying to me because it means that any lunatic who can find and hold in a hegemon can fuck with me directly (cf. British imperialism ad European colonialism in general).

I prefer an international order regulated by voting nation-states, like the UN, but with the teeth to enforce the humanitarian goals of the laws it is in place to enforce. It's clear that the UN, like the LoN before it, is in terms of regulating international relations, a failure. (It does good work in health-care access, food distribution, and so on).

Might-makes-right has been the case for at least a couple thousand years in Western history, and the result has been dramatic differentials in standard-of-living between haves and have-nots ... but I identify more as a human being than I do as an American or even as a Texan, so I'd rather see power fractured and we take our chances with a harmonious concert rather than a conductor who will beat us over the head for any note not in the score.

[The Architect Of Fate]

I frankly agree with all the above 

(But i don't think that's much of a surprise )

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I'm not usually the most cynical of people, but I don't see an end to the concept and practice of imperialism any time soon. The history of humanity is one of an endless struggle for resources and the lengths we go to get at them. Even WWII was more a fight for empire than it was a fight against tyranny.

A world government might be a solution, but it would have to be a dictatorship of such severity that it hardly seems worth the trouble.

A more formidable UN-type organisation would help, but it's hard to see it working and preserving even a semblance of personal freedom at the same time.

So, for the foreseeable future, it looks to me as if we're stuck with the status quo - groups of competing nation states making things moderately miserable (but not always intolerable) for lots and lots of people.

Boru

[Fake Messiah]

As far as I see, the world functions best when countries are democracies. The problems cause those non-Democratic countries because its autocrats don't listen to the will of the people. Democratic nations make deals and rarely go to war with each other.

[The Grand Nudger]

Democracies (and the democratic nations as a bloc) export their violence and their violent people to the social, economic, and imperial fringe. That they elect to do so by direct public mandate or representative government is the only difference, in this respect, between a democracy and an autocracy. This is true with respect to domestic policy - in the creation and exploitation of second class citizens, as well as foreign policy - in the support of extractive import schemes funding local muscle - often buttressed by military support.

To play devils advocate here, the difference between a democracy and any other form of government is not what people under such a government do, merely how they accomplish the same goals that every other group of people anywhere have always banded together for. That democracies tend not to make war on each other is a pleasant euphemism for the war they do make. The problem with autocracies in that context is not that they're warlike or more warlike, but that they don't select the wars they do pursue by the informed consent of the citizenry.

IMO, the most effective and prudent form of imperialism is cultural imperialism. I think that democracies are better suited to cultural imperialism than autocracies are (or even could be). Mostly, in that democracy (or it's premise) is a part of the cultural pitch. Cultural imperialism is, itself, responsible for the observation that democracies tend not to go to war with each other. A conflict like that would be likely to be perceived as internecine warfare. It fails to successfully export it's violence. The US built a world order and achieved global hegemony by practicing cultural imperialism, primarily. On balance, at least so far, that's been a net positive for humanity. The obvious flaw in cultural imperialism is the content of the culture, and we see that many of the biggest issues that we face (as a nation or as a species) have their origin in some ill-thought out foreign and domestic policies arising from the dominant culture and it's interaction with others it might subsume, subvert, or subjugate.

With that in mind, it will probably continue to be true that some form of democratized cultural imperialism improves humanity's situation. Not necessarily western culture or american culture - mind you. Not because any particular culture is just so damned good or superior. Because of the relatively poor state of affairs for the vast majority of humanity at present. Because people will compete with each other for the forseable future, and any form of competition other than shooting wars is preferable to shooting wars.