Re: Comparing imperialisms

I have to disagree with Gernot on this one. It is true that the US is
CLAIMING to be supporting "modernization and democracy", but in fact it is
actively and passively supporting the mass death of "useless eaters" much as
the Hitler regime did. It doesn't need gas chambers (yet...), it just relies
on famine and disease.

Furthermore, Hitler's regime was not primarily motivated by racist
philosophy. It was primarily motivated by economic crisis, a need to drive
down the wages of workers at home, suppress political opposition, especially
the revolutionary threat of the workers and Communists,  and also to grab
the oil fields of the "Middle East" and the fertile lands of the Ukraine and
other areas, and to get rid of the "useless eaters" along the way. The
racism served the purpose, of winning people to support the genocides, but
the regime did not get its primary impetus from racist philosophy. Hitler
would have stood alone like a crackpot if he did not have the support of the
German military and major German industrialists (some of whom
opportunistically changed their minds when they realized that they might not
win a war against the USSR and Britain/USA at the same time....).
Furthermore there is a kind of racism that the US is using to justify the
wars, as well as to desensitize the American people to the mass death that
is overtaking Africa.

I do not believe that the Nazi regime and the current USA regime are
identical. Of course there are differences. But both the current US drive
and the Nazi drive were aspects of a general crisis of old, declining
capitalism, while Napoleon's imperialism was more an aspect of growing
capitalism on the offensive against the remnants of the old order.  True,
the US drive appears to be from a position of strength, but that strength is
only its temporary, although quite formidable, military strength.

Economically it is only strong relative to the current problems in Germany
and Japan, but that will not stay that way forever, and China, over the next
twenty years (as well as India and Russia) will threaten the US capitalists
as well. Furthermore, the EU is making inroads in Latin America.

And POLITICALLY, they are very vulnerable, with scarcely a reliable ally in
the world. (Except maybe for Bulgaria?) In any case, the US drive is also a
response to the pressures of international crisis -- as opposed to the days
when a telephone call could cause member nations in the UN to snap to
attention.

So I would argue that while there are big differences between the Nazi
regime and the current US policy, those imperialisms have more in common
than does the US drive have with Napoleon's drive, despite superficial
similarities.

Alan Spector

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----- Original Message -----
From: "g kohler" <kohlerg@3web.net>
To: <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 9:25 AM
Subject: Comparing imperialisms


> Comparing imperialisms
>
> Some folks treat imperialism and capitalism as identical. However, there
was
> imperialism before capitalism, so that one may be allowed to compare
> imperialisms by themselves. In any case, some observers have seen a
parallel
> between present U.S.-American imperialism and Hitlerism. However, from a
> perspective of comparative imperialism studies, that is incorrect and it
> would be more valid to point out a parallel with Napoleonic imperialism.
> While both the Hitlerist and the Napoleonic imperialisms engaged in
conquest
> and oppression and were extremely militaristic, there was the important
> difference in ideologies. Ideologies matter. The Hitlerist imperialism
> implemented a racist ideology, leading to exterminism. Napoleonic
> imperialism was spreading liberty, egality, fraternity with bayonets and
> cannonades, leading to oppression, but not to exterminism. Napoleonic
> imperialism also lead to some modernization in old Europe. At present, the
> United States are contemplating war in Iraq with the publicized goal of
> freeing the Iraqi people from their dictator and spreading democracy
> throughout the Middle East later. That is similar to the Napoleonic agenda
> or to the traditional "mission civilisatrice" of French imperialism, as
far
> as the ideology of imperialism is concerned.
>
> Gernot Köhler
>
>
>