ations and Nationalism (journal)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopeOn the costs and profitability of the British
Empire, see for example, John
Strachey, The End of Empire, New York: Random House, 1959, especially chs. 10 to
12
(an early investigation of the question).
On the costs of the 1980s interventions in Central America, see for example,
Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers, Inequity and Intervention: The Federal Budget and
Central America, Boston: South End, 1986, p. 42.
Chomsky remarks that insight about the class interests underpinning empire goes
back as far as the classical economist Adam Smith in the eighteenth century (Yea
r 501:
The Conquest Continues, Boston: South End, 1993, p. 15):
In his classic condemnation of monopoly power and colonization, Adam Smith
has useful commentary on Britain's policies. . . . He describes these policies w
ith
some ambivalence, arguing finally that despite the great advantages that England
gained from the colonies and its monopoly of their trade, in the long run the pr
actices
did not pay, either in Asia or North America. The argument is largely theoretica
l;
adequate data were not available. But however convincing the argument may be,
Smith's discussion also explains why it is not to the point.
Abandoning the colonies would be "more advantageous to the great body of the
people" of England, he concludes, "though less so to the merchants, than the
monopoly which she at present enjoys." The monopoly, "though a very grievous tax
upon the colonies, and though it may increase the revenue of a particular order
of
men in Great Britain, diminishes instead of increasing that of the great body of
the
people." The military costs alone are a severe burden, apart from the distortion
s of
investment and trade [citing Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Chicago: Univers
ity
of Chicago Press, 1976 (original 1776), Book IV, ch. VII, pts. II and III, and c
h. VIII,
pp. 75-181, especially pp. 131-133, 147, 180-181 (which also is quoted in footno
te 1
of chapter 5 of U.P.)].
On Adam Smith, see chapter 6 of U.P. and its footnotes 10, 34, 35 and 36; footno
te
1 of chapter 5 of U.P.; and chapter 10 of U.P. and its footnote 91.
59. In fact, the percentage of the American population that believes that the
government is run by "a few big interests looking out for themselves" rose from
49
percent in 1984, to 71 percent in 1990, then to 79 percent bydustrializing Regim
es") rather than "N.I.C.s" ("Newly Industrializing Countries"), see
Bruce Cumings, "The origins and development of the Northeast Asian political eco
nomy:
industrial sectors, product cycles, and political consequences," International
Organization, Vol. 38, No. 1, Winter 1984, pp. 1-40.
For more on this subject, see for example, Stephen Haggard, Pathways From the
Periphery: The Politics of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries, Ithaca
: Cornell
University Press, 1990 (comparison of Latin America and East Asia); Rhys Jenkins
,
"Learning from the Gang: are there Lessons for Latin America from East Asia?," B
ulletin
of Latin American Research, Vol. 10, No. 1, 1991, pp. 37-54 at p. 38 (discussing
the East
Asian N.I.C.s as a model for Latin America, citing fraudulent uses of the East A
sian
N.I.C.s as triumphs of the free market, and noting the role that vast U.S. forei
gn aid may
have played in the growth of South Korea and Taiwan: "In the 1950s and early 196
0s
aid accounted for over one-third of both gross investment and total imports in T
aiwan,
and more than two-thirds of both variables in South Korea"); Rhys Jenkins, "The
Political
Economy of Industrialization: A Comparison of Latin American and East Asian Newl
y
Industrializing Countries," Development and Change, Vol. 22, No