Sarkozy : Danse Macabre | 156 comments (156 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (4.00 / 2)

My contention is that the economic fruits of colonial looting can survive for quite some time on the inertia of economic structure and government - but that time is running out.

I would place the break to real decline at de-colonisation (with a half-century long plateau phase before that). Yes, the former colonial powers still put up fights, and the US took over much of the structures, but the world is clearly (but slowly) changing.

I would however argue that the US faces the same problem and probably more so. Europe is being free-riders (like the neocons complained about). But being free-riders on the colonial system appears from the historical experience of Europe not to be a bad deal (Germany being a prime example).

I would also argue that the de-colonization era showed that the west no longer holds the kind of military and technological edge that allowed the establishment of the colonial system in the first place. And despite neocon fantasies, modern weapons has not changed that, as Iraq and Afghanistan has showed.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Fri Apr 20th, 2012 at 05:44:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (none / 0)

It has nothing at all to do with the lack of a military or technological edge, and everything to do with lacking the guts to behave like some of our asshole forefathers. Genocide and conquest just doesn't feel ok to Europeans anymore, not even when it's done to brown people. Blame Stalin and Hitler.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Fri Apr 20th, 2012 at 07:59:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (none / 0)

I believe you are taking European marketing too seriously.

by rootless2 on Fri Apr 20th, 2012 at 08:17:42 AM EST
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Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (none / 0)

Useful reading, even if not exactly the thing I was refering to.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Fri Apr 20th, 2012 at 08:33:08 AM EST
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Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (none / 0)

Pinker's book is powered by a very silly view of history, in my as always humble opinion.

The 20th Century was a spectacularly violent century - declaring victory seems a trifle premature.

What I think is correct is that we have both pre-packaged meat that one can eat without thinking of slaughterhouses and pre-packaged poor people extracted wealth that one can consume without thinking about secret police and mass shootings.

by rootless2 on Fri Apr 20th, 2012 at 08:37:59 PM EST
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Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (none / 0)

It was far less violent than certain other periods, especially on a per capita basis. World war II ranks a pretty weak six when we look at the bloodiest wars on a per capita basis. Worst is the An Lushan rebelllion of 755-763, which killed one out of every seven people on the planet.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Sat Apr 21st, 2012 at 07:15:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]

that is what pinker says (none / 0)

but it's hardly established fact.

And the 60million or so who perished in WWII are not diminished by noting a larger world population at the time.

by rootless2 on Sat Apr 21st, 2012 at 12:23:36 PM EST
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My war is bigger than your war. (none / 1)

I think this is a silly debate. For instance, on what basis can we claim that the 100 years' war or the 30 years' war were more or less traumatic than WWII for the people involved? Or, to what extent are the Napoleonic Wars (from Portugal to Russia and all the way south to Egypt, and lasting 15 years) not a "zeroth world war"?

In that sense, the 30 years' war ushered in the "Westphalian" system of international relations and is far more important in its systemic implications than even WWII since the international system that emerged form WWI (UN bodies, Bretton Woods, NATO) was never considered as superseding the Westphalian system but only in the last decade or so people have started talking about post-Westphalia. This means the 30 years' war is a watershed event on a scale of 350 to 400 years, which WWII was not. As fas as traumatizing Central Europe, it was on a par with WWII as well, with a much higher per-capita mortality rate and lasting 5 times longer.

guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Apr 21st, 2012 at 05:58:27 PM EST
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Re: My war is bigger than your war. (none / 0)

but it's Pinker's silly argument. He wants to show that aggregate human violence is decreasing which actually may be true but would need a much better argument.

In any case, even if aggregate violence were decreasing, the evidence of EU humanism and scruples is hard to find.

by rootless2 on Sat Apr 21st, 2012 at 06:54:28 PM EST
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Re: My war is bigger than your war. (none / 1)

Complex systems have lulls. Diary tomorrow.

guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Apr 21st, 2012 at 06:56:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (4.00 / 4)

Looking at the conflicts that forced decolonisation, I see no lack of guts to be assholes. I see technology transfer and - perhaps of equal importance - cultural transfer progressing to a point where the local leaders could defeat their overlords.

Yes, nowadays genocide is not popular but the colonial empires were not lost in the 21st century.

For an example of present guilt and post-war brutality

For there is something peculiarly chilling about the way colonial officials behaved, most notoriously but not only in Kenya, within a decade of the liberation of the concentration camps and the return of thousands of emaciated British prisoners of war from the Pacific. One courageous judge in Nairobi explicitly drew the parallel: Kenya's Belsen, he called one camp.
The uprising by a secret sect, the Mau Mau - impoverished Kikuyu demanding the return of their fertile lands - led to the deaths of maybe 20,000 men and women, many after torture and internment. Thousands more died in the violence that tore apart Kikuyu families on opposing sides of the dispute.
With the tacit consent of ministers at Westminster, a British administration in colonial Kenya chose to behave as if Africans had no human rights. Rattled by a handful of murderous attacks on planters, they tried to face down the rebels using the empire's default setting of brutality. Castration, sodomy, rape and beatings were everyday weapons in its unremitting defence of the rights of the white settlers.

Can you point me to a post-war conflict in any of the colonial empires where the empire folded because they did not like to be assholes anymore?

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Fri Apr 20th, 2012 at 03:09:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (none / 1)

A swedish kind of death:

Can you point me to a post-war conflict in any of the colonial empires where the empire folded because they did not like to be assholes anymore?

Let me see: Madagascar, no, Indochina, no, Algeria, no.

Now we can ask ourselves why De Gaulle's Fifth Republic, established in 1958, decide to organize referendum in pretty much all the remaining colonies which led to independence in the early 1960s: apparently the French leadership had lost appetite for retaining (most of) what was left of the Empire but whether this was because they didn't like to be A-holes anymore is unclear to me.

Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.

by Bernard on Sat Apr 21st, 2012 at 04:56:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (none / 0)

Can you point to any single post-war conflict where a former colonial power removed all restraints and did all they could to win, like they used to do?

All those three conflicts you mention are conflicts where the French didn't do everything they could to win: not because they couldn't, but because they didn't have the political will to be brutal enough. Which is, of course, a good thing.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Sat Apr 21st, 2012 at 07:23:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (none / 1)

What the colonial powers used to do was send a relatively minor force that crushed all opposition. There was no threath of the homeland being invaded, so doing all they could to win was never really on the table. What do you mean that France could have done to win either of these conflicts?

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Sat Apr 21st, 2012 at 08:19:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (none / 0)

Sending conscripts in Indochina for example, as was done in Algeria (where indeed the perception for many French people was that the homeland was threatened...)

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères

by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Sat Apr 21st, 2012 at 09:23:35 AM EST
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Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (none / 0)

Well, north Algeria was part of the French homeland, so they were right even if the Moslem inhabitants might have seen if differently. But I guess there was not an idea of the FLN actually invading Metropolitan France, was there?

Anyway, that gives us a metric. So conscripts was not used in Indochina after wwII. Were they used before wwII? Otherwise wwII did not change anything in that respect.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Sun Apr 22nd, 2012 at 03:58:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (none / 0)

What would Genghiz Khan can do? Hama Rules. Nuke everyone.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Sun Apr 22nd, 2012 at 05:51:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (none / 0)

and lastly through a hogshead of real fire.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Sun Apr 22nd, 2012 at 03:03:51 PM EST
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Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (4.00 / 3)

So they nuke everybody, then what happens to access to markets and resources (and their officials and colonisers on the ground)? Compared to what happens if they cut a deal with the revolutionaries?

I'll add that Gandhi (educated in London) saw one of his objectives as making India unprofitable for Britain to keep, that is part of why he pursued such goals as circumventing the salt tax and producing cloth in India.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Sun Apr 22nd, 2012 at 03:38:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (none / 0)

So they nuke everybody, then what happens to access to markets and resources (and their officials and colonisers on the ground)?

You get a colony like Canada, Australia or the US, empty of problematic people but full of resources.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Fri Apr 27th, 2012 at 06:37:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (none / 1)

But to use that you need surplus population to re-populate with. And in the post-wwII era the european countries had already ran past the drastic expansion of population phase of the demographic transition. Kris i befolkningsfrågan (Population crisis, famous Swedish book form the 30ies arguing far-reaching measures to stop the fall in number of births) and all that.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Fri Apr 27th, 2012 at 07:46:17 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (none / 0)

As you might remember, the measures suggested in Kris i befolkningsfrågan actually led to radicaly increased nativity. Furthermore, having a large population just seems like such a bother. Few people, lots of natural resources, what's not to like? Well sure, it might be a bit hard to defend your resources from greedy populous nations who want to take your wealth, but that can be managed with conscription to provide the sufficient manpower.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Fri Apr 27th, 2012 at 10:47:28 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sarkozy : Danse Macabre (none / 0)

Now you're thinking in terms of the national interest. That's the wrong way to think about colonial adventures.

The interest being served is that of the private actors who get to set up shop in the colonies. The national interest is served only incidentally, if at all. And it is not in their interest to have to rely on scarce domestic manpower for exploiting untapped resources.

- Jake

Austerity can only be implemented in the shadow of a concentration camp.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Fri Apr 27th, 2012 at 12:33:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Sarkozy : Danse Macabre | 156 comments (156 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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