The Empire Slinks Back

Monday, April 28th, 2003

In The Empire Slinks Back, Niall Ferguson (“a fully paid-up member of the neoimperialist gang”) defends American imperialism (or “humanitarianism”) — if America will just follow through:

The British Empire has had a pretty lousy press from a generation of ”postcolonial” historians anachronistically affronted by its racism. But the reality is that the British were significantly more successful at establishing market economies, the rule of law and the transition to representative government than the majority of postcolonial governments have been. The policy ”mix” favored by Victorian imperialists reads like something just published by the International Monetary Fund, if not the World Bank: free trade, balanced budgets, sound money, the common law, incorrupt administration and investment in infrastructure financed by international loans. These are precisely the things Iraq needs right now. If the scary-sounding ”American empire” can deliver them, then I am all for it.

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