[lbo-talk] The very worst custodians of empire

[James Heartfield]

Seth's description of Arno Mayer's Persistence of the Old Regime suggests he 
was following the Nairn-Anderson (That's Tom and Perry) thesis of the 
imperfect bourgeois revolution, which has its insights, but in the end, I 
think is confused. Must have a look - Mayer's Why Did the Heavens Not Darken 
is a great book.

Cain and Hopkins history of British Imperialism makes much use of the 
Nairn-Anderson thesis to describe the relationship between the 'Gentlemanly 
Capitalism' (ie feudalistic) of the City of London to explain imperialism.

Myself, I suspect that if the City of London was opposed to the First World 
War it was a reflection of the general attitude of the British Empire in the 
twentieth century that it had peaked, was overstretched, and could only lose 
out if there were disorder in the world. The same reasons lie behind 
appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s.

"Arno Mayer wrote a book, The Persistence of the Old Regime, arguing that
given the bourgeoisie's opposition, WWI must be understood as the result
of the vestigial hold of the aristocracy - with its inherited feudal
war-for-territory mentality - on the state. He used a lot of cultural
arguments about how the bourg still deferred to and emulated the nobles
(like the obsession with horses and coats of arms.) Interesting book."