[lbo-talk] Is Imperial Liquidation Possible for America?

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Thu May 17 10:33:40 PDT 2007


On Wed, 16 May 2007, Chalmers Johnson was quoted as saying:


> I believe that there is only one solution to the crisis we face. The
> American people must make the decision to dismantle both the empire
> that has been created in their name and the huge (still growing)
> military establishment that undergirds it. It is a task at least
> comparable to that undertaken by the British government when, after
> World War II, it liquidated the British Empire. By doing so, Britain
> avoided the fate of the Roman Republic -- becoming a domestic tyranny
> and losing its democracy

I'm all for dismantling the US empire, and I'm also very supportive of Chalmers Johnson's ongoing efforts to emphasize the (very malignant) independent weight of the security establishment (which I think is often unconsciously under-appreciated by smart people on the left, because our framework often takes as a starting point that its goals and interests must be reducible to economics).

But just as a footnote, I think this is kind of a tendentious reduction of Roman history. The Roman empire was definately a direct cause of the Roman revolution, which caused the downfall of the Republic and the institution of emperors. But it seems to be way stretching things to call the Before period a democracy and the After period tyranny. The second century under the Antonines is widely considered the best time to have been an average Roman. It can be argued that the group that really lost their power in the transition were the upper class Senators and Equestrians rather than the people, whose indirect influence on the top, and the benefits they got flowing back from it, wasn't clearly less under the emperors.

As for the British Empire, they weren't foresighted. They stepped back from India and Palestine -- which started the avalanche rolling -- a couple years after WWII for one simple reason: they couldn't pay the bills. It wasn't a theoretical thing, it was as obvious as the nose on your face. The lights were going out and the houses were cold.

Michael



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list