Against Empire

Lest this be seen as a peculiarly Marxist notion, recall that the English political philosopher John Locke wrote in 1689: “The great and chief end of Men’s uniting into Commonwealths and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property.” And Adam Smith wrote in 1776: “The necessity of civil government grows up with the acquisition of valuable property.” And “till there be property there can be no government, the very end of which is to secure wealth, and to defend the rich from the poor.” It should be remembered that, from ancient Athens to the present day, the historic purpose of democratic government has been just the reverse, to protect the poor from the rich.

As someone once said: foreign aid is when the poor people of a rich country give money to the rich people of a poor country.

In sum, there is nothing irrational about spending three dollars of public money to protect one dollar of private investment—at least not from the perspective of the investors. To protect one dollar of their money they will spend three, four, and five dollars of our money. In fact, when it comes to protecting their money, our money is no object.

Most of the Third World is not “underdeveloped” but overexploited. Western colonization and investments have created a lower rather than a higher living standard