Rachel Speer

Prof. Servos

December 14, 2001

Globalization as a Force of Progress, not Perfection

Advances in technology and the expansion of trade have, without a doubt, improved the standard of living dramatically for peoples around the world. Globalization brings respect for law and human rights and the democratization of politics, education, and finance to developing societies, but is usually slow in doing so. It is no easy transition or permanent solution to conflict, as some overly zealous proponents would argue. In The Great Illusion, Norman Angell sees globalization as a force which results from and feeds back into the progressive change of human behavior from using physical force toward using rational, peaceful methods in order to achieve economic security and prosperity. He believes that nations will no longer wage war against one another because trade, not force, yields profit in the new global economy, and he argues that “military power is socially and economically futile” because “political and military power can in reality do nothing for trade.” While the economic interdependence of nations should prove to be a deterrent from warfare, globalization is not now, and was not a century ago, a prescription for world peace. At the turn of the twentieth century, formal colonialism was still profitable in some regions, universal free trade was not a reality, nationalism was not completely defunct, military force was necessary to protect economic investments in developing locations, and the arms race of the previous century had created the potential for an explosive war if any small spark should set the major powers off against one another. The major flaw in Angell’s argument is his refusal to acknowledge the economic advantages that colonizing powers, even after globalization has started to take shape, can actually gain from military strength when allows them to access new markets, to regulate and to restrict trade with valuable markets, and to protect their holdings and to promote development. His rosy view of globalization at the beginning of the twentieth century is also naïve in that it downplays the role and the potential strength of nationalism, especially during times of crisis, and refers to military spending and arms buildup as “economically futile” rather than as dangerous but necessary, as they in fact were.

While colonialism did not always pay, in many cases it did allow a military power to promote development of and trade with a colony in ways that would benefit the mother country. Angell correctly emphasizes the importance of trade to economic prosperity, but incorrectly asserts that colonizing nations cannot influence trade patterns or reap a profit from the trade that a colony carries on. Furthermore, Angell focuses his criticism of military spending on demonstrating the pointlessness of using military force to physically invade and steal gold reserves or take over factories, or to kill off foreign “competitors” who are vital as producers and consumers in the global economy. No nation intended to use their military force for this purpose. In reality, European nations used military force to protect economic holdings, such as safe trade routes and favorable tariffs and taxes. While he is correct to some degree in saying that military power will not force consumers to buy products of inferior quality, political power does secure the right to create incentives for buying certain products over others through implementing tariffs. In different situations, military force is necessary in order to open up new areas to trade, to regulate trade in a way that is favorable to the mother country, or to protect trade routes to more financially important colonies. British policy regarding China, India, and South Africa demonstrate how military force can be used to the economic profit of a powerful nation.

The use of military force to open trade with China resulted from the fact that China possessed goods that Europeans valued, but China did not want to trade with Europe. Because wealth in the global economy comes from stimulating production and trade, Europe had a great deal to gain by trade with China, and had the military power to force the Qing dynasty into leasing land to foreign powers on which trade could take place. Angell is correct in pointing out, first, that no number of dreadnoughts would force Chinese to buy products they did not want with money they did not have, and secondly, that military invasion cannot change the cultural values and practices of an established society, which here applies to the Chinese practice of trading with trusted businessmen through familiar middlemen. It is true that foreigners made slow inroads in the market of inner China, but the Chinese in the treaty ports were eager and able to support and invest in Western enterprise. Military force was not used to compel Chinese to buy European goods, but rather to compel the Chinese government to allow Europeans to offer their goods for sale to the Chinese population.

Much like China, India appeared to Europeans as a valuable trade partner. Whereas the Western powers carved China into spheres of influence, Britain used her military prowess to gain sole control over India early on, and then to maintain that political control. The initial development in India, including the building of railroads and the establishment of a monopoly on the acquisition and distribution of valuable Indian goods were obviously beneficial to Britain. Angell brushes this initial gain off as “the past,” and fails to realize that Britain continued to profit from control of India through economic regulation. Angell states that “the British Colonies are, in fact, independent nations in alliance with the Mother Country, to whom they are no source of tribute or economic profit (except in the way that foreign nations are), their economic relations being settled not by the Mother Country, but by the Colonies.” This is clearly false in the case of British policy in India, where Britain put economic pressure on India to buy British goods through the implementing tariffs on non-British imported goods. Britain insisted that non-British goods go through British ships before they reached the Indian consumers, which allowed the British to exact a tribute and which encouraged Indians to buy manufactured goods from Britain rather than from other European nations because of the added cost imposed by the tariffs. Put simply, free trade was not a reality because Britain played the role of the bully who could, by sheer strength, profit off of the work of others (by taxing the sale of other foreign goods in India) and make its own goods more attractive to Indian consumers because of their relatively lower cost. Britain, not India, controlled trade between Europe and India. Angell cites Canada as an example of a colony that engaged in more trade with France, Germany, and Switzerland than with England, but this single counterexample does not invalidate the potential profitability of colonialism. Just as a company’s profits do not come from transactions spread evenly around the globe, colonialism is certain to pay off more in some regions than in others. Colonialism’s failure in one unique case does not imply its failure in all cases.

In South Africa, Britain used military force for two major economic reasons that Angell never acknowledges: to promote efficient mining, not for the explicit profit of the mine-owners, but in order to increase production of gold and consequent trade that would ultimately benefit all members of the global economy, including Britain; and to protect Cape Town, a vital stop on the trade route to India. It is true that Britain lost money and lives in the South African war, but British economic interests were being so threatened both by the Boer Republics and by the encroachment of other European holdings in Africa toward the Southern tip of the Continent that the war was justifiable, more so economically than socially. Angell focuses on Britain’s claim that it fought for ideals of societal and industrial progress and for the protection of Black and Indian British subjects in South Africa. These claims were not entirely false, and made great rallying cries, but the economic motives were much more important than the social motives because economic prosperity is, to put it bluntly, more critical than spreading ideology. That the Boers gained control of the internal government of South Africa within a few years of British conquest is a loss for the British moral or ideological cause, but not as great as the loss of control over the port and of the political power to encourage the development of the mines would have been. Angell emphasizes the falsity of the mercantilist philosophy, of which he sees military growth as an historical remnant. Britain’s military involvement in South Africa, however, clearly stemmed from anti-mercantilist ideology: Britain wanted not to seize wealth for its own citizens, but to stimulate growth of industry and mining and to profit indirectly from the creation of wealth resulting from increased production and trade in South Africans.

Angell asserts that “a nation’s political and economic frontiers do not necessarily coincide,” a truth that later historians explore and understand more closely than Angell does. Robinson and Gallagher show that Britain’s policy of economic expansion remained constant and that political frontiers expanded only as necessary to maintain economic advantage. They point out that “mercantilist techniques of formal empire were being employed [by Britain] to develop India…at the same time as informal techniques of free trade were being used in Latin America.” Free trade is not a given, as Angell implies; colonizing powers can certainly use military force to gain the political power to restrict a colony’s trade in a way that favors the Mother Country. While it did not always pay off, in many cases it did, and therefore nations with a powerful military had the advantage of choosing between formal or informal empire – that is, between restricting or allowing free trade – depending on what was in their economic interest. For this reason, having a strong military makes a second option available: when non-political economic influence is less profitable than political influence would be, a powerful nation can use military force to establish political authority, or at least alliance, that allows the mother country to restrict free trade as desired. Globalization did not put an end to power differentials between developed and developing nations, and did not bring immediate and complete free trade.

Angell makes the case that nationalism is no longer a strong force because of the economic interdependence of nations, and that people feel more kinship with foreigners of their socioeconomic class than with their fellow citizens of other classes. This observation is largely correct, but stems from a deeper truth about human alliances that Angell fails to fully acknowledge: people ally themselves with others who share their interests, predicaments, and challenges. During a time of peaceful economic progress, people will identify with others who share their economic interests and concerns and who perceive a threat from a common enemy. During a time of war, people will identify themselves with their fellow compatriots and will unite against the enemy. Because armies belong to nations rather than to socioeconomic classes, war, and even news of militarization in a rival nation, brings out nationalistic feelings. Angell himself acknowledges this when he says that in the case of an English assault on Germany for the purpose of rooting out Prussianism, which many Germans were trying to do, “Germans would be compelled to fight for Prussianism.” Angell mentions this in the context of his argument for rational international cooperation against common evils including “oppression, corruption, and incompetence.” “Were the real facts and the real responsibilities understood,” he writes, “…the realization of the facts [would] attenuate hostility.” But this is precisely why hostilities between nations run high: because those in power do not always understand the real facts, responsibilities, and consequences of actions they may take.

Furthermore, the militarization that took place in the century preceding 1900 created “inside European civil society a second, submerged and normally invisible military society, millions strong, of men who had…learnt to obey orders” and were ready to fight for their country if ever a threat or attack was perceived, according to Keegan. Though the knowledge that “there were in Europe, in 1914, over two hundred divisions, in full existence or ready to be called into being, theoretically deploying sufficient firepower to destroy each other totally in a few minutes of mutual life-taking” should act as a deterrent to war, it creates a tense situation in which nations are poised to take the offensive at the first sign of attack. The move toward forming international agreements on limiting armaments in the late 19^th century evinces that Europeans were feeling nervous, and rightfully so. However, these efforts were not very successful, and as Keegan tells us, “International policy was indeed, in the opening years of the twentieth century, guided not by the search for a secure means of averting conflict but by the age-old quest for security in military superiority.” These facts show the persistence of the “Olive Tree,” in the practices of military preparedness, which is contrary to the rational calculation of economic self-interest and efforts toward peaceful resolution of international conflict that Angell asserts that nations are capable of invoking in the new age of globalization. Angell offers a reasonable argument for the ineffectiveness of war when he states: “International hostilities repose for the most part upon our conception of the foreign State, with which we are quarrelling, as a homogeneous personality…whereas the variety of interest [among individuals], both material and moral, regardless of State boundaries, renders the analogy between nations and individuals an utterly false one.” The sad fact is that a military uniform hides an individual’s ideology; in the hypothetical case of England attacking Germany, an English soldier will not know if the enemy soldier he kills is German or Prussian because Germans and Prussians alike will have put aside their ideologies and united to repel a common enemy, the invasive British. In short, once a trigger sets off a war, personal ideology will submit to nationalistic unity, and the carnage will be staggering. As dangerous as the arms build up was, European leaders felt it was necessary because globalization had not yet convinced them that they could be safe without a strong military so long as their neighbors had strong militaries. Angell may have been correct in saying that “war, even when victorious, can no longer achieve those aims for which peoples strive for peace,” but even knowing this would not necessarily prevent war from occurring.

The awareness that a student in the early 21^st century has of World War I doubtless affects his or her vision of Angell’s world in 1913. While he cannot be criticized for failing to see into the future, Angell did use only selective facts about historical events to make his case and placed far too much faith in the rationality of humans. His brief timeline of the progress of human nature was fairly accurate, and it is certainly true that globalization resulted from and encouraged the progress of human behavior from fighting with physical force toward fighting with ideas. His insistence that military force no longer gave a nation any advantage over its neighbors, however, was erroneous, and he appears to critics today, as he appeared to many of his contemporaries, to be an overly optimistic prophet. Angell’s vision of the potential of economic interdependence to eliminate international conflict might have been better phrased as an exhortation to leaders rather than an assertion that globalization had achieved a present and unshakeable peace.