New Imperialists : Ideologies of Empire

eturn to formal empire as the only viable imperialist solution in a world
order of limited states and the unlimited reach of capital. In chapter 7,
Thom Workman traces the philosophical lineage of the neoconservatives
who dominate the Bush administration, many of whom studied with the
philosopher Leo Strauss. Strauss’s tendentious interpretation of ancient
texts, Workman contends, is key to understanding the justification for
war and empire that informs American foreign policy. Adam Hanieh
examines the influence of the neoliberal economist Deepak Lal’s In Praise
of Empires. Hanieh demonstrates that Lal’s ideas about empire should be
understood in the context of the material and social forces now shaping
global capitalism. In chapter 9, Tanner Mirrlees exposes the new discourse
of U.S. “soft power” as a disguise for a renovated, high-tech form
of cultural imperialism. In the final chapter, Paul Cammack argues that
over the last five years the U.N.-sponsored Millennium Development
Goals have been transformed into a vehicle for a new imperialist project
involving the export of capitalism to the developing world.
As these essays make clear, the rationalizations on offer for the new
imperialism, like the system they seek to defend, are riven by deep
contradictions. That such contradictions should exist is inscribed in the
nature of ideology. It is the task of ideological critique – and therefore of
this volume – to help lay bare these antinomies and to make visible that
which the apologists for imperialism – the new watchdogs of our time –
would prefer to leave in the shadows.
NOTES
MOOERS: Introduction 7
1. Paul Nizan, The Watchdogs: Philosophers and the Established Order,trans.Paul
Fitingoff (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972), p. 117.
2. Among this group was the then French interior minister and future socialist president
François Mitterand, whose response to the National Liberation Front’s (F.L.N.) offer
of talks was, “the only possible negotiation is war.” The Algerian-born philosopher
and novelist Albert Camus, although troubled by the French use of torture, ultimately
supported the war against the Algerian rebels. Ahmed Ben Bella, one of the leaders of
the Algerian liberation struggle, now in his late eighties, is still actively involved in the
Middle Eastern anti-war movement against the U.S. occupation in Iraq.
3. Gillo Pontecervo’s brilliant anti-colonial film The Battle of Algiers is required viewing
by American counter-insurgency experts in the U.S. Defense Department. See John
Cherian, “Remembering a Revolution,” Frontline, 21:24 (20 November–3 December,