Anglobalization?

9 II 2008

Faithful to its function as a TV series, Niall Ferguson's Empire has a long and rather catchy but at the same time clumsy subtitle: "the Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power". Although the book does not serve as an apology for British Empire, and lack a real, cohesive argument as a result of its limitations (as a TV series), it nonetheless praises Britain's imperial past as a beneficial fact for the world--the creation of a global market and introduction of civilization ("Anglobalization") to a once fragmented world. The "lessons" part is meant for America, the current "global power", which cannot affirm its role as its British predecessors had a century ago. Ferguson states in conclusion:

And yet the empire that rules the world today is both more and less than its British begetter. It has a much bigger economy, many more people, a much larger arsenal. But it is an empire that lacks the drive to export its capital, its people and its culture to those backward regions which need them most urgently and which, if they are neglected, will breed the greatest threats to its security. It is an empire, in short, that dare not speak its name. It is an empire in denial (317).

Well, not much needs to be said about Ferguson's Anglo-American (or rather, just Anglo and its colonial subjects) ethnocentrism. I am not so sure that his solution to Imperium Americana's maintaining of power through a re-enactment of Anglobalization (which, of course, also serves as the title of a lecture he will give in Harvard's History 10b class) is all-together valid. Exporting capital? This sounds familiar: but has the extension of American business interest in other "backward" nations really worked? Exporting "people"? As tourists, may be--but I am afraid that the type of colonization that Ferguson envisions in 21st century is but a satirical anachronism. For this imperium to affirm its status, I am afraid that it has to fare better in its affairs in weak, chaotic countries in which it has made a presence against international and domestic protest. Certainly, its British (and Mongol, Turkish) predecessors had done a much more satisfactory job.