The Imperial Present: Liberalism has Always been Conservative
The orthodox wisdom of the last century holds that empire is a deeply conservative project of economic expansion, power and control bound up with a social civilisational mission. Certainly, the recrudescence of US imperial ambition in the early years of the twenty-first century is widely associated with the rise of neoconservatism, whereas the ubiquitous postcolonial sentiment of recent decades since the middle of last century is seen as a symptom of progressive liberalism standing against empire. But as Uday Mehta2 has reminded us in his review of nineteenth-century British imperial thought, empire is equally if not predominantly an economic and civilisational project of liberal capitalism, and so it is no accident that the present imperial phase is associated with neoliberalism as much as neoconservatism. Thus, in pursuit of inspiration, lineage, and historical support, George Bush attempted to vindicate his warring in Iraq and Afghanistan by harking back again and again to the great liberal icon, Woodrow Wilson. How, therefore, are we to explain this anomaly of an apparently conservative project of empire performed in terms of the best liberal tradition?
[Image: "Burj Dubai, Emirates" by fatboyke]