Connectedness is not something I'd associate with 19th century mercantilism.
It was the most conncted century of any up to that time. It was the century of mass migrations, of mass transportation with the steamships and railways, of reliable international postal service, mass media newspapers, the telegraph and telephone, and, perhaps most important, lots of international investment.
Mercantiltism was greatly diminished as the 19th century progressed:
Since these treaties were all Most Favored Nation treaties?whereby concessions to one party meant extending such concessions to all the others?not just France and Britain, but by 1870 nearly all of Europe including the German states, Spain, Russia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and so on were integrated into a highly open trading market. In many ways, Europe was freer than today, partly because the gold standard made capital extremely mobile, and because limitations in border control made immigration and the free movement of labor easy in practice despite differing rules across the continent
The Myth of Free-Trade Britain
by John V.C. Nye*
March 3, 2003
econlib.org
See also,
j-bradford-delong.net
for a take on 19th century US tariffs. Which, according to De Long were high, very high, for a long while after the Civil War.
The 19th Century was very connected: Information flows grew enormously; travel was unfettered; investment funds had great mobility.
Barnet works for the US Navy and his job is to describe the role of military forces in the future and to do so he has to devlop a coherent, and hopefully accurate, picture of how the world is shaping up now and into the near future. Because of who he works for he's concerned with security aspects.
He would agree with this, I expect:
One thing Barnett touches on, but doesn't enlarge upon much in work that I've seen, is the enourmous number, and the enormous potential force, of the huge number of people in the developing world - the ones we don't see, because they aren't blowing things up or killing each other - who are struggling very hard to gain democracy and economic freedom, and who are making steady, if often slow, progress.
His reponse, I expect, would be we should provide them a security guarantee and free markets - because it's in our interests - and let them get on with it.
These people may not weild major military or economic force - yet - but they will be a factor in the future, and the time to engage them, and to start developing two-sided alliances.
Despite the flaming rhetoric since the awkward National Security statement in the Fall two years ago it would appear that's what the US has been doing. It's been active in trade talks and given the events of 9/11 it's, not surprisingly, been working on bilateral and multilateral security arrangements.
Barnett says that increasing interconnectedness will lead to increasing nationalism. From my position in Canada, that's what I see has happened here. And it's what's happened in the US and elsewhere. Relatedly, it also leads to an upsurge in religious revivalism.
When we negotiated NAFTA, the Canadian government went to a lot of trouble to get some exemptions for cultural industries.
Right now, there is a movement afoot in the Muslim world to disconnect a vast portion of its population from the rest of the world. The connection is already tenuous because elites there maintain a near monopoly on connection. This is not satisfactory. The disconnectedness, poverty and repression there produce corrosive ideology that exports violence and economic damage using the modern world's connectedness not just to us, but mostly to the rest of the Muslim world. And creating further disconnectedness, poverty and repression, exporting further damage to Muslim world and us using our connectedness....
Too many Americans dismiss the developing world as a bunch of starving peasants ruled by pissant dictators. That's not reality
What the hell am I supposed to say to that? Barnett has noted that the security threats and the attacks over the last twenty years have come from countries that suffer under repression, poverty, and disconnectedness to the rest of the world. And the attackers tend to come to the modern world through countries which are trying to get connected and modernize. It's pretty hard to argue against that - it's a fair description of present circumstances.
Freedom and civilization do not only exist in islands surrounded by chaos. They exist all over the world, and they are growing.
Yes, and in some places they're explicitly threatened and attacked and the only major power that shows concern about it to the extent of putting serious action and resources (probably not enough) into it, is the US.
This is a very good thing, and we need to ride with it and encourage it, even though it means, ultimately, accepting voluntary restraints on our use of our power.
The US accepts a lot of voluntary restraints on its power already in defence pacts, myriads of trade relations, commercial arrangements, legal protocols. It also gives a lot of support to people and governments that are moving themselves in a more democratic direction.
Due to a combination of luck and virtues it's the most powerful country in the world by huge margin. It's the symbol of modernity and subject to attack by all who dislike modernity's connectedness. Had Britain or Moscow been the superpower and the symbol of modernity, the 9/11 planes would have crashed into London or Moscow. The US will be attacked by enemies of democracy and reason.
It's forgotten by those who criticize the US that although it accepts its friends and rivals, it's under no international obligations to allow its enemies to grow in strength, even at its friends and rivals urging. Especially if the urging was done on the basis of their short term - not even long term - self interest.
Aside from the loss of life, the damage done by 9/11 to the US economy and that of the wider world was outrageous. It was planned by the islamists to cripple US commerce, government and defence. And they were/are supported by governments in the Middle East.
Folk in the ME, not unreasonably, expected - and many desired - a corrective or retributive response of some kind.
It's clear much of the ROW expects the US to provide security and pay attention to their interests, but it's not at all clear the ROW is paying much attention in a positive way to the US's very serious needs and concerns. Many of which are vital to interests of the ROW. |
