The liberal ideal and the demons of empire

As Great Britain and other Western nations built empires - both formal and informal - writers on economic and social questions developed theories to explain why and how advanced industrial states exercised control over colonial regions. Different schools of thought emerged: some anticipated the growth of a cosmopolitan economic order, others believed in a brutal imperialism necessary for an expanding capitalism, still others saw evil precapitalist forces at work. In The Liberal Ideal and the Demons of Empire, noted historian Bernard Semmel traces the evolution of the ideas about imperialism and discusses four major schools of thought: the classical economists, the social theorists, the national economists, and the Marxists. From Adam Smith to Lenin, the subject of colonialism - and then imperialism - remained controversial. Although classical economists offered visions of a prosperous world economy based on free trade, and liberal idealists argued that rational self-interest would eliminate aggressive mercantilism and wars of conquest, such "utopian" ideals proved elusive. Even defenders of capitalism noted contradictions between the harsh realities of the emerging industrial system and the optimistic economic theories that attempted to describe it. In the end the critics - including liberal sociologists, national economists, and Marxists - would win the day by defining imperialism in terms of historic demons: feudal aristocrats, medieval usurers, and evil empires. These ideas, Semmel concludes, became props of the liberal, socialist, and fascist ideologies of our time.