The Growths and Deaths of Empires

 
The Growths and Deaths of Empires
 
Classical military empires had typically expanded in oceans of blood and gore. They had often retreated and collapsed in the same way.
 
History is full of examples of both processes. 
 
To remain stable and strong, military-economic empires that have been established over multinational, multi-ethnic domains need to secure not just the submission and compliance of the subjugated groups, but also some measures of willing participation, belonging, and loyalty from the subjugated nationalities or ethnicities--or at least from subgroups or classes within those.
 
Indeed, the military personnel of successful, stable empires of the old-fashioned sort almost invariably consisted largely of conscripts recruited from the ranks of the subjugated populations. 
 
Many of us know this from our own family histories of service in the military forces of the British Empire recruited from the subcontinent. These were utilized not just in the subcontinent and adjacent areas such as SE Asia, but in distant theaters, such as West Asia, North Africa, and Europe.  
 
Without the willing contributions of labor and skill from a fair number of those who had been subjugated, an empire is unlikely to last for long.
 
So some measure of inclusivity is needed for the longer-term survival of an empire, distinguishing it from a shorter-term raiding and looting venture. 
 
Among the more recent empires, we see instances of more stability and so also often more inclusivity in, for instance, the developed Mughal, Ottoman, and British Empires. 
 
We saw this also in the USSR, which inherited the Russian Tsarist Empire. This did not, however, save that vast multiethnic giant from collapse after eighty years of communist party rule that had granted the various regional nationalities and ethnicities far more recognition, including of their diverse cultures, beginning with their languages, than the Tsarist Russian Empire ever had, along with more relative autonomy, while still preserving highly centralized structures.
 
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire saw the rise of strong ethnic nationalisms, such as Turkish, Greek, Armenian, and Kurdish. The mayhem that ensued has still not abated.
 
The British Empire contracted after WWII, with varying degrees of management and violence. The ethnic nationalisms that rose and clashed in the subcontinent also led to mass mayhem and displacement. The echoes of the cries of that bloody partition can still be heard and may even be building in volume, with ominous implications. 
 
In Africa, the British often did not leave without much violence. Kenya is a case in point. 
 
The French did not generally manage their exits from their colonial ventures as adroitly as did the British. One notes the instances of Algeria, a horror story, and Indochina--which had to also deal with imperial Japan and with the USA, with lethal tolls in each case. 
 
One notes what occurred in Yugoslavia during its own collapse. Although, like present-day India and even more so, it could not be considered to be an empire, it was a large, multiethnic state with a history of internecine warfare, mainly that of competing regional kingdoms and empires. Its central government and its diverse populations had been able to overcome that legacy--until the horrors of the 2000s. 
 
One prays that India will not go the way of Yugoslavia--or of Pakistan as occurred in 1970-71.
 
The collapse of the USSR appeared for quite a while to have managed to be an exception to the general rule of multiethnic empires collapsing into violent conflicts between their constituent nationalities.
 
However, there was Chechnya, which was in some ways, though not all, an extension of what had begun in Afghanistan under US-Pakistani-Saudi auspices, spreading even as far into the Soviet interior as to strike Moscow, while metastasizing globally.
Putin, who emerged as the Russian strongman, appealing to Russian nationalism even as other fierce, exclusive nationalisms arose in the former components of the USSR, "solved" that Chechen rebellion with brutal force, as he did the one in Daghestan.
 
Since the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, a lethal civil war had been ongoing in Eastern Ukraine, with the USA, especially during Trump's first term and continuing into Biden's presidency, pouring huge amounts of arms into Ukraine. Then came the Russian invasion of 2022 February. The mayhem continues and widens.
 
Within the US homeland, we note the increase in inclusivity that was the trend during parts of the last century and the first quarter of this century, embracing, to varying degrees:
 
- the long-exploited and oppressed descendants of African slaves;
 
- the few surviving members of the indigenous peoples;
 
- the large numbers of newer immigrants, including those from places other than Europe. 
  
Sadly, we have been seeing sharp reversals of these trends over the past several months, with slower ones accruing over some past administrations.  
  
Is it possible that the federation that is the US  homeland will break up in the near future? One cannot rule that out, although that would be a grim chapter.
 
2025 September 18, Thurs.
Berkeley, California
 

The Wages of Sin in the USA

 

The Wages of Sin in the USA: the consequences of non-collective mindsets, of yielding to short-term competitive pressures, of absentee governance, and of a captive political class 

 
As a domiciled USAn, residing, studying and working in the country for over half a century, watching this short but telling video hurts. 

https://youtu.be/uf_GCOSZ2bA

Setting that hurt aside, however, I recall being perplexed and worried, even in the 1980s and 1990s, as the US establishments—within both the private sector and government, seemed to be focused on short-term profits and fixes, and not on the longer-term good of the people of this country, let alone of others. 

From the 1990s onwards, we saw the outflow of US manufacturing jobs to countries with lower costs of production, with large US corporations leading the charge. 

Little or no thought was given to maintaining a manufacturing base for essentials here, so as to preserve basic national self-reliance, ensure security, and protect workers, including with training to help them adapt to a changing manufacturing world. 

Surely, the government, as well as consortiums of corporations, should have had a role in this, as individual corporations are often caught in competitive races, with cost of production, including the cost of labor, being a very important consideration, as is share price value. 

The focus on stock price values, projected changes in which helped determine the inflows and outflows of investments in a corporation, seemed indeed to drive much of the decisions of business executives, with longer term considerations being set aside for shorter term ones. 

Soon enough, remote service jobs began to move abroad as well, and that trend has continued and accelerated ever since.

Corporate takeovers and mass firings of employees to boost shareholder values, and other such profit-taking actions added to the mayhem. Job stability and pensions came to regarded as liabilities by private corporations and were basically done away with.

Within the USA, outsourcing, automation and competition with immigrant labor added to the pressures on workers. The rise of the Internet marketers, led by Amazon, dealt a series of blows to retail businesses with physical stores and to their sales- and other employees.

Free trade agreements such as those concluded, through NAFTA, with Mexico and Canada, and then with the Pacific rim countries, unconstrained by input from workers' organizations and even from legislators here and abroad, added to the outflow of jobs, as had been predicted, for instance, by the self-financed, billionaire presidential candidate, Ross Perot.

This was largely ignored by both the Republican and Democratic establishments. Obama even sided with the Republicans and against the majority of Democrats in Congress in trying to push through free trade agreements with China and other countries that were predicted to hurt workers here and did. 

Both the Republican and Democratic establishments continued to focus on and celebrate economic booms that mainly benefited only certain sections of workers as well as those with surplus income that they were able to invest wisely.

These booms also greatly benefited, of course, the ever more wealthy and powerful oligarchs who exert great influence over both the major political parties here and so also largely determine or strongly constrain legislative and executive actions at federal, state, and municipal levels, over time also affecting the composition of the judiciary.

The alliances between the Zionist lobby, very affluent corporate and individual donors, the war hawks in the two parties and in the military, and the arms manufacturers and marketers led the USA into multiple regime-change operations abroad, including through coups, covert operations and overt military assaults. 

In retrospect, one sees more clearly the influence of AIPAC and its allies in the involvement of the US in multiple highly destructive wars and other destabilizing actions in West Asia and North Africa.

All of this involved massive military and other expenditures, even as Republicans, especially, but also corporate Democrats like Andrew Cuomo waged what one sees, again in retrospect, as austerity campaigns within the USA, at all levels.

These put increasingly hard squeezes on many workers and those with limited means, with what remained of the labor unions increasingly coopted and crippled.

Moving to more current times, the economic pain and anxiety inflicted on large segments of the US working classes manifested themselves not only in things like rising suicide rates and the lethal opioid epidemic, but also in resentment against the increasingly affluent elites that had benefited from what was effectively a massive “upward” transfer of wealth withiIn the USA.

This transfer began in earnest during the 1980s, in the Reagan years, and has continued through subsequent administrations, both Republican and Democratic, accelerating more in the Republican ones.

Rising awareness and resentment of this led to the Occupy Wall Street movement, the identification of the role of the “1%”,  and subsequently to the rise of populist movements within both the major parties.

The movement within the Democratic party was genuinely social-democratic and inclusive, led by Bernie Sanders in his Democratic-primary challenge to Hillary Clinton in the lead-up to the 2016 general election. 

The corresponding movement within the Republican Party was strongly nativist, capitalist, and reactionary in the dictionary sense, coalescing around Donald Trump.

I began to notice and be startled that many working-class residents of New York City, including  long-term Democratic voters, were moving towards supporting Donald Trump, and that they did in fact vote for him. 

Some had supported Bernie Sanders but could not stomach Hillary Clinton, with her very close ties to the Wall Streeters, her support for and even active involvement in wars of aggression abroad, etc. 

She had also been subject to many smears from the Republican propaganda machines during and after Bill Clinton’s two terms. Some of these smears have stuck.

Unfortunately, many Democratic politicians, with exceptions such as Zohran Mamdani, remain blind and deaf, as it were, to some of the genuine concerns of many USAns whom they lump together as MAGA morons.  

I noticed this recently in the clever but arrogant comments made by Mehdi Hassan in an encounter with mainly MAGA folk, including many young people. 

He repeatedly dismissed their economic concerns and their worries about competition from new immigrants for scarce good-paying jobs.

In one case, he noted that the GDP and employment had been rising during the Biden years and that he himself, a recent US immigrant, had founded a company and had hired workers here in the USA.   

It is noteworthy that Bernie Sanders has been getting record crowds at his rallies, including in "Red" (Republican) areas.

One can be against blind, callous nativism, the hero-worship of a narcissistic, bullying clown, and other such problematic developments. 

There is also no doubt that newer immigrants have long helped to power, in multiple ways, the economy of the USA, in addition to providing many essential services. 

One should still be careful not to be blind and deaf oneself to genuine human concerns. 

The Democratic establishment has not even come to grips yet with our deep complicity in the daily, deliberate, systematic slaughter of trapped, defenseless civilians, mainly women and children, in Palestine and adjacent areas, ongoing now for almost two years. 

Here again, they have lost touch with much of their own electoral base. 

2025 Sep 4., Thu.
Berkeley, California

https://youtu.be/uf_GCOSZ2bA 

Linear Directional and Cyclical Views of Human Affairs--Plus Absolutism versus Relativism

 
Linear Directional and Cyclical Views of Human Affairs
—and their possible association with absolutist/purist and relativist/accommodative views of the same 

A) Forward Moving (or Linear Directional) versus Cyclical Views of Human Affairs

The main issue I have with Marx's view of human affairs, which I otherwise admire, is the same as I have with many other views that might perhaps be traced most directly to Europe and: 

- initially, its admirable "Renaissance" (rebirth), sparked by the entry and reentry of knowledge and analytical thought into southern, Mediterranean Europe (mainly southern Spain and then Italy) through the Muslim, mainly Arab, Mediterranean North Africa and Asia

- subsequently, and perhaps more significantly, Europe's equally admirable "Enlightenment". 

The roots of these views extend further in space, including, most obviously, North Africa and West Asia, but also the rest of the Old World, and also further back in time.

The common element in these "modern" views, with which I have some issue, is the idea of a "forward" direction in our collective and perhaps even individual human affairs. 

On the Left, the view behind the words "progressive" and "reactionary," as applied to political directions, is one manifestation of this basic view of human affairs. 

However, this same view (and the drive issuing from it, with its benefits and its harms) can be found in many other human attitudes and endeavors.

This includes, in politics, views prevailing on the political and economic Right, despite its adoption of the term "Conservative" in Britain and the USA. 

This “conservative” view also assumes a linear path in human affairs, with the purpose being to either resist any movement away from the current state of human affairs, or else to move this state "backwards" towards what is viewed as a better state.

Then there are all the views in the economic sphere, be these on the political-economic Left or Right, that advocate a particular economic system and its consequences. 

This can be contrasted with the cyclical views that had long been prevalent in many human cultures previously, as especially evident in the philosophical and religious literature and scholarship in Asia, including China, especially, but also India. 

So, just as the yin rises within the yang and vice versa and just our own multiple biological rhythms, along with the tides, the days and nights, and the seasons of the year, keep cycling through, so also, in this view, empires and other human constructions rise and fall and various currents in human affairs surge and ebb.

*************************************************

B) Absolutist and Relativist Views of Human Affairs

In association with these two world-views, one finds also, in general:

- an intolerance for other views, or absolutism/purism, often accompanying the first, "forward moving" or “linear directional” view;

- a tolerance for other views, or relativism/accomodation, accompanying the second, "cyclical" or “mingling, spreading, and circulating” view.

Absolutism in the Abrahamic Religions

One possible historical manifestation of this association of absolutism/purism with a "forward moving" or “linear directional” view, often also seeing the world as a struggle between polarized opposites, might perhaps be found in some of the precepts and practices of the "Abrahamic" religions, each of these faiths being again admirable in many ways in its other teachings and practices.

These Abrahamic religions, among which Judaism is usually accepted to constitute the common, shared base, are of ancient and medieval provenance, originating and finding stable form, in the case of Judaism, in West Asia and North Africa, spreading later, mainly as proselytizing Christianity and Islam, into parts of the rest of the Old World and subsequently, via Europe, as Christianity, into much of the rest of the human-inhabited planet.

The "forward moving" view within the "Abrahamic" religions may be most evident in the proselytizing views and practices of Christianity, which were followed historically by those of Islam, with possible influences from Zoroastrianism and perhaps Mithraism and Buddhism, with Judaism remaining mainly (with some important exceptions) a hereditary, tribal religion.

Interestingly, though perhaps incidentally, both Zoroastrianism and Buddhism, though otherwise different, were radical reform and revolutionary movements that had arisen within adherents of polytheistic religions practiced initially mainly by speakers of Indo-Iranian languages. Among other things, both developed strong ethical codes that extended to all humans, and even, in the case of Buddhism as also in Jainism, all sentient beings.

The two major proselytizing Abrahamic faiths (Christianity and Islam, with their various branches) are closely linked to each other, and also to Judaism, with these linkages most clearly understood, accepted, and respected in Islam. The ethical codes in Christianity and Islam are based on that which existed in Judaism, but are further extended, in keeping with their generally more inclusive views on humans. 

The three major Abrahamic religions share, to varying degrees in their various branches, a core absolutism/purism and so also an often-accompanying disrespect towards and intolerance towards other faiths, especially non-Abrahamic ones, with this absolutism/purism and intolerance being inherited from Judaism.

Indeed, Judaism, at its hard, resistant core, extends this disrespect and intolerance even to Christianity, especially, but also, to a lesser extent, to Islam.

Christianity typically extends this intolerance to Islam and also, in historical practice, to Judaism. 

All of this said, it is possible to find many historical and current exceptions to these general patterns in all three Abrahamic traditions. 

While Islam has, both in core precept and general practice, generally respected both Judaism and Christianity (though regarding Jesus as a prophet, not as an incarnation of divinity, a concept as alien to Judaic thought as it is part of the religious traditions of the Indo-Europeans and others) its attitudes and actions, again in both precept and practice, has rarely been truly free of this absolutism (and consequent intolerance) that is rooted in Judaism.

Again, one can find many exceptions to these general remarks, both in practice and in the core teachings of these three religions. 

This absolutism has generally persisted and prevailed in all the three major Abrahamic religions, with large variations in their branches and over time. 

As religious faith and affiliation waned in many countries over the last century, so also did this absolutism, at least in the religious sphere if not in others. 

However, we have been seeing resurgences of religious faith and affiliation, for better or worse.

Unfortunately, there have been accompanying surges, typically associated with weaponizations of religions for political-economic purposes, of absolutism, disrespect, and intolerance.  

These surges have not been confined to within the branches of the three Abrahamic religions. They have been very strongly evident in non-Abrahamic ones. 

Absolutism in Economics, Politics and Other Human Affairs

In the economic and political spheres, we again encounter absolutist views, with "statist" opposed to "democratic", "capitalist" opposed to "socialist", etc.

In the closely associated social sphere, one finds again "individualist" and "collectivist" views, with extreme versions of each being, typically, intolerant of other views and practices. 

In various other human endeavors, be these in medicine, education, science, engineering and other technology, industry, commerce, or whatever, as well as in all the humanities, arts and crafts, one also often encounters "absolutist" views, at times presented as "optimal" ones. 

In these views, anyone who disagrees with there being "one best way", or one set of "best practices" or "one right way" is regarded as a woefully misguided nuisance at best and, too often, as a dangerous crank who needs to be silenced and eliminated. 

In many of these cases, one may detect a strong association of these absolutist views with "forward moving" views of human affairs, and a disassociation of these with more "cyclical" and so also often generally more relativistic and accommodating views of human affairs.

2025 February 3, Mon.
Berkeley, California