Does 'imperialism' want us to develop?

Eser Karakaş
Dec 03 2020 

The old-fashioned saying “imperialism wouldn’t want us to get stronger” has entered our visual and print media once again, uttered by those I never would have guessed. I truly struggle to understand the thought process behind this utterly meaningless expression that is not based on any economics or politics – and probably, there is no real need to try and figure it out.

It is a well-known principle that, under certain circumstances (or political-economic infrastructure, if you will), certain clichés develop, and are encouraged to develop. They may even be imposed. But let us not forget, such clichés are also circumstantial in the end.

These clichés, these ways of thinking, are very stubborn.

The infrastructure will change, but the clichés resist. That is why they inevitably end up as funny remnants, making those who defend them ridiculous antique fighters against time.

“Imperialism wouldn’t want us to get stronger” is one such cliché. It is the product of the Cold War era, and probably was true at some point, but time has changed its circumstances.

The most fundamental characteristic for the cold war era was that great industrial complexes in the West would see countries like Turkey as “client states,” and the target was not the citizens but the state budgets, because they would mostly manufacture goods that would be better consumed by states themselves.

Industrial complexes don’t care about citizens, because it is important for countries like Turkey to have armies that could hold up against the Soviet Union for a while, and thus are sold weapons to that end – becoming client states.

Even in that era this old saying was not truly meaningful, and Western industrial nations were not primarily concerned with it. However, strong states would come from tax-paying citizens, and the West’s attempt to circumvent that problem involved lending money and giving out loans to client states.

By the late 20th century, as the result of a great revolution that has remained largely unexplained in terms of how it came to be, the industrial complexes faded away to be replaced with technology giants. And there is no Soviet Union anymore. (Well, there’s Putin.)

The most important economic-political transformation of the last century happened in a sleight of hand, and the client state gave way to the client citizen.

The American giants of today are not merchants of weapons, but of laptops, tablets and phones, in line with the United States’ interests.

“What is good for General Motors is good for America,” many believe GM CEO Charles Wilson to have said in 1953. It is a misquote, but today if we were to say what is good for Amazon is good for the United States, we wouldn’t be wrong.

U.S. President Donald Trump seemingly wanted to reverse this historic course of events, but was put in his place by the voters and lost to Joe Biden.

Client states are not working for the biggest companies in the West anymore, the goal now is to increase the purchasing power of the client citizen.

Perhaps for the first time in history, the United States’ interests coincide with those of a peasant in Egypt.

In other words, imperialism now wants development in countries like Turkey, it wants ordinary citizens to have more purchasing power, because that’s where its interests lie.

Populist, authoritarian governments are the biggest obstacle to this very increase.

That is why under President Biden, populist, authoritarian governments that are not open to the universal principles of law (like property rights) are about to face great troubles.

I don’t know yet whether we should rejoice or lament this right now.