Empire (32 page)

tive police,’’ and ‘‘Pinkerton State’’ were all developed in the United

States in this period. U.S. class repression had no reason to be

jealous ofthe various kaisers and czars ofEurope. Today that fero-

cious period ofcapitalist and state repression still lives on, even if

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the names ofits primary perpetrators (such as Frick, Carnegie,

Mellon, and Morgan) now only serve to grace the mantels of

philanthropic foundations. How ferocious that repression was—and

the stronger it was, the stronger the resistance! This is what really

matters. If things had gone differently, if the resistance to repression

had not been so strong, this book on Empire, as a form of rule

different from imperialism, would have had no reason to be written.

The possible lines ofresponse to address the closure ofspace

on the North American continent were diverse, contradictory, and

conflicting. The two proposals that most strongly determined the

tendency ofthe subsequent development ofthe Constitution were

both elaborated within the framework of U.S. ‘‘progressivism’’ at

the beginning ofthe twentieth century. The first was put forward

by Theodore Roosevelt, the second by Woodrow Wilson; the

first exercised a completely traditional European-style imperialist

ideology, and the second adopted an internationalist ideology of

peace as an expansion ofthe constitutional conception ofnetwork

power. Both ofthese proposals were intended as responses to the

same problem: the crisis ofthe social relationship and consequently

the crisis of Jeffersonian space. For both, the second element of

importance was the corruption ofthe network power ofthe Consti-

tution through the formation of powerful trusts. Both of their

presidential administrations were marked by the passage ofimportant

progressivist antitrust legislation, from the regulation of the railroads

under Roosevelt to broad regulation ofbusiness and finance under

Wilson. Their common problem was understanding how class an-

tagonism, which by this time had all but destroyed the model of

network power, could be placated. They recognized that within

the bounds ofthe system itself—and this is the third point in

common—it was impossible. The open terrain had been used up,

and even ifit were not completely depleted, any room for movement

could not be managed in democratic terms.

Since an internal solution to the closing ofspace was impossi-

ble, the progressivism ofAmerican ideology had to be realized with

reference to the outside. The two responses both emphasized this

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move outward, but Wilson’s project was so much more utopian

that Roosevelt’s. For Roosevelt, the Spanish-American War and

the Rough Riders’ rally up San Juan Hill constituted the prototype

ofthe solution, and that image became even more central as he

underwent his populist conversion. Roosevelt’s solution to the

limits ofspace involved abandoning the original features ofthe

U.S. model and instead following goals and methods similar to

the populist colonial imperialism ofa Cecil Rhodes and the progres-

sive imperialism ofthe French Third Republic.20 This imperialist

path led to the colonialist experience ofthe United States in the

Philippines. ‘‘It is our duty toward the people living in barbarism,’’

Roosevelt proclaimed, ‘‘to see that they are freed from their chains.’’

Any concession to liberation struggles that allowed uncivilized pop-

ulations like the Filipinos to govern themselves would thus be

‘‘an international crime.’’21 Roosevelt, along with generations of

European ideologues before him, relied on the notion of ‘‘civiliza-

tion’’ as an adequate justification for imperialist conquest and domi-

nation.

Wilson’s solution to the crisis of space took an entirely different

path. His project ofthe international extension ofthe network

power ofthe Constitution was a concrete political utopia. Nowhere

was Wilson’s interpretation ofAmerican ideology derided more

strongly than it was in Europe in the period ofthe Treaty of

Versailles, but it was not very well appreciated in the United States,

either. It is true that the League ofNations, the crowning glory of

the Wilsonian project for European and world peace, never got

past the veto power ofCongress; but his concept ofworld order

based on the extension ofthe U.S. constitutional project, the idea

ofpeace as product ofa new world network ofpowers, was a

powerful and long-lasting proposal.22 This proposal corresponded

to the original logic ofthe U.S. Constitution and its idea ofexpansive

Empire. European modernists could not help mocking this proposal

ofa postmodern Empire: the chronicles are full ofthe ironies and

insults ofGeorges Clemenceau and Lloyd George, along with the

fascists, who all declared that the refusal of the Wilsonian project

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was a central element oftheir projects ofdictatorship and war. Yet

poor maligned Wilson appears today in a rather different light: a

utopian, yes, but lucid in his foresight of the horrible future that

awaited the Europe ofnations in the coming years; the inventor

ofa world government ofpeace, which was certainly unrealizable,

but the vision proved nonetheless an efficient promoter of the

passage to Empire. This is all true even ifWilson did not recognize

it. Here in fact we begin to touch concretely the difference between

imperialism and Empire, and we can see in those Wilsonian utopias

the intelligence and foresight of a great idiot.

American Imperialism

The third phase or regime ofthe U.S. Constitution might be seen

as taking effect fully with the passage of the New Deal legislation

such as the National Industrial Relations Act, but for our purposes

it is better to mark its inception earlier, even as early as the Bolshevik

Revolution of1917 and the period when its threat echoed across

the United States and throughout the world. In retrospect, in those

first decades after the October Revolution we can already recognize

the roots ofthe cold war—the bipolar division ofthe territories of

the globe and the frantic competition between the two systems.

The New Deal legislation itself, along with the construction of

comparable welfare systems in Western Europe, might be cast as a

response to the threat conjured up by the Soviet experience, that

is, to the increasing power ofworkers’ movements both at home

and abroad.23 The United States found itself increasingly driven by

the need to placate class antagonism, and thus anticommunism

became the overriding imperative. Cold war ideology gave rise to

the most exaggerated forms of Manichaean division, and as a result,

some ofthe central elements we have seen defining modern Euro-

pean sovereignty reappeared in the United States.

It became increasingly evident during this phase, and through-

out the course ofthe twentieth century, that the United States, far

from being that singular and democratic nation its founders imagined

it to be, an Empire ofLiberty, was the author ofdirect and brutal

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imperialist projects, both domestically and abroad. The figure of

the U.S. government as the world cop and mastermind ofthe

repression ofliberation struggles throughout the world was not

really born in the 1960s, nor even with the inception ofthe cold

war proper, but stretches back to the Soviet revolution, and maybe

even earlier. Perhaps what we have presented as
exceptions
to the

development ofimperial sovereignty should instead be linked to-

gether as a real tendency, an alternative within the history ofthe U.S.

Constitution. In other words, perhaps the root ofthese imperialist

practices should be traced back to the very origins ofthe country,

to black slavery and the genocidal wars against the Native Americans.

Earlier we considered black slavery as a constitutional problem

in the antebellum period, but racial subordination and the super-

exploitation ofblack labor continued well after the passage ofthe

Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. The ideologi-

cal and physical barriers erected around African Americans have

always contradicted the imperial notion ofopen spaces and mixed

populations. In particular, the position ofblack labor in the United

States strongly paralleled the position ofcolonial labor in European

regimes in terms ofthe division oflabor, working conditions, and

wage structure. Indeed, the super-exploitation ofblack labor gives

us one example, an internal example, ofthe imperialist tendency

that has run throughout U.S. history.

A second example ofthis imperialist tendency, an external

example, can be seen in the history ofthe Monroe Doctrine and

the U.S. efforts to exert control over the Americas. The doctrine,

announced by President James Monroe in 1823, was presented first

and foremost as a defensive measure against European colonialism:

the free and independent American continents ‘‘are henceforth not

to be considered as subjects for future colonization by a European

power.’’24 The United States assumed the role ofprotector ofall

the nations ofthe Americans against European aggression, a role

that was eventually made explicit with the Theodore Roosevelt

corollary to the doctrine, claiming for the United States ‘‘an inter-

national police power.’’ One would be hard-pressed, however,

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to characterize the numerous U.S. military interventions in the

Americas simply in terms ofdefense against European aggression.25

Yanqui politics is a strong tradition ofimperialism dressed in anti-

imperialist clothing.

During the cold war this imperialist temptation—or really

the ambiguity between protector and dominator—became more

intense and more extensive. In other words, protecting countries

across the entire world from communism (or, more accurately,

Soviet imperialism) became indistinguishable from dominating and

exploiting them with imperialist techniques. The U.S. involvement

in Vietnam might well be considered the pinnacle ofthis tendency.

From one perspective, and certainly within the U.S. government’s

elaboration ofcold war ideology, the war in Vietnam fit into a global

political strategy to defend the ‘ free world’’ against communism, to

contain its advances. The war, however, could not but also be, in

practice, a continuation ofEuropean imperialism on the part ofthe

United States. By the 1960s, the European colonial powers were

losing crucial battles and their control was waning. Like aging

prizefighters they began to bow out ofthe ring, and the United

States stepped in as the new champion. The U.S. military never

doubted that it was strong enough to avoid the kind ofhumiliation

that the French suffered at Dien Bien Phu. The Americans acted

during their brieftenure in Vietnam with all the violence, brutality,

and barbarity befitting any European imperialist power. It seemed

that the United States would declare itselfthe rightful heir to the

declining European powers, donning their imperialist mantle and

outdoing them at their own imperialist practices.

The U.S. adventure in Vietnam, ofcourse, ended in defeat.

In an extraordinary feat of unparalleled strength and courage, the

Vietnamese combated two imperialist powers in succession and

emerged victorious—although the fruits of that victory have since

proven to be exceedingly bitter. From the perspective ofthe United

States, however, and in terms ofour briefconstitutional history, the

Vietnam War might be seen as the final moment ofthe imperialist

tendency and thus a point ofpassage to a new regime ofthe Con-

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179

stitution. The path ofEuropean-style imperialism had become once

and for all impassable, and henceforth the United States would have

to both turn back and leap forward to a properly imperial rule.

As a kind ofhistorical shorthand, we could locate the end ofthe

third and beginning ofthe fourth regime ofthe U.S. Constitution in

1968.26 The Tet offensive in January marked the irreversible military

defeat of the U.S. imperialist adventures. More important, however,

as is the case before each shift of constitutional regimes, the pressure

for a return to republican principles and the original constitutional

spirit was already prepared by the powerful internal social move-

ments. Just when the United States was most deeply embroiled in

an imperialist venture abroad, when it had strayed farthest from its

original constitutional project, that constituent spirit bloomed most

strongly at home—not only in the antiwar movements themselves,

but also in the civil rights and Black Power movements, the student

movements, and eventually the second-wave feminist movements.