Class 3 - A Very Litte More

 And now we come to imperialism. 

Rhodes vs. You Know Who

Let's start with something obvious:

The world is nearly all parcelled out, and what there is left of it is being divided up, conquered and colonised. To think of these stars that you see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach. I would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so far. - Cecil Rhodes: Last Will and Testament

Now who the fuck does that sound like?...

In the 1890s, Cecil Rhodes was co-founder and chairman of DeBeers Consolidated Mines. He had a literal world monopoly of diamonds: controlling 80 to 85% of the world's diamond mines and could name any price in any country. Any purchaser who wanted even the smallest diamond would have to buy what he dictated. 

He was also, wait for it, the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, one of Britain's four colonies that comprised what we now call South Africa. In order to stymie native black Africans from having a political voice in the Cape Colony he increased the from their land being worth 25 pounds sterling in order to vote to 75 pounds, and then he set limits on the amount of land black Africans could own. His view was that "Black people need to be driven off their land to stimulate them to labour. It must be brought home to them that in future nine-tenths of them will have to spend their lives in manual labour, and the sooner that is brought home to them the better." Ten years after his death, the now united South Africa implemeted a plan for which he was one of the chief architects: which allowed black Africans to only own land on 10 percent of the country's land while whites were entitled to the other 90 percent. It prohibited interracial marriage, created white-only spaces, and segregated bathrooms, fountains, parks and beaches. While the Apartheid era technically begins in 1948, many of its rules were already in place by 1913. 

From the beginning, modern imperialism has been so bound up with corporate partnership with governments that the border between state and business is often obliterated--one could almost call it corporate control of governments. Money can only be accumulated so much so long as the government regulates it, and the only option to stop government for regulating business is for business to regulate government. That's how we get lobbies, that's how we get unlimited campaign contributions and Super PACs, and most importantly, that's how we get the constantly revolving door between lobbyist and public servant--there is no better advocacy for a business than a public servant who has an extremely vested interest in increasing its income. 

The same sick narcissism, and it is an illness, that makes people want to accumulate unlimited power makes people want to accumulate unlimited wealth, and so long as two archetypal narcissists beset by twin addictions can stay in the same room with each other, it's inevitable that they will try as hard as they can to become allies and friends, even though both of them are incapable of either. I can't do better than this Arendt quote: 

"Money could finally beget money because power, with complete disregard for all laws--economic as well as ethical--could appropriate wealth. Only when exported money succeeded in stimulating the export of power could it accomplish its owners' designs. Only the unlimited accumulation of power could bring about the unlimited accumulation of capital."'

1. Who is the more powerful partner in an imperium? Is it countries or corporations? 

2. How, if at all, can you tell the power of one from the power of the other?

----------------------------------------------------

Rhodes vs. You Know Who Part 2

Alright, let's say his name... When dealing with the comparisons of Cecil Rhodes and Elon Musk, we m may be seeing the evolution of imperialism through the span of 125 years. Modern imperialism began long before Rhodes, but Rhodes the embodiment of its historical zenith. Everything that imperialism was, everything imperialism stood for, was Cecil Rhodes. 

Whatever stand one takes about how much 20th century American foreign policy did or didn't resemble the imperialism of 19th century Europe, it would seem that America is heading into a very different form of imperialism during the 21st; and for the moment you can, if you like, interpret Elon Musk's presence on the world stage as figure who acquaints the United States with much older notions of how the world should be run, and much as the older imperialists did, he brings us to this very old way of running the world by conquest by claiming that he is bringing the world very new things.