Were Empires Good or Bad?

Were empires good or bad? Judging history with today's opinions achieves nothing.

We are subjected to a lot of claims that Britain was wrong to have had an empire. Most of the criticism of Britain's empires seems to come from the middle class socialists living in Britain, the self-appointed elite who claim to be the arbiters of what is politically correct.

Just about every nation on Earth has—at some time in history—had an empire: Egypt and Greece, in the shape of the Athens city state, had Empires, the Romans, the Mongolians, Spanish, French, Russians, Germans, Dutch, and so many more all had empires. It is probably true that the Zulu nations could claim they ruled an empire; certainly the Aztecs did. China ruled an empire for a very long period of history.

What is an empire? The dictionary definition is straightforward: An aggregate of peoples and territories under the rule of a single person, oligarchy, or sovereign state.

Since history is filled with empires, why are there, apparently, so many who wish to criticize Britain for having once had one? The answer to this is modern politics. Those who decry the previous empires are usually socialists who see the denouncing of historical empires as propaganda to solicit younger people to the socialist cause. As with all political propaganda—from all parts of the spectrum and all parties—there is only ever a very biased view and very restricted amount of information given.

In some ways, it is paradoxical of socialists to claim empires are bad things. Since socialism requires adherence to governance from a central authority, and since all socialist governments have always tried to impose conformity on all that they govern, they behave in just the same way as historical empires.

Were empires always a bad thing? That is open to debate. Despite all the lazy journalism that talks about industrial empires and even criminal empires, there are no truly defined real empires left in the world now. The Russian empire broke up and the east European states that had been ruled from Moscow are now mostly independent, politically; they may not be free economically, but they are no longer part of the Russian empire. The bloodshed across eastern Europe that occurred after the empire gave up military control was predictable, but also a very unwanted aspect of the collapse of an empire. The millions who died in the break up of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh—all following the end of British empire governance—is another indication that empires may have actually prevented localized wars. Many historians view the Aztec empire as being a relatively benign organization. Since while rule was by the Aztecs, they seem to have allowed many local customs and practices to continue without suppression. The British empire did not impose Anglican Christianity on all the peoples it ruled over. It may have supported efforts by the Anglican church to gain establishment in the subject nations, but it did not forcibly repress other religious beliefs. There must have been localized attempts by over zealous individuals or groups to impose their religions, but it was never the policy of the ruling British empire. Just as the Roman empire caused the improvement in transportation infrastructure throughout those areas of Europe it controlled, so did the British bring railways and telegraphic communication to its empire.

Politically, empires were attempts to impose a single view on a variety of other views. Economically, the empires existed to aid the economic advancement of the ruling nation. In practice, the larger the empire became—relative to the then known world—the more dependent the ruling nation became, on those it ruled. This dependency was economic, but economies affect politics in very direct ways. Nearly all the old empires came about because of exploration; the more technically advanced nation of its day sought to explore other areas of land, and in doing so, they met other nations who they had little previous contact with, and even less understanding of. This was in times when information and knowledge did not flow around the world, and to use our modern knowledge to condemn the actions of past people who did not have the information is extremely unjust. The exploitation of subject nations—whether as the ancient Greeks and Romans did—to enslave the indigenous population or to extract raw materials at artificially low prices, as just about every empire as done, is condemned now, but was thought normal at the time they were done. A small benefit to the colonized nation was the improvement in the production of raw materials and this improvement continued after the empire stopped being in control.

In many ways, empires were both good and bad. When they first gained power, they were good for their own people and bad for the people they took control of; but when the empires collapsed, they left legacies that unbalanced. Suggest the decolonized people had gained while the people of the empire lost out, since their dependency on cheap materials (which no longer came to them) was now a huge problem. Britain's collapsed empire left a legacy of democracy, which seems odd given the nature of empires, but since this was an organized break up, they left democracy in its place. Unfortunately. not every nation gaining its freedom from Britain stayed with democracy. But many, especially the larger nations, did so with great success. Australia and Canada developed from the British empire and have grown to be reasonably good examples of democracy at work, and there are others. It is also always possible, for those seeking negatives, and those searching for things to criticize, to find them.

The politics of the empire-building nations seems to be one where a powerful, skilled, and ambitious ruler can organize all the resources of their nation and direct these towards expansion. The collapse of empires seems to occur when there is no powerful ruler and the governance is in the hands of weaker, less able, and less decisive people. For this reason, it's probable that democracy is a way of preventing the formation of empires in the future—as long as democracy survives.