Empire without Tears

Michael Hardt, a professer of Literature at Duke University, has a theory. He proposes that the United States has embarked on an imperialist crusade. In it he appears to be using the old definition of imperialism--i.e. anything that a capitalist country does in foreign policy is, by definition, imperialistic. Fair enough. His article compares this period of time to the fall of the roman empire, when the power elites made consistantly foolish choices that doomed themselves.

But luckily he has a solution, which he and his collaborater, Toni Negri, call Empire. In it the United States conquers the whole world and makes it all part of America. Actually, given the title that makes sense, but that's not what Mr. Hardt has in mind. Instead it is Multilateralism squared, as he puts it. As I understand it, the power elites in all the countries of the world, including business elites, intelligence agency heads, trade organizations and so on, work together to solve problems, preserve free trade and capitalism, and increase security. Then he ends his essay with a truely bizarre paragraph.

"We can be confident that in the long run their real interests will lead global elites to support empire and refuse any project of US imperialism. In the coming months, and perhaps years, we may face a tragedy that we read about in the darkest periods of human history, when elites are incapable of acting in their own interest."

So either we are doomed or we aren't. But you already knew that.