This is another one of
those posts that I have been meaning to write for some time. The
timing, and the exact content, have been strongly influenced by two
books I have recently read:
Europe and the Faith, by Hilaire Belloc;
and
Liberal Fascism, by Jonah Goldberg. These are both works of what
I have decided to call 'troll history'. That is, no-holds-barred
assaults on establishment historical narratives that assert that
everything you thought was black is actually white, and everything
you thought was white is actually black. For example, Belloc spends
a great part of his book asserting that the Roman Empire did not so
much fall as decentralise under new management; while Goldberg's main
point is that the administration of the famous 'Progressive'
President Woodrow Wilson was the prototype for all the demonstrably
Fascist regimes of the early 20th century.
This is my small
contribution to the genre for today. It is provoked in the short term
by an assertion of Goldberg's: revolutions are bad, he says, and
after recounting the bad consequences of numerous revolutions traces
the roots of Wilson's proto-Fascism back to the utopian delusions of
the French Revolution. However, he then makes an exception for the
American Revolution, declaring it to be 'a good, conservative'
revolution, rather than a 'bad, radical' revolution.
I say, bollocks.
If you violently sever
your connections with a country that is universally considered to be
the most free, the most classically liberal, currently in existence,
in order to make a polity that is more free and classically liberal,
is that conservative? Is it not instead utopian, an example of the
perfect being the enemy of the good? If, instead of forming the
political institutions of your new polity on incremental
modifications in the directions of freedom and classical liberalism
of the existing ones, you create de novo an experimental system
modelled most closely on republican Rome, is that conservative? Is it
not instead wildly radical and utopian? If a significant proportion
of the most conservative elements of your new state - landowners,
businessmen, professionals, clergymen - voluntarily flee it; and if
such political refugees are numerous enough to permanently change the
demographics of Canada from a French-majority to an English-majority
nation, is that conservative?
The attempt to draw a
line between a 'good, conservative' American revolution and a 'bad,
radical' French revolution is untenable. The French revolution was
just the American Revolution, but in France. France lacked the unique
features that prevented the American Revolution from being a disaster
for the rebel colonists: A highly decentralised country with no one
centre of power for competing factions to feud in; a population
already used to self-government, armed, and strongly democratic in
spirit; and the sui generis Cincinnatus-figure of George Washington,
content to win the war and go back to his farm.
Furthermore, without
the American Revolution there would have been no French Revolution.
The American revolution let the genie out of the bottle and began all
this trouble. The fascist utopianism of Wilson, if such it was, had its
ultimate roots not in France, but in the New World.
I do not wish to malign
the motives of the participants in the American revolution, or deny
the real injustices that drove them to their actions. My contribution
to troll history today is to argue that the consequences over the
past few centuries of this revolution have been largely negative and
destructive. Far from being a force for liberty in the world and a
shining example of democracy, the separation of the United States
from Great Britain has weakened the Free World and provided an
example of a limping, bogus, pseudo-democracy whose imitation as been
calamitous wherever it has been attempted.
The most significant
consequences I see are the weakening of Britain during the 150 years
in which it was the greatest power for freedom in the world; and
making revolution look easy – encouraging the French, Haitians, and
others down terrible paths. Indirectly, then, through the French
Revolution, I am going to blame the American Revolution for
destroying Europe and plunging the world into two disasterous wars in
the last century.
First, the no-brainer
troll history assertions:
“We could have been a
great nation together” Thomas Jefferson said, and this is perfectly
true.
A Britain still in
control of North America - instead of being distracted into fighting
another war there in 1812-1815 - would have defeated Napoleon more
easily.
If there had been no
American Revolution, but the rebel colonies had remained part of
a larger British polity, slavery would doubtless have been abolished
there in the 1830s or 40s, and by an act of parliament, not a ruinous
civil war. So millions of lives saved, no century of economic
backwardness in the South, no Jim Crow. Maybe some dissatisfied
slave-owners would have headed west beyond the writ of the Crown,
like the Voortrekkers headed east from Cape Colony; but I doubt this
would have been significant: slave-owning Southerners were more
embedded in the global economy, more heavily invested in immobile
capital improvements, and a much smaller fraction of the overall
white population than the slave-owning Boers were.
Imagine what a
difference another Dominion with 50 or 100 million industrialised
European inhabitants would have made to the defeat of the Kaiser,
entering the war in August 1914 instead of three years later.
Imagine that same
Dominion's industrial-military complex turned against Hitler in 1939,
instead of 1942. A shorter war? A war where Hitler was in too much
trouble to go off and madly invade Russia, ending in a negotiated
peace and an un-destroyed Europe? One of those, for certain.
Imagine the more
durable Pax Brittanica, the more overwhelming British hegemony, the
improved opportunity for the Mother of Parliaments to raise sturdy
daughters all over the globe.
Now, to draw a longer
bow:
The second successful
revolution in the New World was the Haitian Revolution. I doubt
anyone seriously believes they would have gotten away with it if the
American Revolution had not paved the way. Have a quick squiz across
to the Lesser Antilles: Martinique, Guadeloupe, St. Martin. Overseas
departements with First World standards of living. Is there any doubt
the descendants of the slaves of St. Domingue would be better off if
their ancestors had not imitated the Americans? Anyone?
Ditto across Latin
America. Would these countries have broken the links to Spain or
Portugal quite so readily? Would they have adopted systems of
government so readily corruptible into unstable military
dictatorships? Would these countries have held on to slavery as long
as they did? Without the bad example of the American Revolution - and
without the devastating effects of the French Revolution on the
Iberian Peninsula - I think, no. (Would they have been better off
remaining dependent on the mother country? Well, despite the weakened
state of Spain after the Napoleonic Wars,
economic growth in the 19th century was higher in Cuba, which remained a Spanish Colony, than the
Latin American average.
And, parenthetically, the Monroe Doctrine dissuaded Great Britain
from annexing Cuba. Would Cuba be better off today if it had been a
British Colony? What do you reckon?)
Would there have been a
French Revolution without the American Revolution? I think it is
impossible to tell: but I think it is certain that the radical,
utopian success of the American Revolution inspired the French
Revolution to be more radical and utopian. Here is a big quote from
some
random historian on the interwebz:
...There is little doubt that the
American Revolution of
the 1770s and the formation of a republic in the 1780s served as a
profound example to all European observers. Hundreds of books,
pamphlets and public lectures analyzed, romanticized and criticized
the American rebellion against Great Britain. For instance, in 1783
the Venetian ambassador to Paris wrote that "it is reasonable to
expect that, with the favourable effects of time, and of European
arts and sciences, [America] will become the most formidable power in
the world." American independence fired the imagination of
aristocrats who were unsure of their status while at the same time
giving the promise of ever greater equality to the common man. The
Enlightenment preached the steady and inevitable progress of man's
moral and intellectual nature. The American example served as a great
lesson - tyranny could be challenged. Man did have inalienable
rights. New governments could be constructed. The American example
then, shed a brilliant light. As one French observer remarked in
1789, "This vast continent which the seas surround will soon
change Europe and the universe."
Those Europeans who dreamed about the
dawn of a New Jerusalem were fascinated by the American political
experiment. The thirteen colonies began with a defensive revolution
against tyrannical oppression and they were victorious. The Americans
showed how rational men could assemble together to exercise control
over their own lives by choosing their own form of government, a
government sanctified by the force of a written constitution. With
this in mind, liberty, equality, private property and representative
government began to make more sense to European observers. If
anything, the American Revolution gave proof to that great
Enlightenment idea - the idea that a better world was possible if it
was created by men using Reason. As R. R. Palmer put it in 1959 (The
Age of Democratic Revolution: The Challenge):
The effects
of the American Revolution, as a revolution, were imponderable but
very great. It inspired the sense of a new era. It added a new
content to the conception of progress. It gave a whole new dimension
to ideas of liberty and equality made familiar by the Enlightenment.
It got people into the habit of thinking more concretely about
political questions, and made them more readily critical of their own
governments and society. It dethroned England, and set up America, as
a model for those seeking a better world. It brought written
constitutions, declarations of rights, and constituent conventions
into the realm of the possible. The apparition on the other side of
the Atlantic of certain ideas already familiar in Europe made such
ideas seem more truly universal, and confirmed the habit of thinking
in terms of humanity at large. Whether fantastically idealized or
seen in a factual way, whether as mirage or as reality, America made
Europe seem unsatisfactory to many people of the middle and lower
classes, and to those of the upper classes who wished them well. It
made a good many Europeans feel sorry for themselves, and induced a
kind of spiritual flight from the Old Regime. (p. 282)
Without a radical
utopian French Revolution, there would have been no Napoleonic conquest of
Europe - so a stronger Spain, a stronger Austria - so no
reorganisation of Germany and Italy paving the way for their
unifications later in the century. Quite likely no Germany to kick
off World War One. Thus no round Two. No need for America to
intervene and keep the world safe for democracy.
Of course there was
another bad guy in World War Two. A country that had slept quietly
untroubling the rest of the world for hundreds of years before
America went and poked it with a stick. Would it have grown powerful
enough to beat Russia and get all Imperialist and troublesome if it
had been left in peace for a few more decades? I think, probably not.
It would have industrialised at the same time as that other Hermit
Kingdom across the straits and the Americans would not have had to
drop bloody great bombs on it.
The rapidity of
decolonisation after World War Two was another function of the
relative strength of the United States and weakness of Europe. Would
those countries, by and large, have been better off with a few more
decades of development of physical and social infrastructure under
European control? I think the evidence in to date makes it hard to
argue otherwise.
Would there have been
any downsides? One thing I thought of was a reduced British
involvement in East Asia and Africa. But this might not have been
such a bad thing either.
An Indian Subcontinent
that was more imperfectly and lately colonised, by a mixture of
powers, and on decolonisation was a mixture of British, French,
Dutch, and Portuguese colonies and native states, would not be a
place that would try the utopian radical experiment of 'Partition'
with all its attendant horrors.
Reduced British
involvement in East Asia might have translated into 'no Opium Wars'.
Might have translated to 'China with less of a chip on its shoulder'.
Without the American Revolution there would have been no need to find a new dumping ground for British criminals. A later, more imperfect
colonisation of Australia would have given the Aboriginal population
a fighting chance. A continent divided between powers, where guns and
livestock had more of a chance to permeate beyond the frontiers of
white control, would be blacker today: and the Aboriginal people
would have more heroic achievements to take pride in.
No Napoleonic Wars
means no British takeover of the Cape of Good Hope: means an
Afrikaner population kept refreshed with more progressive Hollanders
and more integrated with Europe and the East Indies: means no
Apartheid state.
So in summary: the
American Revolution was the greatest wrong-turn since the
Reformation. That is my troll history contribution for today.
