The Inevitable Cost of Expansion

On April 3rd 1948, then U.S president Harry S. Truman signed onto a economic and financial plan that would lead to the industrial revitalization of Europe after the devastation from World War II. This rehabilitation plan, like many others the European continent had seen, was about using debt to rebuild. Continental Europe has to grapple with economic revitalization post major war almost every century at least once.

The process since Rome (or before) was expand through conquest; integrate acquired territories – expand economy. Conquer new territory: Repeat. Several empires had this as their modus operandi since Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Macedonia under Alexander and Rome. But the industrial revolution presented a new conundrum. Instead of procuring productivity through conquest and serfdoms (aka slavery), an empire could create more goods and services that would simply sell to competing empires. Instead of seeking to acquire land and people, the goal became to focus on industrial skill and machinery. The purpose of conquest went from people to energy. Not that people are not energy but for a locomotive, coal is more important than blood and sweat.

The competition did not stop. The wars did not stop. The wars to end slavery turned into wars to acquire energy: coal, oil, iron, lumber. When labor exploitation hit a ceiling, the economic advantage became access to raw materials and energy resources. The future belonged to the empire with the most. Empires that needed people to survive and energy for war now had people who needed labor to survive, skill to use energy, to stimulate an economy that could afford to go to war.

In the late 19th century, the United States, faced that reality after the Emancipation Proclamation and ran headfirst into the energy and raw materials race. Europe (since the Berlin Conference of 1884) on the other hand hid behind colonization: where they hid behind the free labor in other continents on top of access to their energy and raw materials. The American empire was mostly consolidated on the North American continent whilst, European empires were split across the globe with various intricate borders across other fallen empires and tribes.

European empires had something then that they still have today. A diverse labor force. In the days of colonialism, a Wolof miner in Guinea and a Malagasy rubber farmer in Madagascar were working for the good of the same empire but we culturally very different. Not to talk of the Algerian factory worker vs the Gabonese cocoa farmer or the Lebanese olive oil merchant or the Vietnamese rice farmer. All these different people were part of the same empire. However, being in different geographic locations, their visibility to the average French person in “La Hexagone” was very minimized. Their impact, nonetheless, was essential.

The geopolitical implications here are obvious. The industrial implications are worth some inquiry. Something which European empires took for granted was the sovereignty of the regions they exploited. This allowed them to overlook the pressures of industrialization and the imminent change in relations they would have to adopt in order to keep with the Continental United States, the golden child of the British empire. Continental Europe made several strides regarding labor, rivaling and surpassing the United States. However, when you took a look at their labor practices in their colonies in Africa, South America and Asia they were enforcing some of what looked like the antebellum South in the United States during slavery. For a while, trade was good. Money was good until of course, it was time for expansion. Germany needed to expand, France wanted to expand, Italy wanted to expand, Britain wanted to expand. Expansion was the order of the day. But at what cost? The empire borders were now intricately woven across the globe. Spending on war would derail the economy. However, there was a new factor. The European empires could fight with additional help from their colonies. They had gotten used to the underpriced labor that they figured they could get underpriced military service.

Under this mentality, western Europe was embroiled in two devastating wars, in less than half a century, which gave rise to an unforeseen emergence: colonial resistance. Both in Europe and on the colonies labor movements had been making their mark. Humans are an adaptive species and you cannot keep people down for too long before they pick up on what you are putting down. Less than a decade after the Marshall plan was enacted, we saw all the colonial regions erupt in wars for independence of their own that would fracture European leverage in the global trade market. A first generation of leaders who had seen the lead up and aftermath of the two world wars began to caution against long term affiliation with their European overlords.

After World War II, the writing was on the wall. The relationships with the colonies needed to change. The worst was yet to come but they needed to “secure the bag”. The United States put forth a plan to help pull Europe out of its hole. The Marshall Plan was a means to not only rebuild Europe but to tie the United States to the benefits of the European colonial project that was in a position to renegotiate their ties.

Post World War II, a lot of European empires either went bankrupt, lost their expansion bids or altogether lost their empires. But they got a huge financial boost to their economies/industries. The went against the normal trajectory. From then on, European education has preached the value of democracy and negotiation over war and conquest because their last venture nearly cost them everything. However, truth be told, this was steep change in the trajectory of European empire. They went from education for the few and conquest of the rest to education for most and negotiation with the rest. But the trade needs set up by the debt remained. More people, more energy, more labor, more trade. How do you keep this up?

For less than a century, western Europe has been trying to convince their citizens that they can keep up with an industrial expansion without conquest or exploitation while under the urgency of creating access to energy, resources and finances of an empire than is advancing through constant conquest. I am by no means suggesting that European countries need to go to war and return to the centuries of war. What I am suggesting is that, they acknowledge the needs of their societies today, by what the wars of yesterday acquired and established. Instead of trying to pretend colonialism did not happen, acknowledge that it did and integrate the gains for all involved. The Marshall plan is no longer in play and the United States is no longer beholden to European colonial intercession. They have direct relationships and trade deals with these former colonies as well as China, Russia and the Gulf states.

Western Europe can no longer afford war or colonial labor but they cannot afford isolation. How will they renegotiate their expansion?

by Julian Michael Yong