Day of Empire_ How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--And Why They Fall - Amy Chua [123]
Nevertheless, in a larger sense Britain's collapse also stemmed from its failure of tolerance abroad. Paul Kennedy is surely right that by the mid-twentieth century Britain's position in its remaining colonies was militarily and economically untenable. As the Labour chancellor Hugh Dalton wrote in his diary in 1946: “When you are in a place where you are not wanted, and where you have not got the force to squash those who don't want you, the only thing to do is to come out.” But the question is, how did Britain reach this position?
My point is emphatically not that, “alas, had only Britain been more tolerant it might still have colonies in Asia and Africa.” But there were other, more visionary possibilities that went untapped. Even in 1931, when India's leaders were already committed to independence, Gandhi was asked, “How far would you cut India off from the Empire?” Gandhi replied, “From the Empire, entirely; from the British nation not at all, if I want India to gain and not to grieve.” He added, “The British Empire is an Empire only because of India. The Emperorship must go and I should love to be an equal partner with Britain, sharing her joys and sorrows. But it must be a partnership on equal terms.”39
What would have happened if in 1931 Britain had formed with India the “equal partnership” Gandhi sought? After all, Britain had done just that with its white ex-colonies, creating a British Commonwealth of Nations in which the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, and Australia all were recognized as “equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another.” What would have happened if the Anglo-Indians, if only for instrumental reasons, had overcome their racism, integrated their firms, and merged them with Indian interests?
It is impossible to know. But if imperial Britain had made different choices at critical junctures in dealing with its nonwhite subjects, decolonization might have taken place on terms far more advantageous to both Britain and its former colonies. The commonwealth, for example, might not have developed into what it is today: a largely symbolic entity known principally for its athletic competitions and literary prizes. Embracing nearly a third of the world's citizens, spanning Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas, all linked by long-standing economic interrelationships, the commonwealth could conceivably have become a formidable trading bloc and political union—resembling the European Union, but with the advantage of a common language—with Britain at the hub.
Instead, having alienated its colonies and fomented intolerance within them, Great Britain fell from world-dominant empire to second-rate power while its former “nonwhite” colonial subjects descended into third world pathologies. Meanwhile, another power was rising—an immigrants’ nation, pluralistic by necessity, built from its founding moment on principles of religious tolerance.
THE FUTURE OF
WORLD
DOMINANCE
NINE
Tolerance and the Microchip
[I]t does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
— THOMAS JEFFERSON, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-1785
[Whereas a computer] like the ENIAC today is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh only IV2 tons.
— Popular Mechanics, MARCH 1949
In its heyday, the British Empire governed a quarter of the earth's surface and nearly a quarter of the world's people. The empire ruled by the grandsons of Genghis Khan was even larger in terms of territorial expanse. By contrast, the United States today governs a paltry 6.5 percent of the world's land surface and 5 percent of the world's population.1 And yet America is today's hyperpower.
Is America an empire? Americans have debated whether the United States should strive for imperial power since the country's founding. That question