What is Islamic fundamentalism, and why is there so much political violence in the Middle East? Part I

The first highly organized aristocrat peasant societies originated in the Tigris Euphrates valley in Iraq and the Nile valley in Egypt. However, most of the Middle East is too arid and infertile for peasant farmers to produce large food surpluses. The desert lands became the home of the Bedouin tribal Arabs and evolved into a mixed tribal aristocrat form of society.

From the 15th century through the 19th century, most of the Middle East was ruled by the Turkish Ottoman Empire. After the Ottomans were defeated in World War I, most of the area became part of the British and French Empires. The Arabic countries as we know them today and Iran did not become independent nations until after World War II.

The basic culture and way of life in the Middle East was relatively unaffected by either the Ottomans or the European imperialists. Most of the region retained its characteristic tribal aristocrat form of society until the 1960s when the oil boom began to transform the traditional societies.

We have already seen that the change from aristocrat peasant society to modern democrat market society is a very long, violent, and difficult transformation. It appears that the change from tribal and aristocrat tribal forms of society to democrat market society is just as difficult and violent. The Middle East is now in the most difficult part of this transformation. The inevitable result is a large number of wars, rebellions, and periods of anarchy.

The overall revolutionary experience in the Arab world and other parts of the Middle East is not that much different from what it has been in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The revolution typically proceeds in an erratic fashion. There is often a pattern of two steps forward and one step backward. Intense waves of violence are often followed by periods of calm and stability. The massive political and economic transformation that is taking place is still a long way from completion. There is no way to predict how much violence is yet to come, but it is certainly far from being over.

The oil boom in the Middle East is very much of a mixed blessing in terms of this modern transformation. On the one hand, it has brought in a tremendous amount of money, which has been used to jump-start the market economy of the region. On the other hand, this gigantic amount of easy money has reduced the requirement for the people to learn how to produce wealth the old fashioned way. Economic necessity has forced most countries to learn how to create wealth by farming, manufacturing, and the delivery of services. This requirement is not nearly as strong in much of the Middle East, where wealth gushes out of the ground. The reduced level of economic necessity has lead to a greater emphasis on other factors such as religion and traditional animosities.

This short explanation of history is no place for an in-depth analysis of the problems of revolution in the Middle East, but recent events have forced me to try to explain how so much of the Arab world has come into such dramatic conflict with the United States. There are two primary reasons for this conflict. One is the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, and the other is American political and military intervention in the region.

The Holocaust of the Jews during World War II is the kind of experience that no population can endure without taking extreme measures to ensure that it will never happen again. After the war, the remaining Jewish population universally insisted that they must have their own state where they could rely on themselves to guarantee their own security. This is very understandable and most of the world, including the United States, Europe, and the Soviet Union, were in agreement.

The only obvious place for this state was their ancestral homeland of Palestine, where a moderate number of Jews had slowly been infiltrating since the end of the 19th century. The problem is that Palestine was already occupied by Palestinians, who are not Jews and had been living there for thousands of years. The Palestinians were a small population of peasant-farmers. For centuries they had been ruled by the Ottomans and more recently by the British.

In the most successful campaign of terrorism known to history, the Jews forced the British to leave and established their own state. This provoked an immediate war with neighboring Arab states, which was won by the Israelis. Most of the Palestinians then fled their homes and sought refuge in areas controlled by Arab forces in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank of the Jordan River. The Israelis claim that the Palestinians left of their own free will and therefore have no right to return. This is a difficult claim to establish. Refugees have been fleeing from the violence of war for thousands of years. Nearly all of them eventually return home. There is also evidence that the Jewish terrorist group, Irgun, slaughtered the residents of at least two villages for the specific purpose of forcing the Palestinians out of the new state of Israel.

These events happened over fifty years ago, but they created an open sore in the Middle East, which has been festering and growing worse ever since. At the time of the expulsion there were less than one million Palestinians, who were mostly uneducated peasants. They were relatively easy to push around and ignore. Today there are more than four million Palestinians. They have been toughened and hardened by life in the refugee camps. They are educated and intensely aware of all the injustices that have happened to them. The experience has convinced them that they too must have a state of their own.

The question of who has a right to live in Palestine is not just a dispute between Israelis and Palestinians. The surrounding Arab countries have been involved from the very beginning, and they have every right to be involved. If some group came along and threw the Canadians out of Canada and they were living in refugee camps in the United States, it is certain that the U.S. would get involved and make every effort to help restore them to their homeland. The Arab countries feel just as strongly about this as Americans would.

So far there have been four Arab-Israeli wars: 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973. As far as the majority of Arabs are concerned, these were battles, and the war will continue until justice for the Palestinian people has been achieved. There is also another reason for the continuation of warfare. War has always been a part of the revolutionary transformation of society.

In America, the French and Indian war prepared the 13 colonies for independence. A great deal of social, economic, and political progress came out of the Revolutionary War. The War of 1812 and the Indian Wars continued this trend. The Mexican-American War helped unify the nation for a time and continued the process of change and development. Prior to the Civil War, the United States was still primarily an agricultural country. During the war and afterwards, we quickly became an industrial nation. World War I brought more social and economic change. World War II led directly to the development of democratic market society. Europe used warfare even more prolifically in its transformation from aristocrat peasant society through oligarchic society to democratic market society.

The Middle East is following the same path. War has been used to pull young men out of the peasant villages, educate them, discipline them, train them to use modern equipment, and instill a sense of patriotism and national pride. All of these factors dramatically increase the speed of social transformation. Wars are not started specifically for this purpose, but they have this effect. The Jews had no way of knowing that their presence in the Middle East would help propel the region into the modern world through the violence of warfare, but that is part of what is happening.

The United States claims to have an evenhanded policy in the Arab-Israeli conflict, but that is obviously not the case. America has given over a hundred billion dollars to Israel in the last three decades, which has been used to buy large quantities of the world’s best weapons and to support a major arms industry in Israel. The Palestinians have received a few hundred million that was mostly needed to buy food for the refugee camps.

A majority of the Arab people believe that the United States deliberately maintains Israel in order to have a strong ally in the region for the primary purpose of watching over it’s oil supplies. This is not true. There are a number of other more important reasons. It is true that a large number of Americans have at times thought along these lines. This is very insulting to the Arab people. It is their oil, not ours. It only becomes ours after we purchase it from them. Buying oil is, and must remain, a purely commercial transaction. Political alliances and military power have no legitimate place in any commercial transaction. What would Americans think if some powerful Arab country were to help an alliance of Indian tribes to take over Kansas in order to watch over their food supplies?

This brings us to the whole question of American political involvement in the Middle East. Since the end of World War II, the United States has made a major effort to maintain peace and stability in the world, or at least that was the general intention. When the British imperialists retreated from the Middle East, they tried to leave it in the hands of monarchs who would be friendly to the West. The Americans believed that the best way to ensure stability was to help these monarchs stay in power.

What was the reason for the Cold War?

The United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union were the primary victors of World War II. After the war the United States and Great Britain quickly developed into democratic market societies. They had nothing to fear from communism. Communism is a non-viable form of society. It is only used as a revolutionary tool by societies that are in the early stages of oligarchic development. Unfortunately, the Western Powers did not understand that.

In the decades following World War II, there were at least a hundred countries that were in the early stages of oligarchic development. Many of these countries flirted with the idea of adopting communist revolution. The United States and Great Britain were horrified at the prospect of large parts of the world going over to communism.

The Soviet Union was the world’s only prewar communist state. It thought that communism was a great idea and encouraged the rest of the world to adopt it. The result was a kind of deadly serious, Great Power game, where the Soviet Union tried to promote communist revolution, and the Western Powers tried to prevent it. This game which seemed so important at the time was actually a fantasy. In reality, the Soviet Union could not benefit from communist revolution in other countries, and the Western Powers could not be harmed by the spread of communism.

We can now use 20/20 hindsight to look at some of the important events of the Cold War and see how badly they were misunderstood at the time.

1. During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied Central Europe as part of its counter offensive against Germany. After the war, it refused to withdraw its troops from most of this area. Instead, it remained in occupation and set up communist governments. There was probably a great deal of popular support for communism in Central Europe in 1945, but after a few years of Soviet occupation, this support rapidly declined. By 1950 most of the occupied countries were tired of communism and Soviet domination. The Soviets, however, refused to withdraw and insisted on keeping the unpopular communist governments in place.
   
   The United States believed that this was an example of communist expansion by military force. It is what started the Cold War and convinced the Western Powers that communism must be contained or destroyed.
   
   In reality, the Soviet occupation of Central Europe was not the beginning of an effort to conquer the world for communism. It was an instinctive defensive measure. The Soviet Union had just suffered a devastating invasion from German armies based in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania. Fascist governments in most of these countries had supported this German invasion. The Russians had been almost annihilated by this invasion, which had started less than 500 miles from Moscow. They were absolutely determined that this would never happen again. To make certain of that, they would occupy Central Europe and force any invaders from the west to start at least 1000 miles from Moscow and fight their way through Central Europe to get to the Soviet border. No amount of military bluster from the West could force the Russians to give up this defensive security zone. The threat of military force only convinced them of the necessity to maintain their occupation.


2. The communist revolution in China in 1949 was considered to be a personal betrayal by many Americans. The United States had supported the independence and unity of China as far back as the 19th century when Great Britain, France, and Germany wanted to divide it up and add it to their colonial empires. We had supported China during the Japanese aggression of the 1930s and throughout World War II. Now it had gone over to communism and formed an alliance with the Soviet Union. They quickly began executing landlords and aristocrats. The Great Leap Forward of the 1950s and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s were incomprehensible to most Americans. All of this was accompanied by ferocious anti-American propaganda.
   
   The United States did not understand how this could have happened. Communism was supposed to be a replacement for capitalism in much more developed countries. How could it seize control in China? How could it turn the Chinese people against their best friend, the United States.
   
   In reality, communism has only been adopted by undeveloped countries in the early stage of their oligarchic experience. China hoped to use the central planning feature of communism to rapidly develop the nation and bring it into the 20th century. That was the reason for the campaign against the landlords, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. The intention was to wipe away the traditional aristocratic institutions of the past, and force march the peasants into the modern industrial society of the future. The totalitarian structure of communism was believed to be the best way to achieve this social and economic revolution as quickly as possible.
   
   The anti-American aspect of Chinese communism was a direct result of the secret war that the American military and the CIA had fought in China from 1945 to 1949. The United States had provided massive aid for Chiang Kai-shek in his efforts to defeat and destroy communism. This intervention could not possibly prevent the 700 million people of China from doing what they wanted. Its only result was to turn them against the United States.


3. In 1950 communist North Korea launched an attack to seize control of South Korea. The United States was certain that this was another example of communist aggression. Communist armies were on the move to seize control of a non-communist nation. This was considered to be proof that aggressive expansionist communism was determined to conquer the world. American leaders believed that this was just an opening gambit and that soon Soviet armies would be attacking Western Europe.
   
   In reality the North Korean attack had just one purpose and that was to reunify the Korean nation. During World War II, the United States had tried to get the Russians to attack the Japanese colonies of Manchuria and Korea. Roosevelt had promised Stalin that if he launched such an attack the Soviet Union could occupy northern Korea after the war. The Russians refrained from such an undertaking as long as they were still fighting Germany, but after the Germans surrendered, Russian armies moved east and in August 1945 launched a devastating attack that quickly destroyed large Japanese forces in Manchuria and Korea. After the war, the Soviets occupied northern Korea while the United States occupied the south.
   
   The Russians established a communist government in North Korea, which quickly became very popular. At that time many ex-colonial nations believed that communism was the wave of the future and the fastest way to develop a modern industrial state. The Americans had put an aristocrat in charge of the South Korean government, which developed into an oppressive and unpopular oligarchy. In the late 1940s there were many pro-communist strikes and riots in the South. At least a third of the South Korean people favored communism over their own corrupt oligarchic leadership.
   
   The North Koreans were fully aware of the pro-communist sentiment in the South. They felt that it was their patriotic duty to reunify the nation and liberate the South from capitalist oppression. It was strictly a limited war for national reunification. Kim Ill Sung had to ask the Russians many times for permission to launch it. They reluctantly agreed on the condition that it would be over very quickly, and that it would not cause trouble between the Soviet Union and the United States.
   
   The United States does not seem to understand the awesome power of nationalism. This is strange. If a group of foreign powers ever managed to divide the United States into separate nations, the American people would never rest until they reunified their country.


4. Immediately after Japan surrendered, Ho Chi Min announced the independence of Vietnam. Ho liked the United States and based his Declaration of Independence on the original American document from 1776. But Ho was a communist as well as a nationalist and the United States did not like communism. The Americans asked the French to reestablish their imperial control over Vietnam rather than see it become independent as a communist country.
   
   The French fought for many years to regain control of Vietnam but were unable to do so, even with the Americans paying most of the cost. After a major defeat in 1954, they wanted out. The Americans hated to see a communist Vietnam, but they had just finished the Korean War and were unwilling to take on a new war in Vietnam. A compromise was reached at a conference in Geneva. Vietnam would be temporarily divided. Ho Chi Min would set up a communist government in the north, and the Americans would establish a non-communist government in the south. In two years there was to be a nation-wide election and whichever side won would become the government of a unified Vietnam. Ho reluctantly agreed to these terms only because he was certain of victory in the election.
   
   The Americans found an aristocrat, Ngo Dinh Diem, to lead the southern government. He set up an oligarchic government, began persecuting communists, and refused to hold the elections that would reunify the country. He was firmly backed by the United States in these actions. The Vietnamese in the north were outraged by this betrayal. They could see no other course of action except to return to war to reunify their nation.
   
   It soon became evident that the government in the south was unpopular and would quickly lose unless it was supported by American troops. The United States did not want to fight, but for some strange reason believed that it was critically important to maintain a non-communist Vietnam. It gradually took over more and more of the war. By 1967 there were more than a half million Americans fighting in Vietnam.
   
   The United States never had any chance to win the Vietnamese War. The simple truth is that the majority of the people in South Vietnam did not want to be citizens of South Vietnam. They wanted to be citizens of a united Vietnam, and they wanted their national hero, Ho Chi Min, to be the leader of the nation. No amount of American blood, courage, and sacrifice could change that. As far as the Vietnamese were concerned, the war was not primarily about communism. It was about nationalism and national unity.

There was never any reason or requirement for the United States to fight a war against communism. Because of its very nature, communism is self-limiting. It can not produce enough food to feed its own population, and it is absolutely terrible at producing decent housing and consumer goods. Communism has only one use and that is revolution. It is good at overthrowing aristocrats and oligarchs. This was reason enough for some countries to try communism, but not for it to last or become dominant. Even as a tool of revolution, it has limited success. After communism is ended, the oligarchs come back. This has been amply demonstrated in Russia.

In the spring of 1973, I told my History professors at Michigan State University that sometime in the next 10 to 15 years there would be revolution in the Soviet Union and communism would be thrown out. They thought I was some kind of an idiot. It was very clear to me that communism was not working, but the rest of the world insisted on believing that communism was a very powerful force.

Throughout the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s the United States continued to fight communism. There were secret wars in China, Laos, Cambodia, Guatemala, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Congo, Mozambique, Angola, and Afghanistan. In the 1970s and 80s, the United States supported death squads in much of Latin America. Communists, socialists, and assorted liberals were arrested and killed by military dictators and oligarchic governments.

All of these countries were in the early stage of oligarchic society. They were going to have civil wars, revolutions, anarchy, and dictators, but there was no need for the United States to participate in any of this violence. American intervention only made the violence worse. The anti-communist crusade cost the United States trillions of dollars and the lives of tens of thousands of its young men. There was no return on this investment. The United States gained nothing from the entire effort.

Most Americans believe that the Cold War was necessary and that it was a great success. They think that American intervention saved the world from communist domination. This is an extraordinary example of the power of myth and the ability of people to delude themselves. Communism is totally incapable of producing wealth and prosperity. This fact alone means that it cannot survive in the modern world. No country wants to be poor.

Communism did not collapse in the Soviet Union because of the arms race or American intervention. It self-destructed because the Russian people grew tired of being poor.

Why has there been so much conflict between the United States and developing nations since World War II?

At the end of World War II, allied armies liberated the concentration camps where 12 million Europeans, including 6 million Jews, had been executed or worked to death. The extremely horrifying circumstances of this crime convinced most Americans that their wartime propaganda was right. The fascists really were the embodiment of satanic evil, and they had attacked Great Britain, France and the United States because they hated freedom and democracy.

Americans like the image of themselves as the “good guys” who fight against the “evil dictators” and assorted “bad guys” of the world. From now on, they would fight for freedom and democracy, or at least for peace and stability. They would fight against dictators and the forces of evil. They would be the world’s policeman.

In the decades after World War II, colonial empires were disintegrating all over the world, and new nation-states were coming into existence. Most of them were actually tribal or aristocratic societies with a very thin veneer of modern institutions. All of these new countries would essentially begin as early-stage oligarchic societies. They would have to pass through the oligarchic stage of development in order to become democratic market societies. Most of the older nations in Latin America, Europe, and Asia were also oligarchic societies.

Go back and review the first 5 questions in this explanation of history. They explain that the passage through oligarchic society has always been accompanied by a high degree of violence. Anarchy, revolution, dictators, weak governments, border wars, civil wars, imperial wars, ethnic cleansing, and religious cleansing are the hallmarks of oligarchic society. The only item on that list that has gone out of fashion is imperial war. All the other kinds of violence and mayhem are just as common in oligarchic society today as when the Netherlands, Great Britain, the United States and France went through oligarchic development starting over four hundred years ago. It has always been a long and violent process, and there is no sign of that changing anytime soon.

We now have a situation where a hundred and fifty plus nations are squarely in the middle of a massive and very violent revolutionary process, and the United States has decided to appoint itself “world policeman” and enforce peace and stability. There is no possible way for this to happen successfully. If the United States understood the revolutionary process that is occurring in the world, it might be able to help mitigate some of the worst violence. Unfortunately, it seems to be CLUELESS as to what is going on.

The American government does not understand the difference between oligarchic society and democratic market society. When appraising other countries, it looks to see whether or not they are capitalist and democratic. Oligarchic societies that hold elections pass this test. It does not matter to the United States that the oligarchs oppress and exploit their own population. It does not matter that most of the people are poorly educated, impoverished, lack police protection, and have little hope for improving their lives. As long as the oligarchs hold elections, no matter how meaningless, the United States is satisfied. It is when the people rebel against oppressive oligarchic governments that the United States becomes concerned.

Electoral politics in an oligarchic society will always result in an oligarchic government. If the people are thoroughly disgusted with weak, corrupt oligarchic rule, they have a real problem. Their only other choice is some kind of dictator or revolutionary regime. Communism, fascism, and Islamic fundamentalism have all evolved to provide an alternative to oligarchic society, but the United States does not like any of these alternatives. It thinks that they are evil. In its role as world policeman, it has tried to destroy these kinds of revolutionary societies and the dictators who run them. This has led to a great deal of American intervention in other people’s affairs as it tries to support unpopular oligarchic governments and destabilize dictators and revolutionary regimes.

This misunderstanding has led to the Cold War, where the United States tried to destroy communism. It has also led to the present problems in the Middle East where the United States is trying to prevent Islamic fundamentalism from gaining power. The Americans believe that they are fighting on the side of righteousness. The people in the countries where America intervenes believe that it is trying to dominate the world and impose governments of wealthy oligarchs, which are friendly to the United States.

This fundamental misunderstanding has gone on for much too long. It is past time to achieve a resolution to this problem. When developing countries overthrow an oppressive oligarchic government and install some form of dictatorial revolutionary regime, it is not a challenge to the United States. It is part of the world-wide-revolution from traditional societies to democratic market society that most of the world is still undergoing. Oligarchic society is not the end point of this revolution. Democratic market society is the final form that all nations are moving towards.

The United States should not be surprised when people who find themselves trapped in oligarchic society go looking for some kind of revolution. Communism and Islamic fundamentalism will never become permanent methods of organizing modern nations. They have no way to create wealth. They can not run a successful economy. They are mechanisms for continuing the revolution, which will only end when the country develops real democracy and becomes a democratic market society.

What is democratic market society?

Democratic market society is the end point of the massive revolution that the world had been going through for the last four hundred years. It is a new form of society that has only existed for about the last 50 years. Prior to World War II, the United States could be called a proto-democratic market society, or it could be called an oligarchic society, but it was not the same as the most modern kind of society that exists today.

After the Great Depression began in 1929, the American president, Herbert Hoover, said that it was not his job to ensure a prosperous economy. In those days and in earlier times, there is no record of a society where the government believed that it was responsible for the wellbeing and prosperity of all its citizens.

According to the definition used here, modern nations are truly democratic only when the government accepts that it represents all citizens and is successful in establishing the conditions that are necessary for most of the population to prosper. This is a very difficult and exacting standard for any government to meet. At least half of the national governments in the world today do not even come close. Something less than half seem to be making an effort to move in that direction. So far, about thirty countries meet the standards required to be democratic market societies.

To give you an idea of what I am talking about, the following is a partial list of the kinds of things that I believe are minimum requirements for a government to claim that it is a democratic market society. It does not matter what level of government—national, regional, or local—that is responsible for these things. It only matters that they are accomplished successfully.

1. Does the government make a major and successful effort to ensure that nearly all citizens have access to clean water?


2. Does the government work hard to maintain and improve the overall health of nearly all citizens?


3. Does the government make a major effort to provide quality education to nearly all citizens so that they can become successful in a modern market economy?


4. Does the government work very hard to maintain the kind of law and order that is necessary for a successful market economy?


5. Does the government work hard and successfully to prevent corruption within its own ranks which is detrimental to the success of the market economy?


6. Is the government successful in maintaining a stable currency so that the market economy is able to flourish and provide jobs and incomes for nearly all citizens?


7. Is the government successful in regulating the economy in a way that promotes free enterprise so that nearly all citizens have a chance to become successful capitalists and business owners, thereby creating more jobs and increasing the general prosperity of the entire population?


8. Does the government work closely with the leaders of small and large businesses to identify, promote, and enforce the best rules and regulations that are needed to encourage a successful market economy?


9. Does the government support workers’ rights and work closely with labor leaders to identify, promote, and enforce the best rules and regulations which are needed to protect workers’ safety, paychecks, and general wellbeing?


10. Does the government work closely with citizens and environmentalists to protect a healthy environment, which is necessary for a successful market economy and for the wellbeing of all God’s creatures both today and for future generations to come?

For most Americans born since the end of World War II, these principles seem obvious and self-explanatory, but that was not always the case. The idea that the government is responsible for overseeing the development of a political, social, and economic environment that is capable of generating prosperity for everyone, would never have occurred to George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. It is a new concept that originated only since the end of World War II. Even then it still took a while for the United States to accept that the term everyone must include African-Americans.

It was inevitable that it would take a great deal of time and a slow evolutionary process for these principles to develop. They are nearly inconceivable to the class-conscious societies that dominated the world as recently as the first half of the 20th century. This new kind of society was pioneered primarily in the United States and Western Europe, who deserve and generally receive a great deal of credit for this momentous achievement.

We are indeed talking about a new kind of society. When the government realizes that it can and should accept responsibility for public health, public education, fair and just enforcement of the rule of law, and economic prosperity for everyone, it opens the door to an entirely new world. Economists call it a virtuous circle. As more healthy, well-educated people become prosperous, they become consumers. As more people buy more goods and services factories, stores, and service providers grow larger and hire more employees. As these new employees prosper, they become consumers and demand increases again. Businesses grow still larger and hire more employees, who become consumers. This virtuous circle goes on and on until everyone is a consumer. Business keeps growing and expanding to meet the demand. Sure the rich get richer, but so does nearly everyone else.

How does this virtuous circle get started? Many people believe that modern technology is the key. Yes, it takes a certain level of technology to set this virtuous circle in motion, but the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Chinese probably had the minimum technology needed to get started. What they lacked was the necessary social technology, the idea that the entire population must be included. Even at the height of Ancient Athenian Democracy, one third of the population were slaves, and a small group of rich and powerful families looked down on ordinary people as inferiors. It was not real democracy as defined here. It was oligarchic society.

In oligarchic societies the rich and powerful do not understand the incredible amount of wealth that can be made possible by the virtuous circle. Oligarchs generally believe that there is nothing to be gained by paying workers more than a subsistence wage. Historically, they have had the idea that workers would use the extra money to get drunk, or take time off from work. We now know that is not true. Workers use the extra money to go shopping, or invest in their family’s future.

How did the United States, Western Europe, and Japan develop this new kind of society? It would be nice to report that some government figured out what reforms are necessary and found a way to break the class-consciousness that dominates oligarchic society. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. Democratic market society evolved in response to a series of tragic events that should never be repeated.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Western Europe, the United States, and Japan were solidly oligarchic societies. A small percent of wealthy families controlled most of the economy and the government. What changed that was not a revolution or a program of reform? What happened was the series of events that included World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II.

In World War I massive numbers of ordinary people were drafted into the military. Tens of millions of average citizens fought a titanic struggle in the trenches of France, Gallipoli, and Eastern Europe. When the massive war of attrition was over, everyone new that it was the ordinary soldiers and citizens who were the primary strength of modern nations. The oligarchic generals on all sides had performed poorly. The courage and perseverance of the common soldier was the decisive factor. When the soldiers returned home they were hailed as heroes. This was not yet enough for their countries to realize that ordinary citizens were much more important than any handful of oligarchs, but it was a start.

Ten years later came the Great Depression. This massive economic calamity mobilized thousands of economists to study how market economies work. They rapidly increased the understanding of how important the government role is in regulating, protecting, and encouraging a market economy. They worked out mechanisms for stimulating an economy and laid the basic groundwork for the kind of interventionist role that is universal in democratic market societies today.

World War II ended the Great Depression. This proved that government spending could stimulate the economy and return it to full employment. The new war also reinforced the lessons of World War I but on a much larger scale. Eighty million average citizens from Europe, the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia, China, and many other countries went to war. Two hundred million ordinary citizens, men and women, went to work in the factories, producing weapons and ammunition. They proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is the courage and hard work of ordinary people that is the strength and salvation of the modern nation-state.

This time the lesson was learned and understood. Wealthy oligarchs do not make a nation strong. Ordinary average citizens are gigantically more important. Oligarchs have no right to monopolize the government and economy of a modern nation. The destiny of the nation is in the hands of all its citizens, rich and poor alike. Wealth does not matter; gender does not matter; religion does not matter, and race does not matter. When the chips are down and the country is in real trouble, it is the unity, the courage, and the hard work of all citizens that are required to see the nation through.

When this lesson was learned and understood in Western Europe, North America, and Japan, democratic market society came into being. The same lesson was learned in the Soviet Union, but they did not have a market economy to make use of it. The lesson about national unity and the primacy of ordinary citizens was also learned in China, but they were at the very beginning of the long transformation from aristocrat peasant society to democratic market society. After two generations of intense revolution the Chinese are now starting to get the virtuous circle into motion.

Democratic market society is capable of producing gigantic amounts of wealth, and there are only two requirements for this kind of society. It must have a market economy, and it must have a truly democratic government that is able to regulate, protect, and encourage the market economy and help all citizens to participate. If it is really that easy, why isn’t everybody rich? Why don’t all countries have a democratic market society?

It seems clear that in the future all nations will have a prosperous democratic market form of society. It is also clear that the development of this kind of society is more difficult than it should be. It could be that part of the problem is a basic lack of understanding about what is happening. One source of confusion is the term capitalism. For many generations there has been a gigantic worldwide argument about the merits of capitalism. What is missing is the understanding that there are two different kinds of capitalist societies. There is oligarchic society, where a small wealthy ruling class dominates the government and the economy. And there is democratic market society, where the nation is governed for the benefit of everyone.

In oligarchic society the government is weak; the economy is weak, and most people are poor. In democratic market society the government is strong; the economy is strong, and most people are prosperous consumers. The world has not yet developed a rational and reliable method for a nation to progress from oligarchic society to democratic market society. This change should not have to require large amounts of revolutionary violence or a massive war. Perhaps when the world has a better understanding of the entire revolutionary process, it will be possible for the transition to be made through a series of peaceful political and economic reforms. Until that day comes war, rebellion, revolution, anarchy, civil war, dictators, and strange ideologies will remain a fixture in world events.

What is fascism?

Fascism originated in Europe after World War I. At that time politics was dominated by the struggle between wealthy capitalists who made up the oligarchic ruling class and socialists and communists who represented the working class. In many countries this class struggle was at fever pitch. The working class was striking and rioting in many large cities, while the ruling class was sending in soldiers and policeman to quell the riots and beat the workers into submission.

At the same time electoral politics was becoming much more important. There were conservative political parties that advocated a strong monarchy. There were liberal parties that primarily represented the business sector, and there were the socialists and communists. There were also some fringe parties who sought the support of the small middle class. In most countries none of these parties could gain a majority of the vote.

A large section of the population was not well represented by any of these political parties. This included small farmers who owned their own land, small shop owners, and skilled craftsmen. These people were generally very conservative. They had no use for the socialists and communists, but they equally disliked the wealthy oligarchs who controlled big business. In the past they had often supported the monarchy, but in the aftermath of World War I, monarchs were out of favor.

A number of would-be politicians saw the makings of a new political coalition. These men did not come from wealthy families, and they had little sympathy for the oligarchs. They designed their program around popular conservative issues like family and patriotism. They aimed their appeal at farmers, shopkeepers, and skilled workers, but they also saw a chance to widen this constituency. They supported workers rights, higher pay, and better working conditions. They campaigned heavily in working class neighborhoods in direct competition with socialists and communists. Their patriotic message included a strong intolerance for foreigners and ethnic minorities such as Jews and Gypsies.

These fascist politicians called for family values, a strong nation, a strong government, law and order, economic growth, and prosperity for everyone. In a Europe of weak governments, divisive politics, and class struggle this was a strong political message and it quickly received growing support. The monarchists and oligarchs had never campaigned on a platform of prosperity for everyone. The socialists and communists had never campaigned on a platform of prosperity for everyone. This was a new idea, and the voters liked it.

At first the wealthy oligarchs had complete disdain for the fascists. They were little men with no breeding who had a talent for haranguing crowds. This could be dangerous, but as the fascists became more powerful, the oligarchs realized that they could be useful allies. The fascists had their own armed escorts. They could fight their way into the toughest, socialist controlled, working class neighborhoods, hold a rally, make speeches, fight their way back out, and come away with a significant portion of the vote. This was very impressive.

In the 1920s and 30s imperialism still ruled the world. For the larger countries in Europe, having a strong nation was defined as having an empire and colonies. Here was another area of agreement between the fascists and the oligarchs. They both wanted a strong military that was capable of conquering others and taking their wealth.

In the 1930s fascism became the dominant political force in Central Europe. It was also growing in strength in Western Europe and parts of South America. Fascist parties always had strong authoritarian leaders. In those countries where they came to power, they usually suspended elections and ruled as dictators.

During World War II allied war propaganda portrayed the fascists as evil, minority parties who seized control of their countries by force or trickery. This was not the case. Fascism, like socialism and communism, is a reaction against oligarchic society. In most oligarchic countries the government is controlled by a small group of wealthy capitalists. These governments are weak because they do not have the support of the majority of citizens. Class warfare is endemic. The currency and economies are weak because the government is unable to provide stability and the conditions necessary for prosperity and economic growth. Under these circumstances most of the population is poor and unhappy. They are continuously looking for some alternative. In a few countries that alternative is provided by communism. Much more often it is provided by a strong authoritarian dictator. Most of the people do not care about elections that are dominated by wealthy oligarchs. This is not real democracy. They often prefer an authoritarian dictator if he can convince them that he will form a strong government that is capable of controlling the oligarchs and provide the stability that is needed for economic growth.

After the defeat of fascist Germany and Italy in World War II, fascism lost most of its popularity, but the conditions that led to its rise to power in the 1930s still exist in many developing countries. Weak, elected governments, dominated by oligarchs, continue to do a poor job of ruling these societies. The currencies are weak. Inflation is rife. Economic growth is slow. The majority of the people are exploited and unhappy. Class warfare continues. Under these conditions, a large portion of the population is quite willing to accept a populist dictator. They still want a strong government that can control the oligarchs and bring about economic stability and growth. Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Pinochet in Chile are examples of this kind of dictatorship. For as long as there are oligarchic societies, we are likely to see more of this type of dictator.

In the postwar world imperialism is no longer a problem. We do not have to worry about strong dictators trying to conquer an empire. In some countries, military dictators are still used to quell socialists and communists and help maintain the oligarchs in power. In the most chaotic countries, dictators are needed in order to have anything resembling a government at all.

In recent times, the closest approximation to fascism has been Saddam Hussein and the government of Iraq. As usual the dictatorship arose because a weak oligarchic government was incapable of controlling the country and providing the stability and regulatory authority that is needed for a successful market economy.

After Saddam Hussein consolidated his power, he launched attacks on two neighboring states. I do not see his attacks on Iran and Kuwait as examples of imperialism, but I do accept that there is a case that can be made for that conclusion. The difference is that Saddam’s aggressions were not aimed at foreign populations who were to be held in bondage. He tried to seize a part of Iran that is inhabited by Arabs with the same ethnicity and culture as Iraq. He also tried to seize the principality of Kuwait, which is again the same ethnicity and culture as Iraq. This is closer to the definition of national unification than imperialism. However, in both cases he was more interested in the oil that these areas contain than in the people. Therefore, it was more an effort to conquer other people’s wealth, rather than an act of national unification.

What is communism?

Karl Marx and other communist intellectuals theorized that communism is a new form of society that would replace capitalism. They were wrong. The world is still in the middle of a gigantic revolution from traditional forms of society to modern, democratic market nation-states. Communism is part of that revolution.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries the term capitalism referred to oligarchic society. As we have seen, there are serious problems imbedded in oligarchic society. The wealthy oligarchs tend to monopolize political and economic power and govern the society for their own interests. This led to the development of a great deal of opposition to capitalism from the working class and among many intellectuals.

Socialism was the first expression of this anti-capitalist movement, but its only real successes were reforms that made capitalism stronger. As the socialists became frustrated with the slow pace of change, many of them joined the radical faction called communism.

The primary advantage of communism is that it is a simple concept, which is easy to explain, and which sounds reasonable to people that have never experienced it. Instead of letting oligarchs monopolize the power of capitalism, why not put the government in charge of the economy. Let the government own and operate the factories, mines, and railroads. It can use science, mathematics, statistics, and central planning to organize the economy and decide how much of which products should be produced, and what price they should cost. In theory the government could run the economy for everyone’s benefit, not just the oligarch's.

World War I provided a major boost for this concept. In Germany, France, and Russia the government took control of most of the economy and reorganized it for the production of war supplies. Even in the United States, the government nationalized the railroads and reorganized them to deal with the gigantic amount of wartime freight that had to be moved. The evidence seemed clear. When the chips were down, capitalism was inadequate. The government had to take over the economy to get the job done.

Temporary government intervention in a market economy to deal with an emergency situation such as a war is one thing. Ending the capitalist market economy altogether and replacing it with a communist command economy is something entirely different. We now have the experience of actual communist societies to look at, and it is clear that the reality is very different from the theory. An economy that is based entirely on central planning does not work very well.

Central planners are bureaucrats. If given enough resources, they can organize the construction of large relatively simple projects, such as a road, a dam, or a factory. When it comes to the production of food and consumer goods, they are hopelessly lost. Central planners do not know the best way to grow food on a given field. They do not know how to design and build an automobile, a clock, or a shirt. They will never understand the concept of fashion or the fickleness of consumer demand.

Central planning is not the only problem. Communist factories are notorious for their inefficiency. Under capitalism, if a factory does not make goods that can be sold for a profit, it will be closed. The workers and managers will lose their jobs. This is a very powerful incentive that does not exist in a communist economy, where factories are kept open simply to provide work. Products that nobody wants to buy continue in production.

Communist economies have demonstrated that they can not grow enough food to feed themselves. There were a number of different systems for the collectivization of agriculture in both the Soviet Union and in China. None of them worked efficiently.

If communist economics is so unproductive, why did so many people, in so many countries, agitate for communist revolution? In the first half of the 20th century, communism was a new idea. It seemed possible that it would have great potential, but no one could really know how it would develop or whether it would be a success or a failure. The reason why some countries decided to try it is because they were in the early stages of oligarchic society and their newly developing market economies were disaster zones. They chose communism because they knew it would sweep away the aristocrats and oligarchs of the recent past, not because of any definite evidence that it would bring prosperity in the future.

There are relatively few countries that have actually had a communist revolution. Let us take a brief look at some of them.

1. Russia 1917: The country had recently been an aristocrat peasant society. It was now in the early stages of oligarchic society and having a very difficult time. The Russian army was being mercilessly battered by the Germans in World War I. The government and the economy had collapsed. Food was in very short supply and could not be purchased by most people in the cities. Starvation was rampant. Something had to be done immediately, and the market economy did not offer a quick solution. The population was totally dissatisfied with the past and was eager to try something completely new and different in the hope that it would succeed.


2. China 1949: The country had recently been an aristocrat peasant society. It was now in the early stages of oligarchic society and having a very difficult time. Chinese armies had been unable to stand up to the Japanese in World War II. The Chinese government had never actually controlled much of the country. Anarchy was rampant. Hyperinflation had recently destroyed the currency. The market economy had collapsed. Food was not getting to the cities. Many people were starving. The population was totally dissatisfied with the past and eager to try something different.


3. North Korea 1945: The country had recently been a Japanese colony and before that was an aristocrat peasant society. The government and small market economy totally collapsed when Japan surrendered in August 1945. The population tended to equate capitalism with imperialism. They were totally dissatisfied with the past and could easily be talked into trying something new.


4. Vietnam 1954: The country had recently been a French colony and before that was an aristocrat peasant society. The French colonial government had collapsed and the colonial market economy had self-destructed along with it. The only people who had any money were aristocrats and those who had collaborated with the French. Most of the population was totally dissatisfied with the past and eager to try something new.


5. Cuba 1959: The country was in the early stage of oligarchic society. The average Cuban was a landless, shoeless peasant working in sugarcane fields that were owned by wealthy oligarchs. Aside from sugar, the market economy focused on tourism, gambling, and prostitution. Most of the population received no benefit from capitalism and saw no reason to continue it. They were highly dissatisfied with the past and were eager to try something new.

There seems to be a definite pattern here. Countries that had communist revolutions were not leading edge societies confidently striding forward to a glorious future. They were desperately poor countries in the early stage of oligarchic development that was not going at all well. The reason they chose communist revolution was because it offered the best hope of completely overturning the past.

It is possible to identify four kinds of communists, although there is some degree of overlap between these different groups.

1. The classic communist revolutionaries in failing oligarchic societies such as Russia and China as described above.


2. For a few decades after World War II, communism enjoyed a high degree of popularity around the world. A hundred imperial colonies were in the process of becoming independent nations. In most of these new countries nearly all of the native population were dirt poor. There were plantations and mines that produced wealth, but these were all owned by the European colonists. There were railroads to carry this wealth to the coast and docks to load it aboard ships, but these were also owned by the imperialists.
   
   Now the ex-colony was independent, and most of the foreign colonists were leaving. The question arose, who should own the mines, plantations, railroads, and docks. The European individuals and companies that built them claimed continued ownership. Private property is sacred, they said. Independence does not change that. The native population tended to think differently. As they saw it, the imperialists had built these assets through conquest, confiscation, forced labor, and exploitation. There was no reason why they should be allowed to keep them.
   
   The native people did not need Soviet propaganda to tell them that one possible solution was to nationalize the mines, plantations, and railroads. The natives who supported this idea were labeled communists by the ex-imperialists. Many of them accepted this label. If nationalizing the property of foreign exploiters was communism, then fine; they were communists. They were certainly a different kind of communist from the hardcore revolutionaries in Russia and China.
   
   In the post-war years many people believed that communism was the wave of the future. It was supposed to be based on technology and the scientific use of central planning. Why not use it to leapfrog the era of oligarchic capitalism, and quickly become a fully modern society? Communism was a popular idea in many newly emerging countries.


3. In the 1940s, 50s, and 60s many western intellectuals also thought very highly of communism. These people were profoundly worried about the recent history of the world. They believed that capitalism was responsible for imperialism, and that imperialism was responsible for World Wars I and II. As they saw it, the succession of events in the first half of the 20th century—World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II—demonstrated the bankruptcy of capitalism. Imperialism, war, depression, more war—what would come next—a new wave of imperialism. Many very talented and educated people believed that there has to be a better way. Communism was new, exciting, and definitely very different. It was supposedly based on science and modern principles of economic planning. Maybe it was the better way that the world needed.


4. Trade union communism was also popular in post-war Europe. For various reasons a number of European companies had been nationalized over the years. Some of these were companies on the verge of bankruptcy, others were strategic industries that were nationalized for reasons of national security. Many of the working class employees of these companies thought that nationalization was a great thing. They received higher pay. The bosses became more lenient. They no longer had to worry about loosing their jobs if the company went bankrupt. This was a major improvement. So what if the company was less efficient than private industry? The workers were better off.
   
   Workers in many of the nationalized companies were happy, and workers in private industry were envious. They too wanted the better pay, better hours, and better working conditions that were available in the state owned and state subsidized sector of the economy. Many of these people voted communist in the elections. They were not hard core communist revolutionaries. They did not want to collectivize agriculture or have a dictatorship of the proletariat. They just wanted more job security and better working conditions.

We now have four different kinds of communists. There were hardcore revolutionaries in a few countries like Russia and China who wanted to overthrow every aspect of their failing political and economic institutions. There were people in newly independent nations who wanted to nationalize the property of the ex-imperialists and bypass oligarch society. There were intellectuals who believed that imperialism, war, and depression had demonstrated the bankruptcy of capitalism. And there were trade union communists who wanted job security and better working conditions in nationalized industries.

As was famously said by an American politician: “All politics is local politics.” Each of these groups had a different agenda and a different concept of communism. They were not a monolithic structure that was determined to conquer the world.

The one thing that all communists could agree on was that they did not like oligarchic society. Communism, just like socialism, fascism, and Islamic fundamentalism, was an effort to find some other kind of social organization that was different from oligarchic capitalism. At the time no one understood the distinction between oligarchic society and democratic market society. There will be more about communism and the Cold War later in this explanation of history.

What is imperialism?

In order to understand imperialism we must first realize that in most forms of society it was considered a wonderful thing to conquer other people and take their wealth. For most of human history the easiest way for one group to increase its wealth was to conquer others and seize wealth from them. It was not just something that occasionally happened. People dreamed about it. They longed for it. The ruling class of large, aggressive empires strutted around like superior beings. Just sixty-five years ago countries that were too weak to conquer others were often looked down on as genetically inferior.

The modern age of imperialism began when Columbus discovered America, but it reached its peak in the last half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. For a long time it was known as European Imperialism, but in the late 19th century the United States joined the game with the conquest of the Philippines and Puerto Rico, and Japan began a much larger program of imperial conquest in Asia.

The British were by far the most successful imperialists in the modern age. They conquered and ruled about one fourth of the world’s land and people, and they took large amounts of wealth from them. France and the Netherlands were in second place, followed by Russia, Belgium, Portugal, Japan, the United States, and Italy.

World War I was fought mostly by the great imperial nations over imperial issues. Germany and Austria-Hungary wanted to conquer large empires in Central and Eastern Europe, and the Russians, French, and British wanted to stop them. Germany was defeated and lost the few African colonies that they had previously owned. They also lost control over some ethnic German territories that were given to the newly created countries of Poland and Czechoslovakia.

World War II started partly over the issue of German unification, but it escalated and spread because Germany once again was determined to conquer a large empire in Central and Eastern Europe. Germany did not want to fight Britain and France. They wanted to reunify their nation and conquer a large and wealthy empire. This empire was to be located primarily in Poland, White Russia, and the Ukraine. This would inevitably require war with the Soviet Union, but they hoped to avoid conflict with the Western Powers.

It did not turn out that way. In 1939 England and France declared war on Germany over the issue of Polish independence. Their combined armies, navies, and air forces were larger than the German forces. They did not realize the extent to which Germany had been studying modern mechanized warfare, or the value of the experience it had gained in the Spanish Civil War, and in Czechoslovakia and Poland. In an extraordinary, lightening fast campaign in the spring of 1940, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium were occupied and forced to surrender. Britain suffered a major defeat and was furiously trying to rebuild its military to defend itself from German forces just twenty miles away across the English Channel.

The Japanese were amazed and delighted by this turn of events. For three generations they had been envious of the wealthy British, French, and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia. Now, France and the Netherlands were totally defeated and their colonies were defenseless. Britain had suffered a major setback and its colonies were nearly defenseless. Japan quickly began mobilizing its military to seize these wealth-producing colonies.

The United States became aware of the Japanese intentions and acted to stop them. The American battle fleet was moved to Pearl Harbor, and the Japanese were told to keep their hands off Southeast Asia. The Japanese were perplexed. The Americans did not seem to want the valuable colonies for themselves, but they had clearly placed themselves squarely in the way of Japan’s ambitions. Then, the Japanese thought they had found a solution to their dilemma. On December 7, 1941 the Japanese fleet arrived off Hawaii and sank the American battleships at anchor.

The attack on Pearl Harbor cleared the way for the Japanese to seize all the major colonies in Southeast Asia. In the next few months they quickly conquered the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Burma. It is important to note that Japan destroyed the American fleet only for the purpose of seizing the wealthy colonies of Southeast Asia. They did not want to conquer any part of the United States, and they did not want war with America. They wanted the colonies.

Germany declared war on the United States after Pearl Harbor. Like Japan, they had no desire to make any conquests in the Americas. They were angry about the large amount of war supplies that the U. S. was shipping to Britain. Their submarine fleet was very successful in 1941, and they badly wanted to sink the American ships that were carrying oil and munitions to the British.

The United States had been attacked, defeated, and humiliated. Now they were at war with both Japan and Germany, and they devoted all of their energy to winning that war as decisively as possible.

In the meantime, Germany had launched its attack on the Soviet Union. Three million highly professional and experienced soldiers and airmen and all the tanks and aircraft that could be collected were launched against an inexperienced and divided nation. The Germans expected another easy victory. Instead they became ensnared in the bloodiest and most vicious campaign in the history of warfare.

The German intention was not just to defeat the Russians, as they did the British and French, but to enslave them. Large parts of the Soviet Union were to be retained permanently in a new German Empire. Educated Russians were to be killed. The remaining population was to be reduced to the status of barely literate peasants who would work the land and the mines for their German masters.

It was this imperial policy of national extinction that galvanized the Soviet Union to an extraordinary feat of military heroism. They forgot their differences and united in a truly massive effort to defend their nation and their lives. Hundreds of factories were moved east to the Ural Mountains and beyond. The normal inefficiency of communist industry came to an end. The problem of a lack of incentive was solved. The Russian people realized that defeat meant death or enslavement. They worked 12 hours a day to manufacture the weapons needed for victory.

Thirty million Soviet soldiers were mobilized for the army. They often fought under the most appalling conditions it is possible to imagine. The unity of purpose, combined with the vast size of the Soviet Union, its large industrial capacity, and extreme weather, made it possible for the Russians to prevail. Three quarters of all German soldiers that were killed in action during World War II died while fighting on the Eastern Front. Both Germany and Japan failed in their bid for empire and were decisively defeated.

This explanation of World War II as a war fought for empires and colonies may sound a little strange to most Americans. Allied war propaganda seldom focused on the idea of empire. When Britain was at its lowest point after the evacuation from Dunkirk, it needed a rallying cry to help mobilize the population. They did not say: we must fight the Germans because they want to conquer an empire like ours. Instead they proclaimed: we must fight the Germans because the evil dictator, Adolph Hitler, hates democracy and wants to conquer the world.

When the Americans joined the war, they adopted this same propaganda strategy. They did not say: we must fight the Japanese because they sank our fleet in order to clear the way to conquer an empire in Asia, and we must fight the Germans because they declared were on us to prevent our weapons from getting to the British. They declared: we must fight the evil dictators in Germany and Japan because they hate democratic countries, and they are trying to conquer the world. This was not true, but it was effective wartime propaganda. It has often been said that the first casualty in war is truth.

World War II, just like World War I, was about what countries would have empires and which colonies they would control. There had been earlier wars between imperial powers over colonies. The Netherlands had seized control over the Spice Islands of Indonesia from the Portuguese. The British and French had fought over Canada and India. The United States had taken the Philippines and Puerto Rico from the Spanish.

Some of these wars had been large and bloody, but they were not anything like twentieth century warfare. Modern industrial technology had allowed wars to grow totally out of control. The two world wars had cost the imperialists much more than their colonies were worth.

The vast increase in modern industrial production that was partly stimulated by the wars had another effect. Many people began to realize that industry and technology could produce much more wealth than could ever be squeezed from a colony.

Many colonies were also acquiring a sense of national identity and demanding independence. The writing was on the wall. The age of imperialism was drawing to a close. In 1947, the British granted independence to India, the largest and richest of all colonies. After a brief effort to defeat rebellion in Kenya in the early 1950s, they adopted the policy that colonies could have their freedom when they demanded it. The Netherlands made a feeble attempt to regain Indonesia but then gave up and allowed it to become independent. The French made a much stronger effort to retain their colonies, but bloody wars for independence broke out in Vietnam and Algeria. The colonies were not worth the effort required to hold them, and French colonies were allowed their independence.

Since 1945 about one hundred former colonies have become independent nation-states. Some have done well and prospered. Others are still in the early stages of national development. The problems that they face in the transition from colonial societies to nation-states are very similar to the difficulties already overcome by the Netherlands, Great Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Japan and all other modern nations. In time, all of these countries will overcome their problems, one way or another, and become prosperous nations.

Since World War II, no countries have tried to conquer new empires. The age of imperialism is over.