Talk:New Imperialism/Archive 11

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Graculus: I've now studied 172's draft. It is an improvement over his last 45K version, and the structure is broadly satisfactory (though not the order or, as 172 acknowledges may be the case, the headings).

The two contents boxes at the top are an eyesore - there should be one or the other, but not both. The earlier comment about including the origins of the word "imperialism" is a valid one, though I was initially content to see the paragraph dropped.

172: The two contents boxes are different. One is a feature added to all Wikipedia articles with subtopics that can be hidden. This box organizes the daughter article. The other is a contents box for the entire series. If you find that two boxes are an eyesore, hide one (take another look in case you haven't noticed that feature). Go to the History of Germany series and you'll see two boxes as well.

Graculus: Why not move the right-hand one down so they're not adjacent - this would at least avoid the jarring break in the text.

Graculus: The order needs fundamental overhaul. The theories should appear at the end, not two-fifths of the way down where they interrupt the discussion of what happened: the facts gave rise to the theories, not vice versa.

172:Conventionally, a theories section goes on the bottom of the series. Perhaps the theories article could be renamed, since I think that it has a proper place as the second article. The theories section will help clarify why there was a revival of imperialism occurred after the 1870s, and why it came with a rush. It will help give readers a sense of what factors ended the era between 1815 and 1870, an era of free trade and laissez faire, when formal colonization was waning. Since the previous section dealt with the main factors in the center (the breakdown of the post-1815 order, the loss of Britain's comparative advantage, the rise of finance capitalism, etc.), the next section, which also focuses on shifts in the center, continues the previous one. It will also help give a reader a sense of why history is unfolding in such a direction when he/she reads the subsequent articles. Perhaps this section can be renamed so that it wouldn't seem out of place. 172 05:21, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Graculus: The theories can clarify at the end. The rest of the article should be clear, which it isn't: see below.

Graculus: The content remains far too Anglocentric: France has all but vanished, German colonialism is barely discussed, and the US is relegated to a paragraph. The daughter list indicates that Russia is to be considered merely as a trigger to British action, though I accept that this is subject to revision.

172: I'm going to stand by dealing with Russian imperialism only as a trigger to British imperialism. First, the Russian empire grew from the center outward by a process of accretion. It was a contiguous, internal empire, not an overseas one. Moreover, there was nothing "new" about Russian imperialism; the Russians had been pushing out into the great plain that surrounded them since the days of the grand duchy of Moscow. It was primarily the expansion of a land-hungry people, and also a struggle of an effectively landlocked country for access to a warm water port. Although I'm going to stretch an analogy way too far, in many respects, its expansionism was more comparable to the growth of Ile de France and to the growth of Spain around Castile and Aragon than the expansionism than to the expansion of the advanced industrial powers. It was really unrelated to British, German, American, Japanese, etc. Russia's only mentioned since its expansion was a perennial fear of paranoid British Conservatives.

Graculus: Russian expansionism in Sibera and Central Asia was the old-fashioned territory-building until the late 19th century, an observation I added in my earlier draft: Russia's 19th-century designs upon the Ottoman Empire were traditional power politics. Russian involvement in China was of an entirely different order, triggering Anglo-American diplomatic action against partition, the Anglo-Japanese alliance and subsequently Japan's intervention in Manchuria. While Russian policy in the 1890s and 1900s wasn't necessarily an expression of the New Imperialism, it's fairly key to the story, and its unintended consequences are far more illustrative of the powers' attitudes to China than your text.

172: I didn't state that more on Russia shouldn't be added. I just stated that it shouldn't be added for its own sake. The more content on Russia the better insofar as it is related to other powers.

Graculus: The later phase (1895-1914) is relevant in its own right, not just as an adjunct to others' policy processes.

172: Perhaps, but the lack of other content is more pressing at the moment. Overall, the article doesn't really deal with the post-1890 era. Why don't we get to it? Why don't we pick areas of interest so that we can add relevant content to the main article and daughter articles?

Graculus: Structure first, then content. I've made my disapproval of the daughters' creation at this stage abundantly clear, however well-intentioned the move may have been: I don't want to spend too much time on daughters which may, as you have accepted, later need fundamental overhaul with the substantial rewriting that that usually involves if there's to be a good result. I want first to sort out the main article and its arrangement (which at the moment is that of the hierarchy, though there's no reason why the one should necessarily resemble the other).

172: First, it is necessary that the structure of main article, which is an executive summary of the daughter articles, reflect that of the series. If you don't take my word for it, ask Mav, the site's most active contributor. Second, substantial rewriting of the daughter articles isn't necessary. They are merely incomplete. You yourself made that clear. I'd guess that 95% of your 34 K version was borrowed from the existing text anyway.

Graculus: 70% actually, and not by preference, believe me - I just didn't want to remove more of others' work than was necessary to get it to a manageable size and coherent order. The whole did have to be thoroughly reorganised and largely reworded, and I'd have gone a lot further were it not for the wish to preserve others' input. I've never said your proposed daughters are "merely incomplete": their whole existence in their present form is your own unilateral preference, to which I never subscribed. Graculus 12:16, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

172: No, there had been support for creating an executive summary for weeks with links to daughter articles. Support for this even predated the creation of your user name. You're free to edit them, rearrange their sequencing in the series, and rename them. I acknowledge that the daughters and the executive summary are incomplete and that a new structure might be more effective, but I haven't really had the time to focus on them extensively, having spent far more time on the talk page. However, the vast majority of the content in them is salvageable in one way or another. 172 12:32, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Graculus: Indeed the creation of a summary was discussed, but the daughters themselves weren't prior to creation: I'm happy to let you develop them without interference, but I needed to clarify your statement as to my position. Graculus 12:47, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

172: No, the idea was to have a summary/series. If you don't believe me, ask someone else involved. And incidentally, I don't want to develop those articles without interference. If you're unwilling to work on them, I'm sure that someone else will. 172 12:53, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Graculus: The idea of a summary does not establish the character of each daughter. I'm quite willing to contribute to the daughters if you wish - on the understanding that their arrangement may have to be revised - but I consider the parent primary at this stage. Graculus 13:00, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

172: Once again, the idea of creating a History of Germany-style series (which is an executive summary linked to daughter articles) was discussed for a long time. I just asked another user to confirm this since you don't believe me. Furthermore, the structure, sequencing, and content of the main summary article will have to be modeled after those of the daughters. If the way the series is arranged gets in the way of your new ideas, you can easily change the series. Right now, I'm too busy to make a major overhaul at the moment. I'm only online right now to keep an eye on this talk page. 172 13:09, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Graculus: I'm working on improvements, but I'm not about to make any drastic change at the moment. I'm in the same position as you. Graculus 13:19, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Good. Then let's come up with a more effective structure and sequencing of the series. 172 13:24, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

172: In addition, while I'd like to add more content pertaining to the other powers, I stand behind a central focus on Britain. The article's periodization defines three eras of overseas expansion: mercantilism, the free trade of Pax Britannica, and New Imperialism, explaining its central focus on Britain. The article is focusing on the shift to aggressive nationalism and imperial rivalry that replaced the age of Pax Britannica, explaining why the expansion of the rival powers contributed to a rush of British expansion and why they were interested in completing with Britain. There are also links to the Meiji era, German empire, US history, etc, which will give you further details. I actually have written a good deal on late nineteenth century Italian, German, and Japanese expansionism in other articles. But we are all under pressure to utilize the hyperlinks as much as possible.

Graculus: Mercantilism is of a different age and doesn't belong here: discuss that in an article on Pax Britannica or Free Trade if you like. You seem to see New Imperialism as a British-directed phenomenon, which it wasn't.

172: Of course I'm aware of that. However, this might not be clear to readers, so backgrounding is necessary. Above, I made it clear that New Imperialism is a different era. Reread the statement. 172 09:31, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

172: I would actually like to start three new daughter articles, one on the promotion of colonialism in the home front, and another on the colonial world. And in these articles, I'd like to include much more on French, German, Japanese, Italian, and US imperialism. It should also go in detail comparing the contrasts between how French and British imperialism were promoted and the contrasts between their colonial styles, comparing the roles of class, race, and gender in the colonial rule. The contrasts between the promotion of French and British colonialism has long been an interest of mine, although I never got around to it. How France promoted a progressive form of imperialism since the founding of the Third Republic rooted in its republican character is also very fascinating. The era of Napoleon III is also a long-running interest of mine. But I wanted to get the central focus out of the way first. 172 05:21, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Graculus: No, the central article should offer a balanced overview, not scrutinise a central focus. The latter is for a daughter.

172: I stated that I wanted to add those topics to new or existing daughter articles, not the main article. We do not disagree on this point. 172 09:31, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Graculus: The arrangement of the second section still gives the impression that the whole process was initiated by surplus British capital, a discussion which is better placed among the theories. There appears to be a basic confusion between the "New imperialism" of late-19th-century colonialism and the capital-driven economic "Imperialism" of Hobson and Lenin. The latter concept is, as PP observes, a matter for the article "Imperialism" or some daughter thereof.

172: I don't want to get into theory on the talk page, but the imperialism of Hobson and Lenin was New Imperialism. To be brief, according to scholars that gravitate in this field, capitalism evolved in stages. The stage from 1750 to the last decades of the nineteenth century was industrial capitalism, made possible by the accumulation of vast amounts of capital and its investment in machinery and manufacturing. During the resulting Industrial Revolution the industrialist replaced the merchant as the dominant figure in the capitalistic system. The next stage was finance capitalism, stemming from the establishment of mammoth industrial empires and the ownership and management of their assets by financers divorced from the production process. According to those scholars, during this stage the financier replaced the industrialist as the dominant figure in the capitalistic system. Hobson and Lenin associated the export of finished goods, when Britain was the "workshop of the world" with industrial capitalism. In a nutshell, they regarded New Imperialism as more finance-driven than capital-driven, due especially to their focus on Britain. Their work focuses on the post-1870s era, not the preceding one. Later scholars have noted that the British government, dominated by landowners rather than industrialists, was by and large more interested in offering state backing to finance due to their stake in finance. They'd also argue that this explains why those linked to manufacturing, like Joseph Chamberlain, argued for protectionism to no avail after the 1870s when they shifted to protectionism due to the rise of competition. So to them, amalgamation and the rise of finance would explain the surge in state backing when capitalism shifted from "industrial capitalism" to "finance capitalism." It was Karl Marx writing in the mid nineteenth century, during the era of "cut throat capitalism" before rise of amalgamations, cartels, monopolies, or whatever your want to call them (although he predicted such a concentration of wealth), not Hobson and Lenin as you seem to maitain, who wrote about capital-driven imperialism. Lenin and Hobson focused on finance. From your comments, you're confusing the original work of Karl Marx with Hobson and Lenin. I'm not promoting Hobson's Imperialism and Lenin's Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism since they are very flawed works of history, failing to reconcile their theories with far more complicated historical realities, but later scholars have not dismissed their theories wholesale. It almost seems that you're dismissing them because Hobson's theories were picked up by Lenin, who was a Marxist, and no Marxist could ever be right. 172 05:21, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Graculus: No, the Hobson-Lenin Imperialism isn't New Imperialism, which was an aggressive pursuit {usually in the context of this 40-year period} of political domination over less-developed lands, rather than the economically exploitative capital export which often accompanied it. Whether Lenin or Hobson is right is irrelevant: the point is that as theoretical interpretations their analyses shouldn't form the basis for the article's approach unless it's about their concept, which it isn't. Your approach is perfectly legitimate in the theories or at the article Imperialism, but not here.

172: No, Hobson was writing at the time of the Anglo-Boer War and his focus was the Scramble for Africa. And a synopsis of Hobson's work belongs in the theories section. Your comments seem to pertain to Marx, not Lenin. They're contending that the flow of capital was related to the adoption of imperialism as a political policy. 172 09:31, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Graculus: They're related, but two distinct phenomena. Imperialism is economic. The "New imperialism" is economic or stategic in inception but political in expression.

172: That's a good way of putting it. Now I understand your point; before it almost seemed as if you were discussing Marx's analysis. But there was no confusion, as you earlier asserted. However, if you want to put your above statement in the article to make the relation clearer to readers, that would be fine.

Graculus: There's new detail to be corrected (India was never "a formal British colony"; Ismail sold his shares in 1875). I'll attend to these at my next edit.

172: Opps. What can I say? I read fast and I favor the smallest text size on my view feature. I'm not a perfect editor. I'm far more used to editing text when it's on paper right before me. 172 05:21, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Graculus: Except in the matter of brevity, I still do not see its content as in any way an improvement on the direction of my own draft of 08:01 (to whose order and content I notice no-one has so far ventured a reasoned objection, and which was no less capable of being linked to appropriate daughter articles): I shall endeavour to combine the better points of both.

172: That's what I've been doing. Once again, every one of your original contributions is in the daughter articles. 172 05:21, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Graculus: It's this central article I'm concerned about about at the moment. The balance just isn't there.

Graculus 22:36, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

PS. I'd be interested to hear also the views of other arbiters of our "consensus" - if they have any. Graculus 09:16, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Hello. I just took a look at this work, and worried about NPOV issue. I might not be the first one to raise this question, but I didn't see POV issue in a few archived talks that I've read. So, just in case, let me suggest how this could be a better article in terms of NPOV. If not, just showing us a pointer to a past discussion would help similar concerns of others like me.

I felt that many causal relations of historical events are simply asserted, as opposed to be explained & attributed to somebody.

Not that I suspect there weren't those influences, but it is hard to believe most historians studying relevant subjects agree that these are the exact set of chain of events to be explained. Maybe some pick other events as more important factors that caused or shaped New Imperialism.

So, if there are disagreements among scholars, I think mentioning those different views would greatly increse the credibility of the article. When there is no disagreements about certain part of article, it also helps to make it clear (like by saying "it is fairly established that A, B, &C are the most imporatant causes of D.")

Alternatively, it would be good to specify what kind of viewpoint this set of articles represent.

Hope this helps. Tomos 05:51, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Little by little all these concerns will be addressed. So far, we have a focus on economic, political, and social factors in the center and the colonies, giving it a balance. However, because of the global nature of this phenomenon, it's one of the most conceivably complicated and contentious topics that would be included in any sourcebook. Like thousands of other articles on this site, this one is a work in progress. 172 07:00, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Series box

The "series box" is too big. Something the size of History of Germany's one would be more appropriate. You don't need details on what's in each sub-article: it should be obvious from the title and the summary. Martin 12:50, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Seconded: it also makes subsequent amendment all the harder: it should be kept basic for the time being, with the possibility of later expansion when it's more final. Graculus 13:19, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

172 continues to remove the links to the temp pages (Despite the vote) and he continues to allow anyone else to make any substantial edits to the page. Pizza Puzzle

Lir/Pizza Puzzle: the temp page is irrelevant now that the page is well below the 32 K limit.

In addition, I earlier reverted an attempt by Lir/Vera Cruz/PP to insert his much touted list. So that nobody believes his assertions that I'm somehow censoring him, let me post another user's criticisms:

No, there doesn't have to be a list: Wikipedia is clogged with lists of this, that & the other: a link to a biographical article is far more valuable in its proper context within an article that refers to that person. The discussion in the old version was largely redundant, as the proper place to discuss a politician's views in depth is the biography entry. National policy is never the expression of one person, and historical articles should reflect that. Graculus 21:41, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It tries to compress to much information into too short a space: the names are inappropriate here (and the Second Empire predates it while Cleveland is peripheral to what follows). I don't like personalising history: these men were all important participants but each expressed national phenomena. The thing about wiki is that links are highlighted in the text where they are in their appropriate context within the article: they don't need to be listed at the top unless they're broader subjects which provide the context of the article itself. Graculus 18:57, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

172 18:32, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Having been quoted in the foregoing message, I feel I should comment. My above remarks to PP were solely a response to his request for comments on his opening paragraph, and do not relate to the present issue. I don't recall the vote on a link incorporating provision for its removal, clearly an unwise oversight. We now have a somewhat altered situation in which PP is attempting to re-insert text previously ecxised (even if it presently resides elsewhere) rather than removing it. I do think that the main draft's reduction to under 32K removes the need for a link, so long as PP is able to contribute legitimate edits here on the same basis as anyone on any other page (ie without unsupported reversion) in the absence of evidence of current misconduct. The other drafts should stay where they are pending the resolution of fundamental issues relating to this article. I'd like a rest now, so if everyone goes away and works out improvements in their drafts which can reduce the difference between them, we may actually make some progress. Graculus 21:44, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Click here for information on Pizza Puzzle's banned status. Evercat put an incredible amount of work into proving the Lir/PP connection, linking him to his innumerable banned identities, such as Adam, Bridget, Lir, Vera Cruz, Susan Mason, and Dietary Fiber. 172 18:43, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Why isn't he banned already, for heaven's sake? He admitted being a vandal himself ("you can't stop my vandalism spree") and his general behaviour proves it.

The only person with authority to ban signed in users is User:Jimbo Wales - if you or anybody else wants any user to be banned, the right thing to do would be to write to him or raise the matter on the WikiEn mailing list. --Camembert

This page has been protected by someone.Pizza Puzzle

By whom? 172 19:16, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The protection will have to be lifted whenever Graculus comes back, since he is a non-sysop extremely well versed in this subject interested in editing the page and adding content. 172 19:19, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

It's been protected by me. I don't really want to get involved at all, but the rate of the reversions was such that it was taking up quite a lot of Recent Changes real estate and wouldn't have allowed anybody else time to edit anyway. I'm not going to leave it protected for long, because I can't stay on the Wikipedia for long, but I hope everyone will realise that an edit war over this is pretty silly. --Camembert

Of course it's silly, but so is Lir. See here for proof that Lir=PP. This is the only way you can respond to his trolling. 172 19:29, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

And about the link to the top of the page. It's irrelevant now that there is an executive summary/main series page well under the 32 K limit. It's time to list his temp page with all its jumbled lists page and headlines on the VFD. 172 19:32, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Edit wars are so uncivilized. Why not a formal edit duel? A neutral third party should unprotect the page, and without reloading the page at all wait a random time, and then protect it again, the person with the last edit then declared the winner. On protecting the page, the neutral third party would see who had the last edit, avoiding the risk of a sysop cheating (which wouldn't happen anyway, of course). The looser would then agree not to revert again, and the page could be unprotected, to allow normal edits. Ксйп Cyp 19:34, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I have to go, so I'm unprotecting the page. I hope people will find something better to do than restart the war - don't be afraid to let the other side "win" for an hour or two and then quietly revert later when they're not looking. --Camembert

Just to say that the link should remain - we went though this: the page was protected for ages, we allowed two days for votes, and, despite lots of lobbying from 172, we voted to have the link.

Pizza Puzzle gets a week. At the end of a week, if he hasn't convinced anyone here that his version is worth buiding on to replace this one, then at least two people said that they'd no longer support including the link, and at that point it can certainly be deleted.

Patience folks. Martin 19:59, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Note that I'm not going to edit war over this. Martin

This is getting absurd. Now we have two temps. That is blatently abusing wiki. It was reluctantly agreed to allow one link for one week. But two is taking the mickey. One has to go. FearÉIREANN 20:15, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC) I have moved Temp 2 to this page. These things are breeding like rabbits.