Empires in Space
An interesting article on could an Empire actually conquer space. The premise is summed up in this paragraph:
How could the future be dominated by an "empire"? Empires are generally based on extractive institutions; with significant resources generated by members of the society being claimed by the Emperor/Empress and his/her allies (this is explicit in Herbert's Dune). But, such societies would not generally promote the technological change necessary to settle and connect millions of planets. Perhaps the basic economics behind the stories told in many works of science fiction isn't quite right...
My thoughts are with most of the commenters of the article. As with Asimov's Foundation series, the Empire formed after the expansion into space and only reaches a stagnation point when there is no more area to conquer, or command and control is lost due to technology not allowing over-watch of the outposts. Interesting read. Check it out here.
posted by davis14633 at 09:00
1 Comments:
There are four rather large holes in his argument:
1) "Empire" is a very relative term, especially within the context of western civilization.
2) His assertion that "Inclusive institutions encourage technological change and therefore lead to...economic growth" ignores that recent development wherein the freedom engendered in overly inclusive societies tends to breed luddites, environmentalists, and other anti-tech fringe groups which actually slow technological and scientific progress. Empires have fewer problems with such groups; they are eliminated as threats to the stability of the state, (something modern environuts would do well to consider, should they ever succeed in installing the Green totalitarian state they seem so desirous to obtain... but I digress).
3) The author is assuming that constant and rapid technological growth is a requirement for long term stability of an empire. The Egyptians alone prove him wrong, and there are many other examples throughout history which he has conveniently ignored.
4) He's basing the core of his argument around the idea that militaristic, heavily aristocratic empires wouldn't provide the incentive for said technological growth. He utterly ignores what was the largest, most rapidly growing and technologically progressive empire in human history to date: The British Empire. It was both militaristic and aristocratic, while also maintaining a necessary degree of inclusiveness: e.g., Horatio Nelson was a commoner, as were many officers of the Royal Navy, upon whose shoulders rested the fate of their worldwide empire.
I could make a counter-argument that empire is actually the BEST form of government for an interstellar empire. Due to the extended travel and communication times which might very well obtain in such a construct, local control by duly-appointed planetary governors loyal solely to the emperor would provide a degree of stability which would be lacking an more debate-oriented systems such as federalism.
A personal bias against empire as a form of governance does not equate to a valid argument against its viability, which is what the author is attempting in the article. Jerry Pournelle is fond of stating that any system of government will work efficiently and benevolently, so long as the people in charge have at heart the best interest of those they rule. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case.
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