Dialectic of Domination and Development

Discussion

Charles McKelvey:

"Conquest has been central to human history, and it has been an important motor for human economic and moral development, providing the foundation for empires and civilizations. Conquest provided the conquering power with the economic and human resources that enabled the development of a class liberated from food gathering or food production, freed to pursue not only advances in the art of war, but also advances in commerce, science, technology, philosophy, literature, and art. A conquering empire, once it attains political control over an extended territory, builds infrastructure and maintains peace, providing the conditions for commercial expansion and technological development, standing in contrast to the limited possibilities of local tribes.

I call this historic central human tendency “the dialectic of domination and development.” It is a dialectic that unfolds in the real world. The conquest and domination by an empire or nation of other societies constitutes the thesis. The resistance of the conquered expresses its antithesis. And the synthesis involves the construction of progress and development, drawing upon human and material resources and knowledge and technologies that pertain to both worlds of the conquerors and the conquered.

The synthesis can be forged from above or below. That is, it can be forged by the conquerors, driving the synthesis to further develop its civilization. Or it can be forged from below, driven by the interest of the conquered to transform unjust structures. Or, what is the best option for us today, the synthesis can be forged by the cooperation of the two.

The dialectic of domination and development is illustrated by the Assyrian Empire of the fourteenth century B.C.E., more than 3,000 years ago. The later Babylonian and Persian empires also illustrate the phenomenon, as do the conquests of Alexander the Great as well as the Islamic conquest of the Middle East, Southwest Asia, North Africa, and Spain during the period from 622 to 675. In La Civilización de Islam, Ricardo Elía documents the civilizational advances of the Islamic world in the aftermath of the Islamic conquest. He observed that for seven centuries, from 800 to 1500, the Islamic Civilization led the world in the territorial extension of its governments, in moral norms, in humanitarian legislation, in religious toleration, in literature, science, medicine, architecture, and philosophy. Its culture was widely dispersed and integrated: sovereign caliphs, merchants, and doctors could be philosophers.

We know a whole lot more about the pre-modern history of conquest in the Middle East, Asia, and Europe than we know about conquest in Africa and America during the same period. But we know enough to know that conquest was present as an important dimension in the history of pre-modern Africa and America.

So, I view the dialectic of domination and development as essentially a universal human phenomenon, expressing itself in all regions of the world following the agricultural revolution. Indeed, the dialectic of domination and development has been so extensive in human history that it is reasonable to conclude that virtually all human beings alive today are the descendants of peoples who have been conquered at some point in human history. We have all been conquered, in one place and time or another."

(https://charlesmckelvey.substack.com/p/conquest-and-civilizations-in-history)

Example

The European and Western Conquest (U.S.)

Charles McKelvey:

"Final Considerations

A progressive view of history is in many respects a modern Western idea, in that modern Western nations were in the vanguard of the forging of the dialectic of domination and development. But careful observation of the Global South shows that peoples from all over the world are also enamored of modern advances in human productivity and the material advances that they bring. The nations of the Global South, in calling for a New International Economic Order, advocate for a world order of sovereign nations in which all have the right to economic development and access to modern scientific knowledge, and they call for the transfer of technology to their nations. This is a fundamental fact that I have learned in my years of sojourn in the Global South, eliminating all vestiges of idealist notions that remained in my mind. A romanticized society of simple communal living might be workable in particular localities, but such notions are in no way a solution to the structural crisis of the world-system, neither in economic nor political terms. The peoples of the world seek both modernization and social justice, as they have made clear in numerous transnational declarations for decades.

The issue of advances in human productivity is central to the moral dilemma related to the confrontation between Europeans and Native Americans. The confrontation between these two worlds, which unfolded from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, should not be reduced to a simplistic frame defined by white racism and white assumptions of superiority. It is more profound than this, in that it involved a confrontation between two fundamentally different societies, with economies that relied at least partially on hunting, on the one hand, and a society that was strategically inserted into an expanding world-economy that was forging advances in human productivity, on the other.

Although it possessed racist elements which are now universally and rightly rejected by humanity, the concept of manifest destiny was not off the mark in discerning that the young American Republic was playing a leading role in the forging of human progress in economic development and democratic political systems. The young American Republic was a dynamic actor in the dialectic of domination and development unfolding in the real world, through which humanity was moving toward its destiny of constructing an economically advanced, prosperous, democratic, and just world order, in which ultimately the colonized peoples are destined to be full, equal, and leading participants.

In the conflict between the progressive march of the American Republic and the right of indigenous nations to life and self-determination, the US Government adopted what was, in formal terms, a morally and historically viable approach. Namely, to recognize the sovereignty of indigenous nations, making treaties with them, negotiating the acquisition of land through purchase, while at the same time guaranteeing indigenous access to sufficient land to maintain their societies, plus other continuous mutually beneficial commercial and cultural relations.

The 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie illustrates the possibilities for mutually beneficial treaties. Close to ten thousand indigenous people from many tribes, including the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Crow, assembled for the purpose of signing the Treaty, which established definitive boundaries of the tribal territories, and which permitted travelers to pass through the territories unharmed. Similar treaties were signed in 1853, by the Comanche, Kiowa, and Kiowa Apache.

It may have been that the Treaty of Fort Laramie was ultimately not workable. The laying of tracks for the Union Pacific Railroad and the discovery of new deposits of gold in Montana and Colorado led to a level of traffic across tribal lands that was greater than anticipated and that disrupted the patterns of game animals, thus provoking continued conflicts between settlers and Native Americans and the involvement of the US Army.

But a more fundamental problem was the lack of political will by the US government to adhere to the terms of the treaties that it signed with the indigenous nations. The prevailing political outlook in the United States was driven to some extent by racism, but also by a determination to drive the project of economic progress to its full expression. Those who in that context defended Native American societies—insisting upon respecting the terms of the treaties and supporting the teaching of modern productive techniques—deserve our full recognition. They should be lifted up as heroes and role models.

The European conquest of the native peoples of North America was completed by the beginning of the twentieth century. It cannot now be undone. I find pointless expressions in vogue in leftist circles of recognition that we are occupiers of Native American land of one particular tribe or another. Such virtue signaling is empty, because none of us of European descent is prepared to give the land back to the indigenous peoples who once lived on the land. Our only option is to continue living on the land or to drop dead.

In addressing the question of what ought to be done now, I keep in mind the final stage of the dialectic of domination and development initiated by European colonial domination, in which the colonizer and the colonizer cooperate in the construction of a more just world, building on advances that were made through the process of domination. For this reason, I like the work of the Native American Rights Fund in cooperation with the Obama administration, utilizing the US legal system and its protection of rights to advance the self-determination of Native American nations. Such efforts should be deepened and expanded."

(https://charlesmckelvey.substack.com/p/conquest-and-civilizations-in-history)