youkrst wrote:

Do we have to take the religion and nationalism?

one nation under god sheesh it's a crap hand to be dealt. maybe it takes millenia to get out of some messes.

"Born in London in 1806, son of James Mill, philosopher, economist and senior official in the East India Company. Mill led an active career as an administrator in the East India Company from which he retired only when the Company's administrative functions in India were taken over by the British government following the Mutiny of 1857. http://www.utilitarianism.com/jsmill.htm

Mill knew all about it. He was a corresponding secretary of the East India Company, and was following it all closely. The purpose of the expansion of British power over India, as he knew, was to try to obtain a monopoly over opium so that England could somehow break into the Chinese market. They couldn’t sell goods to China because, as they complained, Chinese goods were comparable and they didn’t want British goods. So the only way to break into the Chinese market was by gunboats and to force them to become a nation of opium addicts at the point of a gun and by obtaining a monopoly of the opium trade – didn’t quite make it, American merchants got a piece of it – they could compel Chinese to become opium addicts and gain access to Chinese markets. And in fact he was writing right at the time of the Second Opium War [from 1856 to 1860], which achieved that. Britain established the world’s most extensive narco-trafficking enterprise; there’s never been anything remotely like it. Not only were they able to break into China for the first time, but also the profits from opium supported the Raj, the costs of the British Navy, and provided very significant capital which fuelled the industrial revolution in England. Mill was very aware of this. Had to be. But nevertheless his picture is that since England is an angelic power we should help the barbarians who can’t solve their own affairs. http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20060119.htm