434 THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONScause the colonial power did not see the payoff to improvement. Still
others were too poor even to attract the cupidity of stronger nations.
The example of a few thriving ex-colonies has little consoled the
failures. For them, the whole experience has been humiliating, enrag-
ing; and subsequent disappointments have only aggravated their re-
sentments. They have a point. But having sucked on it, they would do
well to spit it out. None of this had to do with intentions, good or bad.
It was built into the logic of the situation, and all would have argued,
from the heart, that they were doing the best for everyone else.
Take the French. They thought of themselves as bearers of univer-
sal reason and virtue, to say nothing of the highest literary culture; and
while they did litde to educate their subject peoples, that little was in-
spired by a sense of mission and infinite perfectibility—you too can be
French. Classroom instruction was typically in French, which produced
a class of literates estranged from parents and native culture—one of
the teachers called it an "alienation machine." Substance consisted in
French historical clichés—"Nos ancêtres les Gaulois [our ancestors the
Gauls] ..." and such literary classics as Racine's Andromaque and
Corneille's Le Cid.^16 The best students, those who did well enough to
win fellowships to French universities, learned the treasures of French
republican virtue, just the kind of thing that would lead them to hate
their status if not themselves and turn them into leaders of rebellion.
Witness the careers of Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam or Pol Pot in Cam-
bodia.
What's the balance sheet? Has imperialism been good or bad for sub-
ject peoples? Let me attempt a series of propositions:
( 1 ) A principal aim of imperialism has been to extract wealth and
labor, more than was available at a free market price. The results have
not always matched expectations. On the other hand, in (almost) every
instance, a few people have done well—tough traders, concessionaires,
functionaries, intermediaries (compradores), local elites—on both sides
of the divide between rulers and ruled, stronger and weaker.
(2) Almost all imperialisms have brought material and psychological
suffering for the subject people; but also material gains, direct and in-
direct, intended and not. Some of these gains flowed from opening and
trade. To cite John Stuart Mill, writing from a British/Smithian per-
spective in the middle of the nineteenth century, "... the tendency of
every extension of the market [is] to improve the processes of pro-
duction."^17