Thank you for this post. 2024 has indeed been a great year for the "grand racial aristocracy." Meanwhile, I loved this comment: << Hitler imbibed their concepts so well that his famous book was a love letter to them. >>
I want to commend you for this powerful analysis of the enduring impact of colonialism on global power structures, particularly the way racial and ethnic supremacy continues to shape the modern political and economic order. The notion of a "grand racial aristocracy" and the persistent, underlying racism within Western-dominated systems are ideas that resonate deeply with me, as they reflect not only historical realities but the lived experiences of many who continue to bear the barbaric consequences of these structures today (think Palestinians).
You capture the brutal truth of how colonial powers, particularly Anglo-America, justified their global dominance through a deeply entrenched belief in their racial superiority. As you aptly put it, “The earth belongs naturally to the superior races,” a sentiment that still informs much of the geopolitics and economic inequalities we see today.
This crucial insight illuminates the core psychological drivers of the immorality and brazen depravity that characterize modern Western-dominated systems. These systems, rooted in historical oppression, continue to thrive on a worldview that dehumanizes and exploits those deemed "inferior."
The article’s importance lies not just in uncovering this historical injustice but in exposing how it remains an enduring force in shaping today’s sick and depraved global order. I plan to expand on these ideas in a forthcoming article of my own, as I believe the psychology of racial and ethnic supremacy is at the heart of much of the immorality that governs our world today. Understanding this is essential, as it reveals the deep-seated drivers of inequality and the continuing exploitation that we must confront and challenge if we are to create a truly just and equitable global system.
The scale of resistance to Anglo-American imperialism and racism betrays the truth, despite the West’s propaganda. For context, Syrian and Egyptian Christians surrendered very quickly to the Muslims in the 7th century. Why? The Muslims offered cheaper taxes and then actually provided protection, in addition to freedom of worship. As xenophobic, repressive, and corrupt as Christian Roman government was though, modern racism and by extension Zionism are the most evil ideologies ever produced. I didn’t know how evil until Gaza. That’s a high quality Western education for you…
So, just to tie this article back to Prof. Podur’s last articles, the fall of Asssd was not a swift conquest. It took 13 years and thousands of dead. People defending their homelands in West Asia know how evil these invaders are. The Muslim conquests in the 7th century, however, that’s what a swift victory actually looks like.
Stinging fury at injustice comes across strongly in your words here. Thank you for your rage.
I was at a youth camp once where we played a game that I’ve thought a lot about since. We were divided into teams A and B. Both teams had $10. Each team could give the other team $3 dollars or $0. If both A and B gave $3, A and B would win another $5 in bonus each, so end up with $15 each. But if one of A or B chose not to give, there would be no bonus. Each team was to confer, then announce their $3 of $0 trade at the same time. This would happen for two rounds. The object of the game was to win.
I was on team A. We thought, well, obviously, if the idea is to win, we shouldn’t give our money away - if they give us their money, then great. If they didn’t, everything stayed the same. In the first round, Team B gave us $3. So we had $13, and they had $7. We heard a member on Team B sounding upset as others rounded on her for that choice; she then said: ‘no, don't worry, I know how this is played.’ Meanwhile, we were celebrating as team A. This game was easy. Our strategy was working.
Second round, A again decided not to give. B gave again. When the results came in, Team A had $16 and Team B $4. Team B was angry enough that one teen threw a rock towards us. We meanwhile were jeering at them – they lost, why couldn’t they take it?
A camp activity meant to facilitate cultural exchange had turned ugly quickly. The facilitators gathered us round, grave and a bit shocked.
The idea of the game, they said, was to show that if both sides cooperate, we’d all do better. In other words, if we had exchanged $3 we had the potential to come out with 20 dollars each after two rounds. The game showed that zero sum games make both sides lose out.
But, we at team A protested, the point was to *win.* With our $16 to Team B’s $4, we’d clearly won. And sure, it was nice that Team B had given us $3 in round 1, but after having taken B’s money, and seeing that sharing opened you up to betrayal, why would we be foolish enough to give $3 in the second round? Cooperation opened you up to risk and vulnerability, whereas non-cooperation either maintained the status quo or helped you gain at the other side’s expense. And once we had screwed the other side over, of course they would do it back. We were just protecting ourselves. They other side was getting all upset for nothing. They weren't smart enough to protect themselves.
To me this is the subtext of our current global struggle – the zero-sum people versus the cooperators. We would all do better if we all worked together. All it takes, though, is for one major entity to undercut the trust required for mutuality and reciprocity for zero sum to become the only safe way forward. This story repeats horrifically through time – the colonialists zero summing their way forward, those they have hurt reaching out with goodwill only to have more assurances broken and trust betrayed.
Colonialists might strut around thinking that it’s their racial superiority that has brought them wealth and power, when in fact it’s their rapacious, destructive, and short-sighted zero-sum profiteering that has immiserated us all. They think they’re winning when in fact they don’t understand the game, and are ruining everything for everybody.
There will eventually be material limits to what they can do. You can only print money and live off debt for so long. I will not be rejoicing when the Empire falls given all that it has cost, but I will breathe a sigh of relief.
The Great Wall of China makes so much sense every day. The White colonial Bloc (UN’s WEOG) are the terrorists and the cause of so much chaos on this planet. I’ve grown so pessimistic that I’m starting to think only WW3 or a giant meteor will stop their insanity.
... or, put another way (?) The people of the Jungle and the people of the Garden: excellent recent video from Jacobin with Clare Daly, makes a similar point to you Justin:
... we have much to do in developing a working vernacular for this global situation we are now in and our need to live and speak in our millions as Palestinians; graft ourselves onto the stock in Gaza and branch out into all these related issues ... thanks Justin
I remember when at school, I was probably 12 years old, our teacher had let us read in classroom a piece of the book “my struggle” of a certain little man with the moustache… It listed a ranking of the “races” of mankind, and I remember that at certain point, in the mid of the ranking, finally we found our people, the Italians, and a comrade of mine exclaimed “Wheeew, we are not at the bottom of the list!”, we laughed… But this is the kind of world view that is in the mind of racial aristocracies. At the end of the day, their real philosophy is just“Homo homini lupus”, mixed with the protestant theory of predestination, the theory of “Manifest destiny” and so on. Unfortunately this is the perfect recipe for continuous wars.
The naming of the "Great Racial Aristocracy" as central factor in Empire still going strong today has been a long time coming, slowly built up by Justin's work here both historical and contemporary, and rearing its ugly face so blatantly today.
Characterizing a factor in "Grand History" can illuminate our understanding of past and present, as opposed to the "stamp collecting" that history tends to devolve into. Without blurring the direction of the analysis too much, let us look at how racism and aristocracy has changed over time [feel free to skip over this ;-)] and hint on how the "Great Racial Aristocracy" has adapted to historical circumstances today.
Aristocracy within and between societies in relation to racism
The English aristocracy famously felt themselves intrinsically superior not only to Indian princes or Hungarian duchesses (who some of them at least thought of as exotic) but primarily to the unwashed masses of London commoners who carry diseases. Not that long ago a liaison of a scion of a aristocratic house with a commoner was widely regarded not only be seen as a missed business opportunity but as a literal attack on the "blood-line".
In our neo-liberal gilded age they can in principle admit anyone into the aristocracy - and have the few token black aristocrats to show for it. A clear example is Obama reminding his (rich white) audience that his own children routinely face racism: they are at risk of being wrongly classified as inferior merely based on the color of their skin, rather than correctly classified as superior based on their parentage as i.e. Chelsea Clinton would be. By thus aspiring to color blindness, neo-liberals can conveniently turn a blind to the fact that essentially all of the Forbes 100 happen to be "white" (except for Oprah Winfrey who made a career of extolling the virtues of the other Forbes 100). Geo-politically, it is likewise rude to notice that capital interconnections tends to correlate with the "Great Racial Aristocracy".
Racism as Ethnic melting pot
The very construct of "Whiteness" itself as such can be seen as a project of (very limited) emancipation - elevating "white" commoners to potential (Roman) aristocrats who could own slaves. This has the benefit of cajoling the white commoners to identify with the nation state (and thus serve its aristocracy) rather than making common cause with the actual slaves (now mostly poor wage slaves), whose labor is mostly benefitting the rich. E.g. Gerald Horne has written extensively how "whiteness" is centrally an American project, defined negatively as opposed to crucially Black Americans. In the 19th century Europeans were absurdly occupied with Ethnic (and religious) distinctions; e.g. read almost any Jules Verne novel and marvel at his spending 2 pages each introducing a character from a multi-national crew as an archetypical set of "English", "Prussian", "French", "Swabish", "Yankee" traits. A classic left perspective is that racists are co-opting the internationalist vibe of the Left but directing it against people of color rather than the capitalist class...
The "Great Racial Aristocracy" over time
A proper Marxist/materialist analyst could have a field day tracing the economic cost/benefit ratio of subjugating people in faraway lands with the notions of racial aristocracy: i.e. when Europe was weak there was little sense of racial or religious superiority, when Europe had a slight military edge there was a recognition of foreign cultural achievements (which could be looted), when Europe became used to being able to run roughshod over most everyone else racism/religious superiority complexes reached grotesque heights. Or perhaps it did mostly when that edge started to wobble? William Dalrymple's "The Last Mughal" chronicles this shift from Englishmen routinely "going native" into Indian (aristocratic) culture to downright disdain of everything "Hindu" within the 19th century.
Now that the military gap has been closing, the very rise of neo-liberalism can be seen as an adjustment and partial co-optation of de-colonization movements as described in the article. Racism is therefore either exorcised from polite society by "progressives" or brought to the fore again by reactionaries, whose ascendancy itself was brought about by the internal failings of neo-liberalism.
We seem to be living in this weird time when half the political class traffics again in Lebensraum rhetoric and the other half is studiously ignoring the geo-political "Great Racial Aristocracy" while admonishing bigotry towards individuals.
Historically, the "West" had to offer carrots as well as sticks: a positive developmental model to rival that of the Soviet Union (i.e. building towards a social-democratic welfare state). Alas the "West" did manage to "get under the skin" of the Soviet leaders such as Yeltsin, imploded the Soviet Union, and largely ditched its positive model; it is very much in the open if they can rediscover carrots to accompany the sticks in adapting to the rise of China and partners (and its own self-cannibalization).
Much to digest here, but at first thoughts it's apparent the Lebensraum is aimed at White European Ashke-nazi Jews, because demographics favor the Mizrahim. Perhaps the cunning undermining of EU economy is a long term plan to boost import of the former, but like Giáp's maxim of hugging the enemy close, it will make the willingness of Israel to use any method including nukes problematic to all but the suicidal-depressed as these new settlements will be front line.
ok sarcasm, why did my white folks not get them sum aristictacy??? we wuz robbed!! acadiens and gaels. i guess unless you swallow the whole ideology then you get demoted to inferior racial status like asa winstanley is getting demoted now, it seems like "terrorist" designation has replaced race.. israel is a terror state if there ever was one and the whole west seems not only to have supported genicide but they invented genocide. however when al queda is on our side they are no longer terrorists.
i fear it is going to get worse before it gets better
Great text to get to the core. Imperial racism i is both rigid and flexible. Suddenly one European people turns much whiter than the almost same European people. Probably until there is only ruins left and we figure that none of them were really white, corrupt as they were.
Have you or anyone in your circles written a text with the ideas in the part with "They tell lies to test our loyalty /.../it is up to them to judge us based on how intensely we express that we believe them."? I would like that, not only because it is true, but also because it is a perhaps liberating truth. (And a mocking truth with the edge aimed exactly right - I´m not above that either.)
I wish you all the best, and all those you care for
Rev up those Panzers, get the Stukas into the sky, and let’s exterminate some “useless eater” Untermenschen! God doesn’t want them cluttering up the land He gave to Us!
Thank you for this post. 2024 has indeed been a great year for the "grand racial aristocracy." Meanwhile, I loved this comment: << Hitler imbibed their concepts so well that his famous book was a love letter to them. >>
I want to commend you for this powerful analysis of the enduring impact of colonialism on global power structures, particularly the way racial and ethnic supremacy continues to shape the modern political and economic order. The notion of a "grand racial aristocracy" and the persistent, underlying racism within Western-dominated systems are ideas that resonate deeply with me, as they reflect not only historical realities but the lived experiences of many who continue to bear the barbaric consequences of these structures today (think Palestinians).
You capture the brutal truth of how colonial powers, particularly Anglo-America, justified their global dominance through a deeply entrenched belief in their racial superiority. As you aptly put it, “The earth belongs naturally to the superior races,” a sentiment that still informs much of the geopolitics and economic inequalities we see today.
This crucial insight illuminates the core psychological drivers of the immorality and brazen depravity that characterize modern Western-dominated systems. These systems, rooted in historical oppression, continue to thrive on a worldview that dehumanizes and exploits those deemed "inferior."
The article’s importance lies not just in uncovering this historical injustice but in exposing how it remains an enduring force in shaping today’s sick and depraved global order. I plan to expand on these ideas in a forthcoming article of my own, as I believe the psychology of racial and ethnic supremacy is at the heart of much of the immorality that governs our world today. Understanding this is essential, as it reveals the deep-seated drivers of inequality and the continuing exploitation that we must confront and challenge if we are to create a truly just and equitable global system.
Thank you again for the article!
The scale of resistance to Anglo-American imperialism and racism betrays the truth, despite the West’s propaganda. For context, Syrian and Egyptian Christians surrendered very quickly to the Muslims in the 7th century. Why? The Muslims offered cheaper taxes and then actually provided protection, in addition to freedom of worship. As xenophobic, repressive, and corrupt as Christian Roman government was though, modern racism and by extension Zionism are the most evil ideologies ever produced. I didn’t know how evil until Gaza. That’s a high quality Western education for you…
So, just to tie this article back to Prof. Podur’s last articles, the fall of Asssd was not a swift conquest. It took 13 years and thousands of dead. People defending their homelands in West Asia know how evil these invaders are. The Muslim conquests in the 7th century, however, that’s what a swift victory actually looks like.
Stinging fury at injustice comes across strongly in your words here. Thank you for your rage.
I was at a youth camp once where we played a game that I’ve thought a lot about since. We were divided into teams A and B. Both teams had $10. Each team could give the other team $3 dollars or $0. If both A and B gave $3, A and B would win another $5 in bonus each, so end up with $15 each. But if one of A or B chose not to give, there would be no bonus. Each team was to confer, then announce their $3 of $0 trade at the same time. This would happen for two rounds. The object of the game was to win.
I was on team A. We thought, well, obviously, if the idea is to win, we shouldn’t give our money away - if they give us their money, then great. If they didn’t, everything stayed the same. In the first round, Team B gave us $3. So we had $13, and they had $7. We heard a member on Team B sounding upset as others rounded on her for that choice; she then said: ‘no, don't worry, I know how this is played.’ Meanwhile, we were celebrating as team A. This game was easy. Our strategy was working.
Second round, A again decided not to give. B gave again. When the results came in, Team A had $16 and Team B $4. Team B was angry enough that one teen threw a rock towards us. We meanwhile were jeering at them – they lost, why couldn’t they take it?
A camp activity meant to facilitate cultural exchange had turned ugly quickly. The facilitators gathered us round, grave and a bit shocked.
The idea of the game, they said, was to show that if both sides cooperate, we’d all do better. In other words, if we had exchanged $3 we had the potential to come out with 20 dollars each after two rounds. The game showed that zero sum games make both sides lose out.
But, we at team A protested, the point was to *win.* With our $16 to Team B’s $4, we’d clearly won. And sure, it was nice that Team B had given us $3 in round 1, but after having taken B’s money, and seeing that sharing opened you up to betrayal, why would we be foolish enough to give $3 in the second round? Cooperation opened you up to risk and vulnerability, whereas non-cooperation either maintained the status quo or helped you gain at the other side’s expense. And once we had screwed the other side over, of course they would do it back. We were just protecting ourselves. They other side was getting all upset for nothing. They weren't smart enough to protect themselves.
To me this is the subtext of our current global struggle – the zero-sum people versus the cooperators. We would all do better if we all worked together. All it takes, though, is for one major entity to undercut the trust required for mutuality and reciprocity for zero sum to become the only safe way forward. This story repeats horrifically through time – the colonialists zero summing their way forward, those they have hurt reaching out with goodwill only to have more assurances broken and trust betrayed.
Colonialists might strut around thinking that it’s their racial superiority that has brought them wealth and power, when in fact it’s their rapacious, destructive, and short-sighted zero-sum profiteering that has immiserated us all. They think they’re winning when in fact they don’t understand the game, and are ruining everything for everybody.
There will eventually be material limits to what they can do. You can only print money and live off debt for so long. I will not be rejoicing when the Empire falls given all that it has cost, but I will breathe a sigh of relief.
Very interesting experiment! It sure can explain, and in a simplified clear manner, how imperialist geopolitics work.
Sharply written, could feel this one in my gut.
The Great Wall of China makes so much sense every day. The White colonial Bloc (UN’s WEOG) are the terrorists and the cause of so much chaos on this planet. I’ve grown so pessimistic that I’m starting to think only WW3 or a giant meteor will stop their insanity.
... or, put another way (?) The people of the Jungle and the people of the Garden: excellent recent video from Jacobin with Clare Daly, makes a similar point to you Justin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFypNJ75u2E
... we have much to do in developing a working vernacular for this global situation we are now in and our need to live and speak in our millions as Palestinians; graft ourselves onto the stock in Gaza and branch out into all these related issues ... thanks Justin
A thoughtful, superb, and poignant analysis!
I remember when at school, I was probably 12 years old, our teacher had let us read in classroom a piece of the book “my struggle” of a certain little man with the moustache… It listed a ranking of the “races” of mankind, and I remember that at certain point, in the mid of the ranking, finally we found our people, the Italians, and a comrade of mine exclaimed “Wheeew, we are not at the bottom of the list!”, we laughed… But this is the kind of world view that is in the mind of racial aristocracies. At the end of the day, their real philosophy is just“Homo homini lupus”, mixed with the protestant theory of predestination, the theory of “Manifest destiny” and so on. Unfortunately this is the perfect recipe for continuous wars.
The naming of the "Great Racial Aristocracy" as central factor in Empire still going strong today has been a long time coming, slowly built up by Justin's work here both historical and contemporary, and rearing its ugly face so blatantly today.
Characterizing a factor in "Grand History" can illuminate our understanding of past and present, as opposed to the "stamp collecting" that history tends to devolve into. Without blurring the direction of the analysis too much, let us look at how racism and aristocracy has changed over time [feel free to skip over this ;-)] and hint on how the "Great Racial Aristocracy" has adapted to historical circumstances today.
Aristocracy within and between societies in relation to racism
The English aristocracy famously felt themselves intrinsically superior not only to Indian princes or Hungarian duchesses (who some of them at least thought of as exotic) but primarily to the unwashed masses of London commoners who carry diseases. Not that long ago a liaison of a scion of a aristocratic house with a commoner was widely regarded not only be seen as a missed business opportunity but as a literal attack on the "blood-line".
In our neo-liberal gilded age they can in principle admit anyone into the aristocracy - and have the few token black aristocrats to show for it. A clear example is Obama reminding his (rich white) audience that his own children routinely face racism: they are at risk of being wrongly classified as inferior merely based on the color of their skin, rather than correctly classified as superior based on their parentage as i.e. Chelsea Clinton would be. By thus aspiring to color blindness, neo-liberals can conveniently turn a blind to the fact that essentially all of the Forbes 100 happen to be "white" (except for Oprah Winfrey who made a career of extolling the virtues of the other Forbes 100). Geo-politically, it is likewise rude to notice that capital interconnections tends to correlate with the "Great Racial Aristocracy".
Racism as Ethnic melting pot
The very construct of "Whiteness" itself as such can be seen as a project of (very limited) emancipation - elevating "white" commoners to potential (Roman) aristocrats who could own slaves. This has the benefit of cajoling the white commoners to identify with the nation state (and thus serve its aristocracy) rather than making common cause with the actual slaves (now mostly poor wage slaves), whose labor is mostly benefitting the rich. E.g. Gerald Horne has written extensively how "whiteness" is centrally an American project, defined negatively as opposed to crucially Black Americans. In the 19th century Europeans were absurdly occupied with Ethnic (and religious) distinctions; e.g. read almost any Jules Verne novel and marvel at his spending 2 pages each introducing a character from a multi-national crew as an archetypical set of "English", "Prussian", "French", "Swabish", "Yankee" traits. A classic left perspective is that racists are co-opting the internationalist vibe of the Left but directing it against people of color rather than the capitalist class...
The "Great Racial Aristocracy" over time
A proper Marxist/materialist analyst could have a field day tracing the economic cost/benefit ratio of subjugating people in faraway lands with the notions of racial aristocracy: i.e. when Europe was weak there was little sense of racial or religious superiority, when Europe had a slight military edge there was a recognition of foreign cultural achievements (which could be looted), when Europe became used to being able to run roughshod over most everyone else racism/religious superiority complexes reached grotesque heights. Or perhaps it did mostly when that edge started to wobble? William Dalrymple's "The Last Mughal" chronicles this shift from Englishmen routinely "going native" into Indian (aristocratic) culture to downright disdain of everything "Hindu" within the 19th century.
Now that the military gap has been closing, the very rise of neo-liberalism can be seen as an adjustment and partial co-optation of de-colonization movements as described in the article. Racism is therefore either exorcised from polite society by "progressives" or brought to the fore again by reactionaries, whose ascendancy itself was brought about by the internal failings of neo-liberalism.
We seem to be living in this weird time when half the political class traffics again in Lebensraum rhetoric and the other half is studiously ignoring the geo-political "Great Racial Aristocracy" while admonishing bigotry towards individuals.
Historically, the "West" had to offer carrots as well as sticks: a positive developmental model to rival that of the Soviet Union (i.e. building towards a social-democratic welfare state). Alas the "West" did manage to "get under the skin" of the Soviet leaders such as Yeltsin, imploded the Soviet Union, and largely ditched its positive model; it is very much in the open if they can rediscover carrots to accompany the sticks in adapting to the rise of China and partners (and its own self-cannibalization).
Much to digest here, but at first thoughts it's apparent the Lebensraum is aimed at White European Ashke-nazi Jews, because demographics favor the Mizrahim. Perhaps the cunning undermining of EU economy is a long term plan to boost import of the former, but like Giáp's maxim of hugging the enemy close, it will make the willingness of Israel to use any method including nukes problematic to all but the suicidal-depressed as these new settlements will be front line.
ok sarcasm, why did my white folks not get them sum aristictacy??? we wuz robbed!! acadiens and gaels. i guess unless you swallow the whole ideology then you get demoted to inferior racial status like asa winstanley is getting demoted now, it seems like "terrorist" designation has replaced race.. israel is a terror state if there ever was one and the whole west seems not only to have supported genicide but they invented genocide. however when al queda is on our side they are no longer terrorists.
i fear it is going to get worse before it gets better
Thanks again Justin!
Great text to get to the core. Imperial racism i is both rigid and flexible. Suddenly one European people turns much whiter than the almost same European people. Probably until there is only ruins left and we figure that none of them were really white, corrupt as they were.
Have you or anyone in your circles written a text with the ideas in the part with "They tell lies to test our loyalty /.../it is up to them to judge us based on how intensely we express that we believe them."? I would like that, not only because it is true, but also because it is a perhaps liberating truth. (And a mocking truth with the edge aimed exactly right - I´m not above that either.)
I wish you all the best, and all those you care for
Lasse Ade
Deeply edifying! Thank you once again.
Brilliant, incisive article that should be required reading. Thank you for your fantastic work.
Rev up those Panzers, get the Stukas into the sky, and let’s exterminate some “useless eater” Untermenschen! God doesn’t want them cluttering up the land He gave to Us!