Does separation of political powers curtail us from the imperialisms of the past states? Or is a further separation of powers necessary?
Reading the Wikipedia article on separation of powers, I take notice of the other branches of government that have been added to the systems of government in a few countries:
- In both Costa Rica and Venezuela, the electoral and auditory branches
- in Germany, the constitutional court and presidential electoral college
- in Taiwan, the control (auditory) and civil examination branches
The goal of the separation of powers is to keep the direction of government policy from falling in the hands of a single individual (dictatorship or totalitarianism) or group (oligarchy).
But that separation of powers did not prevent the Roman Republic (separated between the senate, the executive and the Roman assemblies) from turning into the Roman Empire, nor did it prevent the early United States from moving ever-so-westward to California, stomping other, “lesser peoples” into either the ground or the reservations along the way, resulting in a U.S. empire that stretched “from sea to shining sea” (and then some more land on the other side of that other sea as well).
Yet, let’s face it. Both the Roman Republic and the United States were/are excessively dependent upon their militaries as defense mechanisms, even though the United States, since the end of WW2, uses its own military (and its accompanying goods) more as a “big switch” to shake at errant nations.
So what does it take for us to extricate the government from the use of armed force as a means of accomplishing foreign policy aspirations?
Should the separation of powers be further spread out among a greater number of branches, which can then be made much more accountable/responsive to the citizenry by periodic ballot?
Will such a further delegation of powers place a plug into the need for a military that mostly resides outside the government’s grasp?
Sorry, but as much as some people would like to make the accusation stick, the USA is NOT an empire. Secondly, the Roman Empire depended upon the wealth it brought in through conquest to operate its economy. That is DEFINITELY NOT the case with US economy.
But didn’t the expansion west (of which it took at least 60 to 80 years to accomplish the majority of that) provide a series of long-term paybacks that, if the expansions never happened, would’ve not given the U.S. the pre-industrial sustenance that would allow it to sufficiently rival other developing industrial powers between the 1880s and 1920s?
* the mining in the Rockies and Black Hills
* the farming in the Plains
* the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, among others
Only asking this because the United States, by the time that it kicked into “industrial overdrive”, seemed to be at the point where it could feed the majority of its population in the North and out West, thanks to the increasing mechanization of agriculture and mining in the West.
I’m probably mistaken, but that’s how its always been depicted in the history books: after Reconstruction, the Indian Wars and the development of major communication and transportation routes and technologies (railroads, telephones, etc.), industrialization was in full swing, allowing the U.S. to gain Hawai’i, the Philippines, and other possessions by the turn of the century.
Actually, the Westward expansion didn’t create any real payback until well after WWII. The reason the US power came to be so great had less to do with its industrialization than simply the damage done to Europe by the first world war. Our cities and industries were left untouched, everyone else’s was destroyed.
The Philippines came into our control because of the forethought of our current Secretary of the Navy during the Spanish American War. He sent word to Admiral Perry that if the US went to war with Spain that he was to seize the Philippines. When the president received a message that Perry had taken the Philippines, he had to look up where they were on the map.
BTW- that Sec. of the Navy eventually became a war hero, and the president who founded the US National Park system, and prepared the US for becoming a world power. Any guess who he was?
Danny
Yes, the same guy who gave us the aforementioned “big stick” idea, and the first major mention of political progressivism, which eventually morphed into a completely different definition by the later 20th century.
But do you think that the expanded economy followed the military’s movements, or do you think that the military’s expansions followed the expanded economy (as was the case for Hawai’i, since American plantations and businesses were already well-established there decades before the U.S. turned it into a territory)?
On the Philippines, I didn’t readily know about just how little interest the U.S. had in that colony, except that a newspaper asked if the Philippines was either a can of fruit or related to some ancient Mediterranean people (forgot where I read that, it came from years ago in some social studies class). Thanks for the mention of McKinley, though.