Empire versus hegemony

  Here's a working definition of the difference between empire and hegemony, abstracting from the veil of Westphalian sovereignty.  An imperial power tells its satraps, “Run your societies the way we want you to, or we will run it for you.”  An hegemonic power tells its subordinates, “Run your societies the way we want you to, or we will f--k you up.”

Working hypothesis:  for reasons of domestic politics, the destruction of the sovereign bond market in the Great Depression turned America’s foreign regime in the Circum-Caribbean from an empire into a hegemony. 

Explanation forthcoming.  The book is in progress.  In the meantime, I recommend the collected works of Suresh Naidu, a great Canadian.

Comments

[Andrew R.]

Will it be a book that a man with only one semester of high school economics can follow? Because it sounds pretty fascinating.

[Jussi Jalonen]

There have been imperial and hegemonic powers which have been willing to cut more slack than just "the way we want you to".

For example, there's "as you please, as long as it benefits us, and no one else".

Cheers,

J. J.

[Noel Maurer]

Isn't that just a subset of "run your society the way we want you to"?

"How do you want us to run it?"

"As you please, as long as it benefits us, and no one else."

"Oh. Okay. We can do that."