Pros And Cons Of American Imperialism

There are two general views associated with the idea of American imperialism, pro-imperialism and anti-imperialism. The question being asked is, is imperialism beneficial or harmful to the countries surrounding the United States? The majority of the United States is pro-imperialism, and most other countries are on the anti-imperialism side. How do the these groups justify their beliefs? There are three main reasons the United States used to justify their imperialism. Evangelism is one reason that the United States justified imperialism. This is supported by the hymn “We’ve a story to tell to the nations” which states that the story of Christianity is “of truth and mercy… of peace and light.” and that it is completely pure and right. Military strength is another reason that the Americans believed imperialism was beneficial. Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote The Influence of Sea Power Upon History which stated that control of the seas, large naval forces, would mean world dominance. The last main reason is the economy, which was failing during the

Social Darwinism is the belief in the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon (white European) race over all others. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu supports this belief in his literary work On the Desirability of Imperialism by stating that there are “four different categories in terms of types of civilization.” Throughout this work he says “a great part of the world is inhabited by barbarian tribes or savages...so little of the arts..they do not know how to exploit their land and its natural riches.” This basically states that there are people in other civilizations that are not intelligent enough to use resources provided to them. He also says “A second part… and stable societies… to govern themselves...the Chinese and Japanese..” Which implies that although these people are superior over the last two categories, they are not equipped enough to properly govern