The Great Illusion · Chapter
VIII: The Fight for “The Place in the Sun” explained
This chapter challenges the notion that nations like Germany need to engage in colonial conquest to expand and prosper.
What happens
This chapter challenges the notion that nations like Germany need to engage in colonial conquest to expand and prosper. It argues that Germany's real expansion and prosperity come from trade and emigration to countries like the United States, Brazil, and Argentina, not from political ownership of colonies. The chapter uses examples like France's costly and unprofitable colony of Tunis and Germany's thriving trade with Anglo-Saxon countries to illustrate that the 'place in the sun' is an illusion. It concludes by distinguishing between the role of a police force, which maintains order within a community, and an army, which is based on the false analogy that one country can enrich itself by conquering another.
Themes in this chapter
Economic Futility of War
The chapter argues that colonial conquest is economically futile, using the example of France's colony in Tunis, which costs more than it returns and has a negligible number of French colonists.
Interdependence of Nations
The chapter highlights that Germany's real prosperity comes from trade with countries it does not own, such as Brazil, Argentina, and the United States, demonstrating the economic interdependence of nations.
Illusion of Political Power
The chapter argues that the pursuit of colonial 'ownership' is an illusion, as the real benefits of expansion come from trade and enterprise, not from political control.
False Analogy of State as Person
The chapter uses the analogy of London's police force to argue that while a city cannot enrich itself by conquering another, the same logic is falsely applied to nations and their armies.
Characters to notice
- Norman Angell
The author and narrator, presenting the argument against the economic value of colonial conquest.
Key passages
“For, to the vast majority of these 250,000,000 people more or less, it does not matter two straws whether Morocco or some vague African swamp near the Equator is administered by German, French, Italian, or Turkish officials, so long as it is well administered.”
Most of the people involved in these conflicts are indifferent to who administers distant territories, as long as they are governed well.
This paraphrases the author's argument that colonial administration is a matter of indifference to the general population.
“In thirty years, at a cost of many millions (it is part of successful colonial administration in France never to let it be known what the Colonies really cost), France has founded in Tunis a Colony, in which today there are, excluding soldiers and officials, about 25,000 genuine French colonists; just the number by which the French population in France—the real France—is diminishing every year!”
France's colony in Tunis has cost millions and attracted only 25,000 French colonists, a number equal to France's annual population decline, making it a poor trade.
This paraphrases the author's use of Tunis as an example of the economic futility of colonial expansion.
“These are Germany's real Colonies. Yet the immense interests which they represent, of really primordial concern to Germany, without which so many of her people would be actually without food, are for the diplomats and the soldiers quite secondary ones; the immense trade which they represent owes nothing to the diplomat, to Agadir incidents, to Dreadnoughts: it is the unaided work of the merchant and the manufacturer.”
Germany's true colonies are the countries it trades with, which are far more important than its political conquests, and this trade is driven by merchants, not diplomats or soldiers.
This paraphrases the author's argument that Germany's real expansion is economic, not political.
“When we learn that London, instead of using its police for the running in of burglars and “drunks,” is using them to lead an attack on Birmingham for the purpose of capturing that city as part of a policy of “municipal expansion,” or “Civic Imperialism,” or “Pan-Londonism,” or whatnot; or is using its force to repel an attack by the Birmingham police acting as the result of a similar policy on the part of the Birmingham patriots—when that happens you can safely approximate a police force to a European army.”
A police force is only comparable to an army if it were used to conquer other cities, which is not the case, so the analogy between them is false.
This paraphrases the author's argument that the roles of a police force and an army are diametrically opposed.
