Analysis Of American Imperialism: A Platform For The Conflict Paradigm

Brice Berg
7 October, 2012
American Imperialism: A Platform for the Conflict Paradigm Imperialism in today’s society, where it is seen in almost every society in one way or another, is used as leverage to gain social status. The countries that implement imperialism in their diplomatic relations use the method for the same common goal: to gain wealth, power, and status. Sociologically, what is it that pins country against country? It is all propelled by the Conflict Paradigm, which “argues that the structured system of all of society is based on conflict over the goods of society (wealth, power, and status)” (Dunn, 9). In America, we still today see the Conflict Paradigm in action because American imperialism is still one of our diplomatic
policies. America’s conquest for westward expansion originated at the time of the founding of The Massachusetts Bay Colony, in which John Winthrop deemed, “the city upon the hill.” The belief that “The American Way” is the right way, gained support among Americans because it fostered American ideals, such as the spread of democracy as well as the strengthening of the nation’s economy. The American Way came to foster American exceptionalism, Americans’ nationalistic support for the spread of the United States’ economy as well as its political ideals. This concept of American superiority created a surge of nationalism in which the roots of American diplomacy were solidified, especially due to the fact that throughout the 19th century as American expansion was continuous.1 Fredrick Jackson Turner’s Frontier thesis supports the claim that democracy and prosperity are directly linked to American expansion, and that America was a great country filled with “rugged individuals” as a result of expansion.2 However, as the continental frontier shrank in size, and as America began to produce surpluses in the commercial agricultural industries, America was faced with an ultimatum: in order to continue to expand economically, the United States would need to extend its frontier past the restricting confines of North America’s borders. Soon thereafter, the American Empire expanded overseas and later adopted a foreign policy in which its objective was, as Williams offers, to aid the underdeveloped nations of the world to mend their economic woes through a code of self-determination.3 Yet in offering said assistance, due to American exceptionalism, America imposed its own political and social ideologies on those poorer nations. Williams suggests, this suffocated the poorer countries’ abilities to achieve economic greatness through self-determination, which in turn created hostilities between the United States and many other nations. After America achieved Manifest Destiny across the width of the continent, the elite sought to continue America’s expansion politically, religiously, and economically by imposing The American Way on foreign frontiers.4 Since the beginning of the Spanish-American War, American diplomacy has taken a hostile approach to control other countries via aggressiveness and belligerence in order to create power, wealth, and status, even if it means alienating the poorer countries to become even more powerful. The Spanish-American War marked a shift in diplomacy policy, as it was America’s first attempt to gain authority through force in an overseas territory.
Thus, the Spanish-American War acted as a transitional period for America’s diplomatic policy, as America went from a nation that was willing to protect forming Republics to a nation that was eager to control newly-found Republics for the sake of becoming more powerful. Thus America went to war, “Wanting democracy and social peace, they argued that economic depression threatened these objectives, and concluded that overseas economic expansion provided a primary means of ending that danger” (Williams, 38). Thus, the Spanish-American War commenced, and before long it would mark a shift in American diplomacy from a country that originally supported, and was even founded upon, “American ideals” such as rugged individualism and self-determination, to one that was willing to ignore said traditional principles in an effort to expand, even though hostile means, namely economically, politically, and
socially. At the turn of the 20th century, Americans realized that the national economy would not continue to flourish so long as the country was unable to expand past its North American borders; therefore, the United States adopted the Open Door Policy in which, “America’s preponderant economic strength would enter and dominate all underdeveloped areas of the world” (Williams, 45). This policy was supported by businessmen, politicians, and intellectuals alike, in other words America’s elite. Williams emphasizes the Open Door Policy offered a solution to those who opposed colonialism; it was a solution that would protect American industry from native labor competition, while simultaneously providing America “equality with all competing nations in the condition of access to the markets” (Williams, 50). Americans feared that without the expansion of American influence, the American market would continue to flounder. The Open Door Policy was an official agreement in which America, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, and Great Britain were to sustain an “open door” for trade and commerce in the developing nations of the world.5 In other words, it provided those countries, who were already on top, to prosper from the trade, while those with little to no power suffered under the oppressive trading regulations with the fittest countries of the world. Williams argues that the downfall of the Open Door Policy is the imposition of the American Way on unreceptive nations who can choose one of two paths: revolt or capitulate. Even in today’s society, America’s diplomatic policy remains one of belligerence towards other countries.
For example, America continues its search for open markets, and more recently looks to the Middle East, specifically Iraq and Afghanistan, to fuel America’s economy in an attempt to gain more wealth, power, and status. America’s economic interest in said countries is stimulated by the desire to control the world’s global oil prices.6 When the United States enters the less developed markets of the world, it is bound to attempt to impose democracy upon the “brethren in the backward areas of the world.”7 In other terms “The Mission of America” is the “securing, civilizing, humanizing, ‘sanitizing,’ Christianizing, and maintaining overseas possession,” so that the less developed areas of the world may too, “carry the benefits and blessings of an advanced civilization to their numerous less fortunate brethren in the backward areas of the world” (281).8 All of this is an attempt for America, as a country, to flex its muscle in hopes of having security as the world’s fittest nation. As Williams suggests, this imposition of the American Way is the cause of the tensions between America and those countries in which it restrains; it is the conflict in the Conflict
Paradigm.

``Main Works Cited
Dunn, Ruth. "Module IA—An Introduction to Sociology—A Brief History of Sociology." Brief History of Sociology (2003): 10-19. Print.
Williams, William Appleman. The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. New York: Dell Pub., 1972. Print.