Colonial Capitalism and the Dilemmas of Liberalism (Oxford University Press, 2018)
Winner of the 2020 David and Elaine Spitz Prize, International Conference for the Study of Political Thought
Finalist for the 2020 C. B. Macpherson Prize, Canadian Political Science Association
(Introduction and the table of contents available for download here)
By the middle of the nineteenth century, the Britons celebrated their empire as a unique “empire of liberty” that propagated the rule of private property, free trade, and free labor across the globe. They also knew that the same empire had been made by conquering overseas territories, trading in slaves, and extorting tribute from other societies. Set in the context of the early-modern British Empire, this book paints a striking picture of the tensions between the illiberal origins of capitalism and its liberal imaginations in metropolitan thought. Ince investigates the construction of a liberal self-image for the British Empire in the face of the systematic expropriation, exploitation, and servitude that built its transoceanic capitalist economy. The resilience of Britain’s liberal image, Ince argues, owed in good measure to the liberal intellectuals of empire and their efforts to disavow the violent transformations that propelled British colonial capitalism. Moving across the colonization of America, the conquest of India, and the settlement of Australasia, Ince examines the metropolitan debates over property, exchange, and labor relations within the empire. At the center of Ince’s analysis are John Locke, Edmund Burke, and Edward Gibbon Wakefield as three liberal political economists who tried to navigate the ideological dilemmas arising from colonial land seizures, commercial imperialism, and colonial labor dispossession. Ince deftly dissects the theoretical maneuvers, rhetorical strategies, myths, and fictions through which these liberal intellectuals disavowed the originary violence of capitalism – what Karl Marx labeled “the primitive accumulation of capital” – so as to craft an essentially commercial, pacific, and free character for the British Empire. Weaving together intellectual history, critical theory, and colonial studies, Colonial Capitalism is more than a study in intellectual history. It is a bold attempt to reconceptualize the relationship between capitalism, liberalism, and empire in a key that continues to resonate with our present moment.
Reviews
“That in the course of his intrepid and penetrating study Ince both decisively renovates and effectively supersedes the Macphersonite scheme is thrilling.” Samuel Moyn, Perspectives on Politics (December 2018) (journal link)
“Onur Ulas Ince’s excellent book works a subtle but momentous transformation on the burgeoning political theory scholarship on colonialism and empire.” William Clare Roberts, Political Theory (June 2021) (journal link).
By bringing the history of capitalism back to the fore of political theory, Ince has presented us with a powerful and urgent contribution to the field that bears as much on the study of liberalism and empire as on ongoing interpretive debates over historical context.” Lucas Pinheiro, Contemporary Political Theory (June 2020) ( journal link).
“In a lively, original analysis of British imperialism, one that ranges across continents as well as centuries, Ince provocatively makes the case for taking the history of capitalism seriously. It deserves to be read by anyone invested in the liberalism and empire debate.” Matthew Birchall, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, (February 2019) (journal link)
“Colonial Capitalism and the Dilemmas of Liberalism (2018) succeeds in demonstrating the importance of political economy for political theory’s imperial turn, preoccupied as it has been with a discursive approach to cultural difference.” Corey Snelgrove, Canadian Journal of Political Science (September 2018) (journal link)
“Ince’s innovative readings of these three thinkers reframe liberal theory as intimately and constitutively bound up with the predations of colonial capitalism.” Kevin Bruyneel, The Review of Politics (December 2019) (journal link)
Podcast interview on New Books in Political Science Network (podcast link)
Onur Ulas Ince constructs an important analysis of liberalism, capitalism, and empire in his new book, Colonial Capitalism and the Dilemmas of Liberalism (Oxford University Press, 2018). This text brings together a number of lenses through which to consider the writings and ideas of British liberal thinkers, especially John Locke, Edmund Burke, and Edward Gibbon Wakefield. This book—which is part of a larger project that will contain another book paying attention to Adam Smith, David Hume, Jeremy Bentham and others—focuses on the political thought, socioeconomic context, and the cultural understanding of British empire, the growth of capitalism, and the rise of Anglo-liberal thought. This extremely clear and beautifully written book links together a variety of methodological approaches to consider these often-distinct areas within political thought, economic thought, cultural studies, and theories of empire. Ince explores this analysis through the triad of private property, market exchange, and free labor, especially as these components became the structure of the British colonial undertakings across continents, countries, and people, while also being integrated into the foundation of liberal political theory.
Advance Praise for Colonial Capitalism and the Dilemmas of Liberalism
“This is an original and important survey of the co-creation of the intertwined languages of both English political economy and liberal political theory in relation to colonization and capitalism from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.”
JAMES TULLY, Professor Emeritus, University of Victoria
“This innovative, superbly written book challenges political theory’s ‘turn to empire’ by pressing inquiry into the historical relationship between imperialism and liberalism beyond philosophical questions and symbolic politics. Rather, Ince insists we reintegrate the exploitative violence of colonial capitalism into analyses of the conceptual universe in which ideological liberalism was first articulated. In so doing, he illuminates the historical complexity of liberalism in our ‘colonial present.’”
JEANNE MOREFIELD, author of Empires Without Imperialism
“Over the past fifty years, the dialogue between political economy, social history, and intellectual history has been minimal even while all three disciplines have turned their focus upon the relationship between liberalism and empire. In a challenge to us all, this book reconnects these disciplines in order to achieve a deeper understanding of a relationship which is foundational to the increasingly globalized present.”
ANDREW FITZMAURICE, University of Sydney