HERBERT SPENCER’S CRITIQUE OF COLONIZATION

Ayşe Yaşar Ümütlü

ABSTRACT

Decolonization process and national liberation movements were among top characteristics of the 19th century. And Herbert Spencer’s political ideas supported these developments strongly. He was one of the major characters of the intellectual life of the Victorian era. Spencer argued that taking property from people have to be accepted an infringement of their natural rights. Moreover, a government cannot undertake to administer the affairs of a colony, it is unjustifiable. Also any expenditure for these purposes puts extra burden on the state, which is against the utilitarian theory of liberalism. The role of a government is to execute the law of equal liberation. He additionally compared militant society and industrial society; criticizing the former for its emphasis on autocracy and complimenting the latter for being conducive to individual liberation. Thus he criticized wars and colonialism, even the British imperialism. But ironically, several of his concepts and ideas were used to justify colonialism.