Justice and the Return of Imperialism

Abstract

The article describes how U.S. liberal conservative internationalists (Andrew Carnegie, Elihu Root, Teddy Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson) used an idea of justice to legitimize “accumulation by dispossession” and America's use of the World War I to renew the imperial project as war to “make the world safe for democracy.” It looks at how a similar attempt is being made today by George W. Bush and others to seize the word back from the global justice movement and, by looking at how U.S. socialists (Eugene Debbs) resisted the attempt to use the language of justice against them, suggests how that attempt can be overcome.