OK, lets say the rest of the world embraces democracy and become a success. Everyone's income raises to £25k.
Where do get that from ? Give people their democratic rights and their income will automatically increase by £25k ? You best hope that the word doesn't get out, otherwise there will be spontaneous revolutions throughout the world.
Our national interest is served by getting more than our fair share.
So they would like you to believe. But of course that's also bollox. As I said a couple of weeks ago :
Expanding and protecting British interests isn't designed to benefit ordinary British people you know - only the gullible and hopeless naive would think that.
Britain at one time was the most powerful and wealthiest nation on earth, that didn't however translate into any meaningful benefit for its people. For example, in the 1840s Britain had complete global sea supremacy, she had a significant and continuously expanding global empire. The government of the day was, you could say, committed to "Britain's national best interest".
However, for the overwhelming majority of the British people life was a short miserable existence of unending toil and wretched abject poverty - only a tiny minority which made up the ruling classes actually benefited from Britain's great power and wealth.
In fact life for an average Englishman, was shorter and more miserable, than the life of a slave in the 1840s (slaves were a prized possession) Urban and rural life expectancy in England, and I'm talking about lower and middle classes not upper classes, was less than 25 years. A slave in the Southern United States could expect to live until about the age of 30.
And exactly the same self-evident truths apply today. Our recent military adventures in Iraq might well have increased Britain's global influence, but that has not translated into any meaningful rewards for the overwhelming majority of British people. Our standard of living has not increased one iota as a result of our invasion of Iraq, despite the fact that it has undoubtedly brought vastly increased profits to US and British companies. We paid for the war - they reaped the rewards.
Imperialism and neocolonialism is only designed to benefit the ruling classes. If the people benefit at all, then it is by accident rather than design. Governments might well beat the patriotic drum, but it is absurd to suggest that classes with diametrically opposed interests should share a common purpose - rarely does that happen. One notable exception was 1939 when both the ruling class and the people shared an obvious common purpose - to repel a foreign invasion. But that is clearly the exception, rather than the rule.