Editing Jeremy Bentham (section)

=== Imperialism ===
Bentham's writings in the early 1790s onwards expressed an [[Anti-imperialism|opposition]] to [[imperialism]]. His 1793 pamphlet ''Emancipate Your Colonies!'' critiqued French colonialism. In the early 1820s, he argued that the liberal government in Spain should emancipate its New World colonies. In the essay ''Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace'', Bentham argued that Britain should emancipate its New World colonies and abandon its colonial ambitions. He argued that empire was bad for the greatest number in the metropole and the colonies. According to Bentham, empire was financially unsound, entailed taxation on the poor in the metropole, caused unnecessary expansion in the military apparatus, undermined the security of the metropole, and were ultimately motivated by misguided ideas of honour and glory.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pitts |first=Jennifer |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=szeU8olEDewC |title=A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France |date=2005 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1400826636 |pages=107–112 |language=en}}</ref>