The British alone seemed to have got out at the appropriate time, understanding provided for them most famously by Mahatma Gandhi, although a case can be made that the Soviet empire was also deliberately disbanded at an opportune time, more or less unwittingly by Mikhail Gorbachev aided and abetted by Boris Yeltsin, who was well aware of what he was doing.

Future empires should not be political entities founded on force and economic imperative, but rather empires of humanism and culture, built by free individuals who have got past the delusion that they can create happiness for themselves by creating unhappiness for others.