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Title: US Imperialism Author: Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici Date: 1st October 2006 Language: en Topics: US foreign interventions, Imperialism, United States of America Source: Retrieved on 17th October 2021 from http://www.fdca.it/fdcaen/organization/sdf/sdf_usa.htm Notes: As of the 7th Congress of the FdCA of 1st October 2006, this document substitutes: Imperialismo U.S.A.
The international economic context remained stable for over twenty years
on the basis of what came out of the Bretton Woods conference in 1945:
one dominant currency — the dollar, one leading country — the United
States of America. The agreement, which was opposed by Lord Keynes,
sanctioned the strength ratios that existed within the capitalist world
at the end of the Second World War: not a collective government of the
area dominated by private capital (as the British had wanted) but a
vertical model in which the USA dominated the organs of international
control e dictated the rules; in return they had to guarantee that their
currency, imposed as the point of reference for trade, would remain
stable and firmly linked to gold.
While this was the situation with regard to international trade
relations, the organizational model for production, and the social model
linked to it, was and remained Fordism, whose main point of reference
theoretically speaking was the work of Keynes in the Twenties and
Thirties, which had been successfully tried and tested as a means of
resolving the world crisis following the Wall Street crash of 1929.
In 1971 President Richard Nixon announced the non-convertibility of the
dollar into gold, thus throwing the above-outlined system into crisis
and with it the role of the USA as a hegemonic power and imperialistic
strategic centre. It became necessary to find other forms of dominion,
if this role were to be maintained. But first, it is necessary to
understand what had forced the US Administration into such a risky move.
A primary role was certainly played by the defeat that had just been
suffered in the war in Indochina. The military effort in Vietnam and
throughout south-eastern Asia had without doubt been a notable one,
bringing with it a strong trend towards inflation, as there were no new
orders which would have been guaranteed with a victory.
The circumstances, though, do not by themselves provide an acceptable
explanation for a structural shift as profound as the one that took
place towards the end of the century. Rather, it is more likely than we
can find an explanation in the slow transformation that affected Capital
during the twenty years following the end of the conflict. The central
role of currency, with the consequence of forced stability, undermined
entrepreneurial possibilities over the years, depressing the United
States’ productive capacity. On the other hand, the same monetary
stability was a catalyst for the massive arrival of foreign capital,
attracted by the certain profitability, promoting an overgrowth of
financial capital. Faced with the decline of risk capital, the financial
surplus constituted the material basis for the enormous changes that we
have witnessed.
The new needs created by the primacy of financial capital found an
answer in neoclassical or neoliberalist economic theories. For over a
decade the Nobel prize-winner Milton Friedman and some of his followers
had been preaching a return to free market theories, once again
proposing a framework linked to the hypothesis of an invisible guiding
hand which had already been abandoned in the mid-19^(th) century. But
another aspect of the theory was more closely linked to the needs of
finance: control of the economic cycle was wholly delegated to currency
in the form of money supply (the sum of all physical currency together
with other forms of circulation not materially represented by coins and
banknotes, such as bonds, cheques etc., that has been called — according
to the precise definition given at the time — M1, M2 and M3); it
followed that State administration of the economy had to allow a free
hand to the natural evolution of the economic cycle, guaranteeing only
the strength and stability of the currency.
The sworn enemy of those who possess money, inflation, therefore became
the demon that monetarism would be sure to exorcise. All this made it
possible for a growing influx of foreign capital to enter any country
which introduced a monetarist economy, even though its form was no
longer linked to the development of industry and production, but to
short-term profit, to gains on the stock exchange, to often uncontrolled
speculation. It is no coincidence that in the Eighties, New York and
London financial circles became the most accredited reference points for
the international economic world.
The crisis in the dollar in 1971 which resulted from these choices did
not lead to the collapse of the currency but to free exchange rates and
the freeing of the US currency from the constraints it suffered as a key
currency (with the consequent glory and, of course, responsibilities),
pushing the dollar to its strongest level ever in the early Eighties.
But before being tried in the USA, monetarist theories were experimented
with in a small country whose economy was under State control —
Pinochet’s Chile following the 1973 coup d’état. Thereafter, these
policies appeared in the United Kingdom under Margaret Thatcher, finally
reaching the USA under the Reagan Administration.
After becoming a point of reference for the central State in the
capitalist world, monetarist and neoliberalist theories became a sort of
economic gospel that every country was required to follow, whether it
wanted to or not. The strict control that the USA had inherited from the
previous system of trade relations, such as its dominance over GATT, the
World Bank and the IMF, ensured that the economic recipes adopted by the
Washington Administration would spread, first to those countries with
closer ties, then to Third World countries whose debt levels meant that
they could be blackmailed, and finally to the more reluctant
competitors.
The Maastricht agreement which underlies European integration, paid
heavy tribute to monetarism in the choice of control parameters for the
various economies: public debt, inflation and budget deficits. The same
principles would apply to countries that lived through the
disintegration of the Soviet Union and the collapse of State capitalism.
They would also be the guidelines of the more recent Chinese economic
boom.
At the height of their influence in the Eighties, the spread of these
new economic theories produced a series of clichés which still heavily
influence the analyses of many experts and operators in the field:
Curve in order to stimulate growth and investments;
improve quality (shoestring budgets);
businesses and nations, forgetting about agreements, corruption, unfair
practices;
speculation into consideration.
The consequences of this can readily be seen:
with consequent de-industrialization;
for users;
collapse of Argentina.
This all produced deep-rooted changes in the world economic situation.
From being the focal point of the international economic system and the
dominant country, the USA was transformed into the boss of the
capitalist world, dictating the rules everyone else had to follow. It
went from being the capital of the combined imperialist liberal
countries to being simply an imperialist country. With hegemony no
longer being shared, a struggle for hegemony thus erupted, with Europe
(under the leadership of Germany) and Japan throwing down the gauntlet
to the United States.
A strong currency was the key to international success, but its
consequences on the home front had not been calculated effectively.
During the Eighties, the word de-industrialization went from being a
slogan to a reality in the USA, thanks to the effects of several
factors. The enormous influx of capital resulting from gains on
exchange, from the inexorable growth of the stock market and from
speculation, did not find its way into investment but was channelled
into short-term profits as described above. Overvaluation of the
currency actually made US goods less appetizing abroad and dedicating
capital to production therefore seemed less attractive. The USA went
from being an exporter to an importer and its trade balance has been in
the red ever since.
The lack of investment in production brought with it other problems.
Research and technological innovation, once financed essentially by
private funds, have both slowed down, a fact that encouraged a dangerous
race during the penultimate decade of the 20^(th) century, principally
at the hands of the competition — Japan. So much so, in fact, that the
Reagan Administration came to the rescue by launching an arms campaign
(star wars) whose main aim was to revitalize public-funded research.
After a decade of neo-liberalist economic recipes, the general panorama
is of a serious industrial crisis with entire districts reduced to
degradation and abandon, with the loss of a huge quantity of jobs and
productive capacity. On the other hand, a phenomenal boom in finance
capital in a mad dash towards speculation in the new economy, whose
material basis was totally inconsistent with its evaluations on the
stock markets.
The problems raised by imperialist control that hinges on the strength
of the currency lie behind the search for new strategies for domination.
The choice veered towards hegemony over strategic resources. Food,
energy and technology became the guide wires for US aims in the Nineties
in their evident difficulty in cornering the new markets that were
opening up to capitalist competition. Economic supremacy was being
transformed into power based on blackmail — the possession of
fundamental materials.
Even back in the Eighties the production of cereal crops had become a
way to destabilize the Soviet competitor, penalized by the failure of
the 5-year plans; the impossibility to exercise full control from the
top down (above all in a system where a bureaucratic career was based on
one’s success in meeting programmed targets and therefore on the
temptation to cheat in reports) combined with a few bad harvests and the
siphoning off of funds into the arms race, made the USSR dependant on
cereal imports from the USA. The problem, though, took on a much more
disquieting direction with the commitment of the food-industry
multinationals (such as Monsanto) to biological research and genetic
modification, with the consequent colonialization of South America and
parts of Africa.
Supremacy in the areas where raw materials are produced (with oil in
pride of place, even now) has marked every conflict, open or hidden,
since the end of the 20^(th) century. And not only the areas themselves,
but also the communication routes that connect them and the consumer
countries (corridors). Apart from the obvious economic implications of
the conflicts in the Persian Gulf area, the entire Caucasian and Central
Asian area has gone into a permanent state of over-excitement (with the
latter recently acquiring new importance as a barrier to the nascent
Chinese imperialism).
Finally, technology. Since the 1930s, the USA has been the world leader
in scientific and technological progress. Following the shock of Sputnik
and the huge advances made by the Soviet Union in the 1960s, an
impressive research programme was launched, with the acquisition of the
best and most promising researchers at international level. NASA won the
space race, producing incalculable repercussions on civilian technology,
to be followed by the birth of Silicon Valley, Microsoft, IBM, and so
on. The industrial decay of the Eighties enabled Japan to make huge
technological strides leading some Japanese analysts to predict Japanese
superiority by the first decade of the 21^(st) century. These
predictions came to nothing due to problems with the Japanese economic
system, but the alarm had been sounded and, as has already been noted,
was responsible for the massive new publicly-funded research programme.
None of these strategies, however, enjoyed any authoritative support,
which was lacking precisely because of the weakness of the US economy:
high public debt, trade balances perennially in the red, the loss of
competitiveness of goods (apart from the electronics and software
monopoly). To this must be added the heavy competition from Japan and
the new European economic integration with the prospect (and later
introduction) of a strong single currency capable of challenging the
domination of the dollar.
At the end of the 1980s and throughout the 1990s, the international
economy (subjected to neo-liberalist therapies) went through an
uninterrupted series of crises that progressively eliminated from the
scene also all those countries that had once seemed to be credible
competitors threatening the sickly US economy. This occurred at the same
time as the disappearance of the enemy who had been around for the
entire second half of the century — the Soviet bloc.
The crisis first hit the so-called Asian tigers — Malaysia, South Korea,
Taiwan/Formosa, Singapore, Thailand, etc. Next was the turn of Japan and
finally Latin America (Brazil first, then later Argentina). If one
excludes Japan, all the other crises turned out not to be advantageous
in the recovery of the US on the international markets. The reduction in
demand for goods, produced by the economic crises in countries closely
linked to the US economy, added to the reduction due to rigid
application of neoliberalist theories in every country, creating a
reduction of incomes from wages (the great basis for the development of
the markets in the Keynesian age) in favour of revenues.
The new markets that it was hoped would open up to capitalist goods
after the collapse of the USSR instead became the battleground for a few
oligarchies which emerged from the Soviet nomenclature, recycling
themselves into a typically mafia-like system of economic management.
European competition further undermined any possibility of US goods
conquering. But another strategy was ready and soon put into action.
The new Republican Party administration which came into office at the
end of the 1980’s under George Bush Sr. brought with it a new right-wing
political leadership that was not tied to the party’s old line (home
policies with little time for engagements abroad). This power group
emerged from various think-tanks, the most representative of which was
PNAC (Project for a New American Century), and was closely linked to the
war industries and energy multinationals. The path it laid out was a
simple one. If the USA was to remain faithful to its duty to regulate
the rest of the unipolar world according to the American concept of
peace and democracy — a duty which came with its leading role and its
hegemony exercised in the struggle against the evil of the Soviets —
then it had to provide itself with a military force like no other, the
only instrument capable of restoring its authority and with it the
chance to dominate the shaky empire. In other words, they called on and
put to work that age-old tool of every imperialist: military power.
The 1991 Gulf War was a taster of that strategy, later diluted into a
more generic interventionism in international affairs, typified by the
Democrat policies during the eight years of the Clinton Administration.
These were characterised by the attempt at a traditional revival of the
economy according to accepted wisdom on economic support and
competitiveness which, as we have seen, were destined to fail. With the
return of the Republicans to power in 2001, the objective once again
re-emerged, this time clearly: hegemonize strategic areas of the planet
by political means or, where this was not enough, by means of force.
To do this, it was necessary to free themselves from the fetters of
international law, from those bodies which, treating countries on almost
equal terms, deal with conflict resolution between countries, forcing
their competing allies onto the defensive, forcing them to accept a fait
accompli with the threat of being excluded from access to the crumbs
that the US would graciously allow them to gather up. With the UN firmly
put in its place in 2003 and its veil lifted revealing it to be
inefficient and purely rhetorical, the true face of the new master of
the world was plain to be seen.
For several years now the USA has witnessed sustained economic growth,
even though its trade balance remains heavily, and dangerously, in the
red. It seems strange that analysts have not remarked on this curiosity
which is clear for all to see. It is no coincidence that this
considerable new increase in GDP began in 2002, but from 2002 to 2004,
the deficit between exports and imports rose from US$482.9bn to $685bn.
It is however true that in the past three years exports too have grown,
though less so than imports.
But there may be other data that can help to resolve this contradictory
situation. The top ten companies in the international arms industry
include six US firms (including the top three), one British firm, one
French, one Dutch and one Italian. 47% of the world’s military spending
comes from the USA, which also holds the record for per capita spending.
To support the US drive for domination, arms production has boosted the
US economy. And this also brings with it industries relating to
technology and industries linked to the reconstruction and modernization
of those territories devastated by war, with the aim of bringing them
into the globalized economy. These sectors held conventions at the time
of the breakout of war in Iraq in order to divide up the spoils, the
orders that would inevitably follow. Another sector whose nature means
that it benefited from this strategy is the energy sector, both as a
result of increased consumption and because certain production sites
have been taken over. The war in fact concentrates on guaranteeing
geopolitical control over the areas of production and over areas where
these energy resources pass through, with the dual aim of guaranteeing
supplies for US consumption and of weakening possible competitors.
Only a minor part of this huge boost in production is dedicated to
export, and much of the arms production is absorbed by the national
economy (even though it is used abroad). Exports therefore are showing
little increase but with the increased GDP there is also an increase in
imports, both in order to satisfy the growing demand for production and
to cope with the demand in consumer goods which is not covered by
certain production sectors that are in a state of decay.
US growth rates (so praised by economic commentators) have a weak spot
in their dependence on an emergency war situation. The temptation of a
never-ending war clashes against the complexity of the situation in the
various theatres of war, which do not confirm the experts’ superficial,
optimistic analysis. Above all it clashes with the unsustainability of
the economy which drains public capital into unproductive expenses,
enriching only a happy few in certain sectors but contributing to the
weakening of the entire productive apparatus: the chasm in the public
finances looks like a bottomless pit.
The dream of a purely military dominion is unachievable unless it is
supported by a substantially healthy economy which is able to regulate
international trade. And this is increasingly influenced not only by the
traditional European competitors, but also by a new competitor with
enormous human potentialities and costs which have not yet risen as a
result of a widening level of social welfare — China, much strengthened
by its agreement with another quickly-growing and complementary economy,
India. Not forgetting the emergence of local powers which are in a
position to preoccupy the USA both from a military point of view (Iran)
and from the economic point of view (Brazil).
At present, despite the evident would-be imperialism of single member
States, the European Union is, for the USA, more of a serious competitor
on international markets (and in particular in the ex-Soviet and Chinese
markets) than a direct competitor for imperialist domination.