Britain being "subservient to the US"

[gorillafuck]

I've heard about people complaining (not necessarily on this website, though I have by one user in particular who I won't name) about Britain being subservient to the US and tailing it in whatever it does.

I'm skeptical of this being based in reality. To me what that seems to imply is that Britain is somehow a client state to the US, which it obviously isn't since Britain is an imperialist state in itself, and the United States and Britain have always been allies backing eachother for well over a hundred years.

My question is, where does this idea come from? I can't see where it would come from apart from right wing nationalism seeking for Britain to become the predominant imperialist power.

[Manic Impressive]

We are the 51st state

[brigadista]

well the Uk gov seems to want to slavishly follow US economic policies which can be seen by the recent cuts- they want to abolish the welfare system here and institute privatisation in the health service etc and under the last set of RW nutters a culture of condemnation of welfare recipients seems to have been bred....not saying any americans here uphold this..:)

[ed miliband]

In Britain there is much talk of a "special relationship" between the US and Britain. The phrase was used in a particularly sycophantic manner just after the election of Barack Obama when British politicians of all major parties were desperate to show Obama just how much the "special relationship" means to Britons. Shortly after there was a report that Obama found the whole thing quite funny, particularly Cameron's assertions that the US was more important to the UK than the EU.

For example:


What is not publicly known is that there was less agreement when, soon afterwards, the discussion turned substantial in Cameron's Commons office. Obama began by saying that he hoped to work closely with the EU. But, in a crude attempt to demonstrate his Atlanticist credentials, Cameron went on to indulge in what one source has described as an "anti-European diatribe", repeatedly referring to the "anti-Americanism" of EU member states. Cameron apparently told Obama that he would not encounter a more pro-American politician than himself.http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2008/12/cameron-obama-europe-president

[gorillafuck]

We are the 51st state
You'll need to explain how. It seems to me that Britain's imperial interests align with those of the United States.


well the Uk gov seems to want to slavishly follow US economic policies which can be seen by the recent cuts- they want to abolish the welfare system here and institute privatisation in the health service etc and under the last set of RW nutters a culture of condemnation of welfare recipients seems to have been bred....not saying any americans here uphold this..:)
The actions of the bourgeoisie in the UK aren't because they're just tailing America, it's because they are bourgeois and they will benefit from these cuts.

[brigadista]

yeah but there has been a culture shift but saying that we have a royal family...

[Manic Impressive]

You'll need to explain how. It seems to me that Britain's imperial interests align with those of the United States.
It's just something people say

But yeah I think the UK is pretty subservient to the US our bourgeois's interests are interlinked with US bourgeois interests. Because of these interests the US can exert enough political pressure to make the UK do almost anything they wanted. Add to that the smothering effect that US culture has on the entire world and yeah the UK is pretty subservient.

But really we should say our ruling class are subservient to the US ruling class.

[gorillafuck]

But yeah I think the UK is pretty subservient to the US our bourgeois's interests are interlinked with US bourgeois interests. Because of these interests the US can exert enough political pressure to make the UK do almost anything they wanted. Add to that the smothering effect that US culture has on the entire world and yeah the UK is pretty subservient.
The UK and US ruling class interests are interconnected but that doesn't mean one is subservient to another. What has the US forced Britain to do that actually went against the British ruling class or the British state, or that the British bourgeois didn't actually want to happen? Things like cuts, involvement in US wars, etc. strengthen the British ruling class so those are not a sign of subservience.


But really we should say our ruling class are subservient to the US ruling class.When has the UK bourgeois ever gone against it's own interests in favor of US interests?

[Q]

In the global state pecking order, the US is clearly the top-dog. The UK is a subservient center of capital within this state system, which exists by the grace of Washinton. If London started to oppose American policies, it will soon find itself bankrupt as did the Dutch when it went against British orders in the 18th century.

Mike Macnair recently made the point (http://cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004193) (emphasis added):


Think about what lies behind the cuts. There has been an international capitalist crisis with massive sums of money lost in the financial markets. The question follows: who is going to pay for these losses? In the first instance, it is the masses in Iceland, Greece, Ireland and elsewhere who are going to pay. We are seeing a process by which the central imperialist powers use their control of the financial system (plus, lying behind that, US power and the implied threat of military action in the case of a default) to offload the crisis onto the masses of these peripheral countries.

So in essence what we see is the US and other top-dog powers using their position in the global order to dump these losses - onto the broad masses of their own countries to some extent, but also to a much larger extent onto weaker countries, which can be made to carry the can: loan capital is withdrawn back into the central core, which leads to a global debt crisis, and this then transmutes - as it has in Greece and Ireland - into a state debt crisis. This now looks likely to hit Portugal and Spain too.

The US would also very much like to externalise losses onto China by forcing Beijing to float its currency. If the Chinese currency is allowed to float freely and Chinese capital controls are removed, then there will be a very large asset bubble leading to a rapid crash à la Japan. After all, in the 1987 crisis floating currencies allowed the US to externalise the losses made in the financial system onto Japan, creating a slump in that country which has persisted to the present day.

In this situation, states are manoeuvring in complex ways against each other. My impression of the recent crisis over North Korea and the north-south borders is that it is really part of the same process. It seems that the hand of the US may lie behind this, rather than pure adventurism by the North Korean leadership: the US has found a reason to bring its fleet right up to Chinese territorial waters, which is what is involved in the current military exercises, and thereby remind the Chinese that they are not (yet) ready to embark on armed confrontation with the US in defence of their own freedom of action.

So states can externalise losses to the extent that they and their currencies remain high up in the pecking order. In this situation the UK government is making cuts, and shifting costs onto the poor, women and onto the north on a large scale. It is doing so not because it is absolutely out of money, but in order to stabilise its ranking in the global pecking order.

The point is to keep money flowing through London, because at the end of the day the material productive element of the British economy is not that strong. Money in global transactions flows through London, and this is skimmed off in the form of salaries and bonuses paid to workers in the city, and then these salaries are in turn skimmed through income tax. This is one of the most taxable parts of the economy, as opposed to corporate profits, which to a considerable extent have been made de facto tax-free by various scams, schemes and offshoring operations. So funds which derive from international flows of money actually make up a very substantial part of the state budget. The resulting income is then redistributed in the form of public sector expenditure, contracts for private finance initiatives and so forth, which keeps the rest of the economy going.

This is not a previously unknown situation. In a sense it rather resembles the 17th century Venetian economy or that of the Dutch the 18th century. That is to say, it reflects a former world hegemon which is no longer dominant militarily and has lost a large part of its material productive base and primarily become an offshore financial operation, skimming off the financial transaction flows in the world economy. (Like the 17th-18th century Venetians, but unlike the 18th century Dutch, Britain also gains significant income from tourism ...)

But in order for that to continue it is necessary, from the point of view of capitalism, for the British government to be seen as a strong government vis-à-vis its own debts, and to some extent internationally (hence the fuss about cuts in military expenditure within the elite, in a way that cuts in welfare simply are not of any substantial controversy in this milieu). It is also necessary to maintain the alliance with the US: just as the 18th century Amsterdam financial market existed thanks to British toleration and was rapidly crushed when the Netherlands acted against British interests, so today Britain's ability to live off financial services exists thanks to US toleration and support.

Let us go down a level in the explanation. The global crisis reflects the problem that - by retaining capitalism - society opts for coordination of labour and resource allocation on a global level - and on a national level through the money mechanism. At the end of the day, it is this mechanism of resource allocation which produces the cycle of boom-bubble-crash-slump and then gradual recovery leading to boom.[1]

To escape the imperatives of that situation it is necessary to carry out resource allocation in a different way: ie, to move very substantially towards direct planning in use-values and very substantial demonetisation of economic decision-making. That is the highest level at which the cuts could be defeated: we could defeat the cuts by overthrowing capitalism.

Obviously the problem with this, as we have seen in the Soviet Union, is that it cannot be done in a single country - not even one as enormous as the USSR in terms of population, resources and expansiveness. But it certainly cannot be done by unilateral action in the UK, which is not able to feed itself and is dependent on food imports just to keep its population alive - leave aside everything else in terms of the productive economy and the dependence on the financial services sector. So the overthrow of capitalism needs to taker place at an international level.

We could begin the overthrow of capitalism at a European level. We should certainly aim to prepare for such a project. That is why we have on our masthead "Towards a Communist Party of the European Union". But, even short of this aim, we can aim for and fight for coordinated Europe-wide demonstrations, strikes, etc, against cuts and 'austerity'.

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

When has the UK bourgeois ever gone against it's own interests in favor of US interests?

Iraq, Afghanistan to name but two.

[theAnarch]

Well British and American ruiling class intrests do run parallel in most cases so its hard to tell.

only thing that would worry me about this is that it may be used as an excuse to be nationalistic and point blame away from the bankers and capitalists of britian.

[gorillafuck]

Iraq, Afghanistan to name but two.
You don't think that Britain wants to plunder Iraq?

British Petroleum sure does.

[IndependentCitizen]

You don't think that Britain wants to plunder Iraq?

British Petroleum sure does.

And how does that make Britain want to be the predominant imperialist power?

U.S has been the one invading countries with other countries and forming 'coalitions', you guys have almost 10x more troops in Afghanistan than we do, and we're not even in Iraq anymore in military terms.

http://greenenergyreporter.com/funding/who-are-the-american-owners-of-bp/

39% of ownership is American owned....

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

You don't think that Britain wants to plunder Iraq?

British Petroleum sure does.

'British Petroleum' hasn't existed since 1998, when it merged with Amco, an american oil company. BP is largely an American organization, despite being based in London.

[gorillafuck]

And how does that make Britain want to be the predominant imperialist power?
I didn't say that. I said that makes Britain imperialist in it's own right. But I don't even think that's up for debate? Every leftist knows that Britain is an imperialist country.


U.S has been the one invading countries with other countries and forming 'coalitions', you guys have almost 10x more troops in Afghanistan than we do, and we're not even in Iraq anymore in military terms.Britian has had it's share of invasions, but yeah the US is currently the most powerful imperialist power. I didn't deny that. I also need clarification on how less troops means that Britain is only in there for the US.

Are there actually no British companies that are benefiting from the US and NATO occupations? I find that difficult to believe?


http://greenenergyreporter.com/funding/who-are-the-american-owners-of-bp/

39% of ownership is American owned....So the majority is British owned?


'British Petroleum' hasn't existed since 1998, when it merged with Amco, an american oil company. BP is largely an American organization, despite being based in London.
I was unaware of that, thank you. What percentage is British owned?

[Fawkes]

I would assume it has its origins in the U.S. being the successor to the U.K. as the major imperialist power, thus establishing a sense of dominance of the U.S. Also, it doesn't hurt that the major public perception is that the U.S. valiantly stepped in to defend the besieged British from their near-certain fall to the Nazis, thereby establishing their military dominance.

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

I was unaware of that, thank you. What percentage is British owned?

40%. Not a sizable majority.

[Manic Impressive]

the post by Q is a great explanation our bourgeois are to some extent dependant on the US. The partnership is not one of equal standing but based on dependency. If you compare the UK to France or Germany it's easy to see how much more subservient the UK is.

The anarch makes a good point as well unfortunately by many the dependency on the US is viewed as a bad thing because they see the interests of the bourgeois as the interests of the country.

[Sean]

I don't think you can say one way or the other while throwing stones from the outside which is all we're doing. Certain ideas are pretty absurd, like the notion that the tail wags the dog in the US/Israel partnership, but common sense would say that the control one way or the other is dependant on ever shifting interests and diplomacy. After the big WW2 carve up Britain and the US have been pretty closeknit and I think the history of nuke proliferation is the best public indicator of countries without their warfaces' attitudes to eachother. Theres no answer that wouldnt take a room full of analysts and a very thick book to read at the end of it. Puppet government stories are appealing because they play to the conspiracy theorists inability to see that there might be more than one small room full of fuckers in the world. They do exist of course, but in the "free" world I'm pretty sure its just pricks working for rich prick friends with common goals. The wests money is all tied up together so it'd be a lie to give any definitive pecking order of nations, even one that could change day by day.

[Manic Impressive]

Also, it doesn't hurt that the major public perception is that the U.S. valiantly stepped in to defend the besieged British from their near-certain fall to the Nazis, thereby establishing their military dominance.
I wouldn't say that is the predominant view in the UK or historical fact it was not certain that the Germans could have succeeded in a land invasion of the UK.

[Fawkes]

I wouldn't say that is the predominant view in the UK or historical fact it was not certain that the Germans could have succeeded in a land invasion of the UK.

But it's the prevailing perception here in the U.S. and creates a paternalistic attitude.

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

But it's the prevailing perception here in the U.S. and creates a paternalistic attitude.

That's certainly true, for a long time, the UK was heavily endebted to the US for all the lend-lease armaments sold to the UK during the War, and the later Anglo-American loan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-American_loan), which was only finally paid off in 2006.

[Manic Impressive]

But it's the prevailing perception here in the U.S. and creates a paternalistic attitude.
Ah ok sorry I didn't realize there was much of an impression of the UK being subservient to the US in the US.