rebelworker
3rd March 2007, 18:01
The following document of Basic Strategy, dealing with US imperialism, was
adopted at the last FdCA National Congress, held in October 2006, one of
four such documents adopted. More information about the Federation's
Theoretical Documents and positions can be found under the "organization"
section of our English-language website.
Basic Strategy Document ---- US IMPERIALISM
1. The Vietnam War and the crisis of Fordism
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.
2. The rise of monetarist theories
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-19th 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.
3. The peak of monetarist theories
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:
* the de-taxing of higher incomes on the basis of an improbable Laffer
Curve in order to stimulate growth and investments;
* the privatization of every service sector in order to lower costs and
improve quality (shoestring budgets);
* the market as supreme and impartial arbiter of the capacities of
businesses and nations, forgetting about agreements, corruption, unfair
practices; * the stock market as thermometer of the economy, without
taking speculation into consideration.
The consequences of this can readily be seen:
* the drain of capital from investments towards short-term speculation,
with consequent de-industrialization;
* the increase of public costs for services and a lowering of quality for
users;
* financial scandals (Enron, Parmalat, etc.);
* the speculative bubble at the end of the millennium and the financial
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.
4. The strong dollar and the crisis of industry
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 20th 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.
5. New imperialist methods
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 20th 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 21st 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.
6. The crisis of the new
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.
7. The shift to the militarist option
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.
8. Finance and army
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.
9. The coming recovery
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.
(Approved by the 7th Congress of the FdCA, 2006)
As of the 7th Congress of the FdCA of 1st October 2006, this document
substitutes: "Imperialismo U.S.A.".
FEDERAZIONE DEI COMUNISTI ANARCHICI
http://www.fdca.it/fdcaen
adopted at the last FdCA National Congress, held in October 2006, one of
four such documents adopted. More information about the Federation's
Theoretical Documents and positions can be found under the "organization"
section of our English-language website.
Basic Strategy Document ---- US IMPERIALISM
1. The Vietnam War and the crisis of Fordism
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.
2. The rise of monetarist theories
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-19th 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.
3. The peak of monetarist theories
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:
* the de-taxing of higher incomes on the basis of an improbable Laffer
Curve in order to stimulate growth and investments;
* the privatization of every service sector in order to lower costs and
improve quality (shoestring budgets);
* the market as supreme and impartial arbiter of the capacities of
businesses and nations, forgetting about agreements, corruption, unfair
practices; * the stock market as thermometer of the economy, without
taking speculation into consideration.
The consequences of this can readily be seen:
* the drain of capital from investments towards short-term speculation,
with consequent de-industrialization;
* the increase of public costs for services and a lowering of quality for
users;
* financial scandals (Enron, Parmalat, etc.);
* the speculative bubble at the end of the millennium and the financial
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.
4. The strong dollar and the crisis of industry
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 20th 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.
5. New imperialist methods
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 20th 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 21st 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.
6. The crisis of the new
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.
7. The shift to the militarist option
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.
8. Finance and army
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.
9. The coming recovery
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.
(Approved by the 7th Congress of the FdCA, 2006)
As of the 7th Congress of the FdCA of 1st October 2006, this document
substitutes: "Imperialismo U.S.A.".
FEDERAZIONE DEI COMUNISTI ANARCHICI
http://www.fdca.it/fdcaen