-- through "unequal" bilateral and multilateral trade and other agreements;
-- with lots of help from willing "outside collaborators and subsidized clients;"
-- through a "divide and conquer" strategy that worked in Yugoslavia, did at first in Afghanistan (under tribal warlords) and apparently is the scheme in Iraq with the Kurdish North already separate;
-- - political destabilization, assassinations or coup d'etats to remove opposition regimes and install compliant ones; and
-- proxy or direct war as a last resort when others fail to accomplish regime change; but even conquest doesn't guarantee success as Iraq and Afghanistan prove; resistance builds, military costs mount, public support wanes, allies withdraw support and the whole effort may fail but not deter new ones at other times in other places.
Chapter 2 - Imperialisms, Old and New
The authors note that capital accumulation is the "fundamental driving force of economic growth," has been for over 100 years, and occurred in six phases:
-- capitalist industrialization in the 19th century up to around 1870;
-- the fusion of industrial and finance capital and emergence of monopolies and territorial divisions among imperial powers (the US, Europe and Japan) up to 1914;
-- imperial war, depression, Fordism-type mass production, "taming of capitalism" social reform and defeat of fascism to 1945;
-- the "golden age" of capitalist high growth, decolonization, nation-building and state-led "international development to 1973;"
-- transitional crisis and restructuring in the 1970s; and
-- the age of Washington Consensus neoliberalism, globalized trade, free market "reforms" and "neoimperialism" to the present.
The authors note that incomes across the world converged somewhat during the "golden age of capitalism" post-WW II up to 1970 after which things changed. Now after a generation under Washington Consensus neoliberalism, no such convergence exists and the Global North-South disparity keeps widening to the detriment of developing nations. North-based corporate giants have grown so huge and dominant that the largest of them represent half or more of the world's 100 largest economies. In addition, multinational corporations (MNCs) "as a global entity" account for over 90% of world trade with 30 - 40% of it being intra-firm. The authors argue that these institutions operate as "functional units and an agency of economic imperialism."
Post-WW II, the US alone held the "commanding heights" of the world economy. Compared to today, the authors cite statistics that are staggering. With 6% of world population, the US had over 59% of its developed reserves. It generated 46% of its electricity, 38% of its production, and it held half or more of world gold and currency reserves. Twenty-five years later all that changed, and by 1971 a dwindling supply of gold and growing trade deficit got Richard Nixon to close the gold window, abandon the Bretton Woods system, and let the US dollar float freely in world markets. Ever since, the greenback has been faith-based with no intrinsic value and no longer "good as gold." Since it's uncollateralized paper or fiat currency, it's strong when it's in demand but weak, like today, when it's out of favor.
During the troubled 1970s, the US manipulated exchange and interest rates to improve its export position, and in the Reagan era began a generational assault on labor that ended the long-standing practice of industry sharing productivity gains with its workers. Corporations also began relocating labor-intensive production abroad to low wage countries that in the 1980s "became a cornerstone of a new global economy." With it came foreign direct investment (FDI) with the rest of the book focusing on its harmful effects.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
