Reviewing James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer's "Multinationals on Trial" - by Stephen Lendman
James Petras is Binghamton University, New York Professor Emeritus of Sociology whose credentials and achievements are long and impressive. He's a noted academic figure on the left and a well-respected Latin American expert. He's also a prolific author of hundreds of articles and 64 books including his latest one titled "Multinationals on Trial: Foreign Investment Matters," co-authored with Henry Veltmeyer, and subject of this review.
Henry Veltmeyer has collaborated with Petras before on previous books. They include "Globalization Unmasked," "Social Movements and State Power," "A System in Crisis" and others. He's Professor of Sociology and International Development Studies at Saint Mary's University, Canada and Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas, Mexico. He's also Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of International Development Studies and, like Petras, is a prolific author of many books and articles focused mainly on Latin American issues, globalized trade, alternative models and approaches and progressive social movements.
"Multinationals on Trial" deals with a core issue of our time - the economic power of giant corporations, their dominant role as agents and partners of imperialism, and the way they plunder developing nations. The book is a powerful indictment of unfettered "free market" capitalism and how foreign direct investment (FDI) is its main exploitive tool. Below is a detailed review of its compelling contents.
The authors state upfront how controversial corporate giants are, especially with regard to their "type of capital," how they use it operationally, and "the conditions associated with it." Specifically, the book deals with foreign direct investment (FDI) and debunks the following commonly held notions:
-- that it's "indispensable" to accessing essential financial resources;
-- that it brings with it "collateral benefits" like "technology transfers" and job creation; and
-- that overall it's a "catalyst of development" and thus an "indispensable" vehicle of growth and way for developing nations to integrate into the "new world economic order."
Rather than aiding these nations, the authors call FDI "a mechanism for empire-centred capital accumulation, a powerful lever for political control and for reordering the world economy." They offer an alternative approach in the final chapter, free from FDI imperial bondage.
Chapter 1 - Empire and Imperialism
The oldest empires go back centuries before the better known ones in ancient Rome, Persia and the one Alexander the Great built, but the authors deal only with the modern post-WW II era dominated by the US. Imperial Britain was shattered, colonialism was unraveling, Soviet Russia was devastated, and America stood alone as the world's preeminent economic, political and military superpower with every intention to keep it that way.
It did so going back to when US delegates dominated the Bretton Woods, NH UN Monetary and Financial Conference to establish a postwar international monetary system of convertible currencies, fixed exchange rates, free trade, the US dollar as the world's reserve currency linked to gold, and those of other nations fixed to the dollar. In addition, an institutional framework was designed to establish a market-based capital accumulation process that would ensure (post-war) that newly liberated colonial nations would pursue capitalist economic development beneficial to the victorious imperial powers that would soon include the Axis ones as well.
Post-war, the "US foreign policy establishment" began an unending debate on how America could stay preeminent and solidify its dominance. It began with NATO, OECD and other formal alliances with our western European partners that were "built on the foundation of the transnational corporation (as the) economic 'shock-troops' of the system." Tactics varied along the way, but the goals remained unchanged - "to enhance US hegemony and its domination of the new world order." This requires having supportive allies and the US public willing to go along with overseas adventurism like the Bush administration's foreign wars that became overreach and "a major impediment to empire building."
The authors state that wherever imperial power is projected in any form it generates diverse resistance in "every 'popular' sector of 'civil society.' " They also stress that its "omnipresence" can be a weakness, not a strength, and may lead to its impotence. This is the condition of America today under the Bush administration. Its plan for imperial dominance is in tatters, or as the authors put it, "wishful thinking or imperial hubris." It failed in the Middle East, Central Asia, Venezuela and may be unraveling in Pakistan under Musharraf's dictatorship. The country is a rogue nuclear state in unresolved turmoil that has a lot to do with deep social unrest and a very unpopular US alliance in the "war on terror."
Nonetheless, the US remains strong and resilient, and today's defeats don't spell its demise or even signal retrenchment. With its power and resources, it can blunder often as it has in the past, then rebound, and again go on the attack as its doing in Somalia, continues against Cuba, and against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela as it seeks a way to oust its Latin American nemesis despite past failed efforts.
So despite setbacks, America's imperial agenda persists, and here's how it functions:
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.
