17 October 2009

Letter from Lhasa, number 144. (Hudson 2002): Super Imperialism

Letter from Lhasa, number 144. (Hudson 2002): Super Imperialism

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Hudson, M., Super Imperialism. The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance, Pluto Press, 2002.

(Hudson 2002).

Michel Hudson

The U.S. Empire is an empire of debt financed from the same countries it dominates, alias from the whole world. The US dollar does not collapse because it is artificially supported from the whole world. The same system of international aid, the aids to “poor countries”, has the function to keep the “poor countries” poor and dependent. Obviously, nobody would help to create one’s own future enemies. If one helps, one “helps” for preserving domination relations.

In this book you’ll find a history about that.

The USA comes out from WWI as an overwhelming world creditor. On that, and on their economic and military power, they build their power.

“The postwar dynamic of U.S.-European financial relations stood in sharp contrast to the situation that had existed after World War I, when the circular flow had been from the private sector through the governments of Europe back to the U.S. Government. After World War II, Europe’s payments to the United States were principally for actual goods and services, not for reparations or Inter-Ally debts. A circular investment and trade relationship once again was established, but this time European governments were lent funds directly by U.S. official agencies and the World Bank rather than by private investors. These funds were used to pay private sector exporters, not the U.S. Treasury. The U.S. Government for its part ultimately obtained its resources from the private sector, via taxation and the sale of government bonds. The net flow of funds through the world economy thus ran from the U.S. Government to the U.S. exporters.” (Hudson 2002, p. 143-144)

A wide range of administrative measures and actions assured, anyway, the U.S. hegemony.

In the post-WWII world, the natural synergies would have been between the USSR (and China), and relative block, and the USA, and relative block. The cold war, lunched from the U.K., was a strike to these natural synergies. There was also a USSR interest to avoid that the US economic power could “capture” the countries of its block, of the Soviet Empire. Idem for China, even if, naturally, at the time of the Churchill’s Fulton speech, “red” China was not actually been yet [fully] created. In this game of freezing (or don’t) half of the world, the British Empire won and the U.S. one lost. It is understandable why the U.K. was always very generous relatively to USSR desires (see forced repatriations of Russians-Soviets, after WWII) even when the cold war had been already announced and launched. What, if exact, threatens the thesis of a real U.S. world dominance. Their overwhelming economic and military power, with all the inevitable parasitisms, was not and is not supported from adequate political-strategic vision and initiative. “Dominance” was not absolute.

The point of view of Michael Hudson is naturally different. He sees a UK fully inside the U.S. imperial system.

The fixation on the only “US imperialism” is, de facto, a way for deceiving about the complexity and also decentralisation of the domination and oppression relations. Dominated are generally happy to be dominated and to be protected sub-butchers.

The Hudson’s work is anyway valuable for the information it provides.

Inside the “world order” came out from WWII, with transformations with the partial collapse of the Russian Empire, countries and areas could find their way to development while other one remained underdeveloped. It seems idealistic and voluntaristic whatever illusion that “Third World economies” could have created or could create a “new international economic order”. Some ones already exploited and are exploiting their chances. Others didn’t and don’t.

If and when the USA will collapse, or irreversibly rapidly decline, some different order will replace the existing one. It is what actually verifies everyday with force relations variously changing.

Hudson, M., Super Imperialism. The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance, Pluto Press, 2002.