me: >> The BW system shouldn't be seen as an ideal. It represented a kind of US >> hegemony, though it failed when the US couldn't live up to its role as >> hegemon.
Sabri: > Neither the gold standard nor Bretton-Woods was an ideal. But > Bretton-Woods was the beginning of the rise of the US to the world > hegemony and that hegemony lasted until about 1989, when the walls > came tumbling down in Eastern Europe. The collapse of the Soviet Union > was the final nail on the coffin. The US started to lose its hegemony > after that. The collapse of Bretton-Woods strengthened the US > hegemony, it did not weaken it. I agree that the end of BW did not end US hegemony. Note that I said that it represented "a kind" of US hegemony (with the dollar as king). (The US couldn't live up to its role as hegemon, BTW, because Vietnam war spending (and the political inability to raise taxes enough) led to inflation that kept the fixed exchange-rate system from working well, i.e., made the US$ overvalued.) The post-BW system created a _new & different_ kind of US hegemony. At least on international monetary matters vis-a-vis other rich countries, the US had more power and less responsibility. At the same time, US financiers rose to power. This new kind of hegemony became more important as various matters such as the 1970s oil crisis were swept under the rug. (OPEC had shaken the system.) This new kind of hegemony culminated with Reagan. > It was the collapse of the Soviet > Union that started the loss of the US hegemony. That's because a US big brother was no longer needed by the elites of the other rich countries to protect them from the evil empire. They could all act more like de Gaulle. But they didn't. The post-1989 era is not about the competition amongst rich countries (especially if we compare that competition to that before World War I and between the World Wars). It was about a fundamental unity of the rich countries behind neoliberalism and financial capitalism. Competition in the "core" these days is between enterprises, not primarily between countries. Now, any class-bound economy needs a state (monopolizing the use of force). To a large extent, the US has acted as a world state, trying to lead coalitions to maintain order and expand the realm of the gospel of capital, making the world safe for hypocrisy, backing up the IMF and similar organizations. During the 1990s, under Bush1 and Clinton, it was more a "multilateral" exercise with the US as "first among equals." In the current decade, the Bush2 brigade has tried to make the US more of an old-fashioned hegemon (as in unilateralism). They seem to have failed, crashing into the shoals of reality in Iraq. However, that doesn't mean that the "first among equals" version can't return. In fact, I bet that Obama will try to bring it back. > Now, the US is in > history books as a once upon a time world hegemon. Aren't you watching > the Chinese olympics? Just because a country hosts the Olympics doesn't mean that it's becoming a hegemon -- or even rising. Germany hosted them in 1936. Less than 10 years later they crashed & burned. The 1952 Olympics in Finland didn't presage a rise of Finnish rule. Nor did the 1968 Mexico City Olympics indicate the future power of Mexico. Moscow hosted the Olympics in 1980, but (as you point out), its system collapsed within the decade. As for the winter Olympics, Yugoslavia hosted them in 1984, but no longer exists. (Thanks to the Wikipedia for the info.) > Don't you see the commedy involving the papa > Bush and Dubya as they appear on the TV screens? I don't know what you're talking about in the latter question. There's a TV show on Comedy Central called "Little Bush." Is that what you're talking about? (I guess I'm socially crippled by the fact that I don't watch TV except late at night, to fall asleep.) > Or haven't you read > the recent experiences of Michael Perelman in a recent e-mail? Do you > think what he described were things you would expect to hear from > someone who lives in the heart of the beast, although Chico is a bit > far away from there? I don't disagree with the idea that the US isn't the current hegemon in capitalism's core. However, the main story is no longer nation-vs-nation conflict within the core (despite South Ossetia). Instead, it's a kind of ultra-imperalism (hats off to Karl Kautsky) in which the conflict is more a competition among businesses, and a war against the poor and working classes, along with areas on the periphery that haven't been fully integrated into the system (Serbia, Iraq, Iran, Burma, Sudan, etc.) What's happening is that we can see the richest of the rich in New York (specifically on Wall Street) at the same time that the rest of the US (including Chico and also New Orleans) is more & more suffering from the "creep to the bottom," becoming more and more like the "third world." We see a similar split elsewhere, including China, between the rich elite areas and the vast mass of the people. If I'm right that nation-vs-nation competition and conflict aren't as crucial as they used to be in capitalism's core, then asking "who is the hegemon?" is asking the wrong question. That means that Bush2's efforts to re-establish US hegemony are also off-track (though very lucrative to cronies). -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
