US imperialism in comparison with its European and Japanese competitors the effect of a decline which the United States is now trying to oversome.
Decline This decline, however, takes place in a context of the lack of any alternative to the USA as leader, and principal pillar of stability, of the imperialist system. other Carlast state is remotely capable of challengng the USA as the guardian of collecive imperialist interests. Other counries, above all those of the EEC, bear he consequences of the decline of the S. but each fears to challenge it for isk of destabilising the capitalist system including hemselves. The economic fate, and herefore politics, of every imperialist country, Is nven lo a grcaler or lesser degreee by this contradiction.
To give just some of the facts on his decline. In 1950 the USA had 22.5 of all exports manufactures. Even more significant, in 1945 56.7 per cent of value added in manufacturing worldwide was added in the USA. Monopoly These figures illustrate one of the chief reasons the USA dominated the because of its rechnical superiority — to be precise, its monopoly of advanced production rechniques. 19s0 each Americal factory worker produced three and a half times as much as her or his German counterpart. Each miner, four times as much.?
The polifical strategy of the USA corresponded to this economic lead. It pursued the policy of 'free trade imperialism'; it tried to break down all possible barriers to its trade. It aided the break up of the old colonial empires of the French, Dutch, Germans Italians. flooded Western Europe with capital, their postwar society to make it safe for this investment.
But there was an inevitable consequence: the spread of the advanced techniques which made the USA the world's leader. The very countries whose access to foreign investment had been destroyed in the war concentrated their resources on domestic investment and began first to catch up with the USA and then to outstrip it.
Between 1955 and 1970 capital stock, the sum of fixed investment; rew by 38 per cent in the USA, but by 37 per cent in Europe, and by 203 per cęnt in Japan. Productivity in Japan finally examples.
of Vietnam. that. rose 6-7 per cent faster than in the USA each year, and in Europe 4-5 per cent faster This investment could not show up in manufacturing capacity. By 1980 the USA's share of value added in manufacturing had shrunk to 21.1 per cent, less than half its immediate post war level, and its share of world manufacturing exports to 11 again only half the post war level. The United States is far stronger in the export of farm productions, and in supplying its own raw materials than in manufacturing; but the relative decline was still clear.
What have the effects economic decline of the US domestic economy been? First it has meant that the USA's balance of trade — the difference between its exports and imports - has shifted dramatically from INTERNATIONAL POLITICS is increasingly marked by open acts of aggression by the United States. The bombing of Libya, following the invasion of Grenada in 1983, are just the latest The United States is funding the Nicaraguan contras and backing South African supported forces in Angola and Mozambique. The US is clearly attempting to return to the role it followed in the 1950s and 1960s when it sent its troops into Jordan, the Dominican Republic, and The first reason for this increase in US military action is directly political. The United States is faced with a major upsurge of struggle against itself and its supporters in a number of important semi-colonial countries. Haiti and the Philippines, following on from the struggles in Central America, are just the latest examples of The United States is preparing for major wars and military action against colonial rebellions. The so-called Reagan doctrine, proclaimed in the United States, envisages the increasingly direct but billion."
destabilising, rest the rapid growth of the US economy Japan sycophants as of this imports than domestie growth. Last use of US military forces throughout the world.
But a second reason for greater US military action is that increasingly it is the only weapon available to the United States. In the 1950s and 1960s the US was able to stem the flow of rebellion in some parts of the world by massive economic aid. The Marshall Plan in Western Europe, the huge aid poured into Japan after the Chinese revolution and during the Vietnam war, the aid given to Latin America under the 'Alliance for Progress' following the Cuban revolution, were only the biggest examples of Today the United States is giving major aid to Egypt to back up the Camp David Accord with Israel. But the United States' capacity to give massive economic aid to the governments it favours is greatly reduced by the economic problems of US imperialism itself. The United States, therefore, has to rely much more directly on military force, and military threats, to sustain its policy. ALAN FREEMAN looks at the economic decline of US imperialism and its surplus to deficit. The USA now runs a trade deficit with every single major region of the world except the Middle imported."
East. Its annual deficit even with Bri- way in tain is $8 billion. With West Germany it is $11 billion, and with Japan $55 ed.
This is the unstable, and in fact feature of the boom which Reagan inaugurated in 1982.
This boom was floated by a very large injection of cash, borrowed from the into economy. For the last three years the far outstripping Europe and rivalling Us economv - has been hailed by Reagan a new economic miracle. But it is now clear this is tar from true. Because US manufacturers have lost their lead in productivity, the money which was injected into the financial.'s US economy tended to generate more since year no less than half the USA's spending on new capital equipment was This in turn reflects the third which the United States technological lead has been narrowSuperprofits The second development. which lies behind the shifting political relations between the USA and Europe, is a steady but very thorough change in the source of the superprofits of the As a writer authoritative French paper Le Monde put it: 'American debt has brought about a change in the nature American power which, from being commercial before 1971, has become US capital, just like the British last century, has begun to turn foreign indent of, rivalling the United States. Not at all — and that is indeed a number one problem of Western Europe.
Reserves First, the immense historical reserves of US capital, and the fact that the USA is by far the largest capitalist state in the world, rule out possibility ally alternative world capitalist leader to the US arising. Moreover even were such a leader as Britain's fall from world leadership shows, the process would be extremely long and could not be accomplished without most tremendous upheavals. Secondly, the context for the USA's decline is one of a general crisis of world capitalism which no capitalist power has been able to escape. Indeed 1914 no European capitalist state has been able to arrive at any fundamental economic equilibrium without the economic aid of the US the Olly one that tried was Hitler's Germany. No capitalist power can United States.
Crisis What US capital's crisis is provoking is a much sharper phase of inter-imperialist competition and rivalry in which both US and European capital are making ever-greater resort to the use of state and military machinery to gain advantages over each other.
also spreading economic disorder throughout the world as the US tries to respond to the economic gains which were made in the postwar period by its imperialist rivals. It is forced to mount increasing attacks on its own working class, and against countries through developments such as the collapse in the price of raw materials and the debt crisis.
With its economic reserves undermined the US is increasingly pushed to resort to military force, economic offensives to deal with problems that in the 1950s and 1960s it could have tried to deal with by economic aid.
The stick, omittes ars toreign more dominates US policy. 2: Theism and Siya, Capitals Harrison and Glyn, Capitalism since World War II Fontana 1984 3. International Business Week 12 August 1985 4. International Business Week 22 April SHe Monde 7 May 1985 1323.4
Socialist Action 20 June 1986