Anaylisis of Historical Global Developments and their Relevance to the
Internal Situation of the United States
Written by dmorista
In this article I will endeavor to try to look at the current world situation, and particularly that of the U.S, in socioeconomic, political, and military terms, in a historical perspective. I will use some of the theoretical systems developed on the left, to analyze the Capitalist world milieu and the nations and socioeconomic systems that compose it. First a discussion of some of the basic concepts and theoretical constucts I will use to couch my arguments. Those who are familiar with World-Systems Theory mignt want to go to the end of main body of the article and read the concluding section: Application of World Systems Theory to the Current Situation.
Introduction:
There can be no doubt, as we look at the great sweep of human history, that great civilizations and empires; are “born”; they “rise”; they pass through a period of “greatness”, during which their power, institutions, and culture reach a peak; and eventually they “decay and fall”. There has been a lot of theoretical work on these issues, especially for the particular case of Empires that rise to the level of being the Global Hegemon; a position that the U.S. has occupied for around a century, but would seem to be sliding out of at this time. The time period during which the U.S., to one degree or another, occupied that position stretches from around 1908 to the present day. The dynamics of the situation, how it affected the U.S. internally, and who the other major powers, rivals, and allies that were involved has changed over time.
The examination of Capitalism, Global Hegemony, and the dynamics of the various Global Hegemons has been taken up by many scholars. Among the most prominent are Immanuel Wallerstein, George Modelski, and Giovanni Arrighi. Wallerstein, whose analysis proposed that there is a World System of capitalism, engendered a school of thought called World-Systems Theory. Wallerstein propounded and expanded upon these ideas in a 4 volume work in which he proposed that Holland was the first Global Hegemonic Power, then the British Empire, and finally the United States; and he analyzed the operations of capitalism during these respective Hegemonic Epochs in great detail (Wallerstein, 1974, 1980, 1989, 2011). Wallerstein proposed relatively short periods of what he termed “Uncontested Hegemony” exercised by each of those three societies, (See Table 1). He examined developments outside of those restricted time periods in great detail, but did not propose a formalized framework for a recurring cycle of developments, inside and outside of the respective Hegemonic Powers, that explained these events. George Modelski described 5 global hegemonies each about one century in length, and proposed a set of cyclical events that helped explain the recurring phenomenon of Hegemonic Rise, Ascendancy, and eventual Decline (Modelski, 1987). {See Table 2A in the Appendix for Modelski's proposal and Table 2 in the text for my modification of it}. Giovanni Arrighi outlined the occurrence of 4 global hegemonies, each with increasing power and control over the global economic system, but ironically of declining temporal length (Arrighi, 1988). {See Table 3A in the Appendix for Modelski's proposal and Table 3 in the text for my very slight modification of it}. Joshua Goldstein writing about Long Economic Cycles and political power among the major powers, proposed his own explanation of the evolution of Great Power Global Hegemony (Goldstein, 1988). All the major variants of theories proposing a World Capitalist System and a succession of hegemonic powers agree on two things: that in the last few decades of its power, the ruling class of the declining hegemon shifts over from actual productive capitalism to financial capitalism; and that “Hegemonic Wars”, of particularly horrific intensity and length, mark the transition from one hegemony to the next.
Some theorists have proposed that the first hegemon was Portugal, and they advance involved arguments as to why Portugal was hegemonic (the Portugese Empire did have more extensive holdings in Asia and Africa than the Spanish Empire did) rather than Spain. The Spanish Empire, however, was actually larger and it produced far more of the gold and silver; that played a pivotal role in the economic developments of the 15th - 17th centuries. I prefer to just call the first Hegemonic Epoch that of “Iberia” for the reason that it involves the two empires; that were the first and the second empires to control areas in both the “Old World” (Eurasia and Africa) and also in the “New World” (the Americas), i.e. the first truly global empires. I also think that France was the third Global Hegemon, or a very close miss, that had its period of hegemony, or near hegemony, after that of Holland and before that of the British Empire. There is plenty of evidence to support either the postion that France was a hegemonic power, and perhaps more that affirms that it was not, it is beyond the scope of this essay to address it at any length.1 All historians are in agreement that, neither Spain nor Portugal, had the sophisticated financial institutions needed to process the wealth that flowed into those countries; and that therefore their banking was handled by financial institutions in the Italian city states, most notably Genoa and Venice. Giovanni Arrighi argues that Genoa was actually the first Global Hegemonic power and that both Portugal, and Spain, depended on the Genoese Bankers; and in turn were manipulated by them to utilize their geographic, military, and political power, largely in the service of Genoa's ruling class' agenda; he discussed this at length in his seminal book on the subject (Arrighi, 1988)
A greatly simplified version of Wallerstein's framework for Global Hegemonic Powers is posted here below as Table 1.
Two tables that outline other similar sets of Hegemonic Powers, their
characteristics, and history, from the work of George Modelski and
Giovanni Arrighi, are posted here below as well.
There are, of course,
disagreements among World Systems theorists as to the exact dates
used to mark the various changes in the world situation, in the
internal evolution of hegemonic powers, and in the identity of the
“Hegemonic Wars”, that mark the actual transition from the fading
Hegemon to its successor the rising Hegemon.2 I make my
own suggestions for some modifications included here in Tables 2 and
3 below, (the original tables, as presented by Modelski and by
Mendes' compilation of Arrighi's ideas, are in the Appendix as Tables
2A and 3A). Of course, socioeconomic changes on this scale are
gradual and involve large numbers of people, acting in their own
self-interest or, if collectively, in their overall class interest;
and mostly without any specific concern or even awareness as to the
development or demise of hegemonic power.
There is also the question of; the “services” provided by a Global Hegemon, to the rest of the lesser Capitalist powers, as well as to the elites of the colonial or peripheral areas (see 2nd paragraph in the section “Origins of World Systems Theory” below, for a definition of the Periphery); and of the “perks” that attend to hegemonic status in Global Capitalism. Among other services; the Hegemon guarantees the safety and free transit along the sea lanes (later beginning during the waning years of Britain's hegemonic period this extended to the airways, and now in the waning years of the U.S. hegemonic period to the control of near-earth space); it maintains the Global Reserve Currency and controls the dominant banking operations; it sets the overall regulations for trade; and it coordinates the enforcement operations to maintain Capitalist dominance to defeat or suppress anti-hegemonic movements. The services and the perks are closely interrelated. The control over the Reserve Currency, international banking institutions, and trade are always rigged to favor the ruling capitalists
Table 2: Long Cycle Theory & Struggle for Global Leadership 1494 – 2020, per Modelski, Modified and Expanded**
* GWOT is the abbreviation for the Global War on Terror. ** See Appendix for original Table from Chase-Dunn & Inoue, 2016. It is labeled Table 2A there.
Source: (Originally from Table “Long-Cycle Theory and the Struggle for Global Leadership: 1494 – 1994”, {Chase-Dunn & Inoue, 2016}: Per Modelski, 1987, modified and expanded by author in 2020)
with terms that are agreeable, and that they prosper under the Hegemon's regime and policies. They are eager to cooperate with the hegemon, they send the young members of their elites to be educated and acculturated in the hegemonic power, they embrace the culture and arts of the hegemonic power as being of the highest quality, they voluntarily commit their forces to wars against anti-hegemonic insurgencies and resistance, and so on. As the Hegemon weakens the level of cooperation and compliance lessens. The Lesser Capitalist Powers have to be persuaded and/or hectored for each project the declining hegemon wants undertaken, and those lesser capitalist states often granted special concessions, in order to obtain their cooperation with actions the weakening Hegemon wants to pursue. Towards the end of the Hegemon's regime the hegemonic “services” begin to look more like a “protection racket” and are increasingly and openly resisted and defied. A period of co-hegemony has been proposed, exercised with some degree of cooperation and coordination by the rising hegemon-yet-to-be and the declining hegemon. That phenomenon is fairly apparent in the period from about 1910 – 1945 with the rising, and the primarily internally focused U.S. with its population that was staunchly reluctant to send their young men off to overseas conflicts, uneasily working with the weakening British. A similar, also uneasy, cooperation is discernible between the U.S. and China. A likely time period for this could be from the September 11, 2001 events in the U.S., that the Chinese leadership immediately recognized as the false-flag event that it was and a situation that marked a major change in the U.S. position in the Global Capitalist Hierachy, to around 2018. That view sees the Trump regime in the U.S., particularly the second half of the Trump Regime, as marking the end of close cooperation between the two ruling classes; and the beginning of a more contentious though still intertwined relationship. Some might argue that the real period of U.S. / Chinese co-hegemony did not/will not begin until Trump has exited the Oval Office and some new set of accomodations are put in place.
Table 3: Main characteristics of each systemic cycle
of accumulation: per Arrighi*
|
Systemic Cycle |
Characteristics |
|---|---|
|
Genoa |
• End of the XIII century and the mid-XVI century (late 1200s - 1550) |
|
• Main cities: Genoa, Milan, Florence and Venice |
|
|
• Cultural industry as investment channel |
|
|
• Loans to European governments, especially Spanish |
|
|
• Decline of trade routes and hyper-accumulation crisis |
|
|
• Alliance with Iberian governments in search of protection |
|
|
United Provinces (Dutch) |
• Beginning in the mid-XVII century (1580 – 1770) |
|
• Maritime expansion, piracy and plunder, large military capacity |
|
|
• Precocious rentier class |
|
|
• Oligarchic interests cooperating closely with the government |
|
|
• Amsterdam: central trading post and currency market |
|
|
• At the end, expansion was limited by English and French Mercantilism |
|
|
Great Britain |
• Occurred between the XVIII and XIX centuries (1800 - 1945) |
|
• Large scale mercantilism |
|
|
• Intra and extra European Imperialism |
|
|
• Free trade and search for international competitiveness |
|
|
• Absence of wars for territorial expansion, focus on overseas expansion |
|
|
• Encouragement to decolonization and London as a financial center |
|
|
United States |
• Occurred during most of the XX century (1945 - 2020s) • Independence, territorialism and entrepreneurship |
|
• Formation of large and dynamic internal market |
|
|
• WWI and WWII contribute to productive and financial ascension |
|
|
• Bretton Woods institutions support the imperial climb |
|
|
• Transnational companies as central units of the world capitalist expansion |
* See Appendix for original Table from Mendes, 2018. It is labeled Table 3A there.
Source: Compiled by (Mendes, 2018); based on data from Arrighi's Long Twentieth Century (Mendes, 2018, Arrighi,1988). Some modifications made by author 2020.
Arrighi proposed a somewhat different Scheme for hegemonic powers and the dates that they rose to and eventually fell away from power. He sees these hegemonic states and capitalist ruling classes moving through the stages of different economic, political, and military activities on a somewhat different schedule. He also thought that as the centuries passed each new Hegemonic Regime was more powerful than the previous one, but conversely its period of time as the Hegemon was also shortened, each time the cycle repeated itself. Thus he proposed that Genoa was the Hegmonic Power for in the range of 250 - 260 years, The United Provinces for 180 – 190 years, Britain for 140 – 150 years, while the period of hegemony for the U.S., despite its much greater power and contol over the World System, was less than a century and would amount to no more than 75 or 80 years. He also argued that there were some basic similarities between the Genoa the 1st Hegemon and Britain the 3rd operated their hegemonic project; and that they differed in those ways from the United Provinces (the Netherlands) the 2nd hegemon and the United States the 4th hegemonic power, that likewise resembled each other in some fundamental ways in which both differed from Genoa and Britain. See Table 3 below for a concise presentation of some of Arrighi's basic ideas. Arrighi proposes “Signal Crises” and “Terminal Crises” (Arrighi, 1988); that roughly correspond to the process of “Delegitimation” and “Deconcentration” respectively from Modelski's scheme (Modelski, 1987); and to the process of change from “Strong Hegemony” to “Weak Hegemony”, and finally the end of Weak Hegemony and the transition to mere Dominance, in the writing of Goldstein (Goldstein, 1988).
What was epochal about the emergence of the European Capitalist societies, and U.S., was the fact that they established the first truly global system of economic and political domination.3 The first Global Hegemon (be it Iberia, Portugal, Spain, or Genoa) was the first leading state that imposed its power and economic system on two “new” continents, in addition to control over areas of Europe, Africa, and Asia. The two “new” continents, the Americas, had never been dominated, or even “discovered” by “Old World” powers before. The English followed up on the Spanish and Portugese efforts in the Americas, and “discovered” and took control of a third “new” continent, namely Australia in A.D. 1770, just in time to replace North America as their primary Penal Colony.
The various European powers occupied lands in the Americas and later in Australasia, incorporated these lands into their socioeconomic systems, the indigenous populations died off largely from the effects “Old World Diseases”, the novel disease outbreaks combined with relatively harsh rule, aimed at quickly extracting as large an amount of wealth possible from them. Each succeeding hegemonic society was more powerful and controlled larger amounts of the world's surface. But now another equally epochal shift is taking place. After over 500 years, and as many as five cycles of hegemonic states, the period of Western / European domination of the global economic system is coming to an end. A period of East Asian domination of that global system is beginning, its changes will be as profound as the original emergence of the European dominated World System in the late 1400s that over the last 100 years was continued and expanded by Europe's colossal offspring, the United States.
Origins of World Systems Theory
Wallerstein basically developed ideas he took from three sources; first Karl Marx; and in the second place from Fernand Braudel, largely as Braudel developed them in his one of his two major works, a 3 volume set of books. (Braudel, 1979B) The third major influence on Wallerstein was from the Dependency Theorists as led by Andre Gunder Frank (Frank, 1966) and Samir Amin {whose work was based on research done in the mid 1950s, while he was a graduate student in France}, (Amin, 1970). Basically what Wallerstein did, in regards to harmonizing World-Systems Theory and Dependency Theory, was to apply the same sort of analysis to the Core Capitalist powers and their overall operations, socioeconomic arrangements, political and cultural developments, and military operations; that the Dependency Theorists had used to analyze the nations of the Third World “Periphery”; and also look at the interactions betweem the Peripheral societies and the Core Capitalist powers. Dependency Theory was developed by Marxist scholars and proponents of the “Third World” point of view as a response to what they saw as the shortcomings of the prevailing “Modernization Theory”.
World Systems Theory is now extensively developed. Some proponents discuss a division of the Capitalist Core into an Inner Core and an Outer Core.4 The Inner Core is composed of the most powerful and modern capitalist countries, the ruling classes of the Inner Core countries, and the international institutions they control (e.g. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, NATO, and the World Trade Organizaion, etc.) set the policies and conditions of global capitalism that lesser countries must adhere to. The latest iterations of World Systems Theory also define an Outer Core. where secondary capitalist societies are found, less powerful and influential than the countries of the Inner Core and not places that set the policies or conditions. But the Outer Core countries are still members of the club of prosperous modern nations, with high living standards and viable political and socioeconomic institutions of their own. Then there are the two “Peripheries” that are the successors of the former “colonial regions”. The Semi-Periphery is composed of the more developed and prosperous of the overall Periphery's societies. Places like Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, and Indonesia, that are partially developed and often with significant industrial sectors, but that have uneven economic landscapes. Just like in the much poorer Periphery, there are subsistence farmers who live in mud huts and large numbers of the urban poor who live in the slums and “favelas” of the cities, but they coexist uneasily with modern economic operations. Finally there is the Periphery, where places like most of Sub-Saharan Africa, much of Latin America, and several countries in Central and S.W. Asia are found. These are the least prosperous societies on Earth, have dismal social indicators, are wracked with internal and imposed conflicts (in which proxy forces supported by members of the Core countries fight it out for dominance). Many good summaries of Modern World Systems Theory are available, these include (Shannon, 1992: Sorinel, n.d.: Wikipedia (A), n.d.: Kilembe, 2010).
Figure 1: Map of Core, Semi-Periphery, and Periphery. As of A.D. 2000
The Division of the World into Core and Periphery
Source: (Chase-Dunn et. al., 2015), Map, “Figure 3. The Contemporary Global Hierarchy of National Societies: Core, Semiperiphery, and Periphery”. Map originally from: Patrick Bond, 2013, “Subimperialism as Lubricant of Neoliberalism: South African ‘Deputy Sheriff’ Duty within BRICS”; Presentation at the Santa Barbara Global Studies Conference, Santa Barbara, CA, February 22–23, 2013”
Figure 3, “ Map of Inner Core, Outer Core, Semi-Periphery, and Periphery. From A.D. 2020” posted below, incorporates some of the changes discussed above. China, S. Korea, Taiwan and Singapore (Hong Kong of course has its contradictory status as part of China), along with Israel, have all moved into the Inner Core of Capitalism; the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, the U.K., the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland remain in the Inner Core, though with the exception of Germany and Switzerland, all the rest seem to be moving downwards towards the Outer Core. The remaining states of Western and Northern Europe are already in the Outer Core; actually perhaps the safest and most comfortable position in the categories of World Systems Theory. Russia, the countries of Eastern Europe, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Chile, Costa Rica, and Cuba are all now in the Semi-Periphery. Some of these, including Russia and Saudi Arabia, perhaps are really now in the Outer Core of capitalism, that is largely a judgement call. The truly poor and vulnerable places, such as all of Africa other than S. Africa, much of Latin America, and parts of Central and S.E. Asia, along with
Figure 3: Map of Inner Core, Outer Core, Semi-Periphery,
and Periphery. As of A.D. 2020
A useful surrogate for assessing the position of any given society, in today's Global Socioeconomic Hierarchy, is the level of success various societies have had in contending with the recent Covid-19 outbreak. The six most successful societies have been South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong (that still must be considered separately from China proper), and the larger mainland country of China. None of which, other than China itself, had to enact a hard “lockdown” and cessation of most economic activity. None of the five smaller states has had perfect success, but the infection and death rates are markedly lower than almost anywhere else, certainly much lower than in the U.S. What all five of the smaller East Asian societies (i.e. other than China) have in common is, a very high level of technological and scientific competence, generally very good health care systems, populations that are generally prosperous and well-educated, and vital experience gained in combatting previous viral outbreaks. Taiwan had to battle a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) viral outbreak in 2003; and gained important insights that were useful in their efforts to contain and limit the Covid-19 outbreak (NBC, 2020). South Korea learned hard lessons from a 2015 outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and applied them to the Covid-19 situation (Bulletin, 2020). Japan also gained hard experience from the 2003 SARS outbreak, that was used to direct actions against the Covid-19 outbreak (Japan Times, 2020: Tokyo Review, 2020). China, that suffered the first Covid-19 outbreak on Earth in its national territory, also was successful in controlling the disease. They used an integrated approach that included a widespread lockdown, numerous localized lockdowns, vigrorous contact tracing, widespread testing, and comprehensive quarantine measures. The situation in China is much more controversial in the U.S., than are the situations in the other 5 societies; and is the subject of massive propaganda battles and disinformation campaigns.7 The SARS outbreak of 2003 originated in China and the Chinese were severely criticized for their secrecy and their belated release of information about the outbreak, to the World Health Organization and to the neighboring countries including Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
Next, in their demonstrated level of competence, we have a bevy of European countries including Germany, Holland, Denmark, Norway, as well as Australia and New Zealand. They used a variety of methods, including some use of hard lock-downs, but also contact tracing and extensive testing, and other measures. But all of those places have had success and the outbreaks are largely quelled, with occassionial local flare ups. These successful reponses have all featured; widespread and intensive free of charge testing, with very short turnaround times, effective contact tracing, and the wearing of masks in public; only in the less efficient responses have general lock-downs been imposed. One common denominator among developed countries, that had success in controlling Covid-19, is the existence of a health care system that covers everybody, or nearly everybody, in the society. In Taiwan, for example, a government spokesperson pointed out that “Taiwan’s health insurance lets everyone not be afraid to go to the hospital. If you suspect you have coronavirus, you won’t have to worry that you can’t afford the hospital visit to get tested, … You can get a free test, and if you’re forced to be isolated, during the 14 days, we pay for your food, lodging and medical care, … So no one would avoid seeing the doctor because they can’t pay for health care.” (NBC, 2020).
The situation, as it has played out in the U.S., is closer to that seen in Brazil, Mexico, India, or Pakistan than it is to the other advanced capitalist nations noted above. Of course, the conditions in the U.S. do not include anything like the horrific things that have happened to the poor of India, thousands of whom have died while trying to walk back to their native villages from the major cities. Still, the U.S. would appear to be more a member of the Semi-Periphery than of the Inner Core of Capitalism when we look at the efficacy of the measures taken to control the spread of disease, the socioeconomic aspects, and the political response in the U.S., as regards the Covid-19 outbreak; and the subsequent semi-collapse of the economy.8
Application of World Systems Theory to the Current Situation
At this point it is worth considering if World Systems Theory has sufficient explanatory and predictive power to make it worth consideration, when analyzing what has already happened, and much more importantly, when predicting the course of events to come. The general decline of the U.S. over the past 4 decades was predicted by World Systems Theory, as was the emergence of a new hegemonic power; though its actual identity was not within the ability of the theory to specify. It was the view of Arrighi that each successive new Hegemon was, by neccessity, significantly larger and more powerful than the preceeding hegemon; an important early indicator as to the potential emergence of China. Other variants of World Systems Theory also noted the general trend towards larger and more powerful hegemonic states, though the earlier replacement of Iberia by the Netherlands was, more-or-less, an exception to that tendency. Clearly the U.S. has moved right down the predicted path of Financialization as the ruling class hollowed out the domestic capacities in industry, science, technology and moved their investments to low-wage low-regulation areas. During the 1980s and early 1990s, it looked like Japan would replace the U.S. as the hegemonic power (with an approach that would have reprised the British Empire's way of exercising hegemonic suzerainity, and that would have repeated the replacement of larger by a smaller hegemon that took place when the Netherlands replaced Iberia); however, the U.S. ruling class managed to deflect this challenge. A decade later it became obvious to me, by well over 20 years ago, that China was carefully building a formidable power base and would eventually replace the U.S. as the Global Hegemon. This is not only in industrial capacity, but also in education, science, technology, culture, political organization, and recently in very high-tech military capacity.
The U.S. continues to follow an Offshore Control Strategy, based primarily on control of the oceans made possible by massive naval forces, with fairly small land forces used relatively sparingly. This general strategy was outlined in the work of three major geostrategic theorists (Mahan, 1987: MacKinder, 1904: Spykman, 1942)9, and was first used successfully, though less comperhensively, by Britain. China now has the industrial might to construct an massive system of transportation and pipeline system within the continental confines of Eurasia, and to a lesser degree Africa. This terrain system the Belt and Road Initiative, negates the ablity of the U.S. Navy and Airforce to interdict and control the movement of Chinese commerce, industrial products, and needed raw materials. Africa, serves as a vitally important resource rich region, essentially playing the role that Central America and Northern South America played for the U.S. during its drive towards hegemony. World Systems Theory does predict that a horrific Hegemonic War will likely be fought. Since the advent of nuclear weapons the whole concept of a “knock-down drag-out”, 20 – 30 year long, hegemonic war has become much more unlikely, or at least has been seriously modified. Not that the respective elites ever shrank from horrific slaughters of the common people, including their own subjects; but they are not assured now that they would emerge from their bunkers alive, or to a world they could continue to exploit profitably and/or live in with a high degree of luxury and ostentation. Certainly, the U.S. “Pivot to Asia” under Obama; and the more abrasive though certainly less consistent, noises and policies coming from Trump; were strong indicators that such a war might actually occur; or that it is already in it's early “cyber” and “socioeconomic sabotage” phase. Over the last 30 years the U.S. has also pursued policies such as those outlined by Anthony Kennedy in his 1987 book, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, in which he discussed the over reliance of declining empires on military forces and their general neglect of the economic basis of that power.10
An actual military confrontation between the rising and the declining hegemon is not a given according to the tenets of World-Systems Theory. During the last cycle of Hegemonic Wars (World Wars 1 & 2) the declining Hegemon, Britain, was allied with the rising Hegemon, the U.S., to fight against the major Challenger, Germany and its allies Italy and Japan. China has a strategic outlook, going back millenia, that includes defeating potential foes by working to undermine their socioeconomic and political structure long before overt hostilities commence. The U.S.; is in an almost unprecedented state of internal division; it is suffering from rates of poverty that equal or surpass anything from the country's past; and is weaker, relative to any prospective foes, than it has been for over 150 years. The complex internal political situation, with a level of class struggle not seen since the 1930s, and ruthless political leadership governing from the far-right, featuring a President willing to maneuver behind the scenes to mandate the destruction of the USPS to gain some level of electoral advantage is absolutely unprecedented. These various internal weaknesses, combined with basic trends in science and technology to allow us to forecast that if the U.S. does go to war with China, it will lose (or if the war goes nuclear the entire planet and all of humanity will lose). Alfred McCoy has pointed out that China is working on an entire new set of technologies that will target the vulnerabilities of the U.S. military and will supercede the present technological base. Quantum computing, hypersonic missiles (e.g. the DF-17, referred to as a “carrier killer”, and the DF-41, a ballistic missile, are examples of the current Chinese arsenal's missile technology), Artificial Intelligence, and other advanced technologies that give the Chinese some major advantages are increasing in importance. That is the main reason that some elements of the U.S. ruling class want to start a war with China soon, to attack before the increasing advantages China is achieving are fully implemented. (McCoy, 2017: Makichuk, 2020: Trevithick, 2019: Al Jazeera, 2019). The U.S. is also having significant problems with new weapons developed and built to replace previous weapons systems, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the V-22 Osprey tilt rotor troop transport (built to supplant helicopters), the Elmo Zumwalt class of “large destroyers”, and U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford super aircraft carrier, among several others.11
The growing chaos, and the increasingly vicious class struggle, taking place inside the U.S., are largely a consequence of the much greater role of Finance Capital; in the battles that have raged between the factions of the U.S. ruling class. Several World-Systems theorists and their intellectual forebears discuss the increasing role of finance capital in hegemonic powers as they move into the later stages of hegemony (Arrighi, 1988: Braudel, 1979 B: Wallerstein, 1974, 1980). Finance Capitalists are much more footloose than are Industrial Capitalists, who have massive investments in fixed capital; like those that existed in the U.S. during the Great Depression, the New Deal era, and on through the late 1970s; and that exist in China now. The U.S., that existed at the end of WW 2, extremely mighty and well organized; with a working class and middle class that felt they had a stake in the existing socioeconomic order, is long gone. Now over the last 5 months, we see increasing police, military, vigilante and militia violence waged against overwhelminlgy peaceful protests; of course there is a distinction between the daytime protests that are about 100% peaceful on the part of the protesters often with their families accompanying them, and the nightime confrontations largely between various legions of young men. Those nightime confrontations feature large numbers of Agents Provocateurs, Anarchists (always heavilty infiltrated by Agents Provocateurs, but fairly crazy in their own ideology), heavily armed far-right militia members and “independent” vigilantes; and the real target and prize for those who foment violence and property damage, the deracintaed and lumpenproletarian young men who come out to these nightime events (Jamail 2020A & 2020B). The best hope for the U.S. is to achieve an end of empire, like that the British managed in the 1950s and 1960s. Just what the likelihood of that is I cannot say, but the British had some advantages that the U.S. does not have in accomplishing a largely peaceful end of empire.12
In the next installment I will take up three further issues. Namely the defects of Modernization Theory and/or International Relations Theory, as regards providing realistic explanations for what has happened in the world's Capitalist and Socioeconomic Hierarchy over the last century, or for providing any accurate predictions; the concept of Hegemonic War and its role in the Modern World System; and the existence and effects of economic long cycles, particularly the approximately 50-year long Kondratieff Cycles.
Sources:
Abu-Lughod, 1988: Before European Hegemony: The World System, 1250–1350 A.D., Janet L Abu-Lughod, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989)
Al Jazeera, 2019: “China displays new hypersonic nuclear missile on 70th anniversary”, Oct 1, 2019, anon, Al Jazeera, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/russia-rejects-navalny-poisoning-accusations-german-finding-200903095854410.html
Amin, 1970: Accumulation on a World Scale: A Critique of the Theory of Underdevelopment. {2 Volumes}, Samir Amin, NY, Monthly Review Press; illustrated edition, January 1, 1974, the work was originally published in 1970).
Arms Watch, 2019, 2020: “The Pentagon Bio-weapons”, June 14, 2019, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, Arms Watch, at http://armswatch.com/the-pentagon-bio-weapons. “Project G-2101: Pentagon biolab discovered MERS and SARS-like coronaviruses in bats”, April 30, 2020, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, Arms Watch, at http://armswatch.com/project-g-2101-pentagon-biolab-discovered-mers-and-sars-like-coronaviruses-in-bats.
Arrighi, 1988: The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power and the Origins of Our Times, Giovanni Arrighi, Verso, 1988 (New and Updated Edition edition, Verso, February 16, 2010).
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Endnotes
This placement of France, as either a Global Hegemon or a near-miss during a period without a hegemon, is a position that is not taken by any major World Systems Theorists that I know of. Modelski does list France twice as a Challenger to the reigning global hegemon; first to that of the Netherlands from 1580 – 1688, and then to the first hegemony of Britain from 1688 – 1792. (See Table 2A in Appendix). However, many artifacts of history tend to confirm this, for example: French was the international language of diplomacy, culture, and science (for the Western World most particularly) from the 1700s until the beginning of the 20th century; many important innovations for Capitalism come from France, e.g. the first extremely tall steel frame structure (the Eiffel Tower), and the first mechanical machine that could travel over the road (a massive locomotive type affair that did not need rails, not a practical method of conveyance, but the very first such machine, the earliest ancestor of the current day car); many of the ideological, philosophical, and scientific concepts and movements that dominated European and U.S. intellectual life originated in France; and the sophisticated social control method of using Agents Provocateurs to discredit protest movements originated there (a methodology that is widely used inside the United States now, and has been for many decades).
2). Modelski's scheme has different hegemonic wars listed than Wallerstein's scheme, and a very different period for the Hegemonic Peak Power for the United Provinces (the Netherlands). Modelski outlined a repeating systemic cycle of hegemonic evolution that has occurred 5 times, (Modelski, 1987), that idea was also addressed by other World Systems Theorists, this includes both Arrighi (who postulated that 4 cycles had occurred) and Goldstein. Modelski also proposed that Britain had been hegemonic twice, with the overall period of hegmony lasting for 236 years. Many other scholars frequently present their ideas about the developments in the hegemonic system in articles and fora presented by the Journal of World Systems Research (JWSR), an academic journal that is dedicated exclusively to the discussion of World System Theory. These have included several proposals to extend the concept of Global Hegemony farther back into history. Modelski proposed a relatively modest such extension of World Systems Theory, one iteration of which is posted here below as Table 4. Much more extensive versions of World Systems Theory, as applied to history before the mid 1400s, have also been proposed. Several articles of this type have been published in the JWSR; many other scholars have advanced theories about early World-Systems or previous epochs of “globalization”. See (Abu-Lughod, 1988: and Grindin & Korotayev, 2013) for just a couple of examples; and (O'Rourke & Williamson, 2000) for a negative view of that phenomenon.
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Table 4: Processes of globalization (930–2080), per Modelski. Modified and Expanded
Source: (Denemark et. al., 2002), Chpt 2, Modelski, pp. 47 & 48. Modified and expanded by author 2020.
Original Modelski Table in Appendix as Table 4A.
Figure 4: MacKinder's Original 1904 World Map
Source: This color version of the Original MacKinder World Map is easily found with a websearch, I used “mackinder world island map” in google. I use it here because it is visually more striking than the original black and white map “The Seats of Power” from (MacKinder, 1904), pg. 435Figure 5: MacKinder's World Island: Eurasia and Africa
Source: This color version of the MacKinder's World Island Map was found as a result of the same websearch I used for Figure 4: I searched for “mackinder world island map” in google. I cannot find its original provenance, but it is occassionally used for University classes such as “Geopolitical Theories: Heartland, Rimland, & Organic State”, a work-sheet that I believe is from U.T. Austin.
When combined with Mahan's arguments, the result was a formalization of the Maritime Strategy already being used by the British Empire, and its theoretical application to the control of Eurasia and Africa by MacKinder. On a practical level, the rulers of the British Empire for decades were vitally concerned with the control of the Suez Canal (Interestingly, it was originally built by the French and first opened in 1869. British financiers owned a minority stake along with the French, until the British invaded Egypt in 1882 to firm up British control over the canal. The British did not lose control over the canal until 1956 when Gamal Abdul Nasser nationalized it.); and the safety of the sea lanes between the U.K. itself and India and Australia / New Zealand. The British Empire using the resources of the Royal Navy exercised tight and direct control over; the North Atlantic, the North Sea and English Channel (all these with particular regard to the entrances to the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean Sea); it also directly controlled the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and the sea lanes on through the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, along the route to India. The British Empire was not powerful enough to actually directly control oceanic areas beyond these enumerated above. The British Empire did establish numerous coaling stations and naval bases in many places around the globe, but they relied on alliances with the U.S. and Japan in particular to control the many oceanic zones of the planet. The most important of these strategically was the Western Pacific where the British mostly relied on the Japanese Navy to maintain control, certainly after the Sino-Japanese War and on through the 1920s. x The next major Global Geostrategy theorist was Spykman. He analyzed global regions and resources from a uniquely American point of view, just as the U.S. was poised to emerge as the undisputed global hegemon (orignially a native of the Nethelands he emigrated to the U.S. and earned a Ph.D. at Yale). He divided up the globe into somewhat different regions than MacKinder and was, more-or-less, an American version of MacKinder (Spykman, 1942). Spykman renamed what was basically the area of what was MacKinder's Inner Crescent to “The Rimlands”. The late 20th Century was the time for the next major American Global Geostrategist to emerge, and to write books and articles, and advise Presidents and other officials. That was Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose major work on the subject was his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard (Brzezinski, 1997). Again, Brzezinski was born and raised elsewhere, Poland in his case, and he emigrated to and earned a Ph.D. here in the U.S. Brzezinski wrote of his view of U.S. empire “Regarding the landmass of Eurasia as the center of global power …” and borrowed heavily from MacKinder “In his chapter dedicated to what he refers to as the 'Eurasian Balkans', ...” (Wikipedia F, n.d.).
that
tied together Eurasia beginning with “... the
system of long-distance large-scale trade in metals in the 4th
mil-lennium BCE” (i.e. 6,000 years ago rather than 500+).
3). Whatever,
the validity of the proposed Afroeurasian World-System proposed by
Grinin and
Korotayev (Grindin & Korotayev, 2013), or other claims of other
much earlier “World Systems” in the literature. There
is no doubt that the Chinese had already sent their ships out on
voyages to S.E. Asia, the Indonesian island archipelago, India, and
the the eastern coast of Africa well before the end of the Song
Dynasty in A.D. 1279. And, after the Mongols were pushed out of
China in the late 1300s, the Ming Dynasty sponsored 7 expeditions to
“show the flag” and otherwise demonstrate Chinese power from
A.D. 1402 – 1433. The ships they sent were larger and
technologically advanced than those of the Portugese and Spanish,
and were sent in much larger numbers. The first voyage in A.D.
1402, that explored the Islands off S.E. Asia and also went to India
and Ceylon (Sri Lanka), consisted of 317 ships and 28,000 personnel.
The 4th expedition, in A.D. 1414 - 1415 reached the East
Coast of Africa, and the 7th and final expedition, in
A.D. 1431 – 1433 went to Africa with about 300 ships and 27,500
personnel. But in the end the Chinese withdrew to back China to
address internal problems, (National Geographic, 2020; Asia Society,
n.d.)
Therefore,
the technologically less impressive and much smaller, seagoing
expeditions of the European powers turned out to be much more
important in the development of human society. The Spanish and
Portugese were the original claimants to the Americas, with the Pope
originally dividing the “New World” between them by drawing a
north-south line. The Spanish and Portugese renegotiated the
position of the line in an agreement signed at the Treaty of
Tordesillas in A.D. 1494, and renegotiated its position yet again
in A.D. 1506 moving the line “270 leagues (about 1500 kilometers
or 932 miles) farther west”, (National Geographic, n.d.). The
establishment of Brazil was based on that legal claim.
4). I know I read more than one World-Systems Theory article proposing subdividing the Core into an Inner Core and an Outer Core, similar to the division of the Periphery into the Semi-Periphery and the Periphery. But a cursory websearch does not discover any articles of websites that discuss this. I will proceed to use the concept however, without claiming its original authorship myself.
5). Figure 1, as posted in the main text with a map produced from data of some twenty years ago, does not differentiate between the Inner Core and the Outer Core, which is unfortunate. Subject to the usual disagreements over the position of specific countries, the map in Figure 1 demonstrates the situation as it existed some 20 years ago. We can note that many of the positions in the hierarchy have changed in the meantime, some of those changes that mostly reflect moves from the Periphery to the Semi-Periphery for much of the world, are noted in the map in Figure 2. In 2000, China was nowhere near as powerful, socioeconomically, financially, industrially, militarily, politically, or culturally as it has become now. However, China had already become a major economic power by 2000, and if an Outer Core option were available to the mapmakers, then that would have been a better option for China. South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong were all classified as part of the Semi-Periphery in Figure 1 (that was based on data from Chase_Dunn et. al., in the article in which they produced the list that the mapmakers for the map from {Wikipedia B, n.d.} used). That list was based on ideas and calculations concerning openess to foreign trade (see “Appendix”, Table A-2, as listed in {Wikipedia B, n.d.} for the calculations and assumptions used). IMHO, their calculations and ideas worked better for the rest of the world than they did for the “Asian Tigers”; as S. Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong were already well-known by that time. By 2000, South Korea was already the world's 5th largest motor vehicle producing nation, building 3,115,000 cars and trucks that year (only manufacturing fewer vehicles than the U.S., Japan, Germany, and France, and more than Spain, Canada, the U.K., and Italy, that are all classified as Core Capitalist countries in Figure 1's map) {OICA, 2000}; also S. Korea had already developed the world's leading ship building industry, and had taken a commanding position in the production of computer chips. Taiwan had already taken a very important position in the production of computers and related equipment as well as in other industries. Both Singapore and Hong Kong had developed ultra-modern economies and built world leading physical infrastructure and industries by 2000. This is even less defensible for the retention of China itself as well as, the “Asian Tigers”, in the Semi-Periphery in 2013 in the map in Figure 2 from 2013. By 2013 China produced the most motor vehicles on Earth at 19,271,808, the U.S. was second at 10,335,765, Japan was third at 9,943,077, Germany was fourth at 5,649,260, and S. Korea was fifth at 4,561,766, and even India was sixth and manufactured 4,174,713 (OICA, 2012). In short I think that the four “Asia Tigers” should have been placed in the Capitalist Core in the map displayed in Figure 1 for the year 2000; and it was an even greater mistake to continue to place them in the Semi-Periphery as late as 2013, as well as China itself, the way that it is displayed in the Map in Figure 2.
6). Russia had just begun to recover from the socioeconomic debacle of the collapse of the U.S.S.R. and the subsequent incorporation of Russia into the global capitalist system under extremely unfavorable terms. Those terms included the looting of the large Soviet public sector by internal figures and a harsh dose of economic “shock therapy”, administered under the direction of American finance capital figures beginning around 1989. That clearly justifies the classification of Russia as a peripheral state in 2000. However, Eastern and Central Europe including Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltics, Bulgaria, Romania, and the 5-states of the former Yugoslavia would have been more properly located in the Semi-Periphery than in the Periphery in 2000. They were all industrialized to varying degrees and produced a range of industrial and agricultural products and traded them within the Soviet run COMECON economic bloc. Those arrangements were somewhat disrupted by the collapse of the Soviet Union, but not as much as what happened inside Russia itself. Current day Russia has a GDP that is about the same as that of Spain. Another issue is the position of Libya in the World-System. Before the U.S./NATO attack on Libya in 2011, Libya was the most prosperous country in Africa, roughly on a par with South Africa, thus Libya should have been acknowledged as being part of the Semi-Periphery up until 2011. Other than these two quibbles, the classifications into Core, Semi-Periphery, and Periphery for the great majority of the Earth are correct and useful for looking at the situation 20 years ago.
World Systems Theory; with its roots in Dependency Theory, in Marxist and Neo-Marxist eoncomic analysis, and in the observations of Fernand Braudel, the leading figure in the French Annales School of Historical scholarship; while it has its flaws and problems, has profound connections with proven schools of analysis. It explains far more of what we see now, and predicted much more of what has happened in the last few decades than other theories. No other theoretical framework in International Relations, Economics, or World Studies can make that claim, in fact their records are pretty dismal. World Systems Theory always took a dim view of the prospects for most societies as concerns moving into the club of prosperous Inner Core and Outer Core Capitalist positions. Import-Substitution Industrialization, as practiced by societies as widely different as Mexico and Brazil, South Africa, and Indonesia and Malayasia, was cut short by the Capitalist restructuring of the late 1970s and onward to the present day. Most Peripheral societies, even those in the Semi-Periphery, were forced to accept foreign owned, or domestically owned, export oriented manufacturing that used the low-wages and low-regulation environmentof those societies to gain a competetive advantage. Considering the development of an internal market, the move upwards of industrial labor to more skilled postions, and other advantages of Import-Substitution Manufacturing were totally disregarded. Various types of economic and political, and even military, pressure were used to enforce this change in the economic situation in the Semi-Peripheral societies.
The only places that actually moved up in the socioeconomic hierarchy were those that excluded the forces of Hegemonic Capital from playing a significant role. And in fact, other than for Israel with its complex and intimate relationship with the U.S. ruling class, all but one of the societies that moved up between the late 1970s and the present, were either majority Chinese or were dominated socioeconomically by overseas Chinese communities, that exception being S. Korea. Those societies were Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan; plus of course China itself. Japan had already moved into the core of capitalism before WW 1, and the Japanese while using favorable licensing agreements with Western Firms, never allowed Western Capital to invest in the country. The domination or powerful postion of Overseas Chinese capital in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and later China itself (when much of the investment in Chinese industrial development came from Taiwan), when combined with the free access to the massive U.S. internal consumer and capital equipment markets, allowed these 4 societies to move to the highest reaches of the Capitalist Hierarchy. S. Korea traveled a similar path, but without much Overseas Chinese investment activity, and Japan recovered lost ground from the devastation of WW 2 and became an economic giant, paticularly in the 1970s and 1980s. Japan did not allow foreign investment in its industries during this period. World Systems Theory easily accomodates these developments, unlike other approaches.
Certain developments are seen to repeat themselves, albeit in somewhat different forms, in the various Hegemonic States. The rising vigorous new potential hegemon takes powerful positions in the economic operations of the world, particularly in the newest and fastest growing technologies of the day. This is largely at the expense of the current, and declining, hegemon. The rising hegemon will begin to rival the power of the current hegemon and a complex set of adjustments, competition, and cooperation takes place. The declining hegemon loses the ability to compete in the production of actual products and its ruling class begins to specialize in financial manipulations, speculation, and swindles. This was first noted, as far as I know of, by Fernand Braudel who stated that this last flurry of financialized economic activity, by the ruling capitalists of the declining Hegemonic State, was “Indian Summer, and winter is not far off”. That quote is somewhere in his 3 volume work Civilization and Capitalism: 15th-18th Century (Braudel, 1979). The ruling class of the declining hegemon also makes moves, to reduce the wages and cut the social benefits of its general populace, to bolster their own finances during the late hegemonic phase. The decidedly non-leftist British Naval Historian, Anthony Kennedy, pointed out that declining hegemons suffer from what he termed “Imperial Overstretch”, and also invest too many resources into military power and not enough into the types of economic development that are the actual base for military strength (Kennedy, 1987).
The continued ability of the U.S. to function as the Global Hegemon, and to keep guiding world affairs along the path that is most favorable to the interests of the U.S. ruling class, seems to be pretty dubious. The U.S. has been the Global Hegemon either for over 100 years, if we consider the period of co-Hegemonship with Britain from around 1910 to the end of WW 2 in 1945, or for 75 years if we just consider the period from the end of WW 2 to the present. We also have to ponder whether the last 20 years of so have been a period of co-hegemony with China. That would trim the period of “uncontested hegemony” down to 55 years. Also there is the issue of American economic decline after the Vietnam War and the rise of Japan, that appeared to be more powerful than the U.S. by the 1980s. So by the strictest definition of hegemony there were about 27 years of uncontested hegemony from 1945 – 1972 or Strong Hegemony that ended when the U.S. was forced to abandon the Bretton Woods financial arrangements (Wallerstein, 1980: Goldstein, 1988). The abandonment of Bretton Woods, and the advent of the Petro Dollar both in 1972, marks the beginning of the Signal Crisis (Arrighi 1988). Then there were something like another 28 years of Weak Hegemony, until around the year 2001 (Goldstein, 1988), and finally co-Hegemony with China for about 20 years. During the period from 1972 – the mid to late 1990s the process of delegitimation took place, and after that the process of deconcentration took place (Modelski, 1987). Undoubtedly with the passage of time these marker points will be adjusted somewhat, but the general trend is clear.
The previous advantage, that the U.S. held in military power, is eroding for several reasons. Primary among them is the loss of industrial capacity and competence in several areas, particularly in specialized high-technology fields, a problem the Pentagon has noted for decades now. Also the acquisition process has become notoriously prone to corruption and extremely high monopolistic price levels; and also frequently delivers weapons systems that do not perform up to the promised levels. Famous examples of this are; the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that has serious problems with performance, reliability, and even pilot safety (Insinna, 2019: Pickrell, 2019A & 2019B); the V-22 Osprey tilt wing aircraft that has suffered numerous deadly crashes (McCain, 2014: G2mil 2003, 2004A & 2004B: Eckstein, 2017: Sakae, 2016), and outlandish costs that include a contract for $57,107, 283 awarded to Bell-Boeing to modernize just one V-22, at sites Pennsylvania and Texas. (Defense.gov, 2017); the Elmo Zumwalt class of destroyers, the namesake of which suffered an embarrasing propulsion failure while transiting the Chinese operated Panama Canal in 2018 and had to be towed back to the U.S. for repairs; and the latest nuclear powered aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, that has had problems with its propulsion system, with its new electromagnetic catapault system, with the toilets, among several other issues (Glen, 2020: Gooding, 2020: Lee, 2020: McCurdy, 2020: Trevithick, 2020). The Zumwalt class ships originally had two guns on board, the cost of firing these guns kept going up until it reached $800,000 per shell a price that precluded conducting target practice, and in addition they did not deliver all the promised capabilities. Furthermore, there were problems with producing and acquiring the high-tech shells, it all resulted in the inability of the ships to use the guns. The ships were designed to be stealthy but the designers overlooked the fact that there were extensive antenna arrays needed for communications operations, and installing those negated much of the stealth capability. The original plans were to purchase 23, but the Navy ended up only ordering 3 of the vessels at a price of $8 billion per ship. (CRS 2020: Pickrell, 2018: Thompson, 2019: Fredenburg, 2016: Roblin, 2019: Rogoway, 2016). Concerning the advanced guns a Congressional Research Service report stated that “The two AGSs on each DDG-1000 (the official designation for the Zumwalt Class destroyers) will, for the time being at least, remain for the most part dormant, pending a final decision on whether to procure a replacement munition for the AGSs which would require modifying the AGSs and their below-deck munition-handling equipment, since both were designed specifically for LRLAP), or instead pursue another option, such as removing the AGSs and their below-deck equipment and replacing them with additional VLS tubes.” {AGS is the abbreviation for “Advanced Gun System”; LRLAP is the abbreviation for “Long-Range Land-Attack Projectile”; VLS is the abbreviation for Vertical Launch System, that are missile launching systems}. (CRS, 2020).
The automatic assumption, that the U.S. Navy can easily defeat any potential foe and can maintain control over the oceans, is no longer valid. The Chinese have been building new and very capable warships at a rapid clip for about the last 10 years, with the obvious intention of building a fleet that can challenge the U.S. Navy and achieve control of the Western Pacific, and eventually the world's oceans? The Chinese fleet is already larger, in the total number of ships, than is the U.S. Navy; though the overall tonnage is still greater for the U.S. Navy. The Chinese have now built 8 Type 55 “Destroyers” ships that are comparable to the tuncated 3-ship Zumwalt class, or to the U.S. Ticonderoga class cruisers, that are approaching the end of their service lives. (Al Jazeera, 2019: Axe, 2016: Bhat, 2017: Farley, 2019: Gao, 2017: Harper, 2020: Makichuk, 2020: Suciu, 2020: Trevithick, 2019). The U.S. Navy will, presumably, be able to more than counter the growing Chinese Navy's challenge for the near-term future, and for somewhat longer if it continues to operate in close alliance with the Japanese, South Korean Navies, Australian, and potentially the Indian Navy. But this is the first time that the basic assumption of conventional U.S. military supremacy has come into serious question, since well before WW 2.
12). The British Empire was dismantled at a time when there were millions of veterans of the two World Wars who filled the working and middle classes of that society. They were militant in their demands for the establishment of a substantive social democracy with relatively generous benefits and refused to accept a domestic austerity regime, and the more progressive elements of the British ruling class joined with them in that political program. The mid 20th Century was a prime time for establishing a system of social welfare benefits. The U.S. had taken on the burden of providing the military forces that guaranteed the continuance and functioning of Global Capitalism. The British essentially fought two overt wars to attempt to save some of their colonies, one in Malaya and one in Kenya; these wars were as ruthless and vicious as any counter insurgency campaign but they were limited in scope and were not repeated. In India and Palestine the British ran caretaker operations that tried to guide the change to independence, but did involve combat and terrorism. The British were out of India and Pakistan by 1947 and out of Palestine by May of 1948. The wars in Malaya (1948 – 1960) and Kenya (1952 - 1960) lasted until a decade later, but marked the last British attempt to maintain control over the far flung former colonies of their expired empire. By limiting military adventures and keeping down armaments expenditures the U.K. had enough money to establish a fairly comprehensive set of social welfare benefits. Whether the U.S, can learn from the example of the relatively peaceful end of the British Empire is a serious question. The U.S. is moving rapidly in the opposite direction than that British society moved in the Post WW 2 era. The Trump regime has moved rapidly to dismantle the remnants of the social democracy that remain from the New Deal and Great Society eras, already in tatters after continuous assaults by ruling class lackeys from both of the duopoly parties. The Republican / Trumpian political machine is considering unprecedented measures to “win” the 2020 election, that go far beyond the standard voter suppression and election fraud operations that have become their standard methods. These include fomenting chaos and delay and then, in the wake of that, trying to convince the state legislatures in 6 key states (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, and Arizona) to not accept the Electors for Biden if he wins the popular vote in those states, and to appoint Electors that will vote for Trump regardless of the popular vote results in a given state, when the Electoral College convenes to make it's official vote (Gellman, 2020). The sabotage of the Post Office over the past 6 months is another unprecedented move, implemented by a genuine “wrecker” Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. The U.S. does not have much left in the way of unions or other traditional progressive organizations, but is developing a new set of organizations that do reflect the fact that the majority of the population wants a massive increase in social welfare benefits. The series of protests, that have occurred all over the U.S. for the last 5 months, are as pervasive and comprehensive as anything in American History. While the ruling class probably could smash this movement, and Trump is clearly eager to do so, it would be a very costly endeavor, and at a time when the deteriorating U.S. economic position is putting increasing pressure on the maintenance of U.S. global power. The possibility of progressive changes in American domestic conditions, for the great majority of the population, now requires the support of some significant part of the elites for the various proposals of the common people. The possibility of that has increased as some of the American elites have become alarmed by the actions taken by Trump, both domestically and internationally ( Scahill, 2020: McCoy, 2017 B
Appendix:
Table 2A: Long-Cycle Theory and the Struggle for
Global Leadership: 1494 – 1994
Source:
(Chase-Dunn & Inoue, 2016: Per Modelski, 1987)
Table 3A: Main characteristics of each systemic cycle of accumulation
|
Systemic Cycle |
Characteristics |
|---|---|
|
Genoa |
• End of the XIII century and the mid-XVI century |
|
• Main cities: Genoa, Milan, Florence and Venice |
|
|
• Cultural industry as investment channel |
|
|
• Loans to European governments, especially Spanish |
|
|
• Decline of trade routes and hyper-accumulation crisis |
|
|
• Alliance with Iberian governments in search of protection |
|
|
United Provinces (Dutch) |
• Beginning in the mid-XVII century |
|
• Maritime expansion, piracy and plunder, large military capacity |
|
|
• Precocious rentier class |
|
|
• Oligarchic interests shocking with the government |
|
|
• Amsterdam: central trading post and currency market |
|
|
• At the end, expansion was limited by English and French Mercantilism |
|
|
Great Britain |
• Occurred between the XVIII and XIX centuries |
|
• Large scale mercantilism |
|
|
• Intra and extra European Imperialism |
|
|
• Free trade and search for international competitiveness |
|
|
• Absence of wars for territorial expansion, focus on overseas expansion |
|
|
• Encouragement to decolonization and London as a financial center |
|
|
United States |
• Independence, territorialism and entrepreneurship |
|
• Formation of large and dynamic internal market |
|
|
• WWI and WWII contribute to productive and financial ascension |
|
|
• Bretton Woods institutions support the imperial climb |
|
|
• Transnational companies as central units of the world capitalist expansion |
Source:
Compiled by Mendes, 2018; based on data from Arrighi's Long
Twentieth Century, (Mendes, 2018: Arrighi, 1988).
Table 4A: Processes of globalization (930–2080)
Source: Denemark et. al., 2002, Chpt 2, Modelski, pp. 47 & 48.
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