Re: Proof of US hegemony and its decline?

In a message dated 4/28/2003 9:46:48 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
christopher.farrands@ntu.ac.uk writes:Christopher--You raise some interesting 
points, some of which I agree with.  Britain's hegemony died with the first 
world war.  It could no longer control the situation even with the use of 
'force in the last instance', and had to rely on the US.  As you note, the US 
economy, and also US culture, was a swelling presence on the European stage and 
worldwide.  I would add the Russian Revolution.  Britain's rules for social 
struggle--yes to liberal, white, nationalists, no to religiously-inspired, 
poor, non-white, non-liberal anti-colonial nationalists--had held up since 1848 
(notwithstanding the Boer war, where they violated their own guidelines), but 
now they crashed down, as a poor country (but also a European power) 
consolidated a revolution in the name of science and progress, and called on 
oppressed people around the world to make world revolution.  Scared the shit 
out of capitalists and other elites everywhere, and Britain didn't have a clue 
about what to do with it.  Nevertheless, the US did not become hegemonic at 
this time, even if they exercised power in credit markets.
Woodrow Wilson talked a good hegemonic game, about self-determination (mostly 
thinking of Eastern Europe, and the Ottoman Empire), but the first effort to 
set up a world hegemonic institution by the US, the league of nations, 
collapsed because US domestic politics didn't allow it.  It was not until this 
domestic opposition--fairly racist, paranoid about 'entanglements' or 
alliances, or any of the compromises necessary to work with a variety of 
nations--was marginalized during World War II that US hegemony could emerge.  I 
would argue that today the descendants of that mentality are now in charge of 
US foreign policy.  Bush, Rumsfield, Cheney truly seem to believe as a matter 
of principle that force is best, and that international friendships are not to 
be taken seriously.  Is this a new phase of US hegemony, or its end?  As the 
cliche goes, that 'remains to be seen.'
Steven Sherman

> The message quoted suggests that "US hegemony begins at the end of WW2".> > 
>Unless my memory fails me, there is a point, I think in February 1916, when 
>the UK ceases quite suddenly to be the world's principal exporter of capital. 
>Almost overnight, because of the war and because of a restructuiring of 
>British debt due to the First World War, the UK becomes a net importer of 
>capital. And at that point, the US replaces the UK as the principal exporter 
>of capital, a position it holds until 1980-81, when Japan becomes the world's 
>largest exporter of capital and the US achieves its epiphany as exporter (and 
>re-processor) of debt. More recently, the US has been at once an exporter of 
>capital and the world's largest debtor, esp. post Asian financial crisis.> > I 
>hope it is not too crudely determinist to suggest that this supports an 
>argument that structurally the US has exercised hegemony for longer than just 
>since 1941. The US role in rewriting the rules of the international credit 
>system through its involvement in restructuring German debt in 1924 and 1928 
>helped to further link European economies to the US in such a way that when 
>the US financial system got into a mess after 1929, mainly due to bad 
>management underlying which there is a proto-neoliberalism which one might 
>recognise from the 1980s, European economies are in turn pretty much wrecked. 
>But the financial deal implicit in Bretton Woods is not an emerging hegemony. 
>It is an attempt to recognise the hegemony that has already existed for some 
>time and to try to handle it more "responsibly" (and Keynes' writings on this, 
>as well as Richard Gardner's book Sterling Dollar Diplomacy, capture this very 
>well).> > Of course the US does assume an enormously increased military role 
>and an enormously increased trade role at the end of WW2. But apart from the 
>finance, whose dances were being danced in the 1920s in the world's 
>nightclubs? Whose films were being watched, and with what stars in them? What 
>was the world's first million selling record (Alexander's Ragtime Band, in 
>1911)? At least some key aspects of US hegemony were well in place before 1945 
>in terms of both economic and cultural fields. But the structural stuff takes 
>some time to come through > in a way that is recognised politically.