Comments on a Wallerstein article
by Louis Proyect

Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 11:40:12 -0400

Empire and the Capitalists (http://fbc.binghamton.edu/113en.htm) by Immanuel Wallerstein

WALLERSTEIN:
In short, [Stephen] Roach is arguing that the macho militarism swagger of the Bush regime, the dream of the U.S. hawks to remake the world in their image, is not merely undoable, but distinctly negative from the point of view of large U.S. investors, the audience for whom Roach writes, the customers of Morgan Stanley. Roach is of course absolutely right, and it is noteworthy that this is not being said by some left-wing academic, but by an insider of big capital.

COMMENT:
Roach represents a distaff view within Wall Street and the foreign policy establishment. You get the same sort of hand-wringing from George Soros, who spoke at a Paris conference organized to explore Wallerstein's thought that was sponsored by Le Monde, the Paribas Foundation among others. (The Paribas Foundation was set up by BNP, one the most powerful investment banks in France and--like Soros--given to pangs of conscience about screwing the rest of the world.)

What Roach, Soros, Krugman, Stiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs all represent is the nagging doubt of the bourgeoisie about whether the current expansionist drive is sustainable. In other words, it is the expression of mainstream Democratic Party thinking. It tends to crop up on the eve of some imperialist adventure and subside after the unruly natives are subdued.

Contrary to Wallerstein's spin on Roach's remarks, the "macho militarism swagger" is not something that Bush initiated. It is simply the latest installment in a foreign policy around which is there is a substantial consensus. Clinton's war against Yugoslavia involved virtually all the same themes, including "human rights" rhetoric and large-scale Goebbels-esque propaganda-lies. The war in Afghanistan was simply a more ambitious version of the "war on terror" that had led to the bombing of Sudan's only pharmaceutical factory and other violent attacks by the Clinton administration that were barely noticed by the liberal establishment.
WALLERSTEIN:
Seen in longer historical perspective, what we are seeing here is the 500-year-old tension in the modern world-system between those who wish to protect the interests of the capitalist strata by ensuring a well-functioning world-economy, with a hegemonic but non-imperial power to guarantee its political underpinnings, and those who wish to transform the world-system into a world-empire. We had three major attempts in the history of the modern world-system to do this: Charles V/Ferdinand II in the sixteenth century, Napoleon in the beginning of the nineteenth century, and Hitler in the middle of the twentieth century. All were magnificently successful - until they fell flat on their faces, when faced by opposition organized by the powers that ultimately became hegemonic - the United Provinces, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

COMMENT:
Odd. I had the distinct impression that the United Kingdom ran a world-empire. At least that's what NYY professor and imperialist ideologue Niall Ferguson believes and promotes. Does Wallerstein think that Winston Churchill was less of an architect of world-empire than Adolph Hitler? The people of India, China, Burma, and most of Africa might have quibbled with that assessment not too long ago.

WALLERSTEIN:
Hegemony is not about macho militarism. Hegemony is about economic efficiency, making possible the creation of a world order on terms that will guarantee a smoothly-running world-system in which the hegemonic power becomes the locus of a disproportionate share of capital accumulation. The United States was in that situation from 1945 to circa 1970. But it's been losing that advantage ever since. And when the U.S. hawks and the Bush regime decided to try to reverse decline by going the world-imperial path, they shot the United States, and U.S.-based large capitalists, in the foot - if not immediately, in a very short future. This is what Roach is warning about, and complaining about.

COMMENT:
There is a fundamental confusion here. No advice from Roach, nor Soros, nor Stiglitz can change the precarious situation world capitalism finds itself in today. Despite my sharp disagreements with Robert Brenner over the origins of capitalism and his inexplicable endorsement of the right of the USA to fund a counter-revolutionary movement in Cuba, his 1998 New Left Review article seems more astute than ever. With the rise of the German and Japanese economies in the 1960s, the USA has been forced to respond by driving down wages at home and stepping up attacks on the 3rd world. All this falls under the rubric of 'neoliberalism'. Despite the crocodile tears of a Joseph Stiglitz, there is NO ALTERNATIVE within the capitalist system. The logic that drives this is the need to accumulate capital. Since attacks on wage labor in the pursuit of profit introduce other potentially sharper contradictions, reformist illusions about a global Marshall Plan, etc. will crop up. On my employer's website, you can find a press release about Professor Jeffrey Sach's proposal to end "extreme poverty" by 2015. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/03/05/millennium_project_2015.html The one measure that is capable of accomplishing such a goal is the very one these liberal do-gooders will never support, namely proletarian revolution.

WALLERSTEIN:
But doesn't the Bush regime give these capitalists everything they want - for example, enormous tax rebates? But do they really want them? Not Warren Buffett, not George Soros, not Bill Gates (speaking through his father). They want a stable capitalist system, and Bush is not giving them that. Sooner or later, they will translate their discontent into action. They may already be doing this. This doesn't mean they will succeed. Bush may get reelected in 2004. He may push his political and economic madness further. He may seek to make his changes irreversible.

COMMENT:
It does not matter what Buffett, Gates or Soros want. To paraphrase Wallerstein: not John Kerry, not Dennis Kucinich, not George W. Bush are capable of providing a "stable capitalist system". We are in a period of deepening crisis, imperialist war and--ultimately--revolutionary war. If you can't stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen.

WALLERSTEIN:
But in a capitalist system, there is also the market. The market is not all-powerful, but it is not helpless either. When the dollar collapses, and it will collapse, everything will change geopolitically. For a collapsed dollar is far more significant than an Al-Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers. The U.S. has clearly survived the latter. But it will be a vastly different U.S. once the dollar collapses. The U.S. will no longer be able to live far beyond its means, to consume at the rest of the world's expense. Americans may begin to feel what countries in the Third World feel when faced by IMF-imposed structural readjustment - a sharp downward thrust of their standard of living.

The near bankruptcy of the state governments across the United States even today is a foreshadowing of what is to come. And history will note that, faced with a bad underlying economic situation in the United States, the Bush regime did everything possible to make it far worse.

COMMENTARY:
A typical Wallerstein declaration from Mount Olympus. Not a single strategic recommendation, let alone an engagement with politics. I guess when we are dealing with 500 year long waves, such imperatives must appear mundane if not an outright nuisance.

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