> It's World
> > Systems Econ 101: semiperipheral capital flows to metropoles, while
> > metropolitan commodities flow to the semiperipheries. And don't even get
> > me started on that other metropole, the EU.
>
> I, for one, love it when you talk that dirty Euroecon talk. But what's with
> Japan being on the "semiperiphery"?
Japan and the EU are the metropoles, the US is a (relatively rich) semiperiphery, at least in terms of global credit/commodity flows. That's not the same thing as political or cultural hegemony, areas where the US still has capacious reserves; the superstructures of hegemony always take time to build up (think of the way the Brits still held kingmaker status in the 1870-1914 era, even though the US had more economic muscle.) Nowadays, the US is no longer master of the world economy; it has to do what the EU and Japan want, or else they'd pull the plug on those credit flows, with real-world results too horrible to contemplate.
Hey, we live in exciting times. You didn't really want to experience another American Century, after all the catastrophes of the first one, did you?
-- Dennis