Decline of American Power?

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

At 10:06 PM -0300 10/5/02, Alexandre Fenelon wrote:
>By DOUG SAUNDERS
>Saturday, October 5, 2002 - Page F3
>
>..."The United States has been fading as a global power since the
>1970s, and the U.S. response to the terrorist attacks has merely
>accelerated this decline." So says Immanuel Wallerstein, the Yale
>University political scientist....In a forthcoming book, to be titled
>Decline of American Power,he describes his country as "a lone
>superpower that lacks true power, a world leader nobody follows and
>few respect, and a nation drifting dangerously amidst a global chaos
>it cannot control."
>
>-I don´t agree with this. In the last 10 years the USA was able to
>-turn back his long decline and achieved a decisive edge over his
>-closest competitors. USSR collapsed, Japan is in deep depression
>-and Europe is suffering from slow growrh rates (partly due to
>-demographic factors). Look at China and India if you want to see
>-countries that are closing its gap in relation to USA. However, wether
>-the 90´s were a turning point in USA decline or only a short term
>-upturn inside a long term downturn remains to be proved. Recent events
>-seem to give some reasons to the defenders of the second hypothesis,
>-but...

I don't agree with the hyperbolic Immanuel Wallerstein either, but 
his thesis at least has a virtue of clarity and attention to material 
conditions that Hardt & Negri's lacks, hence a better point of 
departure in debate on cycles of accumulation and stages of 
imperialism.

I do think that the 90s in the USA was only a short uptick in 
restoration of profitability achieved mainly by union-busting, cuts 
in social programs, increases in household debts, low prices of 
commodities that are staples of working-class consumption (except 
housing and health care), low prices of commodities that are main 
industrial inputs, and the like, (all of which are results of 
neoliberal class warfare from above at home and abroad), rather than 
a turning point toward a long cycle of accumulation based on 
epoch-making innovation and revolution in productivity.  Capital 
can't restore profitability for long by simply squeezing the working 
class further, as they did with the neoliberal program.

What is noteworthy in today's imperialism is that, while capital has 
become global through the rise of productive forces in Western Europe 
and East Asia, the liberalization of financial regulations, etc., USA 
having lost its post-WW2 supremacy in production and capital export, 
political and military powers on the global stage are more 
concentrated in US hands than before.
-- 
Yoshie

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