On Nov 2, 2011, at 12:21 PM, Wojtek S wrote:
> I think this oversimplifies things. It is not that economics
> does not play a huge role in politics, but there is a lot in politics
> that cannot be reduced to economics. A lot of it high brow pissing
> contests, showing the other guy that ours is bigger or preventing him
> from getting something that he may want. The US policy toward Japan
> before WW2 may be an example of it - blocking Japan's access to oil
> was pretty tangential to the US economic interests, but it certainly
> kept Japan in its subordinate place.
Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin have a book on the U.S. empire coming out sometime soon from Verso. They asked me to read a pretty final version of the ms. One of the points they make is that the U.S. has often acted in the interests of global capitalism in general rather than narrow national interest - starting with the Marshall Plan, and onwards. When it comes to oil, they argue that U.S. Middle Eastern policy is less about gaining advantage for U.S. firms than it is about keeping the oil flowing at more or less reasonable prices for the sake of global stability. This makes more sense to me than the Chomsky proposition about "controlling" oil at the source in order to maintain leverage over rival states. It's long seemed easier to me to blockade an adversary directly than it would be to try to turn off the tap somewhere around Baghdad, with who knows what spillover effects.
Doug