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SOCGRAD MINI-LECTURES
The various national economies has been increasingly globalized since the turn of the Century. Great Britain had assumed the mantle of policeman to the British Colonies in particular and, in conjunction with the USA, France, and Canada, had opposed the expansion of purely nationalistic economics; Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy before WWII.
Since WWII, the USA has become the major policing agent of a globalized economy. Until the collapse of bureaucratic and elitist state socialism, its role was, primarily, to prevent wars of socialist liberation in the 3rd world.
For most of that time, the USA and its partners in the United Nations confined their policing to socialist revolutions in the 3rd world. There was a uneasy detente between the free market set of the 1st world [of developed industrial nations which needed markets, cheap labor and raw materials] and the 2nd world of developing centrally planned [socialist] nations. The real wars took place in Asia, South America, and to some extent, Africa.
Since 1989 and the collapse of Centralized Planning Socialist regimes, the military activity of the USA has been confined to small gauge policing activities...it is important to note the support of key nations in such policing...the more support, the more vital to the interests of the global-[izing] economy. There is very little support for the Haiti venture, most of it, I would guess, reluctant. Yet such policing is necessary to a globalizing economy whether it is capitalist or some other parallel economic form. Capitalism however, has special need for peace in the market place:
1. Raw materials. Most nations need to import raw materials. The USA has a list of some 86 'strategic' raw materials it must import in order to maintain production of consumer and military goods.
2. Cheap labor. With the re-entry of old capitalist competitors and the rise of new competitors in the 3rd world, American capital needs to drive down labor costs if it is to keep up profits...union breaking at home and cheap labor abroad are two very powerful economic tools to do that. This need is a chief 'national interest' in policing Central America.
3. Alternative sourcing. When labor goes on strike or other exigency requires, it is helpful to capital management to have other plants in more peaceable places...The C.I.A. and other federal units train and supply police and armies in the third world to install and protect such plants.
4. Markets...as wages fall and discretionary income of Americans erode, new markets are needed...most have to come from countries in this hemi-sphere since other leading capitalist states have a head start in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. There is little discretionary income in the former socialist bloc but still peace is important to investment as well as transport and communications around the entire world.
5. Capital flow. As markets are saturated and prices fall; as low profit lines are abandoned and high profit lines are threatened by pollution laws, taxation, and labor struggles, capital has to move where profits are higher and threats to it lower...this means a well policed 3rd world. The repatriation of profits to those 7 or 8 key capitalist countries which run the new world order is essential as well. These and more drive the USA and the Big Seven Nations to enforce an uncertain peace in the third world. Part III to follow: Tools for the Big Seven.
T.R. Young