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Imperialism Reading Group - Super Imperialism, by Michael Hudson - Week 2 - February 24th to March 2nd

This is a weekly thread in which we read through books on and related to imperialism and geopolitics. Last week's thread is here.

Welcome to the second week of Michael Hudson's Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of US World Dominance! I'm reading the Third Edition, but I imagine most of the information is the same if you have an earlier edition.

We are reading one chapter per week, meaning we will finish in June. Obviously, you are totally free to read faster than this pace and look at my/our commentary once we've caught up to you.

Every week, I will write a summary of the chapter(s) read, for those who have already read the book and don't wish to reread, can't follow along for various reasons, or for those joining later who want to dive right in to the next book without needing to pick this one up too. I will post all my chapter summaries in this final thread, for access in one convenient location. Please comment or message me directly if you wish to be pinged for this group.

This week, we will be reading Chapter 1: The Origins of Inter-Governmental Debt, 1917-1921, which is approximately 20 pages.

20 comments

  • I'm beginning to suspect the first edition (which is the one I'm reading from) is measurably different than the Third, as my first chapter is actually 36 pages long and entitled "Birth of the Post-Lenin Imperialism" but whatever, I'll post quotes and keep following along as best I can. Anyway, this chapter seemed to chronicle the failed American efforts to subordinate and dominate Europe post-WWI. Of course this failure led directly to WWII. Regardless, it's a perfect example of the Kissinger sentiment that "it may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." Some quotes:

    The overwhelmingly governmental nature of US international finance capital, which had begun during the war, was further emphasized when the war ended. What was being experienced was the earliest manifestation of what was to evolve in other countries, though in far cruder form, into National Socialism. Germany under Hitler, Italy under Mussolini, and Spain under Franco, each subordinated the individual interests of its separate capitalist groupings to a national political purpose without injuring these interests, but subjecting them to more-or-less effective regulation depending on the character of the regime. Precisely this, but in far more benign fashion, was implicit in the assumption of the role of the nation's and the world's main credit functions by the government of the Untied States. (pg 6)

    So Hudson here draws a direct parallel between fascism and US policy around international credit, one which is still clearly on display today with Trump et. al subordinating the international interests of the tech giants and American manufacturing to his policies around tariffs.

    The Allies did, indeed, need German funds to pay their armaments debts to the United States; failure of the United States to adjust their debts to the receipt of German reparations bled the Allies as the Allies bled Germany. US Government finance capital would not even make the accommodation to its debtors which commercial creditors are often prepared to make. As soon as the war ended the American government asked its allies to begin paying, with interest, for the arms and related support financed by US Government credits. In the history of warfare no ally had requested such payments for its military support. The provision of arms to allies, by universal custom, had been written off as a war cost. This time the credits were officially kept on the books. The eagle had unsheathed its claws. (pg 13)

    Funny how the exact same dynamic is playing out in Ukraine, with Trump asking for "repayment" in the form of mineral rights for US arms. The US has been trying to dismantle and subordinate Europe for a century at this point, using finance as its primary weapon, and it's worked tremendously well for them. Of course this first attempt leads directly into the escalating tension that explodes into WWII. As Hudson writes, "It was a period in which the most extortionate of nationalistic acts were inspired by frustration at an untenable economic situation imposed upon the world by the United States." (pg 15)

    United States policy was thus to treat Germany, the recent enemy, as a country in need of protection against the effects of a fall in prices, but to treat England, the recent ally, as a nation to be trodden down if a fall in world prices should occur. The recent enemy was to become a war of the US Government; the recent ally to be punished. Because this ally was the world's great imperial power, and Germany its recent challenger for imperial supremacy, the interpretation is justified that the United States had its eyes set lustfully on the British Empire. To swallow the Empire, the United States must first dislodge it. England must be forbidden the fruits of victory; Germany established again as England's rival. This self-same policy was to recur after World War II. (pg 23)

    Obviously very different circumstances, but again we see this dynamic play out with the US reproachment of Ukraine and Russian peace talks. Russia must be uplifted, the EU/Ukraine punished. I don't think this time it's going to work, because Russia already has a "no limits" partnership with China, but I'm sure that's the hope of the US right now. Again emphasizes how ruthless American imperialism can be.

    In essence, every American administration, from 1917 through the Roosevelt era, employed the strategy of compelling repayment of the war debts, specifically be England, to so splinter Europe that, politically, the whole of Europe was laid open as a possible province of the United States... [they would have achieved it] had the world not tumbled into universal depression from which the United States was not only not exempt but became, in the event, the principal sufferer from the collapse of its own creating. The first great foray of US governmental finance capital into world power politics had ended in ignominious failure, and ultimately in a war of dimensions vaster than even World War I, a war which the United States had no desire to bring about but no deep feeling that it must prevent. (pg 34)

    Of course the US would learn its lesson and course correct post-WWII, with its far more successful gambit.

    • I'm beginning to suspect the first edition (which is the one I'm reading from) is measurably different than the Third, as my first chapter is actually 36 pages long...

      I just picked up my copy from the library, but on page viii of the Third Edition he talks about some of the differences:

      I spent 1973 expanding the original first chapter into what are now four chapters in order to better explain the ascendancy of U.S. inter-governmental capital.

      . . .

      In 2002, as the aggressive character of America's drive to control the world economy along self-serving lines was becoming especially blatant, Pluto Press published a revised and augmented edition of the book. That edition unfortunately was riddled with typographical errors and misspellings. I sent a long list of corrections, but nothing was fixed, so I bought back the rights in 2019 and prepared for the book to be reset, taking the opportunity to edit the manuscript for greater clarity.

    • Oscardejarjayes linked the third edition here if you don't mind reading a pdf

  • Overall I found this chapter a lot easier to follow and a lot more interesting than the introduction. Hopefully that bodes well for the rest of the book, since usually my eyes glaze over as soon as I start reading about finance.

    A few choice quotes I highlighted while reading:

    One of the first acts of Congress following declaration of war by the United States therefore was to vote government funds to finance arms loans to the US

    This kind of implies that the reason we joined the war at all was to prevent our debtors from defaulting, rather than any kind of altruistic motive. The duplicitous yankee will literally join a war three years late for the sole purpose of impoverishing his allies and then refer to himself as "back to back world war champ"

    US Government represntatives likewise had originally told their allies not to worry about conditions of repayment, which were to be settled after victory had been won, implicitly on nominal terms (emphasis mine)

    Already in 1918 the duplicitous yankee was pioneering the use of strategic ambiguity!

    The foundation of Europe's offical indebtedness was nothing more than the narrow, legalistic and ultimately bureaucratic assumption that debt, because it was debt, was somehow sacrosanct

    "... There is abundant use in France, in Belgium, and in Russia for men and materials, and a large part of the industrial equipment to be used there might well be manufactured in [the US]." Some of these reconstruction resources were transferred to Germany and Austria, with official US sanciont, in order to help stave off revolution there (emphasis mine)

    The duplicitous yankee was running an open beta of Operation Gladio even in nominally enemy countries. The more I learn about history the more clearly the inherent evil of this country comes into focus

    Germany was burdened with a sum calculated to reimburse the Allies for most of the damage wrought during the war, a sum that exceeded the total value of Germany's corporate assets. It simply lacked the resources to provide the Allies with the funds necessary to amortize their debts to the United States

    As someone else mentioned in this thread, Kissinger was really cooking when he said "it may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal"

    In these respects intervention by the US Government limited the potential spheres of expansion of private US finance capital in both Europe and its colonial areas

    I found this very surprising because the idea of the US government working against the interests of capital is simply unthinkable today. This type of short-term pain for long-term gain thinking is totally alien to today's bourgeoisie, and therefore to their puppets in Washington.

    [Quoting Schulze-Gaevernitz] "I understand by Super Imperialism that stage of the capitalist epoch in which finance capital mediates political power internationally, to acquire monopolistic control - and monopoly profits - from natural resources, raw materials and the power of labor, with the tendency towards autarky by controlling all regions, the entire world's raw materials"

    Its been a couple years since I read Lenin's Imperialism (I didn't participate in the previous reading group), so I might be talking out my ass here, but this definition of imperialism doesn't feel that different from what I recall from Lenin. Can somebody explain to me what the difference is?

    • I think Hudson would actually disagree with that Schulze-Gaevernitz quote. For Hudson (as far as I understand him thus far), finance capital is distinctly not mediating political power internally to do something. In fact the opposite is happening; the state is disciplining finance capital and using financial tools as a method to securing global hegemony. It's not Wall Street that's securing the USD as the global reserve currency and forcing countries to buy US Treasuries, it's the United States government and its vast military apparatus (as the stick). The US has subordinated private finance capital to public finance capital. Super imperialism doesn't need to acquire monopolistic control of any resources, raw materials, or labour; its control comes from being in charge of the financial system which facilitates these things. The US does not control anything about China's factory system. However, because it can print USD, and maintains a system where USD is recycled back to itself at no "cost," it can purchase all of those goods created by China's factories for "free." The imperialism Schulze-Gaevernitz is describing is almost exactly like the imperialism of Lenin and Hobson, yes. But it is meaningfully different from Hudson's super imperialism, where the method of control is not over resources or labour, it's over the monetary system itself which can be used to purchase those things.

    • My question to the book, was that policy against private capital interests something which was seen as above private capital, or something which was ultimately, in the final analysis, in its interests? What kind of push back was received? And is this subsumption of interests how he would define the monetary policy of fascism? Those parts of the chapter kinda flowed as one and I didn't follow the logic entirely.

20 comments