IMPERIALISM TODAY- The nonsense that is the “two Imperialist Blocs” Russia and China are not imperialist in Marxist terms like the US-dominate Western Imperialism. Socialist Fight 13-3-14 1. The US Dollar is the trading currency for oil and almost every other commodity in the world. It gives the US an enormous economic and political advantage over its rivals. Wars against Iraq, Libya, and Ukraine today are at least partially launched to protect the position that the US can thus rob every other nation by this mechanism. 2. Today London continues to top the list of the worlds leading financial centres, with New York close behind in second-place, according the latest edition of The Global Financial Centres Index. Sometimes referred to as Ny-Lon, these two cities have dominated global finance for the past couple of centuries. MOSCOW IS 69 (YES, THAT’S RIGHT SIXTY NINTH). 3. Top 2,000 multi-nationals We have abstracted these details from Forbes 2,000 top companies which gives a good indication of the balance of global economic forces: Of the top 2,000 firms in the world on 17 April 2013 the USA has 543, Japan 251, China 136, UK 95, France 64, South Korea 64, Canada 64, India 56, Germany 50, Switzerland 48, Hong Kong-China 46, Australia 42, Taiwan 41, Brazil 31, Italy 30, RUSSIA 30. Note here that in 2004 when the list first appeared the US had almost 1,000 in the top 2000. The decline since then is largely due to US transnationals locating their HQs abroad for tax avoidance purposes. Ireland’s 17 companies apparently place it in the same league as South Africa, Mexico and Saudi Arabia, a ridiculous comparison. In reality up to half of those ‘Irish’ companies are not really Irish at all except in name. Take its top company, Accenture plc, which is “engaged in providing management consulting, technology and outsourcing services”. It is 318th on the list with a market capitalisation of $53.34 Billion. It has 257,000 employees across 120 countries and only 1,300 in Ireland. It is a US transnational, of course. And not only does the US have all these companies located abroad but the US dominated many others by virtue of its stock holdings. Some statistics on this would reveal the true nature of US imperialism’s domination of almost every aspect of the trade, commerce and lives of the majority of population the planet. And where it does not fully dominate it demonise and makes plans to bomb and invade. Finance capital is interlinked in a global web of dominance spreading out from Wall Street and the City of London. If we take, for example, the role of Swiss banking is not a secret of the strong links it has with the City of London. Equally important are the so-called ‘tax havens’ such as Luxembourg in Europe for example. Also finance capital plays a major role in the Spanish banking sector – there is the curious phenomenon of its relations to the Basque and Catalan banks, which are not really Spanish and behind much of the separatist agitation. Financial capital of British origin plays a big role in maintaining playing Gibraltar as a ‘tax haven’. 5. Top Stock Exchanges Here are the statistic for the top ten stock exchanges ($US billions) 1. NYSE Euronext, United States/Europe, $14,085. 2. NASDAQ OMX Group, United States/Europe, $4,582. 3. Tokyo Stock Exchange, Japan $3,478. 4. London Stock Exchange, $3,396. 5. Hong Kong Sock Exchange, $2,831. 6. Shanghai Stock Exchange, $2,547. 7. TMX Group, Canada, $2,058. 8. Deutsche Börse, Germany, $1,486. 9. Australian Securities Exchange, $1,386. 10. Bombay Stock Exchange, $1,263. Note the two US stock exchanges are as big as the next eight combined (MOSCOW NOT THERE AT ALL!). 6. Ranking by Gross Domestic Product The ranking of countries by Gross Domestic Product, this time the top 20: (Millions of $US), World $70,201,920. 1. United States $14,991,300, 2. China $7,203,784, 3. Japan $5,870,357. 4. Germany $3,604,061. 5. France $2,775,518. 6. Brazil $2,476,651. 7. United Kingdom, 2,429,184. 8. Italy $2,195,937. 9. India $1,897,608. 10 Russia $1,857,770. (RUSSIA 10th ) 7. Biggest military Expenditure: The top 15 for military expenditure. ($US billions): 1. United States $682.0. 2. China $166.0. 3. RUSSIA $90.7. 4. United Kingdom $60.8. 5. Japan $59.3. 6. France $58.9. 7. Saudi Arabia $56.7. 8. India $46.1. 9. Germany $45.8. 10. Italy $34.0. 11. Brazil $33.1. 12. South Korea $31.7. 13. Australia $26.2. 14. Canada $22.5. 15. Turkey $18.2. NOTE THE US EXPENDITURE IS EQUAL TO THE COMBINED TOTAL OF ALL THE OTHER 14 ON THE LIST. 8. Fleets and aircraft carriers The US has five battleship fleets, the Second Fleet in the Atlantic, the Third Fleet in the Eastern Pacific, the Fifth Fleet in the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean, the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and the Seventh Fleet in the Western Pacific. No other nation gets a look in here. This is a list of the aircraft carriers in service in 2013: United States 10, Italy 2, United Kingdom, 1, France 1, RUSSIA 1, Spain 1, India 1, Brazil 1, China 1 and Thailand 1. 9. The US currently maintains a world-wide network of some 1000 military bases and installations (outside the US, 2,639 including US home bases in 1993). In addition, other NATO countries, such as France and the UK have a further 200 such military locations within the network of global military control. The biggest “host” countries are those that once lost a major war in which the US was involved. Germany, Italy, Japan and Korea are the four biggest ‘hosts’. France and the UK mainly have bases in the remains of their colonial empires. The UK is strong in the South Atlantic and around the Mediterranean; France is strong in the South Pacific and in Africa. RUSSIA CURRENTLY HAS SIX MILITARY FACILITIES IN FORMER SOVIET REPUBLICS AND INDIA HAS ONE IN TAJIKISTAN. CHINA CURRENTLY HAS NO US-STYLE OVERSEAS BASES. IT IS NOT SUFFICIENT TO TAKE JUST ONE INDEX TO DETERMINE WHETHER A COUNTRY IS IMPERIALIST. It is the relationship between the nations that is the crucial question; is that nation oppressed by the big Imperialist powers or is its economy integrated into the world Imperialist structures to exploit other nations for the mutual benefit of both? On all those indices Brazil, South Africa, and India are not Imperialist powers. Neither are Russia and China on the majority of them. Bur “how different is the relationship today between Russia and China to the world market and that of Russia in 1917, which Lenin was very sure was an imperialist power on the basis of economic statistics?” our critics ask. In his Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism, the section on finance capital Lenin makes this differentiation which has enormously advanced since 1945. He points out that in 1910: “Together, these four countries (Britain, France, the USA and Germany) own 479,000 million francs, that is, nearly 80 per cent of the world’s finance capital. In one way or another, nearly the whole of the rest of the world is more or less the debtor to and tributary of these international banker countries, these four “pillars” of world finance capital.” Thanks to Gerald Joseph Downing
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 18:14:22 +0000
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