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Who
Owns the World?
The United
States acts as if it owns the world. This might seem counter-intuitive.
After all, more and more foreign entities are lapping up bargain
properties in our "homeland." And aside from U.S. military
bases -- a not inconsiderable amount of territory --- the United
States is not land-grabbing the way imperial Rome or London did.
But since when was ownership all about possessing the deed to the
property? Bullies can own the neighborhood, even if they're only
renting a room in one of the houses. It has a lot to do with attitude.
And the Bush administration has attitude up the wazoo.
Both sides
of the political spectrum agree about world ownership. The left
despairs of the U.S. government's attitude. The radical right believes
that the United States should own the world and snarls with perfect
DeNiro intonation: "what are you going to do about it, huh?"
The "moderate middle" pretends that the United States
abides by international law, indeed that we are largely responsible
for the dispersion of wealth, political power, and transparency
throughout the world. There might have been some excesses during
the Bush years, the moderates caution, but the Dems will put everything
back to rights, a notoriously dubious proposition.
So, do we or
don't we own the world? Let's go through these four key elements
of ownership and see if they apply to Uncle Sam.
You Break
It, You Own It: If a retail outlet filled in for a turn as president
of the UN Security Council, imagine the bill that would be sent
to the U.S. Treasury: There would the full costs of Iraq. There
would be Afghanistan. There would be the economies we broke through
odious debt. There would a large chunk of the ice cap. Ah, it's
a long list. But, as always happens, when the bill eventually does
come due, those responsible will be beyond the reach of the repo
men. And America will rely on the same argument that it now dismisses
from the poorest countries in the world: "hey, but we didn't
run up the tab!"
You Have
Exclusive Access: Russia occupies Afghanistan and the United
States goes ballistic. The same with Vietnam invading Cambodia.
And now the Bush administration accuses Iran of sending its troops
to Iraq. "I saw recently in the Christian Science Monitor,
something like 'New Study of Foreign Fighters in Iraq,'" Noam
Chomsky says in an FPIF
interview with Michael Shank. "Who are the foreign fighters
in Iraq? Some guy who came in from Saudi Arabia. How about the 160,000
American troops? Well, they're not foreign fighters in Iraq because
we own the world; therefore we can't be foreign fighters anywhere.
Like, if the United States invades Canada, we won't be foreign.
And if anybody resists it, they're enemy combatants, we send them
to Guantanamo."
You Extract
Rent: How is it exactly that the United States, the world's
largest debtor nation, doesn't have to submit to an IMF stabilization
program or answer to the requirements of its mainly Asian creditors?
Because the U.S. dollar is used for most of the world's financial
transactions and remains the reserve currency of choice. Wikipedia,
however, tells me that there are now more euros in circulation in
the world than dollars. That's perhaps one reason why Brazilian
supermodel Gisele Bündchen began to demand payment in euros
last year. But as long as the U.S. military throws its weight around
and adopts an imperial attitude, America thinks it can postpone
the inevitable knock on the door. And in the meantime, Americans
will continue to live on the "rental income" that the
rest of the world pays us.
You Call
the Shots: Let's see, who would be a good candidate to head
up the World Bank? What about Robert McNamara, who basically came
out and admitted to being a war criminal in The Fog of War? Or how
about Paul Wolfowitz, who we can only hope will one day have to
submit to the questions of filmmaker Errol Morris (or better yet,
the judges at the Hague)? After the Wolfowitz debacle, you'd think
that the world would rise up in revolt and say, "Let's put
the 'world' back into the World Bank." Instead, the United
States gets to choose again and selects former deputy U.S. secretary
of state Robert Zoellick. He's not the worst of the Bush team. But
if he has a choice between taking a call from Condi or Lula, which
do you think he'll take?
According to
these four criteria, the United States certainly acts like it owns
the place. We don't have to send out proconsuls or viceroys to administer
our properties around the world to qualify as owners (and sometimes
the heads of the various regional U.S. military commands act a lot
like proconsuls!). The Bush administration's attitude toward global
power is not all that different from how its operatives worked to
consolidate presidential power. As David Addington, Vice President
Cheney's counsel from 2001 to 2005 explains
the strategy: "We're going to push and push and push until
some larger force makes us stop."
We're seeing
signs of this larger force emerge here in the United States. When
will it emerge globally?
Emerging
Counterforce
Conn Hallinan
says now.
"Rather
than the 'American Century' the Bush administration neo-conservatives
predicted, it is increasingly a world where regional alliances and
trade associations in Europe and South America have risen to challenge
Washington's once undisputed domination," the FPIF columnist
writes in Challenging
a Unipolar World.
Hallinan finds
signs all over the world. "When Argentina thumbed its nose
at the U.S.-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund,
it had the powerful Mercosur trade association to back it up,"
he argues. "When the United States tried to muscle Europe into
ending agricultural subsidies (while keeping its own) the European
Union refused to back down. And now India, China, and Russia are
drifting toward a partnership - alliance is too strong a word -
that could transform global relations and shift the power axis from
Washington to New Delhi, Beijing, and Moscow."
In many ways,
democratic movements around the world also serve as a counterforce
to U.S. domination. The United States, despite its rhetoric of "democracy
promotion," maintains power and influence in key regions through
its alliances with autocratic states, particularly in the Middle
East. Pro-democracy movements in these countries challenge U.S.
power.
"The United
States has done for the cause of democracy what the Soviet Union
did for the cause of socialism," writes FPIF Middle East editor
Stephen Zunes in Nonviolent
Action and Pro-Democracy Struggles. "Not only has the Bush
administration given democracy a bad name in much of the world,
but its high-profile and highly suspect 'democracy promotion' agenda
has provided repressive regimes and their apologists an excuse to
label any popular pro-democracy movement that challenges them as
foreign agents, even when led by independent grassroots nonviolent
activists."
Zunes defends
the work of grassroots U.S. activists who have promoted genuine
democracy and nonviolent strategies overseas. FPIF contributor Yossef
Ben-Meir makes a similar case for economic development: it should
take place at a local level. But here's his twist. Supporting grassroots
economic development actually strengthens national sovereignty.
"Participatory
decentralized development helps build national sovereignty by empowering
local communities to manage their own development," Ben-Meir
writes in Sovereignty
through Decentralization. "The institutions and people
of a country identify more closely with the national level when
it functions as a contributor to local fulfillment. National sovereignty
is thereby reinforced by the integration (practically seen through
mutually beneficial partnerships) of institutions that function
within that country."
Of
Dams and Super Bowls
Mozambique
recently reclaimed a last bit of imperial property from the Portuguese:
the Cahora Bassa dam. FPIF contributor Alec Dubro thinks Mozambique
got a white elephant.
"The Cahora
Bassa does bring in money, but it's extremely costly environmentally,
and it's uncertain whether the country will actually make money
on the operation," he writes in Mozambique's
Soggy Inheritance. And the dam is proving ineffectual during
the recent flooding to hit the country. "As the United Nations
World Food Program begins airlifting emergency supplies to flood
victims, the Cahora Bassa is providing little in the way of flood
control."
Elsewhere in
Africa, Bridgestone Firestone is still running the world's largest
rubber plantation in Liberia with child labor. But the workers are
fighting back.
"Former
child laborers used on Firestone's rubber plantation in Liberia
have joined together in a 2005 class action lawsuit filed against
the company in the U.S. District Court in the Southern district
of Indiana, Indianapolis division," writes FPIF contributor
Jamie Menutis in Super
Bowl of Shame. "The lawsuit remains in discovery phase.
With virtually no coverage in the mainstream press, its progress
is being kept largely out of the public eye."
It's not like
the tire company doesn't have enough money to pay a living wage.
Bridgestone Firestone is paying an estimated $10 million to sponsor
the halftime show at this year's Super Bowl.
Which brings
us to one last indicator that the United States thinks it owns the
world: sports. In the World Cup, soccer teams from around the world
compete to take home the trophy. And in the World Series? Only teams
from North America. Enough said.
Links
Michael Shank,
"Chomsky on World Ownership," Foreign Policy In Focus
(http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4920);
The United States thinks it owns the world, says Noam Chomsky, and
that explains so much of its foreign policy.
David Cole,
"The Man Behind the Torture," The New York Review of Books,
December 6, 2007; http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20858
Conn Hallinan,
"Challenging a Unipolar World," Foreign Policy In Focus
(http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4904);
The United States is still the big dog on the block, but it can
no longer just bark to get its way.
Stephen Zunes,
"Nonviolent Action and Pro-Democracy Struggles," Foreign
Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4923);
The United States is not behind the democratic revolutions against
dictators. Popular movements are.
Yossef Ben-Meir,
"Sovereignty through Decentralization," Foreign Policy
In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4924);
To bring development, reconciliation, and stability to conflict
areas, it's better to think local.
Alec Dubro,
"Mozambique's Soggy Inheritance," Foreign Policy In Focus
(http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4922);
Mozambique once opposed the Cahora Bassa dam. It should have maintained
its opposition.
Jamie Menutis,
"Super Bowl of Shame," Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4925);
Instead of splurging on sponsoring the Super Bowl halftime show,
Bridgestone Firestone should start paying its Liberian rubber workers
a living wage.
.
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Published by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a project of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS)
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