Customer Reviews

Dilemmas of Domination: The Unmaking of the American Empire (American Empire Project)

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The problems of the US mount daily from a ballooning deficit to heightened opposition from multiplying points on the globe. Walden Bello's Dilemmas of Domination is a tour de force dissection of the causes of these mounting problems. He argues from an objective and non-partisan position in the global South. Because he primarily works outside of the US and because his method relies heavily on history, his account is compelling. Dilemmas of Domination contends that the US has entered into a period of decline as the world's hegemon. Three crises characterize the loss of power and prestige. The first crisis is the problem of manufacturing and raw materials overproduction that leads to a decline in profits, and as wages are squeezed to stabilize profits demand falls further. Added to these problems is the fact that the US, the consumer of last resort, cannot continue to borrow and buy forever. The IOUs to the rest of the world will eventually have to be repaid. A second critical problem is military overextension. According to Bello, the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate the US is not invincible. If it were, how could guerillas continue to move about these occupied nations so freely and make nation-building into such a farce? The US military is so strained that it has to hire mercenaries from companies like Blackwater to protect its corporate interests abroad because a draft would undermine all of its imperial adventures. The third crisis, perhaps the most enduring, is legitimacy. Ideologically, the US has lost its currency to lead the world. Because the US dominates international financial institutions like the IMF, World Bank and most of the regional development banks, their imposition of neo-liberal structural adjustments programs has led to a revolt against their destructive policies as witnessed by the left ferment especially in Latin America but also in the rest of the global South. Furthermore, the US bullying and sometimes insulting treatment of the UN has further sullied the US's reputation. Added to this international delegitimation is the quagmire of domestic politics from the surrender of civil liberties to the patently obvious corporate control of both major parties. For readers looking for a rich and clear formulation of why the US government is detested and feared by much of the earth's population this is the best primer.

In this stringent view from the South, Walden Bello discerns three different crisis levels beleaguering the US world domination: a military, a judicial and an economical level.

On the military front, the Iraq war shows clearly the limits of interventon: 'today the entire US military is either in Iraq, returning from Iraq or getting ready to go.'
The lesson for the South is that the US military supremacy can be brought to a halt with guerrilla warfare. A sledgehammer is useless in swatting flies.

On the judicial front, the US is loosing its legitimacy.
In Western societies, enhancement of individual freedom and democratic representation are the ideological cornerstones of the regime.
Nationally, recognized human rights (no access to personal information, privacy) are jeopardized in the US by the Patriot Act in the name of the war against terrorism.
For Walden Bello, the US government is becoming authoritarian, because it is in the hands of the military-industrial complex, which functions on a risk-free, cost-plus basis and grabs one half of the US budget. He quotes judiciously William Pfaff: 'The military is already the most powerful institution in the US government, largely unaccountable to the executive branch.'

Internationally, consensus and multilateralism are needed through international institutions.
However, the US behaves unilaterally. Dealings with the South are subordinated to strategic considerations (R. Zoellick: 'countries that seek free trade agreements with the US must cooperate on its foreign policy goals.')
Walden Bello's analysis of the WTO agreements is devastating. He calls them a free trade monopoly in the hands of corporate interests. WTO's agreement on Agriculture is not less than 'Socialism for the Rich'.

The result is that the US democratic messianism is seen as sheer hypocrisy by the rest of the world.

Economically, some of Walden Bello's arguments are a little of the mark.
Finite natural resources and ecological space are demographic problems. The conflict between a minority in command of assets and the majority of the population is a trade union and an election problem.
But some of his arguments are to the point. There is a widening inequality gap in the US: the richest 1% of the population pocketed more than half the benefit of the latest tax reduction. The actual US budget and trade deficits are unsustainable in the long run and certainly if the inflow of foreign capital comes to a halt.

Finally, there is a new hegemon at the horizon: China with its state-assisted capitalism. The author summarizes brilliantly China's behavior: 'nations have no permanent friends, only permanent interests.'

But what should the South do in the meantime: regional economic blocks, G-20, South-South cooperation, because 'the weak must hang together, otherwise they will hang separately'.

Walden Bello's hard hitting analysis of current events should be a vademecum for all politiciams and laymen.
A must read.

In this context, I also recommend the works of Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed and Noreena Hertz.

I've read lots of books about globalization and free trade but none exposes the uneven playing field of free trade as good as Walden Bello. He shows that not only the evenness of playing field but also how the way U.S. is imprudently trying to dominate the world by adapting short sighted policies. These kind of policies have become the distinctive mark of recent American ideology domestically and foreign.

Bello provides a combination of economic, political, and military assessments of US behavior from the "Southern" perspective. The author is a professor at the University of the Philippines, and though he never describes or lists who represents the "Southern" constituent view, by context he must mean the 2nd and 3rd world countries, including Malaysia, South America, Africa, Mexico, etc. He never defines the term "Southern", though.

Bello's writing is somewhat dense - like Kissinger's, for example, and I definitely got the impression he is an academic. After an intriguing introduction, he does not achieve synergy with his topics and my overall sense is the book is disconnected. The final chapter (preceding the Conclusion) does not help elucidate his points, as he ranges into new areas not supported in the earlier chapters, and his Conclusion is too short and feels rushed. He does attempt to tie his concepts together, but the subtitle of the Conclusion "The Way Forward" is a misnomer as he has very little discussion of recommendations. He is not short on criticism of US led imperialism, however. He welcomes the prospect of US economic and political breakdown, and hopes Americans become isolationists again. He also believes Americans need to be brought down so they can relate to other nations as equals. These views are not surprising and I think his other points would be better served without this moralizing.

Bello deserves credit in his explanations and case studies of how globalization mainly serves corporations and their interests in profitability. He is quite critical of all recent US administrations. He uses terms such as "rollback" the "Bretton Woods System" without adequately explaining what they mean. I think he relies upon his versions of the history of the World Trade Organization meetings and the World Bank to infer, rather than explain, his conclusions. Much of his historical description is quite detailed and lacks focus.

It's interesting to read of Bello's assessments of pending US turmoil in light of more recent history. I think Bello's book is valuable because his "southern" perspective is not often heard from, but none of his points are unique to that perspective.