SUPER IMPERIALISM: THE ORIGINS AND FUNDAMENTALS OF U.S. WORLD DOMINATION - MICHAEL HUDSON

Very interesting stuff. I’ve had this one on the docket for a minute, it’s a book I’ve heard a lot about on a subject, American fiscal policy, that I care about and would like to know more about so I finally dove in. Hudson is someone who I like to hear speak on podcasts and Youtube and whatnot, he always seems adroit and insightful, plus I know that Graeber cites him frequently in DEBT so I figured it was time to read his rather dense 400 page signature work. I will say that it is frequently very dry and hard to parse. It gets pretty stuck in the weeds and focuses a lot on older history, especially pre WWII stuff that is important but I feel could have been summed up more succinctly and that space given more over to what is happening now. That being said, this book is a masterpiece and when you really understand what he’s saying, it’s amazing. Basically (please keep in mind that I am stupid and probably misunderstood some/all of this, read it yourself), the United States managed to create the first empire in human history that is not a creditor, but a debtor nation. Starting after WWI the US made moves to put itself in the position to be the most powerful and important nation in the world. Nothing new here, lots of nations have imperial ambitions. After WWII, the new status quo in the West, economically, was ironed out at the Bretton Wood conference, which, among other things, created the World Bank and IMF. These institutions greatly favored the US and American ambitions, Hudson really goes in on the ways the US out negotiated everyone else to set up these conditions, but it’s what came next that was truly novel. While Bretton Woods set the dollar as the prime currency in the world, the dollar itself was tied to gold and the US had about 75% of the world’s gold at this point. But, empires are expensive and the Korean and S.E. Asian wars of the 50’s/60’s/70’s weren’t cheap and gold-convertibility became a burden. So the US did something incredible and delinked the dollar from gold while managing to keep it as the most important currency in the world. This allowed them to make a truly remarkable move where the debts of the US, which are largely to finance wars, are held by foreign nations. Dollars flood into foreign nations, those nations spend that money on Treasury department bonds and securities, which is a way to externalize the debt accrued from maintaining the empire that assures dollar superiority. Pretty amazing trick, right? At least as I understand it. This edition was the 2002 edition so I’d love for Hudson to really go in on what is happening now. We can see nations like China, Russia and others seeking to de-dollarize their economies and find another way. When the world relies on dollars things like sanctions and embargoes can be devastating and a powerful tool that only the US wields. I don't think this status quo will survive the next decade. I think we’re seeing the end of the world that Hudson is describing (Inshallah) but I’ve never seen it so well described.