Michael Hudson: Changes in Superimperialism: The Position of the USA and China in our Global Economic System

Image by AK Rockefeller via Flickr

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
February 10, 2021

Oxford Economics Society on Jan 23, 2021

Nearly 50 years after the original publication of “Superimperialism”, Michael Hudson revisits how the lucrative dollar-based economic system that the US set up after WWII has evolved with the rise of China and the Covid-19 pandemic. What financial weapons is the US likely to use, and does China’s de-dollarisation protect it from such attacks?

The book provides a detailed analysis of how the US has used its economic might to control international relations. The book is complicated, but essentially documents how after WWII the US held an unprecedented amount of the world’s gold reserves (50%). These reserves were depleted with the incursion into Korea, and subsequent involvement in Viet Nam, requiring the US to abandon the “gold standard” for valuing world currencies. A failure that proved itself valuable, pushing the US to develop multiple strategies that today allow it to make other countries pay for its military dominance.

Transcript

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Michael Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and author of …and forgive them their debts (2018), J is for Junk Economics (2017), Killing the Host (2015), The Bubble and Beyond (2012), Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (1968 & 2003), Trade, Development and Foreign Debt: A History of Theories of Polarization v. Convergence in the World Economy (1992 & 2009) and of The Myth of Aid (1971), amongst many others. He can be reached via his website Michael Hudson, mh@michael-hudson.com.

See also:

Super Imperialism by Michael Hudson (pdf)

From the archives:

Compensating For Capitalism’s Crises By Leaning Onto Big Tech, by Rainer Shea

Michael Hudson: Polarization, Then a Crash

Chris Hedges: The Global Economic Machine

Michael Hudson: Financialization and Deindustrialization

Michael Hudson and Steve Keen: Permanent Inequality?

Chris Hedges: American Empire Collapse: It’s About To Get Much Worse

How a Pandemic is Destroying the West, by Michael Hudson

Michael Hudson: The Beginning of the End of Super Imperialism in 2020?