Archive for the ‘Globalization’ Category
Causes of the Ukraine War & the case for Georgian non-alignment — An interview I gave in Tbilisi, Georgia
Thursday, October 31st, 2024The corruption of US foreign policy & weaponization of antisemitism
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2024Below are three brilliant articles and one interview that help understand geopolitics at the beginning of 2024. In my view, they should be read by anyone interested in the geopolitical situation & should be required reading for students of international relations and international political economy:
US Foreign Policy is a Scam Built on Corruption, Jeffrey Sachs, Common Dreams, December 26, 2023.
Two Cheers for Isolationism, Jeff Faux, The Nation, November 17, 2023.
Please share (or even tweet) these items.
The menace of the myth of General Pinochet’s Chilean economic miracle
Saturday, September 9th, 2023September 11, 2023, marks the fiftieth anniversary of General Pinochet’s military coup against Chilean President Salvador Allende. While it is now widely recognized that Pinochet authorized large-scale human rights abuses, there is an accompanying narrative that he also unleashed an economic miracle via embrace of Milton Friedman’s “Chicago Boys” vision of a market economy.
The “Pinochet economic miracle” narrative is profoundly misleading. Worse yet, it is a political menace for two reasons. First, it risks tacitly promoting the notion that dictatorship may be legitimate to the extent it offers a road to prosperity. Second, the Pinochet regime embraced Neoliberalism which promotes anti-democratic tendencies by fracturing society. The claim of a Pinochet economic miracle lends support to Neoliberalism, thereby encouraging acceptance of Neoliberalism despite its anti-democratic proclivities.
For those reasons, debate over Pinochet’s economic policy remains of vital importance. The fiftieth anniversary of Pinochet’s coup is an opportunity to challenge the pernicious miracle myth which is increasingly part of the conventional wisdom.
(more…)World Cup, RT CrossTalk, and US domestic censorship
Saturday, December 17th, 2022Most of the time I write dense blogs & research papers. I sent the e-mail below to someone close to me. Afterward, I realized it tacitly says a lot about the state of our society (liberals included). Sometimes, mixing things and writing about them in a different way can be revealing.
(more…)Deglobalization, conflict, & the self-inflicted threat to democracy: consequences of US imperial over-reach
Wednesday, December 14th, 2022Because of the seriousness of the world situation, I have decided to get back in the business of doing interviews (which I do not enjoy doing). Here is a link to my interview (13/12/2022) on RT CrossTalk discussing “New Globalization?”
In that connection, here is a link to a paper (written in 2018) titled “The Fracturing of Globalization: Implications of Economic Resentments and Geopolitical Contradictions”. It significantly anticipated and predicted recent global political economic developments.
Theorizing dollar hegemony, Part 1: the political economic foundations of exorbitant privilege
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2022This paper explores dollar hegemony, emphasizing it is a fundamentally political economic phenomenon. Dollar hegemony rests on the economic, military, and international political power of the US and is manifested through market forces. The paper argues there have been two eras of dollar hegemony which were marked by different models. Dollar hegemony 1.0 corresponded to the Bretton Woods era (1946-1971). Dollar hegemony 2.0 corresponds to the Neoliberal era (1980-Today). The 1970s were an in-between decade of dollar distress during which dollar hegemony was reseeded. The deep foundation of both models is US power, but the two models have completely different economic operating systems. Dollar hegemony 1.0 rested on the trade and manufacturing dominance of the US after World War II. Dollar hegemony 2.0 rests on the Neoliberal reconstruction of the US and global economies which have made the US the center of global capitalism and the most attractive place to hold capital. It is a financial model and intrinsically connected to Neoliberalism. Consideration of dollar hegemony leads to two further questions. One is whether there is a better way of organizing the world monetary order, which is associated with debate about the possibility of a new Bretton Woods. The other is what is the future of dollar hegemony?
Neoliberalism and the Road to Inequality and Stagnation: A Chronicle Foretold
Friday, April 29th, 2022My latest book has recently been published by Edward Elgar.
The book explores the impact of neoliberal policies on the US, Europe, and the global economy. It shows how the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession were predictable outcomes of the neoliberal policy experiment, as is the emergence of global “race to the bottom” competition. It also explains how Europe’s economic fragility is connected to the neoliberal design of the euro. Neoliberalism creates a particular variety of capitalism and is a political choice. That means society is tacitly engaged in a “war of ideas”, the outcome of which will influence our future political economic trajectory.
The book is available HERE. The cheapest option is the e-book purchased via Googleplay (price = $13.11).
Theorizing varieties of capitalism: economics and the fallacy that “There is no alternative (TINA)”
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2022The VoCs approach to capitalism has the potential to transform economics. It tacitly emphasizes the plasticity of economies, whereby their character and outcomes are significantly a matter of choice. This paper augments VoCs theory to include a distinction between varieties and varietals of capitalism. Drawing on biology, varieties correspond to species and varietals correspond to sub-species. The paper proposes an analytical framework that unifies VoCs theory. It adds a mesoeconomics that links macroeconomics and microeconomics. That mesoeconomics concerns the institutions, behavioral norms, rules and regulations, and policies that characterize the economy and influence its performance. The mesoeconomic structure is described using the metaphor of a box, the six sides of which correspond to the major dimensions of capitalist economies. The design of the box is the product of societal and political choices, which places politics at the center of VoCs analysis. Policy space and policy lock-in are important concerns as they impact the choice set. The fact that economies inevitably involve choice means there is an inescapable normative question regarding what type of capitalism society will have.
National Policy Space: Reframing the Political Economy of Globalization and its Implications for National Sovereignty and Democracy
Friday, January 8th, 2021This paper critiques the trilemma framing of the political economy of globalization, and offers a new framing based on the construct of national policy space. The paper makes three main contributions. First, building on Stein (2016), it deconstructs the categories used by Rodrik (2011) and introduces distinctions between the “degree”, “type”, and “dimensions” of globalization; “effective” versus “formal” national sovereignty; “content” versus “process” of democracy; and “national” versus “global” democracy. The deconstruction shows countries face choices involving a series of margins, not a trilemma. Second, that suggests reframing the problematic in terms of national policy space, which is the “funnel” through which globalization impacts democracy and national sovereignty. Third, the paper shows a country can be impacted by globalization even if it does nothing because other countries’ actions change its possibility set. The reframing shows globalization is an intrinsically political project. To the extent it is now driving a nationalistic anti-democratic turn in politics, responsibility lies with political elites.
READ MORE: Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, July 2021.
The Fracturing of Globalization: Implications of Economic Resentments and Geopolitical Contradictions
Tuesday, January 15th, 2019The last forty years have witnessed a third wave of globalization which can be termed “neoliberal globalization”. Now, there are indications that the era of neoliberal globalization might be drawing to a close, as evidenced by the trade war between the US and China. This paper argues the fracturing of neoliberal globalization reflects the growing impact of economic resentments and geopolitical contradictions. The paper presents a simple analytical framework that constructs the global economy in terms of a core consisting of the US, China, and the EU. It then examines how globalization creates economic resentments and geopolitical tensions within and between members of the core, thereby fracturing globalization. The rise of US – China geopolitical competition promises to twist the character of the global economic order, which stands to be shaped by strategically motivated economic integrations and recalibrations rather than generalized global economic integration. The paper then extends the analysis to non-core country blocs and examines how they are impacted by globalization and the rise of US – China geopolitical competition. READ MORE