Riley Knight
POLS 154
Stephen Walt book
SUMMARY:
As suggested in the book Taming American Power, the author Stephen Walt, claims that America can regain global respect through adherence to a more mature foreign policy. The United States is unique because historically it has been in a position to mold the world and their respective policy to be in-line with that of the United States. The past, present and future – in some cases – of U.S. policy must be thoroughly reviewed when trying to understand the relationships we hold with other nations around the world. Moreover, it is implicit that any involvement by way of U.S. foreign policy – be it direct or indirect – has the potential to backfire, because of how it might be interpreted differently in other nations. The author argues that long gone are the days of bandwagon policy practice and here to stay in its place are the practices of regional balancing and bonding policy. In short, it is advocated that the United States needs to grow up and act like a responsible superpower; thereby earning the respect that it otherwise feels is inherently due.
America stands alone as the only superpower in a post-cold war world, leading to a position of global primacy. This position however does not bestow the right on the U.S. to act as a dictatorial hegemon. On the contrary for the U.S. to retain its primacy it must act responsibly and diligently to ensure its approval is not sought through violence. American primacy acts as a deterrent towards states harboring ill intentions and it allows the U.S. to respond to such possible threats. As the remaining world superpower, America is also in a unique position to work for the greater good in a number of international issues ranging from human rights violations to the eradication of poverty and disease (Walt, 40). One unfortunate product of U.S. primacy is that other states will try to undercut American authority in their attempt to seek out more global influence for their given state. Ironically, states want power and influence equivalent to that of the United States; however, that would potentially lead to no single world superpower and thus negate all the beneficial work that the U.S. is capable of taking on in its unique position as sole superpower.
Although often overlooked, history will provide many of the answers we seek when trying to understand the complex dimensions of foreign relationships worldwide. It is only through the insight of the past that people can see how their current placement came to exist. Americans are typically very dismissive of their own history – unless they see it being able to serve their interests – and therefore rarely see the issues that others still cling to in their objection of the U.S. and U.S policy. America would be well advised to revisit their historical involvement throughout the world to better understand why other states feel and act as they do towards the United States. “The United States has used its power to harm other countries in the past – including states that were not especially evil or aggressive – and other states are well aware of this fact” (Walt, 73). This history represents much of our foreign relations, as it reflects what other nations fear most about the America; our immaturity as a nation to effectively use foreign policy in a way that doesn’t bring about negative outcomes. All things considered, if the actions of one state negatively impact another state, the later will likely refute the legitimacy of the former to enforce their policy.
When states choose not to align themselves with the United States it usually stems from one of three reasons. First, the non-aligned state might “regard the United States as fundamentally hostile” because the basic interests of this state are at odds with those of America, thereby increasing the likelihood that the non-aligned state will be defiant to U.S. policy (Walt, 110). Second, the state might choose to align on some issues but not on others as a way to save face at home and Washington alike – this is considered to be a normal part of the reciprocal relationships in the game of foreign policy. Lastly, some states do not align with the U.S. because they have considered the ramifications of their future actions in light of the potential harm that would accompany their actions. When looking for nations that defy U.S. policy, Iran quickly comes to mind. Iran adamantly rejects the limitations it is held to under U.S. policy, especially when in comes to their nuclear program. Iran feels that as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, that they have the right to peacefully provide nuclear energy to their nation without international scrutiny. In any case, states employ a variety of resistance mechanisms to oppose U.S. primacy and possibly gain more power for themselves.
While some states might choose to oppose the United States others attempt to be accommodating by siding with U.S. policy and encouraging stronger relations with Washington. States that decide to support U.S. policy typically do so because they feel threatened, are seeking American protection, or want to gain some sense of influence over U.S. policy either at home or abroad. Bandwagoning has become a dying practice in recent years because most states refuse to give up their interests simply so they can sign onto the American agenda. Conversely, the practice of regional balancing is used quiet frequently since the U.S. often serves as a protector to states from their respective regional threats. Another popular practice of states is the use of bonding policy as it can sometimes result in gained influence over U.S. policy regarding major international issues. Last of all, domestic political penetration is a practice used by states, whereby a state will align with Washington while expecting the U.S. to author policy that is favorable to that state. Pakistan serves as an example of a nation that has aligned itself somewhat cautiously with the U.S. policy to fight terrorism. By stating that they will flush out al-Qaeda and Taliban forces from within their borders, Pakistan in return will receive much needed U.S aid. In the end, whether states align with the U.S. or not, it can be said either way that they have their reasons.
American primacy has produced both positive and negative results; however, it is here to stay – at least for the foreseeable future. All around the world states have mixed emotions about how American primacy is put into practice. “The United States cannot expect to win over every heart and every mind, of course, because conflicts of interest will always arise, and sometimes the pursuit of the U.S. national interest will leave others angry and offended” (Walt, 229). When it comes down to it you can not make everyone happy and you would likely die trying. Nevertheless America – like any country – should get credit where credit is due, and likewise not be wrongly demonized for things that are not its fault.
CRITIQUE:
Stephen Walt has a very straight forward style that makes his book not only very readable but also easy to understand the main concepts he is trying to convey throughout the book. As previously mentioned in the summary portion, legitimate U.S. primacy is a critical component to the sharing of global power that currently exists. Absent another world war, the current power arrangement is likely to remain in place. The author laid out a very formulaic road map as to how the United States, as a nation, can keep American primacy alive and well.
Embedded with historical examples, this book went through the variety of ways states might interact with the United States with respect to foreign policy. This book really made me think about the reasons why states choose to align or not align with American policy. I realize now, more than I did before completing the reading that states – in many cases – have good cause to doubt the sometimes overbearing hand of the great superpower. “In a world of independent states, the strongest one is always a potential threat to the rest, if only because they cannot be entirely sure what it is going to do with the power at its command” (Walt, 61). Another way to look at it is to say where there is uncertainty, there will be hesitant actors.
Notwithstanding the ability of past events to mold the present attitudes and behaviors of communities, states and or their leadership still try to save face by denying involvement, or even the existence of the issue in question. Case in point, the creation of the Israeli state; it pissed off most of the Middle East for different reasons and as a result many of those same nations denounce Israel’s legitimacy as a sovereign. Clearly there were other issues that played into the antagonistic relations between Israel and the rest of the region but most of it revolves around the fact that Israel had asserted itself and its power in a way that seemed threatening to its neighbors.
I feel like if the American public along with government officials took more time to educate themselves about the past, we would have the needed insight to fare through the present and into the future. There is an old adage that states money can’t buy you love; I concur and would add that neither can power. Force might get the job done in the short term, but looking further down the line towards a sustainable practice, persuasion is a less in-your-face technique. “The United States can use its power and wealth to compel others to do what it wants, but this strategy will surely fail in the long run. In most circumstances, the key is not power but persuasion” (Walt, 247). Simply put, the throwing around of money and power only serves as a temporary victory in the fight to bring others on board with U.S. policy. Persuasion on the flip side is about bringing people on board with your policy in a way that usually is far more long-lasting.
It also struck me that the United States is hypocritical in some of its expectations when juxtaposing the applied practices of foreign and domestic policy. The U.S. advocates diversity abroad claiming that groups of people who never got along need to make an effort to do so, or they will be deemed as acting defiantly toward America, and punished accordingly. On the home front, this is not exactly the case, namely in the queer community where certain rights and freedoms are not equally awarded to individuals who identify as part of that group. It is really unfortunate the injustice that is going on even today, but the U.S. still has the opportunity to change and improve its global self-image. I am confident if America adhered to a more mature foreign policy as the author suggests, it would be seen in an entirely different light.
Sources:
Taming American Power Stephen Walt (2005)
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
I found an old essay that I thought I would entertain people with
Political Science 3
Essay No. 2
On Equality
GLOBAL FREE TRADE THREATENS EQUALITY IN THE UNITED STATES:
CAPITALISM LOOKS TO MARXISM TO CURE ITS WOES AND PREVENT SOCIAL MELTDOWN
a short essay by
Riley E. Knight
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
Carl Marx 4.14
In the United States, having a happy working class or middle class has proven essential to the country’s political and economic stability. Historically, when the working class of a country is oppressed, revolution usually is not to far away. Karl Marx, in his Communist Manifesto, details the rise and fall of the bourgeois class and the emergence of the controlling proletariat or working class who provides for stability and the well-being of itself, the working people of the country at the expense of the bourgeois wealth. According to Marx,
The United States, with its long history of capitalism, seeks to avoid the Manifesto’s prophecy by making sure its would-be ruling proletariat are happy, or more accurately, economically sedated. Therefore, the author theorizes that the United States strives to have its working class believe there is equality among its citizens to avoid the downfall that Russia faced that fateful Black October. It does so by creating the illusion that the proletariat controlling class is really in control while the bourgeois still own the means for production and materially all the wealth of the nation. In other words, it looks and feels like communism to appease the proletariat, but without all-that destroyed bourgeois wealth bitter aftertaste – call it – Communism Light.
Let us put this theory to the test. Recent worldwide political and economic events are threatening the equality of the working class in the United States. This threat, in turn, is causing the proletariat to face the potential of extreme poverty and change in class status while the rich end up only just a little less rich.
How did this happen you ask -- The unmitigated global expansion of free trade. Marx described in his Manifesto that “[t]he need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.” Marx – C.M. 739 (reader page 56) Moreover, “[t]he bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country.” Marx pp 739 (reader page 56). The bourgeois will tell you that globalization is good for all and that free trade is the final objective of globalization. Even Karl Marx himself agreed that capitalism, and its sister, global free trade, are a good thing for improving productivity:
The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.”
Marx 4.16
Of course this presumes that increased productivity is always a good thing. Recent passage of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), as well as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the floodgates of free trade have swung wide open. This has allowed capitalism to flow: like water from a dam around the word into recesses previously insulated by communist or socialist ideologies similar to that promulgated in the Manifesto.
Even China, the last major bastion of communism, now behaves and functions like a thriving capitalist’s dream. The consequence of free trade flooding upon a communist society like China serves to accelerate the oppression of the working or proletariat class as described in the Manifesto.
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers.
Marx – C.M. pp 744 (pp59 of the reader)
According to Marx, the aim of the bourgeois is to pit laborer against laborer. Free trade facilitates this intra-class strife by causing the wages of the working class in China to rise, as it has, while the effective wage of the average American laborer has dramatically fallen, especially when one considers the total net worth of the laborer with their plummeting real-estate value and retirement accounts. This shift in compensation is the direct result of the laborers of each country to compete on the global free trade labor market. Indeed, it is the goal of the capitalist to:
[Resolve] personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.
Marx – C.M. pp 738 (reader page 56). Trade deficits and the resulting devaluation of the U.S. dollar drives down U.S. labor costs and the standard of living of the average U.S. worker. To compete with China’s cheap labor force, the U.S. worker is being asked to lower his or her expectations for compensation and ultimately standard of living. In the end, every worker in the world will have the same standard of life. Meanwhile, the bourgeois will hide in the shadows enjoying their spoils. Some may even take to space flight as in Virgin Atlantic’s bold move to provide space tours for the wealthy so they may avoid the facing the average miserable earth bound worker.
In the case of the United States, recent events have caused the Federal government to take unprecedented actions. Massive capital infusions in the American banking system in exchange for equity have partially nationalized the countries banking system. Other western style capitalistic countries have outright privatized their banks to avoid financial meltdown.
Interestingly, this is what Marx suggested in the Manifesto when he details a plan for the proletariat to conduct certain transactions to take the wealth of the country back from the bourgeois.
[To] use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Marx – C.M. pp 748 (reader page 61)
In the case of the United States in recent times, the bourgeois on Wall Street act like Marx’s proletariat. Specifically, Marx provides the proletariat seeking to seize control of bourgeois wealth with a “To-Do” list of sorts for overthrowing the bourgeois. In the U.S. now, the government is using Marx’s approach not to protect the proletariat, rather, to protect the wealthy bourgeois. Let us now compare the list to current events:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
Ibid page 749 (reader page 61). The Toxic Assets Rescue Program of 2008 serves to nationalize the true ownership of residential real estate by purchasing and servicing mortgages. Now this may seem like the government is taking the land back from the proletariat “homeowner.” The “homeowner” subject to a mortgage never actually owned the home, the bank did. In the end it is the bourgeois investor in the mortgage who keeps his or her wealth.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
Id. Repeal or non-renewal of the Bush Tax Cuts favoring the wealthy places heavier tax burdens on the rich.
3. Centralisation of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
Id. See the TARP, above.
4. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
Id. At least for the transportation part, consider the Automaker Bailout that currently contemplated by Congress and the President.
5. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
Id. Here, it is President-Elect Barack Obama who wants to create millions of jobs rebuilding national infrastructure.
The above-mentioned steps the government is taking serve to further redistribute wealth not the working class, but to the wealthy by saddling every American with an inescapable debt obligation to pay back to society the trillion, and some say trillions, of dollars spent to buoy the U.S. economy. This redistribution amplifies the inequality already existent between the United States’ wealthy and to working classes. The engine of free trade remains wells oiled as much of the U.S. taxpayer funded TARP investment is being used to support foreign-owned U.S. mortgage-backed securities. This exported capital is used to spread capitalism around the globe as Marx predicted (see above.)
The future of free trade is now secured by the U.S. government with its recent and near future actions to provide continued worldwide access to the country’s means for production and labor market controlled by the wealthy elite around the globe. Faced with the threat of losing their homes and sources of income, the average American worker will accept even less in exchange for his or her efforts to keep an economy alive that strongly favors the bourgeois. What the American worker does not realize is that they have now before them the ability to engage in a financial revolution because of the institutionalized nature of capitalism and free trade in the U.S. democratic system. According to Marx, “[i]n stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class.” Marx C.M. pp 740 (reader pp 57.) The American worker can engage in revolution by refusing to accept less while working more and fighting a bloodless war by defaulting en mass on their financial obligations to the bourgeois and using their power of the vote to truly regain ownership of the country and the wealth it has the power to possess. Hitting the proverbial reset button on the U.S. economy may be best medicine to cure the inequities that necessarily arise from unbridled capitalism in a global free trade market destined to maximize inequality between the wealthy bourgeois and the working proletariat classes.
Essay No. 2
On Equality
GLOBAL FREE TRADE THREATENS EQUALITY IN THE UNITED STATES:
CAPITALISM LOOKS TO MARXISM TO CURE ITS WOES AND PREVENT SOCIAL MELTDOWN
a short essay by
Riley E. Knight
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
Carl Marx 4.14
In the United States, having a happy working class or middle class has proven essential to the country’s political and economic stability. Historically, when the working class of a country is oppressed, revolution usually is not to far away. Karl Marx, in his Communist Manifesto, details the rise and fall of the bourgeois class and the emergence of the controlling proletariat or working class who provides for stability and the well-being of itself, the working people of the country at the expense of the bourgeois wealth. According to Marx,
The United States, with its long history of capitalism, seeks to avoid the Manifesto’s prophecy by making sure its would-be ruling proletariat are happy, or more accurately, economically sedated. Therefore, the author theorizes that the United States strives to have its working class believe there is equality among its citizens to avoid the downfall that Russia faced that fateful Black October. It does so by creating the illusion that the proletariat controlling class is really in control while the bourgeois still own the means for production and materially all the wealth of the nation. In other words, it looks and feels like communism to appease the proletariat, but without all-that destroyed bourgeois wealth bitter aftertaste – call it – Communism Light.
Let us put this theory to the test. Recent worldwide political and economic events are threatening the equality of the working class in the United States. This threat, in turn, is causing the proletariat to face the potential of extreme poverty and change in class status while the rich end up only just a little less rich.
How did this happen you ask -- The unmitigated global expansion of free trade. Marx described in his Manifesto that “[t]he need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.” Marx – C.M. 739 (reader page 56) Moreover, “[t]he bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country.” Marx pp 739 (reader page 56). The bourgeois will tell you that globalization is good for all and that free trade is the final objective of globalization. Even Karl Marx himself agreed that capitalism, and its sister, global free trade, are a good thing for improving productivity:
The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.”
Marx 4.16
Of course this presumes that increased productivity is always a good thing. Recent passage of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), as well as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the floodgates of free trade have swung wide open. This has allowed capitalism to flow: like water from a dam around the word into recesses previously insulated by communist or socialist ideologies similar to that promulgated in the Manifesto.
Even China, the last major bastion of communism, now behaves and functions like a thriving capitalist’s dream. The consequence of free trade flooding upon a communist society like China serves to accelerate the oppression of the working or proletariat class as described in the Manifesto.
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers.
Marx – C.M. pp 744 (pp59 of the reader)
According to Marx, the aim of the bourgeois is to pit laborer against laborer. Free trade facilitates this intra-class strife by causing the wages of the working class in China to rise, as it has, while the effective wage of the average American laborer has dramatically fallen, especially when one considers the total net worth of the laborer with their plummeting real-estate value and retirement accounts. This shift in compensation is the direct result of the laborers of each country to compete on the global free trade labor market. Indeed, it is the goal of the capitalist to:
[Resolve] personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.
Marx – C.M. pp 738 (reader page 56). Trade deficits and the resulting devaluation of the U.S. dollar drives down U.S. labor costs and the standard of living of the average U.S. worker. To compete with China’s cheap labor force, the U.S. worker is being asked to lower his or her expectations for compensation and ultimately standard of living. In the end, every worker in the world will have the same standard of life. Meanwhile, the bourgeois will hide in the shadows enjoying their spoils. Some may even take to space flight as in Virgin Atlantic’s bold move to provide space tours for the wealthy so they may avoid the facing the average miserable earth bound worker.
In the case of the United States, recent events have caused the Federal government to take unprecedented actions. Massive capital infusions in the American banking system in exchange for equity have partially nationalized the countries banking system. Other western style capitalistic countries have outright privatized their banks to avoid financial meltdown.
Interestingly, this is what Marx suggested in the Manifesto when he details a plan for the proletariat to conduct certain transactions to take the wealth of the country back from the bourgeois.
[To] use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Marx – C.M. pp 748 (reader page 61)
In the case of the United States in recent times, the bourgeois on Wall Street act like Marx’s proletariat. Specifically, Marx provides the proletariat seeking to seize control of bourgeois wealth with a “To-Do” list of sorts for overthrowing the bourgeois. In the U.S. now, the government is using Marx’s approach not to protect the proletariat, rather, to protect the wealthy bourgeois. Let us now compare the list to current events:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
Ibid page 749 (reader page 61). The Toxic Assets Rescue Program of 2008 serves to nationalize the true ownership of residential real estate by purchasing and servicing mortgages. Now this may seem like the government is taking the land back from the proletariat “homeowner.” The “homeowner” subject to a mortgage never actually owned the home, the bank did. In the end it is the bourgeois investor in the mortgage who keeps his or her wealth.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
Id. Repeal or non-renewal of the Bush Tax Cuts favoring the wealthy places heavier tax burdens on the rich.
3. Centralisation of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
Id. See the TARP, above.
4. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
Id. At least for the transportation part, consider the Automaker Bailout that currently contemplated by Congress and the President.
5. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
Id. Here, it is President-Elect Barack Obama who wants to create millions of jobs rebuilding national infrastructure.
The above-mentioned steps the government is taking serve to further redistribute wealth not the working class, but to the wealthy by saddling every American with an inescapable debt obligation to pay back to society the trillion, and some say trillions, of dollars spent to buoy the U.S. economy. This redistribution amplifies the inequality already existent between the United States’ wealthy and to working classes. The engine of free trade remains wells oiled as much of the U.S. taxpayer funded TARP investment is being used to support foreign-owned U.S. mortgage-backed securities. This exported capital is used to spread capitalism around the globe as Marx predicted (see above.)
The future of free trade is now secured by the U.S. government with its recent and near future actions to provide continued worldwide access to the country’s means for production and labor market controlled by the wealthy elite around the globe. Faced with the threat of losing their homes and sources of income, the average American worker will accept even less in exchange for his or her efforts to keep an economy alive that strongly favors the bourgeois. What the American worker does not realize is that they have now before them the ability to engage in a financial revolution because of the institutionalized nature of capitalism and free trade in the U.S. democratic system. According to Marx, “[i]n stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class.” Marx C.M. pp 740 (reader pp 57.) The American worker can engage in revolution by refusing to accept less while working more and fighting a bloodless war by defaulting en mass on their financial obligations to the bourgeois and using their power of the vote to truly regain ownership of the country and the wealth it has the power to possess. Hitting the proverbial reset button on the U.S. economy may be best medicine to cure the inequities that necessarily arise from unbridled capitalism in a global free trade market destined to maximize inequality between the wealthy bourgeois and the working proletariat classes.
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