Abstract
The attempt at reacting to the main structural weaknesses of the American economy and to the crisis of the Fordist model of growth led the US to accelerate the process aimed at the creation of a global economic empire, which could greatly favor the growth of US giant multinationals and main financial groups. The chapter presents the main tools and policies used by the US in order to foster the liberalization and extension of trade and of portfolio capital movements, the rapid expansion of FDI and, since the 1970s, the widening and deepening of economic and financial globalization. The profound worldwide cultural influence of the American model, skillful diplomatic efforts, brutal military interventions, and intelligence actions were also used in order to achieve these objectives.
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- 1.
GATT went gradually expanding to the majority of world countries, and in 1995 was transformed into a new international organization, the World Trade Organization (WTO).
- 2.
At first, GM renamed Daewoo motors as GM Daewoo and in 2011 as Daewoo Korea. In several countries, Daewoo cars are presented under the Chevrolet brand.
- 3.
For example, several Apple products are assembled in the enormous Chinese plants of Foxconn and Pegatron. Foxconn, a Taiwanese firm, which also produces Amazon and Sony goods in China, has large profits but appalling labor conditions, which have led, especially in 2010–2015, to a number of suicides. In 2016, it has bought the Japanese firm Sharp, while at present it is trying to buy the Toshiba semiconductors division and is opening a large factory in Wisconsin.
- 4.
See De Prato et al. (2013).
- 5.
Pietra Rivoli (2005) provides an interesting analysis of the complex global production process of a simple T- shirt, conceived by a US firm, manufactured in China with American cotton, and then re-exported to the US to be serigraphed and then sold in national and international markets.
- 6.
See Andreff and Balcet (2013) for an explanation of rising FDI flows from emerging countries to older industrialized ones.
- 7.
See World Bank (2017).
- 8.
Big bang consists on the possibility to make stock exchange transaction for shares, bonds, currencies, and so on at any hour of the day, thanks to very fast ICT connections and the differences in opening hours of major stock exchange markets in the world.
- 9.
Washington consensus is the consensus prevailing in the 1980s and 1990s between IMF, World Bank, and the US treasury, all located in Washington, on the main lines of economic policies to be followed by countries needing financial assistance. These policies required harsh restrictive macro-economic measures and structural reforms, including severe cuts in public debt and public deficits and privatization and liberalization moves.
- 10.
See Bilmes and Stiglitz (2008).
- 11.
The main US military interventions were: Korea (1950–1953), Vietnam (1964–1973), Lebanon, Panama, Bosnia, Somalia, Serbia, Iraq I (1990–1991), Afghanistan (2001–), Iraq II (2003–2011), Syria (2014–).
- 12.
See SIPRI (2017), Trends in world military expenditure, 2016, available at: https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/Trends-world-military-expenditure-2016.pdf (accessed on September 28, 2017).
References
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Valli, V. (2018). Toward a Global Economic Empire. In: The American Economy from Roosevelt to Trump. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96953-4_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96953-4_8
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