The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the high-command plutocratic body promoting US imperialism, is the world’s most powerful private organization, the central think tank of American monopoly-finance capital. It is also a membership organization and the ultimate networking, socializing, agenda setting, strategic planning, and consensus-forming organization of the dominant sector of the US capitalist class. The CFR’s activities help unite the capitalist class to become not just a class in itself but also a class for itself. From its beginnings, it has been a behind-the-scene organization and network led by well-connected financial capitalists of New York’s Wall Street. These capitalists are assisted by their expert allies in the professional class, especially from leading American universities, but also the nonprofit, government, law, and media sectors of American society. From its founding, the Council has promoted an imperialistic conception of the capitalist class based on...
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Shoup, L.H. (2019). Council on Foreign Relations and United States Imperialism. In: Ness, I., Cope, Z. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91206-6_114-1
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