Thought this was an interesting analysis, though I think it needs to be taken with a bit of a grain of salt (I think it’s power is what is qualitatively describes rather than precise numbers, and I think the author might even agree with me).
I’m always on the lookout to see it quantified how much the average American benefits from imperialism. My guy says if the US was unable to exert hegemony, the US would experience at least what Russia experienced in the 90s. These numbers align with that; and this is only talking about dollar hegemony and not, for example, the US using military pressure, sanctions, or other methods for extracting cheaper resources and goods from the global south.
That said, I’m not sure you can just run a regression and get your answer. I don’t see how you can isolate the US losing dollar hegemony without it then creating an uncountable number of secondary effects. All this stuff is deeply interconnected. But that said, I think this does a good job of highlighted at least in a qualitative sense just how much Americans benefit from dollar hegemony, and how losing that would be huge problem for the US economy.
I’m always on the lookout to see it quantified how much the average American benefits from imperialism.
And half of them still live from paycheck to paycheck.
FWIW, I'm sure a lot of it will be canceled out when its accounted for all the imperialism Americans explicitly ask for themselves to be subjected to (or at least the old people want done to the young people).
That money is stolen by middle men and scammers anyway i never see it, if us hegemony was gone and we had a rational economy would i really notice the money?
Yes. Because in short consumer price inflation is like a novel thing for the american population, whereas it's the ever normal in the global south. Of course the capitalist class makes the most of the USD hegemony, but there's a certain panem et circenses policy where the US can just subsidize gas, energy and food costs to no impact to it's financial credibility. The US government could do the same with health care and education, it just chooses not to.
In a way since you live in the core of the imperial core you remain an exploited worker, but there are extra layers of exploitation elsewhere. That's why people can go live in your country, get paid less than the legal wage, and still send remittances home.
all of these costs are absolutely dwarfed by the medical, legal, rent, and debt expenses americans pay, I don't really get why discussion like this is happening in the context of average income figures?? in a country with such extreme inequality
I also have to pay rent, a health plan, education fees, numerous taxes and so on but if you convert my costs to dollars they'll seem like a pittance to you. Moreover, inflation in education and healthcare are something that exploded in the last generation. Nobody is disputing that, as a matter of policy, financialization lead to the american state deciding to exploit its population more and more.
The point is that not every benefit from USD hegemony has been taken from the workers. At least not yet. For one, since the US doesn't have to actually pay for its imports every other administration can campaign on cutting taxes. Sure, you might say that most of those tax cuts go to the rich. Well, here in the global south we have to acquire dollars to pay our commitments, otherwise our credit rates and currencies collapse. Meaning that every administration has to raise taxes, primarily on the poor.
At the end of the day the question is: if USD hegemony goes away, who's going to pay for that shortfall? Will it be the elites, who spent the last 40 days reproducing themselves by creating new ways to financially exploit the population? Will it be the MIC? Or will it be workers via consumption tax hikes and the further privatization of social security? It would have to be a combination of all three and more, but we know who's going to get the short end of that stick.
There's a pretty specific subset of workers which I point to as being part of the labor artistocracy it's less than 10% of the US population (military, tech workers on the high end, insurance, finance workers, lots and lots of people) but I can tell from the way this whole discussion is framed in this thread it will just go around in circles talking about how US homeless people technically are better off than in the periphery. I'm sure that's true, but it doesn't bring us any closer to analyzing how the labor aristocracy has contracted and which part of the population still gets to take a small cut of these industries that collect global monopoly rents.
talking about how US homeless people technically are better off than in the periphery. I'm sure that's true
You shouldn't be because that's an absurd statement.
The point is that the rent-paying barista in the US is better off than the rent-paying barista in Bolívia because they simply have more purchasing power by virtue of, among other things, USD hegemony. Likewise, whereas the overexploited farm worker in the US is paid enough of a pittance where they can still send remittances home, in Brazil you'll find actual slaves here and there.
The american could be even better off, but that would require a political process for investment in public services, which happened elsewhere in the wealthy world and generally not in the post-80s US. Part of the reason why this struggle could never get off the ground is because the US government just didn't have to fund itself. It didn't have to think in terms of industrial and fiscal policy, or in terms of rising incomes. The world subsidized the american population's balance of payments and some small crumbs made it to the base, enough at least to pacify them. As such living standards can still decrease a lot in the United States if even the mildest forms of redistribution aren't enacted.
I like how I have two mentions rn, one person calling the guy I'm posting a patsoc, and the other person telling me baristas are the labor aristocracy.
Migrant workers are also forced to live many persons to a house or rely on unstable living situations from employers who hold them hostage and don't let them get a car (remember the infamous Jia Tolentino debacle where it turned out her parents were holding underpaid Filipino teachers hostage practically to fill No Child Left Behind quotas?) in order to circumvent the massive rents issue. American workers who don't forgo basic needs and have to rely on minimum wage can't start a family. I'm not saying there isn't an immense privilege for many in being born in the US it's just not as cut and dry as unequal exchange makes it out to be without accounting for debts and rents and other expenses from that lack of social services. There is a demarcation between workers who passively benefit from being in the US to reap the benefits of cheaper treats from the same people who make them indentured wage slaves, and those who are working at industries which can still collect on being at the top of the global value chain.I don't know why you stop at homeless people considering they can spend they spare dollars further at the gas station as long as suppliers decide not to make bread cost $7.99 at the place they have access to
and the other person telling me baristas are the labor aristocracy.
I'm sorry, what?
I don't know why you stop at homeless people
I don't.
I think the problem comes if the US loses the hegemony but keeps the middle men, there's going to be a lot of suffering it's probably going to get channeled into fascism. "Those people" (take your pick) will be blamed for national decline, instead of correctly identifying capitalism and imperial blowback as the cause
It depends on how quick the shock is. If America plans around and mobilizes domestic resources then it would be able to arrest some of that decline.
But the American political class right now appears to be allergic to any state lead central planning.
Would it be just a loss of fancy treats? Living standards and incomes aren't completely correlated. Cuba has excellent Healthcare but low income. US has meh healthcare for a country that "Rich" but there is also medical debt.
What really fucked up Russia in the 90s was not just a shift from socialism but also how quickly and to the extent it was done. It's called shock therapy for a reason. China also saw higher than usual inflation during 90s with its own economic reforms but nothing like Russian hyperinflation.
Another question would be why would say China quickly stop sending goods to the US when such a sudden shock would fuck up China too. U.S. is only able to obtain Chinese goods because China is willing to give away its own instead of using it for local consumption (though this has been changing since the last decade).
Sure, there is more coercion with other developing countries as you mentioned with sanctions and of course, countries with low productive forces requiring dollars inorder to develop.
I think the dollar would face a slow decline over decades with countries wanting to trade in other currencies. But does for example China want Yuan to replace the dollar?
But does for example China want Yuan to replace the dollar?
They seem to be pursuing a path where the Yuan is used for trade and account settlement with not much interest in being a reserve currency, or at most as one reserve currency in a multipolar reserve system.
There are in fact downsides to being a reserve currency since the demand for dollars means that dollars themselves are an export item for the US in the form of government bonds, and on top of issuing bonds the demand for dollars also requires a trade deficit which hurts local production, especially manufacturing and depresses wages in export-oriented industries.
Also since the US grows less quickly than the global economy overall, the demand for dollars internationally relative to the size of the US economy is growing, meaning that the trade deficits must keep getting bigger, meaning that export oriented industries become increasingly hobbled.
Now the benefit of course is that it’s a license to print money. The US government is able to run staggering budget deficits and this is actually good for the US economy because it reduces the burden of the trade deficit by supply the world dollars that way instead, and while it’s awful for export-driven industry such as manufacturing and manufacturing workers, it’s a positive for service & knowledge workers since they get a lifestyle boost from cheap imports.
China doesn’t seem interested in having to “satisfy demand for yuan” by running a trade deficit because that would hurt Chinese manufacturing and industry, but they also don’t want to be funding the US budget by needing to buy USD to use for their own international trade settlements, so they’re pursuing a path of bilateral and sometimes regional agreements where settlements are done using local currencies directly instead of USD.
Basically they don’t really want to be a reserve currency, or only a small one perhaps to enable some deficit spending without trashing the balance of trade.
I don't think US budget deficits is the big issue, it is high sure and wasted on unproductive shit with all the military spending but you should be looking at current account deficit instead, which is the world's highest.
Having control over the reserve currency mainly gives you the privilege to import much more than you would able to otherwise since other countries are "willing" to take your reserve currency for goods.
Not all countries can a surplus or a deficit at once. It's why Germans complaining about lazy Greeks during debt crisis was ridiculous. The Greeks were only buying German goods because Germans were willing to sell it to them. And because Germany was strangling domestic workers who wouldn't be able to buy the goods they made themselves.
China right now has a trade surplus. So, I don't really know how much advantage it would give them to have their own currency be "wanted" outside other than bypassing sanctions and soft power. Eg. Recently India wanted to buy crude from Russia but of course, sanctions. They could have an Rupee-Ruble arrangement but that would result in one side (Russia) accumulating too many Rupees which it doesn't need.
So, Russia asked India to provide Yuan instead. Since Russia can then use Yuan to buy from China. But of course, India wouldn't want that.
That's the difference between having the Yuan be a trading currency or a reserve currency. From what I understand, creating bilateral agreements allows China and it's trading partners to de-risk from the american political system. But allowing the Yuan to become a reserve currency, which is then speculated upon overseas, would give China currency hegemony. Yes, the Chinese could then use that metaphorical gold mine to invest productively. But all the incentives the US had to export their industries overseas would still be there. If the USD hegemony can be understood as a resource curse, then an Yuan hegemony can be as disruptive to the chinese political system as it was to the post war american political system.
The conditions necessary for the USA to lose dollar hegemony would themselves lead to massive shocks, or be the result of massive shocks. There is a lot of inertia in doing things the same way only because we have been doing them that way.
It is an interesting point.
