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Title: The Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World
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| The Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World by Monthly Review Press Short, powerful, needed | Short, powerful, needed basis for revised thinking and debate whatever your views.
Americans deny living in a bubble subject to dogma and "free market fundamentalism".
This dynamite essay but one of the great and influential economists of the century who is thoroughly acquainted with the third world, Europe, and the historical context of post war American power should be read and discussed whatever one's views. This is not the Economics 101 of college or business school. Worse, it is not the stuff of active intellectual debate in this arrogant superpower.
It is an essay of 112 pages of text that is a damning critique of American hegemony and its politics and economics. No "warts and all" - more like all warts. The hegemony sustained by militarism and intimidation relies on smoke and mirrors - foreign capital and pillage sustaining a weak and dependent economy of self deception and manipulation.
Specific contrasts showing the immense price paid by people generally here (twice the cost for privatized health that is not better than Europe's provision of care) and unsustainable pauperization of some 3 billion peasants for the benefit of industrialized agriculture employing very few indeed. World wide shantytowns, increased poverty, and disposing of a social contract at home all follow. The only productive and competitive sector is military - which is not based on free market economics - and the US is the biggest arms dealer. Increased economic inequality drives the decline of democracy towards oligarchy and fascist like coordination of industry and ruling classes co-opting masses with chauvinism.
The world needs to break this sick system before it pauperizes the rest of the world and destroys all possibility of peace as well as resources and the environment. (The recent BBC poll placing the USA and Israel together with small time North Korea and Iran as threats to be feared shows growing awareness of reality denied by most Americans sheltered from foreign opinion and news and pablum fed by mall bookstores and profit fed publishing little interested in new ideas.)
There is much more to be considered in this book, only a brief taste is summarized here. The final section briefly lists hypotheses and ways that the world might possibly move beyond destructive American hegemony before the point of no return.
| | The Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World by Monthly Review Press The Self Indulgent Virus, A Hindrance to the Debate | Since the end of the Cold War and the virtual eradication of the two other great political ideologies of the twentieth century, namely Communism and Fascism, the victory of Capitalism has earned it the right to proceed unmolested and, to a very great degree, unquestioned in its dissemination to every point on the globe. This, as Samir Amin author of The Liberal Virus aptly points out, could be dangerous. Capitalism is a system that has always been based on the Darwinian principal of survival of the fittest and as such "can produce nothing other than an intensification of the inequalities between people."
True. So true. And anybody who takes the time to actually study Adam Smith's, The Wealth of Nations, will see that the twin engines supposed to drive a Capitalist economy are greed and competition, with very little regard for the actual well being of humans. This should come as no surprise, as a quick look around at the current champions of Capitalist enterprise in America like insurance, energy and telecommunications will readily reveal.
Any thinking person must agree that it is at least worthwhile to keep a cautious eye on the current trajectory of unfettered Capitalism, and inquiring into its possible dangers is undoubtedly healthy. In fact, what's needed is a measured evaluation of Capitalism as it exists today, both good and bad, with the kind of unflinching exploration into its darker implications provided by Samir Amin here.
But in the current American political climate where knee-jerk Conservatism hold sways and the petty ranting of narrow-minded demagogues is counted as reasoned political discourse, this is no time to inject an analysis of Capitalism with anti-Americanism and hand-wringing over the demise of Socialism. A book like this advances the issue with only the most restrained and open-minded readers and, for the rest, drags the debate back into the muck of Cold War hysterics.
Not only does Amin reveal himself as a whiney, vindictive Socialist who would love nothing more than to see America brought to its knees, but he is an obtuse and turgid writer of the kind only academia can produce. There were sentences in this book I had to read three times before I could figure out what he was saying, and his annoying habit of loading his sentences with digressive clauses, parenthetical clarifications and coined words, had me grateful that this book was only 112 pages long - I have read 300 page books that took me less time to get a handle on.
All in all, The Liberal Virus explores some issues much in need of inquiry but does so in a way that is so off-putting that it cannot gain much traction among American readers, no matter what their stripe, and can only serve to hinder the debate. What we need is a book about Capitalism that can open minds, not scare them closed or befuddle them with the liberal self-indulgence of its author.
| | The Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World by Monthly Review Press Spasiba Tovarish | | Reading like the "educational materials" that were provided to me as a student in East Germany (DDR)this short text is heavy on Marxist jargon and ideological arguments by assertion and fairly useless as an analysis of the genuinely troubling problem of "Permanent War and Americanization of the World" emblazened on the cover. Ultimately the text hardly touches on these issues accept as symptoms of Western liberalism. While I share Amin's assessment of the foundations and limits of liberalism and the "market", I find much of his argument intellectually flaccid, problematized by his misunderstanding of Post-Modernism and his predisposition to certain outcomes regardless of how thin the argument is stretched to reach those conclusions. One such example is his meaninglessly derisive inclusion of Israel in a discussion of the "Triad" (USA, Europe and Japan) while leaving out the PR China, perhaps also for ideological reasons, despite China's massive and highly exploitative economy. In the end, Amin is clearly preaching to the choir and in the "Latin" of the orthodoxy at that. Despite an enticing cover and provocative blurb, the book ends up being the same tired and disappointing Marxist ad hominem discourse, providing solutions like "Europe should and can liberate itself from the liberal virus. However, this inititiative cannot come from the segments of dominant capital, but must come from the people." (p.108)Not so helpful, Comrade. | | The Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World by Monthly Review Press A Socialist-Minded Alexis de Tocqueville | "The Liberal Virus" by Samir Amin is a concise and searing indictment of neoliberal economics and American imperialism but also offers hope and guidance to securing a more hopeful future. Like a socialist-minded Alexis de Tocqueville, Mr. Amin's internationalist perspective allows him to peer into American society in order to dissect it clearly, intelligently and persuasively. The result is a penetrating analysis that helps us understand how the U.S. has become the violent purveyor of an "obscolescent" form of capitalism that humanity must resist or else risk its continued descent into barbarism.
Mr. Amin begins by debunking the liberal vision of U.S. economic and cultural triumphalism as mere ideology and media propaganda, arguing that America's privileged position is due mainly to the exercise of political power backed by military force. Drawing on Marx, the author presents an alternative view that stresses class conflict and the role of the state, which uses its power to enforce the accumulation of wealth for the benefit of American capital. With the European Union and Japan as junior partners in this project, Mr. Amin states that "apartheid on a world scale" has ensued for the people living in the global South who realize little benefit from this system.
In tracing the origins of liberalism, Mr. Amir connects the history of America's settlement by extremist religious sects and the practice of genocide and slavery to explain how Americans have tended to mix racism, violence and selfish individualism with capitalism in an uniquely barbaric form. Interestingly, the author turns the tables on the myth of "New America" and "Old Europe", positing that the American presidential system precludes the diversity of opinion found in European parliamentary politics, thus stifling debate and making it easier for neoliberal (conservative) ideologues to prevail. Today, the admixture of fanatic religiosity and military strength presents a frightening image to the world of a U.S. that is controlled by "neo-Nazis" dedicated to preserving America's privileged economic position at all costs.
In the final chapter, Mr. Amin proposes strategies for how the world might restructure to go beyond capitalism and resist U.S. domination. The author believes that Europe must provide leadership by establishing its own alliances in a way that creates solidarity with the South and allows progressive and humanist values to flourish. If technology can be pressed into the service of human needs and not profit, the author hopes that a new "people's internationalism" can emerge to bring about an era of peace, prosperity and equality for all.
In the end, "The Liberal Virus" helps us understand many uncomfortable truths and the changes that need to be made if we wish our country to become a positive force in the world. I highly recommend the book to all. | | The Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World by Monthly Review Press A heated and focused warning | The Liberal Virus: Permanent War And The Americanization Of The World by Samir Amin (Director, Third World Forum, Dakar, Senegal) is a political deconstruction of the principles that define human beings via their economic existence only and fuel America's global expansion and even war to serve the interests of its capital. Defining "liberalism" as the philosophy and ideals that motivate such far-reaching, heavy-handed, money-driven governmental policies, The Liberal Virus is actually a heated and focused warning against the harm caused by such blind and overextended interference in other nations. Arguing that democratization is an ongoing process, fundamental to human social evolution, rather than a fixed constitutional formula, and calling for a new compromise between capital and labor that emphasizes the importance of solidarity and reconstructs an internationalism that does not divide and conquer neighboring regions, The Liberal Virus is actually a razor-keen warning of how wrong-headed intervention can be as poisonous as imperialism once was.
| | The Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World by Monthly Review Press Product Description | Samir Amin's ambitious new book argues that the ongoing American project to dominate the world through military force has its roots in European liberalism, but has developed certain features of liberal ideology in a new and uniquely dangerous way. Where European political culture since the French Revolution has given a central place to values of equality, the American state has developed to serve the interests of capital alone, and is now exporting this model throughout the world. American imperialism, Amin argues, will be far more barbaric than earlier forms of imperialism, pillaging natural resources and destroying the lives of the poor. The Liberal Virus examines the ways in which the American model is being imposed on the world, and outlines its economic and political consequences. It shows how both citizenship and class consciousness are diluted in "low-intensity democracy" and argues instead for democratization as an ongoing process—of fundamental importance for human progress—rather than a fixed constitutional formula designed to support the logic of capital accumulation. In a panoramic overview, Amin examines the objectives and outcomes of American policy in the different regions of the world. He concludes by outlining the challenges faced by those resisting the American project today: redefining European liberalism on the basis of a new compromise between capital and labor, re-establishing solidarity among the people of the South, and reconstructing an internationalism that serves the interests of regions that are currently divided against each other. |
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