Tuesday, April 21, 2020

About "Hegemony". Fast Thought.

Even today, when browsing media--I am not going to give links, they are easy to find--I stumble constantly on definition of the United States as hegemon. Hegemon this, hegemon that and all of this usage ONLY in the context of what Fed will do, how Mnuchin slept last night, and what is the state of banks. I think, using financial voodoo which is being presented as a "science" in Anglo-sphere media and its iterations in, say, Russia among what is known today as Russian liberda circles with appropriate media such as Kommersant of RBC, one is literally forced by narrative to believe that the US is a hegemon because US Dollar is world's reserve currency and everything flows from it. Well, this is a preposterous and utterly incompetent view because even a generic definition of hegemony doesn't support those assumptions in the least, because in real world US Dollar being (for now) global reserve currency is merely an advantage, malignant at that for the US itself, but hegemony is something else altogether:   
My latest book, my previous book, my third book which I am writing are all dedicated to a deconstruction of the myth of the United States being a real hegemon, because "control" is a very vague term until one begins to specify elements of this control and here is this slight problem: one cannot define "control" merely by balance sheet, because real hegemony realistically is built around... I know, I know, I am such a bore... tangibles. Or, as I write for years--by actual predictors, overwhelming majority of which are based on real economy and real capability. Let's recall this from more than 4 years ago
1. Owns and operates the international banking system;

2. Controls all hard currencies;

3. Is the world's principal customer;

4. Provides the majority of the worlds finished goods;

5. Dominates international capital markets;

6. Exerts considerable moral leadership within many societies;

7. Is capable of massive military intervention;

8. Controls the sea lanes;

9. Conducts most advanced technical research and development;

10. Controls leading edge technical education;

11. Dominates access to space;

12. Dominates aerospace industry;

13. Dominates international communications;

14. Dominates the high-tech weapons industry. 
Out of those 14 points, highlighted 11, that is 78.6%, are directly connected to a very serious manufacturing or, in modern lingo, "real economy". If one throws away BS about "considerable moral leadership" (a delusion still propagated by Huntington's founded Foreign Policy magazine) and the point about control of all hard currencies, this share increases to 11 out of 12, that is roughly 92%.  It is also what makes one a military power. And even this list is still incomplete....
In general, real hegemony without military hegemony is nothing more than exercise in PR and feel-good-about-oneself delusion. In general, hegemony without kinetic ability to prove, by means of power enforcing, of the order hegemon wants to establish is not a hegemony. This military hegemony is based on REAL economy, not on stock market or futures or any other paper issued by any bank. Well, guess what American hegemony was based upon--two myths: alleged military power characteristic of hegemon, myth of US economy based on valuations of financial markets. Once those two myths have been removed the collapse ensued, because trust, deep down, in the deepest recesses of their minds many believed primarily in those two myths. Not anymore, the trust had been broken. It doesn't work anymore, it is either non-existent in some places, in other--is running out and really fast at that. Reason--US cannot enforce Bretton Woods, petrodollar, Eurodollar or whatever the hell other simulacra anyone uses to describe Pax Americana, because to do so one actually needs to perform, especially militarily and technologically. US cannot do that. It couldn't for a long time, but it took some effort and time to "explain" or to convey this simple truth to people who, like majority of the so called "investors", know about fictional financial markets but do not understand anything in terms of actual warfare, how military works, how real economy operates based on tangibles, from R&D to industrial manufacturing. They just don't! It is not surprising that good ol' Henry Kissinger ended up on the board of directors of Theranos fraudulent company or Boeing had on its board of directors people, like Nikki Hailey, who have same relation to aerospace as I have to Kabuki Theater. Plus, of course, one cannot continue losing wars against weak opposition non-stop. The doubt, is a like a slow metastasized cancer--once started and not detected, it will spread and kill patient. This exactly what is happening now: we see doubts being realized on the level of general population, some of which is well-off and are "investors" who are completely at loss with their mostly virtual "papers" which very few will be interested in in coming months. 

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