Vivek Chibber
It was to eliminate the way in which colonialism interacted with global political economy. This is the key. Freedoms were a secondary affair. What do I mean by the way it interacted? The US was absolutely convinced, and I think it was probably right, that a big push for the war came from economic rivalries between blocks of capital that were closed off from each other. And that created a kind of antagonism between them to open up markets that were otherwise inaccessible.
The British didn’t have access to French colonies and their markets. The French didn’t have good access to the British colonies. And the Americans had access to none of them. So the first thing to do is to break down these colonial barriers so that capital and labor can move freely. And the US thought that this will reduce the animosities. Now, because it reduces economic animosities, it should also reduce geopolitical rivalries.
As it happens, the second pillar of this was that American capital should be given special access to all these markets, of course, because it benefits the United States. But also because they thought the United States will be best positioned to superintend — to kind of be a referee for economic and political affairs everywhere. And if it has access to all these markets, American states will have an interest in an open playing field.
This should not be surprising because England also was pushing for the same policies in the 1840s and ’50s, a hundred years prior. Why both countries? England in the 1840s and ’50s, the United States in the 1940s and ’50s were the most economically efficient and productive economies in the world. They had nothing to fear from a globalized economy.
Both countries also had some degree of interest in opening up their economies to the others. I won’t go into why the British did — that was primarily…
Auteur: Vivek Chibber
