Costs of Empire

Date of publication:December 2018

ISBN:978-1-939402-40-0

Pages:134

Price:$16.95

• About
• Table of Contents

Costs of Empire compiles articles that ran in the pages of Dollars & Sense magazine as part of a project suggested to the Dollars & Sense collective by our long-time supporter John Maher, to whose memory this book is dedicated. The Costs of Empire project sought to highlight issues, critical to our present and future, explaining the shape of the capitalist world economy today, including the roles of international financial institutions (IFIs), the reshaping of the world economy through trade-and-investment agreements, the distribution of income and wealth (and power) worldwide, and the unequal distribution of the costs and benefits of environmental degradation. This project sought to draw out the connections among these issues and the global role of the United States: who benefits from its exercise of economic, political, and military power worldwide, how the global power of U.S. elites further concentrates their power in the economic and political spheres, and the toll this inflicts on ordinary people both in the United States and around the world.

• Introduction
• CHAPTER 1: Imperialism Today
  • 1.1 The Global Economy TodayArthur MacEwan
  • 1.2 Globalization and the End of the Labor AristocracyJayati Ghosh
• CHAPTER 2: Labor Under Empire
  • 2.1 Transnational Capital and Transnational LaborAn Interview with William K. Tabb
  • 2.2 The Global Industrial Working ClassAn Interview with Immanuel Ness
  • 2.3 Colonialism, “Underdevelopment,” and the International Division of LaborAlejandro Reuss
• CHAPTER 3: Migration and Empire
  • 3.1 Migration, Labor, and U.S. PolicyDavid Bacon
  • 3.2 “Migration Is a Form of Fighting Back”David Bacon
  • 3.3 Europe’s Refugee “Crisis”Jayati Ghosh
• CHAPTER 4: Finance, Trade, and Empire
  • 4.1 Dollar DominanceArthur MacEwan
  • 4.2 An Empire Upside DownChristy Thornton
  • 4.3 No Friendship in TradeSasha Breger Bush
• CHAPTER 5: Imperialism and Development
  • 5.1 What Ever Happened to Development?Jawied Nawabi
  • 5.2 Debt and Development: Frequently Asked QuestionsAlejandro Reuss
  • 5.3 Puerto Rico’s Colonial EconomyArthur MacEwan
  • 5.4 Haiti’s Fault Lines
  • 5.5 “Tied” Foreign AidArthur MacEwan
• CHAPTER 6: Militarism, Natural Resources, and the Environment
  • 6.1 Military Spending in the SwamplandJames M. Cypher
  • 6.2 Costs of the U.S. Global War on Terror Since 2001Gerald Friedman
  • 6.3 Is It Oil?Arthur MacEwan
  • 6.4 Climate Change, Imperialism, and DemocracyQuestions and Answers with Liz Stanton
• Further Reading
  • Imperialism by the BookJohn Miller, Alejandro Reuss, Zoe Sherman, and Will Whitham
• Contributors