WHEN imperialism is defined as the highest stage of capitalism — as decaying, parasitic, monopoly capitalism dominated by finance capital — all countries which have reached that stage are to be reckoned as imperialist: Japan, Canada, Switzerland, UK and the like. All these states exploit the global south as well as the working people at home; many possess, and occasionally use, their enormous military prowess. But among them there is one country which has earned the outrageous distinction of being the world people’s enemy number one.

The first wave of global extension of capitalism was led by maritime and mercantile powers like Spain, Holland, England; the second wave by England to start with, (for that was the birth place of the industrial revolution); the third by the USA, the forerunner in the latest Scientific and Technological Revolution and by far the biggest economic (and also military) power. It is only natural that like Spain and England in earlier periods, today the USA aspires after continuous expansion of its sphere of influence — after building a world empire. But the most crucial difference is that, as Eric Hobsbawm pointed out in a recent article in Guardian, all other empires knew that they were not the only ones — they had to reckon with real and potential challengers. Not so Washington. After the collapse of the other superpower, it thinks and acts like the monarch of all it surveys. Moreover, whereas even the British at the summit of its power operated no more than one quarter of the earth’s surface, Pax Americana has got the economic, diplomatic and military means to actively campaign for “full spectrum dominance” over the globe. This is the Empire of our timesHere it should be noted that while the Roman empire, the most successful and longest-lasting role model, was pre-capitalist and the British empire evolved before, and disintegrated soon after, the advent of imperialism as the monopoly stage of capitalism, the US empire is an inchoate product of late imperialism. Analogies, therefore, are valid only in a very limited sense, and we would do well to remember this.: not in a post-imperialist sense as made out by Michel Hardt and Antonio Negri (authors of Empire,) but as the highest (and may be the last – who knows?) product of imperialism today, much like fascism was in another period.

But highly complex and contradictory are the relations between the empire and imperialism. The highest product and (in a sense) locomotive of the latter, empire may also lead imperialism into a dangerous roller-costar ride or bring the whole train to a screeching halt. And such a situation seems to be emerging at the moment in the context of globalisation. In the first place, a serious turmoil in US banking and finance cannot be ruled out, and that would be devastating for the highly integrated world capitalist economy as a whole. Secondly, the growing American unilateralism, a sure sign of crude empire-building, is badly disturbing the political order of imperialism. Persistent criticism from Washington’s NATO and OECD allies together with a few instance of censuring by the IMF and WTO in recent months go to show that the chasms are widening. This contradiction between the leader and its allies, as well as those among all the imperialist countries taken together, are bound to intensify in proportion as the fundamental mismatch between deepening international economic integration and persistent political division among competing nation-states remains and grows. George Soros presented the problem fairly well back in 1998, when he wrote:

“To stabilize and regulate a truly global economy, we need some global system of political decision making ... insofar as there are collective interests that transcend state boundaries, the sovereignty of states must be subordinated to international law and international institutions. Interestingly, the greatest opposition to this idea is coming from the United States, which, as the sole remaining superpower, is unwilling to subordinate itself to any international authority. The United States faces a crisis of identity : Does it want to be a solitary superpower or the leader of the free world ? ”The Crisis Of Global Capitalism (1998)

Soros is obviously for the second option, and regrets that Washington is taking the first course. The realistic perception of the most successful money manager of our time is conspicuous by its absence in the post-Marxist discourse of Hardt and Negri. These authors fancy an already accomplished transcendence of imperialism based on nation-states into a supra-national “sovereignty of capital”, or Empire.

Real life, of course, tells a very different story. A product, leader, and still an organic part of imperialism, US empire becomes a reckless, ruthless, domineering force standing above it. While collusion remains the principal aspect, conflicts grow sharper and centrifugal tendencies emerge (look at France, Germany and a number of countries in Middle East and Latin America), giving us a favorable terrain to fight our way forward.