TPM Reader DM chimes in …
I think saying that our current adventures are all about the oil is only half right. I think that itâs more about political economy broadly speaking, with oil being a necessary factor in the case of the Middle East. Since the dawn of neoliberalism in the 1970s and its takeoff as a grand strategy in the 1980s, a key ideological aim of American policy makers from the Reagan administration through the Clinton administration and up to Bush II has been fostering neoliberal economic policies around the globe: freer trade, rule by law (necessary for the predictability in rules that transnational firms seek), an animus against price fixing, privatization, and anti-import substitution. If a nation or region has had any real potential as trade partner, consumer, and exporter of goods, the US has pushed neoliberal policies on them. Sometimes they have succeeded and sometimes they havenât. And when the US has succeeded in causing policy changes, the results have been very mixed. The bottom line, though, is that neoliberalism â which is of course amenable to democracy â drives much of American foreign policy.
At any rate, when you look at the Middle East in 2001 (and now, frankly), you see the following: an economically important region whose lone key export industry is run by a cartel of states, not private firms. There is also very little rule of law in the economic sense, and price fixing has long been the order of the day. And a cartel of state-operated industries engaged in rampant price fixing goes against most of the core classical tenets of free trade.
When you look back to the 1990s, the neoliberal agenda acquired the veneer of common sense in the US among both liberals and conservatives. And you could see it pushed everywhere from Eastern Europe to Latin America to South Asia to parts of East Asia (particularly after the 1998 crash). It never penetrated the Middle East, however, despite the fact that unlike Africa (the other region beyond the pale when it came to neoliberal theory), it was economically very important.
So yeah, itâs about oil, but itâs about a much bigger thing as well: fostering a proverbial new world order of democratic capitalism based on neoliberal principles. The vision is hostile to socialism in all its guises, the corporatism that emerged in the interwar years, and to a lesser extent Keynesianism (because itâs harder to attack â Keynesianismâs intellectual and policy hold has remained powerful). Outside of economically unimportant states like Cuba and a host of African countries, Middle Eastern states are the last unreconstructed holdouts to this bold new era. The oil has allowed them to do this, but despite their oil wealth, they are by and large poor countries which outside of oil exports are very poorly integrated into the current global economic system. We want that to change.
Venezuela seems to be going in this direction now too, and our beef with them is about the same set of issues â state control, price fixing, reversing privatization, etc.
Even China has come around a bit, and while the US continues to complain about their economic policies, theyâre too big for us to tackle.
This is all true, to an important extent. But let’s add on a few more issues. In one sense what we are talking about here is simply US-backed globalization based on neo-liberal economic principles. This is a story we’re all familiar with. In a modified form at least it’s an agenda I agree with. And part of this broad meta-discussion is the role of US hard power in providing the undergirding of a neoliberal world economic order — much as pre-WWI free trade era was an ideological and economic construct made possible by the dominance of the British Navy.
Okay, so set all that to one side. And let’s get at another part of the question.
I think the perceived need to exercise de facto physical control over these oil resources points to a different goal, a different perception of the kind of world system we’re trying to build and where we fit into it. It suggests that we no longer believe we will continue to have the sort of economic and political clout that will allow us to maintain our standards of living and power in the world. So we need to lock down physical control of the oil now with our military power — the lagging indicator of national decline. In other words, we need to use it before we lose it. It’s a very pessimistic vision. And a strategy that’s really not panning out so well.
