Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

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If you’re among those who have only just begun paying attention to US foreign policy and western media bias in light of Israel’s destruction of Gaza and Biden’s act of war against Yemen, it’s important to understand that none of the depravity you’re seeing is new. The lies. The insane double standards. The murderousness. The western political/media class always does this.

Every war the US involves itself in is always facilitated by lies promulgated in one voice by the official government in Washington and by the “independent” “free” press (actually propaganda services) of the western world. They deceived the world about Ukraine. They deceived the world about Yemen. They deceived the world about Syria, Libya and Iraq. There are always, always lies, obfuscations and manipulations involved in marketing a new war to the public, or in hiding its involvement in foreign wars from public attention.

All of this manipulation and deceit is necessary to hide the fact that the US-centralized empire is the most tyrannical power structure on this planet. And make no mistake, it is an empire. Washington serves as the hub of an undeclared empire comprised of alliances, partnerships, assets, public deals and secret agreements which knit a large number of nations together into what functions as a single power structure with regard to international affairs.

Most of the beneficiaries of this power structure reside in the west, or global north, while the most exploited and abused victims of this power structure tend to reside in the east, or global south. There are all sorts of rules and regulations and narratives and justifications for why this all happens the way it happens, but if you mentally “mute” the soundtrack on the verbal overlay and just look at what’s actually happening, what you will see is the lion’s share of the world’s wealth and resources moving northward and westward from populations of a darker average skin tone toward populations of a paler average skin tone. Wherever that movement is hindered, diverted, threatened or inconvenienced, you will see western war machinery moving southward and eastward to get it back on the desired track.

Most major international conflicts can be understood as either direct or indirect efforts by the US empire to shore up planetary domination, which are often met with resistance by populations who wish to retain their sovereignty. Much of this conflict happens in the middle east because that’s where the world gets a lot of its oil from, with US-aligned nations like Israel and Saudi Arabia frequently serving as the frontline for hostilities with non-US-aligned nations like Iran and Syria as well as non-US-aligned forces like Hezbollah, Ansarallah and Hamas.

This struggle for US planetary hegemony is disguised by the western political/media class as something other than what it is, because you can’t allow the public in a democratic nation to understand clearly that their government is on the side of evil. They’ll frame it as a US-led international coalition to liberate a nation from a tyrannical dictator. As a humanitarian intervention to protect human rights. As support for Israel’s right to defend itself. As protection of freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. But what’s actually happening is the world’s most powerful and murderous power structure killing human beings in western Asia in order to secure control over a crucial resource.

You see this all over the world against nations which refuse to allow themselves to be absorbed into the US-centralized power structure like North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba, with China being by far the strongest of these and Russia a distant second. And you will notice that you have heard every nation I just mentioned cast in a very negative light by the western press over the years. This is not a coincidence.

You don’t need to believe anything I’m saying on faith. If you just keep in mind what I said and start watching the patterns for yourself while seeking out the truth day by day, you will see it for yourself. You will see the same patterns emerging over and over again, year after year. Over and over again you will see the US and the states that are aligned with it acting with extreme aggression toward non-US-aligned powers in ways that benefit the US-centralized power structure, and you will see the western press deceiving the world about what’s happening. The next Official Bad Guy you see dominating western press coverage on international affairs will be a non-US-aligned power, and if you apply diligent research and critical thinking you will find that they are not presenting an accurate picture of what’s happening.

Just keep learning and studying the patterns with open curiosity and self-honesty, and the picture will inevitably become clear to you. And then you will clearly see who’s really driving the bulk of the violence and disorder in our world.

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In The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future, political reporter Franklin Foer unpacks the first two years of the Biden presidency, spanning the Covid crisis, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Though stronger on domestic than foreign politics, Foer has produced a well-wrought and detailed insight into Biden’s premiership, writes Michael Cox.

The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future. Franklin Foer. Michael Cox. Penguin Press. 2023.

Find this book: 

Whatever critics might like to say about Joe Biden – that he lacks gravitas or is just too old – there can be no doubt that he has been one of the most successful politicians of his generation, first as a senator, then as Vice President, and finally in beating Trump in 2020 where Hilary Clinton failed in 2016. Moreover, if the author of this not uncritical study is to be believed, he has not done a bad job as President either. Coming to power in the middle of a pandemic, and only three weeks after the January 6th attack on Congress, he has at least steadied the ship of the State, without, however, overcoming the US’s deep divisions.

Coming to power in the middle of a pandemic, and only three weeks after the January 6th attack on Congress, [Biden] has at least steadied the ship of the State, without, however, overcoming the US’s deep divisions.

But Biden has also brought something else to the table that previous Democrats – like the cerebral Obama and the crowd-pleasing Clinton – did not: a belief that the Democrats had to do more than just manage globalisation. Rather, they had to be bold enough to stand up for those working people “without college degrees” and use the power of government to rebuild the American economy from the ground up. Thus far, the strategy has worked reasonably successfully, and might even deliver Biden a second term.

For a book which is much stronger on domestic politics than the world outside the US, Foer nonetheless does a fair job in assessing Biden’s various foreign policy challenges, the most long-term of which is China – and here, at least, he has something in common with Trump – but the most immediate, of course, being Putin’s Russia.

After the fiasco that was the withdrawal of the US’s military presence in Afghanistan in 2021, Biden dared not fail. And according to Foer, he didn’t.

This is a story that has been told many times before. However, Foer tells it well. After the fiasco that was the withdrawal of the US’s military presence in Afghanistan in 2021, Biden dared not fail. And according to Foer, he didn’t. In fact, having concluded by October that year that Russia was planning an invasion, the Biden team acted in a most decisive fashion by letting Putin know that Washington knew precisely what Moscow was up to. Thereafter, his team did everything it could to warn Putin of the possible consequences of an invasion – he even sent his CIA chief to Moscow to meet Putin – while making sure it did not hand the Russian leader a pretext for attacking Ukraine. The trick was to do this while at the same time reassuring Ukraine and its President, Volodmyr Zelensky of US support.

Relations with Zelensky were not always easy, though they were nowhere near as disastrous as they had been under Trump. Most obviously, Biden and his team failed to persuade the Ukrainian President that Moscow was actually going to invade.

As Foer shows in some of the more revealing sections of the book, relations with Zelensky were not always easy, though they were nowhere near as disastrous as they had been under Trump. Most obviously, Biden and his team failed to persuade the Ukrainian President that Moscow was actually going to invade. Zelensky moreover always seemed to be asking for more than Biden could deliver and was forever complaining (according to Foer at least) that the US wasn’t doing enough to support Ukraine, either by allowing it into NATO, or by supplying it with all the most up-to-date military equipment. As more recent events have shown, these are arguments that look set to run well into the future as the war grinds on towards its third year.

Foer’s volume only covers the first two years of the Biden presidency and leaves the story hanging on a somewhat optimistic note in late 2022. Whether he would be so optimistic a year on given Biden’s still very low ratings is not so clear. Nor is it at all clear how he would write about the impact the deepening crisis in Israel and the impact its war against Hamas might have on the presidential race. But it could be significant given Biden’s determination to support Israel and “hug Bibi [Netanyahu] tight”. Indeed, with many in the US – including its around one million Muslim voters and a large tranche of younger people – asking whether they are still willing to vote for a party whose leader has thus far has been reluctant to call for a ceasefire, Biden may come to rue the day that he got quite so close to “Bibi”.

In 2024, the Democrats will need every vote they can muster. It would be ironic if a war the US did not anticipate, in a region it felt was beginning to settle down, turned out to be decisive and delivered victory to its opponents.

The outcome of the race for the White House in 2020 was in the end determined by just under 45,000 votes in three key swing states out of five. In what promises to be an even tighter race for the White House in 2024, the Democrats will need every vote they can muster. It would be ironic if a war the US did not anticipate, in a region it felt was beginning to settle down, turned out to be decisive and delivered victory to its opponents. We are often told by political scientists that foreign policy never determines the outcomes of US elections. In 2024 it just might.

This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.

You can watch a video for LSE featuring Professor Michael Cox, “2024: A year of unpredictable elections” on YouTube here.

Image Credit: Executive Office of the President of the United States via Picryl.

It is not the morning for blogging.

It is dry, almost warm and the day to spend out in nature. But, a thought before I go, which is this.

At long last Biden is realising that Netanyahu is not Israel. He is even beginning to show intolerance of his government.

This is incredibly welcome. That far-right would always  have us believe that the governments that they create are synonymous with, and represent the true opinions  of, the states that they temporarily represent. But that is not true, at least for democrats, who always recognise that any particular government must be transitory.

Netanyahu is not Israel. Separate the two and you begin to make other necessary distinctions. You also begin to find the pathway to a solution.

That is true in so many other places, where there are different issues, but far-right governments also seek to claim their views are synonymous with those  of the nation, starting in the UK as a whole.

Maybe, just maybe, some political awareness is dawning.

In The Unequal Effects of Globalization, Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg looks at globalisation’s effect on inequality, emphasising regional frictions, rising corporate profits and multilateralism as focal points and arguing for new, “place-based” policies in response. Though Goldberg provides a sharp analysis of global trade, Ivan Radanović questions whether her proposals can effectively tackle critical issues from poverty to climate change.

The Unequal Effects of Globalization. Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg (with Greg Larson). MIT Press. 2023.

Find this book: 

Glancing at the megalopolis on the left and abandoned building on the right side оf the book cover, I made an assumption about its narration: from the 1980s onwards, trade unions and states were blamed for rising inflation and unemployment. Fiscal cuts, deregulation and privatisation replaced public interest with private ones: maximising profit, firms outsourcing manufacture. What at first went alongside and later instead of promised economic efficiency was wealth accumulation at the top and the surge of corporate profits. As workers’ real wages fell behind, inequality grew.

As an academic specialising in applied microeconomics, Goldberg investigates globalisation’s many dimensions and complex interactions, from early trade globalisation to the rise of China, from western deindustrialisation to its effects on global poverty, inequality, labour markets and firm dynamics.

I was wrong. As an academic specialising in applied microeconomics, Goldberg investigates globalisation’s many dimensions and complex interactions, from early trade globalisation to the rise of China, from western deindustrialisation to its effects on global poverty, inequality, labour markets and firm dynamics. The book does concur with my assumption, but it engages with it in a more unique way.

According to Goldberg, the increase in global trade is due to developing countries’ entry into international trade since the 1990s.

Starting from an economic definition of globalisation, the author emphasises the lowest ever levels of (measurable) trade barriers and, consequently, the highest global trade volumes. According to Goldberg, the increase in global trade is due to developing countries’ entry into international trade since the 1990s. It is inseparable from global value chains (GVCs), complex production processes that – from raw material to product design – take place in different countries. The author argues that “the increasing importance of developing countries in world trade reflects their participation in GVCs” (6). That is the creation story of hyperglobalisation. For Goldberg, it is observable by the total export share in global GDP: “being fairly constant in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it began rising after World War II and accelerated dramatically in the 1990s and early 2000s.” That is exactly when the World Trade Organization (WTO) was founded, and many multilateral trade agreements were signed. The key was trade policy.

But not everyone agreed. Some economists, including Land Pritchett and Andrew Rose, contended the growth was not due to trade, but the development of technology and fall of transportation costs. Goldberg rejects this argument, pointing out that technology was developing long before. Hyperglobalisation started because trade policies encouraged multilateralism; “Trade policy – especially the creation of a predictably stable global trading environment – was at least as important as technological development“ (17).

Since international trade is largely about distributional gains and losses, the key question is whether the recent tensions and protectionism – such as Brexit, Trumpism and American trade war with China, to name the most visible examples – are just blips in irreversible globalisation, or signs of deglobalisation.

This is important because international trade is a perennial source of discontent within globalisation, and exploring its causes is the primary focus of this book. Since international trade is largely about distributional gains and losses, the key question is whether the recent tensions and protectionism – such as Brexit, Trumpism and American trade war with China, to name the most visible examples – are just blips in irreversible globalisation, or signs of deglobalisation. It depends on policy choices.

In the second half of the book, Goldberg turns to inequality and differentiates it into global inequality and intra-country inequality. From the global perspective, the author points out two major contributions. The famous “elephant curve“ developed by Lakner and Milanovic (2016, p. 31) showed very high income growth rates for world’s poorer groups from 1980 to 2013. This primary observation is accompanied, however, by the almost stagnant income of the middle classes in developed countries (the bottom of elephant’s trunk) and high rates of growth for the world’s top one percent (its top). But how high? The answer came five years later, when Thomas Piketty and colleagues concluded (2018, p. 13) this elite group captured 27 per cent of global income growth between 1980 and 2016.

Analysing internal inequalities, Goldberg states that globalisation affects people twofold: as workers and as consumers.

This still does not refute that income rose for all groups, remarkably reducing poverty. But what about inequalities? Goldberg further investigates whether there is a trade-off between global inequality and within-country inequality. Analysing internal inequalities, Goldberg states that globalisation affects people twofold: as workers and as consumers. These effects are well-researched in developed countries like the USA, where trade liberalisation with China since the late 1990s brought multi-million job losses. Citing scholars such as David Autor, Gordon Hanson, David Dorn, and Kaveh Majlesi, Goldberg finds this trend disturbing for ordinary citizens. One could suppose that although jobs were lost, this was compensated by lower consumer prices which benefitted everyone. However, that’s exactly what did not happen in the US. Firms took almost all benefits, which meant that greater trade did not reduce consumer inequality. Crucially, even if it had, it would not compensate for the negative effects on the labour market. Therefore, as Deaton and Case argued, it is no surprise that the millions of jobless, low-educated Americans whose quality of life and even life expectancy is in decline oppose globalisation.

But the advent of trade with China cannot fully explain this issue. There are severe labour mobility frictions that prevent people from moving to another town, county or state to find a better job. That is an American trademark since, as Goldberg suggests, “Europe normalized their trade with China much earlier and in a much more gradual manner“ (55). In other words – a policy problem needs policy solution.

[Trade’s] adverse effects, such as the exceptionally high benefit claimed by the top one percent and the stagnation of the middle class in the Global North, cannot be attributed to trade per se, but to a lack of policies that absorb disruptions.

Goldberg is an optimist: poverty has fallen throughout the world, pulling hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty (defined living on or below 1.9 international dollars per day) particularly in countries that plugged themselves into GVCs. Trade, therefore, played a positive role. This implies that its adverse effects, such as the exceptionally high benefit claimed by the top one percent and the stagnation of the middle class in the Global North, cannot be attributed to trade per se, but to a lack of policies that absorb disruptions. More than tariffs, this includes workforce development, social protection, corporate taxation, and other policies that protect people from unregulated market forces. This is where real improvement lies, with broad and sincere international cooperation.

[Goldberg] seems to suggest that the global economy is functional; it just requires a little fix here and there in order to fight climate change as one of the ‘challenges of tomorrow’

The author writes from a “middle position“, so neutral that there is no mention of the word “capitalism“ in the whole book. Goldberg is aware of inequalities, but still emphasises dynamic poverty reduction. She seems to suggest that the global economy is functional; it just requires a little fix here and there in order to fight climate change as one of the “challenges of tomorrow“ (90). (This might be ok if climate change was a challenge of tomorrow – but it is not.) The evidence has been mounting for decades: polar ice caps melting, rising sea levels, deforestation and biodiversity loss, desertification and soil depletion, plastic pollution and fishery collapse. Our world is dying today, and the consequences are fierce and unequal. While the common poverty-reduction argument based on $1.9 a day is severely disputed, economic equality is highly correlated with desired outcomes including higher longevity rates, political participation, better mental health and life satisfaction.

This position, which one could view as reinforcing a profit-centred status quo from the former chief economist of the World Bank does not surprise. Her monograph has certain strong points, namely its neutral overview, its in-depth analysis of trade and and its insight into new, relevant literature. But writing about globalisation today demands more. To confirm that a problem exists is not enough. We need immediate action.

This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.

Image Credit: Donatas Dabravolskas on Shutterstock.