[Marxism] Varieties of imperial decline

[Louis Proyect]

ZNet | Latin America
Varieties of imperial decline : rearguard success, strategic defeat.
by toni solo; January 02, 2008

     "from 1920 to 1960, Venezuela was the leading world exporter of oil 
and here, through our Caribbean sea passed thousands of boats loaded 
with oil: but they left nothing to benefit the peoples of the Caribbean, 
the sister peoples of Latin America. Today revolutionary Venezuela 
places this wealth, above all, at the disposal of our sister peoples of 
the Caribbean and of Latin America: not for the North American empire." 
Hugo Chavez Frias, from closing words at Fourth Petrocaribe Summit.

     Returning to Europe after some time away is like visiting an 
unloved relative falling into dementia. It may be unwelcome, but one 
sheds no tears. The persistent optimism of Western Bloc political and 
financial leaders is bizarre. For example Brian Cowen, Ireland's Finance 
Minister presented a budget recently based on projected inflation 
through 2008 of a little over 2% and growth in gross domestic product at 
3%. Subsequently, Ireland's Economic and Social Research Institute's 
latest quarterly economic commentary reckoned growth at nearer 2% and 
inflation at over 3%.

     But as this decade's credit boom slumps into bust, service-skewed 
economies like those in the US, Britain and Ireland are likely to be hit 
much harder than these forecasts suppose. Most people, businesses and 
households, more or less heavily in debt, will cut back hard on 
non-essential spending. That will probably create a vicious downward 
spiral as increasing numbers of people are made unemployed and overall 
consumer demand drops correspondingly. At the same time, creeping 
inflation will make everything dearer for people to buy. The full 
effects of all these processes are unlikely to work themselves out until 
late 2009 at the earliest.

full: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=20&ItemID=14635