Shunpiking Online Vo.3 No.2 Empire with Imperialism Review by NANCY MALEK

Empire with Imperialism
The Globalizing Dynamics of Neo-liberal Capitalism
By James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer
With Luciano Vasapollo and Mauro Casadio
Fernwood Publishing/ZED Books
225 pp., $24.95
ISBN 1 55266 174 1

PETRAS AND VELTMEYER provide compelling arguments to back their assertion that the global market does not function as efficiently and freely as we would like to believe. The economic principles of supply and demand cannot prevail in a climate where imperialist states impose foreign trade policies designed to dominate overseas markets and protect local ones. In other words "markets do not transcend the state but operate within it".

The authors narrate a mesmerizing account of the grip that current imperialist states, such as the United States, the European Union and China, have on power and how they maintain it through political, economic and military means. These imperialist states control the global market place through trade policies, multi-national corporations and through participation in global organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Particularly illuminating is an entire chapter devoted to inter-imperialist rivalry. Petras and Veltmeyer discuss the arrival of the Euro and its possible threat to the US dollar as a "reserve currency for the global market". The advent of the European Space Agency's Galileo project that will establish a more 'civilian-friendly' and technologically superior satellite telecommunication network suggests that the European Union is finished relying on US technology. That the European Union asked China to participate in Galileo indicates that the EU is looking to establish a range of global relationships beyond the established norms. The authors present these and other interesting developments as probable reasons for the cooling of transatlantic relations and extrapolate their theories to offer insights into current world conflicts such as the war on Iraq and the instability in the former Soviet states of Turkmenistan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

This book provides a daunting and fascinating look into the workings of our global economy and the powers which control it. After reading it, you may never use the words "free" and "market" together in the same sentence again.