Blog post

Considering the Life-Blood of Global Capitalism

Molly Osberg18 October 2012

Journalist and filmmaker Saul Landau writes for Counterpunch on anti-austerity protests across the western world and the ever-chugging "engine of America's 'informal empire.'" Condemning the American media for projecting a shallow, one-dimensional caricature of economic crisis in the Eurozone and fretting endlessly over "who will next direct the Empire," Landau writes of the necessity for a practical historical analysis of market-driven capitalism's global development:

Scholars and journalists have ... dissected US military activities over the decades, but few writers have dared to try to take on the economic institutions, the crucial other pieces of modern US Empire ... So readers should avail themselves of Professors Leo Panitch's — Political Science Professor at Toronto's York University — and his colleague Sam Ginden's excellent researching and insightful analysis, as well as their readable description and explanation of how the money part of the US empire works.

Landau commends the authors of The Making of Global Capitalismin particular for their exhaustive narration of the IMF's role in restructuring global financial systems to the benefit of powerful financial firms, and for repudiating "apocalyptic scenarios of capitalisms' impending doom and instead offer[ing] suggestions about 'turning the financial institutions that are the life-blood of global capitalism into public utilities.'

Visit Counterpunch to read the review in full.