On American Protectionism
Contrary to Hilferding's predictions, this type of corporate structure that emerged in the United States—instead of German-style state-monopoly capitalism—became the effective basis of a new stage of capitalism on a global scale. The rise of American corporate capitalism to a position of global dominance was one aspect of the process of transformation of intercapitalist competition, as theorized by Hilferding. In particular, the American government and business community were, from the beginning, vanguards of the protectionist movement that ultimately destroyed the British world market system and led global capitalism to retreat into the "igloos" of its national economies and associated empires. The massive increase in U.S. tariffs during the Civil War was followed by further increases in 1883, 1890, 1894, and 1897. Although small reductions were introduced by President Wilson in 1913, they were only tolerated by Congress as long as the war reduced competition from foreign imports and stimulated American exports. As soon as the war ended and the first signs of a recession appeared, the American protectionist tradition was fully revived. Large tariff increases were passed in the early 1920s in response to trade hardships, foreshadowing the astronomical Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930. Furthermore, as Hilferding also theorized, US protectionism during this period increasingly became a way to offset export dumping with extra profits at home and, above all, to negotiate, from a position of strength, the opening of foreign markets—especially Latin American markets—to US exports and investment. Contrary to Hilferding's generalizations, US finance capital played no role in encouraging US protectionism. The financial community, in particular, systematically preached the virtues of free trade and did everything in its power to induce the US government to oppose the destruction of the world market, assuming leadership and responsibility for this cause. "The world has become so interdependent in its economic life that the actions of one nation affect the prosperity of others," wrote Wall Street banker and former Under Secretary of State Norman Davis on the eve of 1929. "The units of the world economy," he added, "must work together or rot separately." (quoted in Frieden)
In ideals and in practice (therefore), American finance capital remained to the end in defense of the British world market system, and never became an agent of its overcoming, as Hilferding claims. The principal and dominant agent of this overcoming was not finance capitalism as such, in any of its variants, but the corporation capitalism that emerged in the United States through the formation of multi-unit enterprises with vertical integration and bureaucratic management. Once these enterprises had consolidated themselves in the broad, diversified, self-sufficient, dynamic, and well-protected economic space encompassed by the American state, they began to enjoy decisive competitive advantages in the world economy as a whole, both relative to British-style market capitalism and to German-style corporation capitalism. As a national whole, American firms combined the advantages of the extensive 'technical' division of labor (internal economies) with the advantages of the social division of labor (external economies) to a much greater degree than either single-unit British firms or horizontally integrated German firms.
ResponderExcluirThe economic space encompassed by Imperial Germany was not large enough to allow German companies to offset the larger external economies enjoyed by British firms with larger internal economies. But the economic space encompassed by the United States allowed American companies to achieve an extremely effective synthesis of the advantages of market planning and regulation. By expanding transnationally, once they had completed their domestic continental integration, American corporations became a handful of "Trojan horses" in the domestic markets of other countries, mobilizing external resources and purchasing power for their own bureaucratic expansion. Thus, American corporate capital benefited, in two interrelated and mutually reinforcing ways, from the protectionist movement that was tearing apart the British world market.
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