American Globalism and American Economy(<SPECIAL ISSUE>The Structure of Global Capitalism)

Abstract

In this paper "American globalism" is defined as the U.S. power and thought to execute American globalization. Economic globalization is the most fundamental among various dimensions of globalization. Included in the U.S. power for American globalization are diplomatic politics, global reach of multinational corporations and multinational banks, global investment by institutional investors and so on. This paper focuses on the economic aspect and the center piece of globalization. This paper deals with the following some questions about American globalism. First, how does the U.S. presidency regard the current globalization. Second, what are driving forces behind Uruguay round? What is basic conflict built in WTO regime? Third, how American regionalism is related with American globalism? NAFTA, APEC and FTAA are analyzed here.Fourth,what are impacts of American globalism on the U.S. domestic economy, in particular on labor market. The paper is divided to five sections excluding the first section as an introduction. The second section examines when and in what meaning the U.S. presidency used the term "globalization" in the Economic Report of the President together with The Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers. This report has been published every year since 1947 and explains economic conditions and economic policy under the current presidency. An independent chapter noticing globalization was first seen in the report of 1997. The title of the chapter was "American Leadership in the Emerging Global Economy". The chapter six of the report of 2000 analyzed globalization in more detail than the report of 1997. According to the report of 2000, globalization is "the world wide integration of national economies through trade, capital flows, and operational linkages among firms" and the report raised technological development and the role of policy as the forces behind globalization. With critical analysis about these reports, we think that American globalism began from so-called Nixon shock on 15 August 1971. President Richard Nixon suspended the U.S. responsibility to bind the U.S. dollar with gold, and as the result of that he abolished capital export control. Since this policy change, U.S. multinational corporations have expanded their investment abroad rapidly. In this sense, the year of 1971 was pivotal for American globalism. The third section traces the process of Uruguay round. Like GATT negotiations, multilateralism in liberalization of international trade is of essence for American globalism. This section also analyzes conflict of WTO regime established in 1995 which was successful result of Uruguay round. The fourth section and the fifth section deal with American regionalism such as NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation), FTAA (Free Trade Area of the America) which have emerged since the latter half of the 1980s. The U.S. presidency says it is engaging in "competitive liberalization", or working to open markets bilaterally through FTA (Free Trade Agreements), regionally through NAFTA, APEC and FTAA, and globally through WTO talks. To be sure, NAFTA provided a good example of smaller free trade agreements leading to larger accords. NAFTA set a precedent for the rest of Latin America to pursue sub-regional free trade accords, finally resulting in FTAA in 1994. On the other hand, since 1993 the U.S. presidency has committed positively APEC and has tried to make binding rules towards APEC members. However, so far both APEC and FTAA have not proceeded as the U.S. presidency acted. Therefore in the case of APEC and FTAA, things didn't work as "competitive liberalization" said, because of various antagonisms to American globalism. Last, changing labor market and changing public opinion towards globalization in the U.S. are analyzed. There is a sway of

(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)