Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between European states and the informal American empire following the Second World War. Building on neo-Marxist theory, it argues that any attempt to understand the political response to the ongoing euro crisis has to consider the deeper determinations of the trajectories of the states of North America and Western Europe through the course of the making of global capitalism since 1945. This involves, in particular, taking seriously the leading responsibility that the American state has had, and still has, for securing the conditions for capital accumulation internationally, even while other capitalist states retain their ‘relative autonomy’ within the informal American empire.

Keywords

Relative autonomy euro crisis American empire neoliberalism capitalism financialization

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abdelal

(2007) Capital Rules: The Construction of Global Finance, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Andrews

(2008) Orderly Change: International Monetary Relations since Bretton Woods, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Bank of International Settlements (1948) Per Jacobsson to Allen Dulles. BIS Files 48, 19 April.

Barefoot KB and Mataloni Jr RJ (2010) US multinational companies’ operations in the United States and abroad in 2008. US Survey of Current Business, August, pp.205–230.

Barker A and Speigel P (2011) Geithner set to join European meeting. Financial Times, 13 September. Available at: www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b6efef8-dd6c-11eo-b6bd-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3RIBqRGHC (accessed 13 September 2011).

Barr A and Nutting, R (2007) US banking giants borrow 2Bl from Fed. Market Watch, 22 August. Available at: www.marketwatch.com/story/us-banking-giants-borrow-2-bln-from-feds-discount-window (accessed 14 October 2008).

Bernanke BS (2008a) Economic outlook and financial markets. Testimony before the Committee on the Budget, US House of Representative, 20 October. Available at: http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/testimony/bernanke20081020a.htm (accessed 12 April 2014).

Bernanke BS (2008b) Meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee on 15–16 December. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 16 December. Available at: http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/FOMC20081216meeting (accessed 5 April 2014).

Black J (2013) Central banks make SWAPs permanent as crisis backstop. Bloomberg, 31 October. Available at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-10-31/ecb-makes-crisis-cash-lines-at-central-banks-permanent (accessed 21 May 2014).

10.

Blyth

(2013) Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea, New York: Oxford University Press.

11.

Cable J (2013) ECB won’t launch QE or reduce reserve requirement – Reuters poll. Reuters, 27 November. Available at: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/11/27/uk-ecb-rates-poll-id (accessed 10 April 2014).

12.

Carpenter

Jefferys

(2000) Management, Work and Welfare in Western Europe, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

13.

Clark T and Linder J (2012) Central Bank Liquidity Swaps. Economic Trends, 19 December, pp.9--11.

14.

DeLong BJ and Eichengreen B (1991) The Marshall Plan: History’s most successful structural adjustment program. Working Paper 3899, National Bureau of Economic Research, November.

15.

Dyson

Featherstone

Michalopoulos

(2002) Strapped to the mast: EU central bankers between global financial markets and regional integration. In: Coleman

Underhill

(eds) Regionalism and Global Economic Integration: Europe, Asia and the Americas, London: Routledge, pp. 174–196.

16.

Ellis

(2009) The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs, New York: Penguin.

17.

European Commission (2001) Improving and simplifying the regulatory environment. EC: Interim Report to the Stockholm European Council, Brussels, 7 March.

18.

Fawley BW and Neely C (2013) Four stories on quantitative easing. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, January/February, pp.51–88.

19.

Funabashi

(1998) Managing the Dollar: From the Plaza to the Louvre, Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics.

20.

Grahl

(2004) The European Union and American power. In: Panitch

Leys

(eds) The Empire Reloaded, Socialist Register 2005, London: Merlin.

21.

Hall

(2013) The political origins of our economic discontents. In: Kahler

Lake

(eds) Politics in the New Hard Times: The Great Recession in Comparative Perspective, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 129–149.

22.

Hetzel RL (2013) ECB monetary policy in the recession: A new Keynesian (old monetarist) critique. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, July, Working paper 13-07.

23.

Keoun B and Torres C (2011) Foreign banks tapped Fed’s secret lifeline most at crisis peak. Bloomberg, 1 April. Available at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-04-01/foreign-banks-tapped-fed-s-lifeline-most-as-bernanke-kept-borrowers-secret (accessed 17 May 2014).

24.

Kreile

(1977) West Germany: The dynamics of expansion. International Organization 31(4): 775–808.

25.

Johnson

(1981) The Long March of the French Left, New York: St. Martin Press.

26.

Jones C (2014) ECB says prepared to embrace QE. Financial Times, 3 April. Available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/18f49ba6-bb1a-11e3-948 (accessed 11 April).

27.

Lipietz

(1992) Towards a New Economic Order, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

28.

Lundestad

(2003) The United States and Western Europe since 1945, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

29.

Moravcsik

(1998) The Choice for Europe, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

30.

Moss

(2005) Monetary Union in Crisis: The European Union as a Neo-liberal Construction, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

31.

Nesvetailova

Palan

(2008) A very North Atlantic credit crunch: The geopolitics of the global liquidity meltdown. Journal of International Affairs 62(1): 165–185.

32.

Panitch

Gindin

(2005) Euro-Capitalism and American empire. In: Coates

(ed.) Varieties of Capitalism, Varieties of Approaches, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 139–159.

33.

Pisani-Ferry J (2012) Tim Geithner and Europe’s phone number. Bruegel, 4 November. Available at: http://www.bruegel.org/nc/blog/detail/article/934-tim-geithner-and-europes-phone-number (accessed 4 November).

34.

Sablowski

(2009) Towards the Americanization of European finance? The case of finance-led accumulation in Germany. In: Panitch

Konings

(eds) The American Empire and the Political Economy of Global Finance, London: Palgrave.

35.

Sassoon

(1996) One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in Twentieth Century, London: I.B. Taurus.

36.

Schenk

(1998) The origin of the Eurodollar market in London: 1955–1963. Explorations in Economic History 35(2): 221–238.

37.

Singer

(1988) Is Socialism Doomed? The Meaning of Mitterrand, New York: Oxford University Press.

38.

Spero

(1999) The Failure of the Franklin National Bank: Challenge to the International Banking System, Washington DC: Beard Books.

39.

The Telegraph (2012) IMF: Eurozone in critical danger, ECB should launch QE. The Telegraph, 18 July. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9408903/IMF-eurozone-in-critical-danger-ECB-should-launch-QE.html (accessed 3 April).

40.

Tracy R and Hilsenrath J (2014) Fed rate policies aid foreign banks. Wall Street Journal, 29 September. Available at: http://online.wsj.com/articles/fed-rate-policies-aid-foreign-banks-1412013119 (accessed 30 September).

41.

Volcker

Gyohten

(1992) Changing Fortunes: The World’s Money and the Threat to American Leadership, New York: Times Books.

42.

White

(1992) The Comptroller and the Transformation of American Banking, 1960–1990, Washington, DC: Comptroller of the Currency.

43.

White J (2008) On crisis, Europe to US: “I told you so”. Christian Science Monitor, 10 October. Available at: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2008/1010/p07s03-woeu.html (accessed 04 January 2009).

American empire and the relative autonomy of European capitalism

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References