hydrarchist writes:

"Global Elites Must Realise that US Imperialism Isn't in Their Interest"

Michael Hardt

The Guardian, Wednesday December 18, 2002

Some of the worst tragedies of human history occur when elites are
incapable of acting in their own interest. The waning years of ancient
Rome, for example, were full of misguided political and military adventures
that brought death and destruction to the elites, their allies and their
enemies alike. Unfortunately we are again facing such a situation.
It seems inevitable that the United States will soon conduct a full-scale
war in Iraq. The US is also engaged in a war on terrorism that may extend
to all regions of the globe. And, most importantly, the US has embarked on
a foreign policy of "security" that dictates that it not merely react to
threats but anticipate them with pre-emptive strikes.
These military adventures are one sign that the US is fast becoming an
imperialist power along the old European model, but on a global scale. It
is imposing itself as the active and determining centre of the full range
of world affairs, military, political, and economic. All exchanges and
decisions are being forced, in effect, to pass through the US.
The ultimate hubris of the US political leaders is their belief that they
can not only force regime change and name new leaders for various
countries, but also actually shape the global environment -- an audacious
extension of the old imperialist ideology of mission civilisatrice. Regime
change in Iraq is only the first step in an ambitious project to
reconstruct the political order of the entire Middle East. And their
designs of power extend well beyond that.

Many political and economic elites around the world, however, do not favour
the creation of a new US imperialism. One common view is that European
political leaders generally oppose US unilateralism because it excludes
them and prefer instead multilateral political and military solutions. What
are most significant, however, are not the conflicting interests that
separate US elites from others, but rather their common interests.
The common interests of the global elites are most visible in the economic
sphere. Business leaders around the globe recognise that imperialism is bad
for business because it sets up barriers that hinder global flows. The
potential profits of capitalist globalisation, which whet the appetites of
business elites everywhere only a few years ago, depend on open systems of
production and exchange. This is equally true for the captains of capital
in the US. Even for the US industrialists drunk on oil, their real
interests lie in the potential profits of capitalist globalisation.

Their common interests are equally visible from the perspective of
security. It is foolish to believe that the removal of a few malefactors,
such as Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, will provide security. Not even
the US leaders have the illusion that this war will bring peace. They see
it rather as a long-lasting and perhaps interminable war driven by
continually emerging threats. US military actions will, in fact, most
likely only feed the antagonisms created by the inequalities of wealth and
power around the world, increasing exponentially the insecurity of global
elites. This is doubly true for US elites since unilateral military actions
paint a bull's-eye on the US for anyone seeking to attack the centre of
global domination.

However, there is an alternative to US imperialism: global power can be
organised in a decentred form, which Toni Negri and I call "empire". This
is not merely a multilateral coalition of leading nation states. Think of
it as multilateralism squared. Empire is a network composed of different
kinds of powers, including the dominant nation states, supranational
organisations, such as the United Nations and the IMF, multinational
corporations, NGOs, the media, and others. There are hierarchies among the
powers that constitute empire but despite their differences they function
together in the network.

This decentred network power of empire corresponds to the interests of
global elites because it both facilitates the potential profits of
capitalist globalisation and displaces or defuses potential security
threats. Once empire is firmly established as the prevailing form of global
rule, those who oppose the domination of global elites in the name of
equality, freedom, and democracy will certainly find ways to struggle
against it. But that does not mean that we prefer imperialism today.
We can be confident that in the long run their real interests will lead
global elites to support empire and refuse any project of US imperialism.
In the coming months, and perhaps years, we may face a tragedy that we read
about in the darkest periods of human history, when elites are incapable of
acting in their own interest.

Michael Hardt is professor of literature at
Duke University, North Carolina, and co-author with Antonio Negri of Empire.

Email: hardt