Fire Change

Hence, the likelihood is that economic interdependence of a Eurasian nature will beat out American “Dollar Hegemony” over the long run, but it still remains to be seen as to what will exactly occur given the uncertainty which encompasses everything. As mentioned before, “Dollar Hegemony” is essentially a political and social device or instrument contrived by the Nixon Administration in the 1970’s as a response to stall the diminution of an American “unipolar moment” in the face of a growingly multipolar world. In a sense, “Dollar Hegemony” was the final card that Washington could play in order to stall the diminution of its unipolar moment in the face of a growingly multipolar world, and the issue of whether “Dollar Hegemony” can still serve as an effective or potent instrument or tool in stalling this diminution which has been ongoing for a little more than the last fifty years remains to be seen. 

The “Dollar Hegemony” contrived in the 1970’s was also an effective and potent tool to counteract democratic will and labor unions in the United States by drawing capital, public assets, public funds, and jobs out of the hands of regular people. But over the last fifty years, the diminution of the exertion and potency of democratic will and union power has correlated with the rise of populist anger and frustration, and this diminution, transformation, and mutation of popular power into a turbulent and troublesome ontological condition has its own set of political and social implications. And perhaps all that needs to be known if all else is forgotten are two statistics which illustrate the phenomenon of American decline vis-à-vis an emerging multipolar world, namely, the increase of the share of the world’s wealth belonging to the top 1 percent from 30 percent in 1989 to more than 50 percent today, and the drop of America’s share of global GDP from 50 percent in the 1940’s to 15 percent today. 

As Karl Marx argued, capital has no choice but to “exploit the already existing gigantic means of production on a larger scale and to set in motion all the mainsprings of credit to this end” which in turn translates into “a corresponding increase in industrial earthquakes, in which the trading world can only maintain itself by sacrificing a part of wealth, of products and even of productive forces to the gods of the nether world – in a word, crises increase.” Marx added:

“[Crises] become more frequent and more violent, if only because, as the mass of production, and consequently the need for extended markets, grows, the world market becomes more and more contracted, fewer and fewer new markets remain available for exploitation, since every preceding crisis has subjected to world trade a market hitherto conquered or only superficially exploited.” 

And as Marx highlighted, the growth of capital which enables capital to dominate and exploit labor ends up being a condition that is favorable to labor, given that the growth of capital paradoxically leads to its contraction. Hence, the paradox that “nevertheless, the rapid growth of capital is the most favorable condition for wage labor.” This paradox perhaps leads to yet another paradox, namely, a loss of sleep and peace of mind on the part of the capitalist while the poor and working classes espouse rates of mental health problems that are much less worse than those espoused by the rich and the powerful.