World Bank, for example) that set the economic agenda fornmost of the world. For years, we have been hearingncomplaints about America’s failure to keep up with Germanynand Japan, and this country’s slow decline into ansecond-rate power seemed assured. However, once wenestablish a permanent military presence in the Gulf andnafter we take on a few other dictators who have thenmisfortune to rule a country with strategic assets, we will benin an excellent position to bully the axis powers.nThere are one or two possible flaws in the new imperialnstrategy. Most obviously, the Germans and Japanese maynrefuse to accept the situation. After all, it is our electronicnsuperiority that allowed us to take over Iraqi airspace withnsuch ease, and eithet Germany or Japan could begin turningnsome of their technological capacity to what we euphemisticallynlike to call defense.nAmerica’s renewed bellicosity stems from the eclipse ofnthe Soviet Union as a serious rival. But despite the mess Mr.nGorbachev has made of their moribund command economy,nthe Soviets are not out of the game. While the goodnempire was busy restoring emirs and keeping down oilnprices, the bad empire was crushing resistance in the Balticnstates and cracking down on the press. Was this part of anpackage deal arrangement: in return for their nominalnsupport against Iraq, we promised — in addition to loans andncredits — a free hand within their sphere of influence? Or isnGorbachev’s militancy nothing more than the predictablenSoviet opportunism? (During the Suez crisis, they movedninto Hungary.) It hardly matters, since foreknowledge innsuch matters is tantamount to responsibility, and we knewnwhat the Soviets would do. By itself, the Soviet Union maynbe in no position to compete with the United States, butnthey do not have to go it alone. Thomas Molnar has beennarguing for some time that the U.S.S.R. and Germany havenevery incentive for cooperation.. Even in the short run, anGerman-Russian alliance could .prove fatal to our imperialneuphoria.nQuite apart from the prospects for American hegemony,nthe New World Order may not prove to be a blessing fornmost of the world’s inhabitants. Just as nationalism grows atnthe expense of lesser allegiances — localisms and provincialismsn— so internationalism (always a code word for imperialism)nbattens upon a diet of national loyalty. In the economicnsphere, the internationalists are driven by the vision of anworld in which every human being is bound to every othernby links of production, consumption, and exchange. It isninternational capitalism’s answer to the great chain of being.nAt the top stand the international corporate giants, and atnthe bottom are GM assembly line workers or Mexicannpeasants who have only recently made the transition fromnsubsistence farming to growing cash crops for Green Giant.nTerms like “the free market” or even “capitalism”nhardly seem applicable to the international economy.nMost of the multinationals have learned how to manipulatengovernments to their own advantage. ITT — with its recordnof collaboration with Hitler, gifts to political parties, andnattempts to overthrow unfriendly regimes (ITT allegedlynoff^ered the CIA money to help get rid of Allende) — is onlynthe most glaring example. And where the corporationncannot influence a government, it may choose to pursue itsnown international policy, often at the expense of the countrynin which it is chartered.nThe most obvious examples are the many businesses innEurope and the United States that found methods — illegalnas well as legal — of selling technology to the U.S.S.R. Lessnobvious are the political entanglements of internationalnbanking studied by Benjamin J. Gohen in his Gouncil onnForeign Relations study, In Whose Interest. An internationalistnto the core, Cohen still cites case after case of conflictnbetween the foreign policies of the United States and U.S.nbanks.nIn the case of Poland, the State Department encouragednthe banks to make loans as a means of gaining leverage overnthe liberalizing regime of Edward Cierek. The real effectnof these loans, however, was to sink the Polish economy underna burden of debt. When General Jaruzelski eventuallyncracked down on Solidarity and imposed martial law, thenU.S. government had to balance the strategic needs of itsnown policy against the banks’ desire for repayment. Thensolution was tough talk and a little-publicized reschedulingnof the Polish loans that put $344 million of Americanntaxpayers’ money into the coffers of such major banks asnCitibank, Chase Manhattan, Morgan Guaranty, and Banknof America.nA fitting allegory for our predicament is the evolution ofnmoney from hard currency into Eurodollars. What, exacfly,nare Eurodollars? For real information, ask an economist, butnso far as an economic illiterate can gather. Eurodollarsnfunction as a sort of offshore international currency thatnallow a Dutch or Japanese investor to transact business in anFrench or German bank, even though the business mayninvolve securities and currencies from Britain or the UnitednStates. Actually, the term Eurodollars is misleading, sincenthe system, so far from being limited to Europe, is anworldwide attempt—and a successful one, at that — to getnaround all the petty restrictions that nation-states imposenupon financial transactions.nBut prudence is the great politicalnvirtue, and while it may not be possiblento form a general rule determining howngreat is too great, neither extreme—nisolation and globalism — seemsnconsistent with human nature.nThis is a long way from what simple people have usuallynregarded as wealth, much less money. Before the inventionnof money, wealth consisted of property and possessions:narable land and the crops that could be grown, the flocks andnherds that could be raised upon it; as well as useful works ofncraft and art. The beauty, usefulness, and scarcity ofnprecious metals led gradually to their use as one means ofnmeasuring wealth, and steps were eventually taken — innLydia and Greek Ionia — of stamping fixed quantities ofngold, silver, and the gold-silver alloy of electrum with ansymbol indicating their weight or worth.nnnAPRIL 1991/13n