Michael Hudson (1) (1939–)

Super imperialism: the origin and fundamentals of U. S. world dominance. xviii, 425 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.. . Includes bibliographical references (p. 394-412) and index. BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN WORLD ORDER: 1914-46 -- Origins of Intergovernmental Debt, 1917-21 -- Breakdown of World Balance, 1921-33 -- America Spurns World Leadership -- Lend-Lease and Fracturing of the British Empire, 1941-45 -- Bretton Woods: The Triumph of U.S. Government Finance Capital, 1944-45 -- Isolating the Communist Bloc, 1945-46 -- THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE -- American Strategy within the World Bank -- The Imperialism of U.S. Foreign Aid -- GATT and the Double Standard -- Dollar Domination through the International Monetary Fund, 1945-46 -- MONETARY IMPERIALISM AND THE U.S. TREASURY BILL STANDARD -- Financing America's Wars with Other Nations' Resources, 1964-68 -- Power through Bankruptcy, 1968-70 -- Perfecting Empire through Monetary Crisis, 1970-72 -- The Monetary Offensive of Spring 1973 -- Monetary Imperialism: The Twenty-first Century.. .… (más)

When I think of the Bronze Age of the Near East I am reminded of a walk through the British Museum several years ago. Who would guess the that the clay tablets from the Near East Bronze Age with the cuneiform writing were the accounting records of earlier dynasties, temples and powerful landowners locked in struggles over debt , power and land/crop acquisition. One of the key challenges was balancing credit and debt and mitigating usury so craftsmen and farmers and or their families would not be held in bondage by the ruler or a creditor class. Periodic “Forgiveness of debt” through a Jubilee year or a change of ruler would free the disenfranchised for corvee labor or warfare in behalf of the ruler. The cancellation of debt in later centuries became embedded in Mosaic Law and Jesus’ admonition “ Forgive us our debts”. Unfortunately this practice was not adhered to and is considered utopian by many economists who insist that debts must be paid. The author makes the case through the study of Near Eastern economic history that this concept and practice was successful and should be reconsidered. The practice is very pertinent to our own epoch in terms of social justice in order to avoid economic foreclosure and collapse and the creation of a huge dependent underclass.… (más)

This guy's an American economist pretty well outside the mainstream of those that tend to appear in talking head interviews and work in Washington, but the content quickly shows why: he told a lot of the US' current macroeconomic policy like it is, and that is totally backwards. I have not seen such a frank sendup of how Wall Street (especially the "too big to fail" madness) considers regulatory capture to be its actual business, and investing comes a distant second, but Hudson did it and he was spot on. Rambling and almost endless, though, and I half-believe he didn't actually have an editor and just published a messy draft.… (más)

This book is a collection of books and essays by Michael Hudson attacking neoliberalism economic thought and attempting to recapture the words that neoliberalism had redefined to support their economic thoughts. His thesis is that the words we use determine how we think which leads him to present a complete dictionary of economic terms removing the redefinitions introduced by neoliberalism.
The book is remarkably readable despite being mostly a dictionary. It does, however, suffer from redundancy.… (más)