FUTURE SHOCK THE THIRD WAVE

Posted by admin_akashic on Aug 7th, 2022 in Space

THE THIRD WAVE

Two nations took upon themselves the task of reorganizing and reintegrating the Second Wave system: the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The United States until then had played a limited part in the Grand Imperial campaign. In opening its own frontier it had decimated the Native Americans and cordoned them off in reservations. In Mexico, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, Americans imitated the imperial tactics of the British, the French, or the Germans. In Latin America throughout the early decades of this century U.S. “dollar diplomacy” helped United Fruit and other corporations guarantee low prices for sugar, bananas, coffee, copper, and other goods.Nevertheless, compared with the Europeans, the United States was a junior partner in the Grand Imperial crusade.

After World War II, by contrast, the United States stood as the chief creditor nation in the world. It had the most advanced technology, the most stable political structure—and an irresistible opportunity to move into the power vacuum left behind by its shattered competitors as they were forced to withdraw from the colonies.

As early as 1941 U.S. financial strategists had begun to plan for a postwar reintegration of the world economy along lines more favorable to the United States. At the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, held under U.S. leadership, forty-four nations agreed to set up two key integrative structures—the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The IMF compelled its member nations to peg then* currency to the American dollar or to gold—most of which was held by the United States. (By 1948, the United States possessed 72 percent of the whole world’s gold reserves.) The IMF thus fixed the basic relationships of the major world currencies.

The World Bank, meanwhile, at first established to provide postwar reconstruction funds to European nations, gradually began providing loans to the non-industrial countries, too. These were often for the purpose of building roads, harbors, ports, and other “infra-structure items” to facilitate the movement of raw materials and agricultural exports to the Second Wave nations.
Soon a third component was added to the system: the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade—GATT for short. This agreement, again promoted originally by the United States, set out to liberalize trade, which had the effect of