Review: Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy

Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy by Henry Farrell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I consider “Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy” by Henry Farrel and Abraham Newman to be a must-read for every politically interested citizen. I highly recommend reading it. This insightful contribution places great emphasis on providing evidence for what was previously the realm of assumptions and suspicions.

Sometimes governments have taken and are taking strange turns and acceding to our big brother's demands when previously they had vehemently refused to do so. Why are some countries desperately trying to de-dollarize when this still seems to be a futile endeavor? Why is China straining its vast resources to build a parallel grassroots economy while we appear to be operating in a free trade world order?

After reading all the chapters of the groundbreaking analysis, many seemingly unrelated pieces fall into place, forming a great picture of how our world is ordered by mainly invisible forces. This image shows great power politics (also known as real politics or offensive real politics) at its best - the pure essence of it.

I can fully recommend this well-researched, logically structured and clearly written book with only minor reservations. My slight hesitation concerns the non-analytical part: the final chapter offers recommendations on how the United States should deal with the apparatus it has built to dominate and control the global economy.

The proposals essentially amount to maintaining the entire machinery of economic and therefore political power, but only using it for noble purposes, such as getting the world to take action to avert climate catastrophe.

However, it is clear that this will not happen. Saul will not turn into Paul based on a recommendation alone. It is unlikely that the global hegemon, intoxicated with power, would voluntarily decide to undergo detoxification. The policies of the great powers always followed the same patterns everywhere and over the centuries.

This small concession to the American public (after all, both authors understandably want to keep their jobs as university professors) is forgivable and in no way detracts from the immense value of this book.

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Review: Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century

Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century by Sergei Guriev
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sergei Guriev’s “Spin Dictators” is an important and eye-opening contribution to the current political discourse. With great detail and a wealth of examples, he proves what previously seemed to me to be more of a plausible assumption, namely that dictators can also be elected "democratically", that in many cases no (brutal) violence is needed to officially rise up the popularity scale, eliminate one's rivals and still maintain good relations with real or supposedly liberal democracies.

Sergei Guriev has thus done a great service to political discourse. Nevertheless, he has not only answered questions in his work. He has also raised new questions, or at least awakened them in me: Aren't these tools used by spin dictators also used in democracies, so that a party-duopoly has no new intruders to fear? In this way, a few incumbent families that have ruled for generations can take turns in exercising power without being effectively disturbed in their game.

Is it not possible to create an inverse democracy in this way, which looks very much like a pure liberal democracy from the textbook, except that here it is not really the people who determine the government, but the alternating governments that form a suitable people. They would certainly have the tools to do so. So, do spin democracies also exist? Careful observation of the strange events on the other side of the Atlantic can certainly give rise to such suspicions.

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