What do you think?
Rate this book
Against Empire
Richly informed and written in an engaging style, Against Empire exposes the ruthless agenda and hidden costs of the U.S. empire today. Documenting the pretexts and lies used to justify violent intervention and maldevelopment abroad, Parenti shows how the conversion to a global economy is a victory of finance capital over democracy.
As much of the world suffers unspeakable misery and the Third-Worldization of the United States accelerates, civil society is impoverished by policies that benefit rich and powerful transnational corporations and the national security state. Hard-won gains made by ordinary people are swept away.
As much of the world suffers unspeakable misery and the Third-Worldization of the United States accelerates, civil society is impoverished by policies that benefit rich and powerful transnational corporations and the national security state. Hard-won gains made by ordinary people are swept away.
229 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1995
150 people are currently reading
7472 people want to read
About the author
Michael Parenti
54 books1,502 followersMichael John Parenti, Ph.D. (Yale University) is an American political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic who writes on scholarly and popular subjects. He has taught at universities as well as run for political office. Parenti is well known for his Marxist writings and lectures. He is a notable intellectual of the American Left and he is most known for his criticism of capitalism and American foreign policy.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 115 reviews
October 11, 2019
Imperialism 101
I have to admit, Parenti is as witty in writing as when I first heard him speak via a YouTube video, in which he debated Christopher Hitchens on the Iraq war in 2005 (April to be precise). It's one of the only times I've seen Hitchens genuinely frustrated at his opponent, and he pretty much heckles the audience at the end as a result.*
I can't recommend this book enough as a truly '101' in a number of books a reader could pick up on American Imperialism. In fact I dearly wish it had an update for today's 15-25 year olds growing up and, despite risking repeating a cliche heard so many times in book reviews, I think every school in America (as well as other countries) should have a copy of this title. I say this despite knowing that most school systems would pull all sorts of gymnastics to stop a text like this from getting into the general populations consciousness (ironically I learned about this issue in detail from this book).
Parenti writes so clearly and openly, that anyone - and I mean anyone - could understand the topic covered here. He writes broadly, whilst remaining concise in his criticisms, allowing for needle sharp attacks on very specific aspects of American Imperialism and its many issues. If anyone needs to have their mind opened to another way of viewing our political climate right now, then I think Against Empire is a fantastic start in giving them the opportunity to develop a language in which to criticise it.
There are small misgivings in the book. There's a severe lack of footnoting or sourcing, something that would send alarm bells ringing, if it weren't for the fact I'd actually read about many of the issues Parenti mentions in other work which have been sourced and are well known (Chomsky, Zimmer, Hedges, William Blum, Abby Martins Empire Files on YouTube, Ilan Pappe etc.).
As a closer to this review, for anyone going onto further reading, I must recommend some other books that you could continue with after Against Empire (feel free to add to this):
Giants: The Global Power Elite - Peter Philip
The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress - Chris Hedges
Americas Deadliest Export - William Blum
Understanding Power - Noam Chomsky
A Peoples History of the United States - Howard Zinn
A Peoples History of The World - Chris Harman
The Power Elite - C. Wright Mills
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nik02...
I have to admit, Parenti is as witty in writing as when I first heard him speak via a YouTube video, in which he debated Christopher Hitchens on the Iraq war in 2005 (April to be precise). It's one of the only times I've seen Hitchens genuinely frustrated at his opponent, and he pretty much heckles the audience at the end as a result.*
I can't recommend this book enough as a truly '101' in a number of books a reader could pick up on American Imperialism. In fact I dearly wish it had an update for today's 15-25 year olds growing up and, despite risking repeating a cliche heard so many times in book reviews, I think every school in America (as well as other countries) should have a copy of this title. I say this despite knowing that most school systems would pull all sorts of gymnastics to stop a text like this from getting into the general populations consciousness (ironically I learned about this issue in detail from this book).
Parenti writes so clearly and openly, that anyone - and I mean anyone - could understand the topic covered here. He writes broadly, whilst remaining concise in his criticisms, allowing for needle sharp attacks on very specific aspects of American Imperialism and its many issues. If anyone needs to have their mind opened to another way of viewing our political climate right now, then I think Against Empire is a fantastic start in giving them the opportunity to develop a language in which to criticise it.
There are small misgivings in the book. There's a severe lack of footnoting or sourcing, something that would send alarm bells ringing, if it weren't for the fact I'd actually read about many of the issues Parenti mentions in other work which have been sourced and are well known (Chomsky, Zimmer, Hedges, William Blum, Abby Martins Empire Files on YouTube, Ilan Pappe etc.).
As a closer to this review, for anyone going onto further reading, I must recommend some other books that you could continue with after Against Empire (feel free to add to this):
Giants: The Global Power Elite - Peter Philip
The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress - Chris Hedges
Americas Deadliest Export - William Blum
Understanding Power - Noam Chomsky
A Peoples History of the United States - Howard Zinn
A Peoples History of The World - Chris Harman
The Power Elite - C. Wright Mills
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nik02...
August 3, 2017
I love Michael Parenti but goddammit, would it kill the man to use some footnotes? This bothers my inner librarian.
Anyway, I found this quite informative but it isn't anything groundbreaking for me. I would highly recommend this to people new to leftist thought. Parenti's writing is very easy to follow and unlike many leftist writers, he writes for an audience who may not be experts in leftist vocabulary or history. That being said, I would also recommend this to more "experienced" leftists particularly for the examples he provides of US backed coups and insurgencies (especially in Latin America). And, this being a Parenti book, I have to say that I love his sarcastic, often bitter tone when talking about some particularly infuriating event.
The final chapter provides some nice ideas for reforms within the capitalist system, which I guess is so that liberal democrats and whatnot aren't scared away (even though I'm not entirely AGAINST reforms myself--I just don't think they're an end in themselves). Basically I was expecting a little more bite than bark if that makes sense. He still has excellent ideas for reforms that, if executed perfectly, could improve the lives of millions, so I can't really be too angry. (Plus, advocating for reforms is a good way to raise class concsiousness so again, I'm not entirely opposed to reform.)
Overall this is a good, easy (though by no means cheerful) read for people taking their first baby steps into leftist literature and veterans alike.
Anyway, I found this quite informative but it isn't anything groundbreaking for me. I would highly recommend this to people new to leftist thought. Parenti's writing is very easy to follow and unlike many leftist writers, he writes for an audience who may not be experts in leftist vocabulary or history. That being said, I would also recommend this to more "experienced" leftists particularly for the examples he provides of US backed coups and insurgencies (especially in Latin America). And, this being a Parenti book, I have to say that I love his sarcastic, often bitter tone when talking about some particularly infuriating event.
The final chapter provides some nice ideas for reforms within the capitalist system, which I guess is so that liberal democrats and whatnot aren't scared away (even though I'm not entirely AGAINST reforms myself--I just don't think they're an end in themselves). Basically I was expecting a little more bite than bark if that makes sense. He still has excellent ideas for reforms that, if executed perfectly, could improve the lives of millions, so I can't really be too angry. (Plus, advocating for reforms is a good way to raise class concsiousness so again, I'm not entirely opposed to reform.)
Overall this is a good, easy (though by no means cheerful) read for people taking their first baby steps into leftist literature and veterans alike.
May 10, 2022
Michael Parenti's greatest strength is his sheer clarity of vision regarding capitalism's dynamics. Where liberal - that is to say, apologist - analyses of capitalism's maladies are often couched in terms of irrational deviations, excesses, mistakes, or corruptions, Parenti will never cease to insist on the absolute rationality of all it. For him, what are often put down to capitalism's failings - inequalities, wastefulness, environmental disasters, foreign policy blunders - are, in fact, capitalist successes. It's only from the point of view of capitalism's losers - the working class, ordinary people, you and I - do any of these figure as failures at all. As for the class for whom capitalism does work for, none of these are aberrations that follow from capitalism going off the rails; they are instead, outcomes of capitalism functioning exactly as it should be.
Such is the rule that Parenti follows in all his analyses of American imperialism, which, ultimately, this book is about: "U.S. policy is, for the most part, remarkably successful and brutal in the service of elite economic interests. It may seem stupid because the rationales offered in its support often sound unconvincing, leaving us with the impression that policymakers are confused or out of touch. But just because the public does not understand what they are doing does not mean national security leaders are themselves befuddled. That they are fabricators does not mean they are fools. While costly in money, lives, and human suffering, U.S. policy is essentially a rational and consistent enterprise".
If this perspective remains indispensable, the case made for it here is on less even footing. In his rush - almost exuberance - to provide example after example, case after case of such American malignancy, one is often left with the feeling of having missed the trees for the forest. It's not that Parenti's view is too abstract. Far from it, he is a compelling writer, easy to follow, and damningly sharp in his assessments of both history and politics. But in his dizzying rush across the globe, from Nicaragua to Cuba, Vietnam to Indonesia, Somalia to Egypt, one is left with almost too impressionistic a sense of the whole. Coupled with his sparse citations and plunging momentum, the sheer breathlessness of it all - the search for scope over depth - means Against Empire reads like a brick through a window. Explosive and maddening, but also strangely unmemorable at the level of details.
That said, Parenti's internationalism is the other side of what turns out to be an unevenly wrought double-edged sword. It is with almost pleasure (were it not for the horror) that one reads of so many nations and countries around the world; of their struggles and their successes, their hopes and, in many cases, their being crushed. Parenti writes from the side of these many nations, not so much as an American looking out at the world, but as a local comrade bearing witness to what remains and what endures. As an American nonetheless, he is particularly attentive to the ways in which US imperialism leaves ruins back 'home' too - with so much invested in Empire, what remains for the Republic? A note to close on: I think some of this book's failings are in fact remedied in his later work, The Face of Imperialism, which, while shorter, does give his examples more space to breathe. It is a more mature work, and better for it.
Such is the rule that Parenti follows in all his analyses of American imperialism, which, ultimately, this book is about: "U.S. policy is, for the most part, remarkably successful and brutal in the service of elite economic interests. It may seem stupid because the rationales offered in its support often sound unconvincing, leaving us with the impression that policymakers are confused or out of touch. But just because the public does not understand what they are doing does not mean national security leaders are themselves befuddled. That they are fabricators does not mean they are fools. While costly in money, lives, and human suffering, U.S. policy is essentially a rational and consistent enterprise".
If this perspective remains indispensable, the case made for it here is on less even footing. In his rush - almost exuberance - to provide example after example, case after case of such American malignancy, one is often left with the feeling of having missed the trees for the forest. It's not that Parenti's view is too abstract. Far from it, he is a compelling writer, easy to follow, and damningly sharp in his assessments of both history and politics. But in his dizzying rush across the globe, from Nicaragua to Cuba, Vietnam to Indonesia, Somalia to Egypt, one is left with almost too impressionistic a sense of the whole. Coupled with his sparse citations and plunging momentum, the sheer breathlessness of it all - the search for scope over depth - means Against Empire reads like a brick through a window. Explosive and maddening, but also strangely unmemorable at the level of details.
That said, Parenti's internationalism is the other side of what turns out to be an unevenly wrought double-edged sword. It is with almost pleasure (were it not for the horror) that one reads of so many nations and countries around the world; of their struggles and their successes, their hopes and, in many cases, their being crushed. Parenti writes from the side of these many nations, not so much as an American looking out at the world, but as a local comrade bearing witness to what remains and what endures. As an American nonetheless, he is particularly attentive to the ways in which US imperialism leaves ruins back 'home' too - with so much invested in Empire, what remains for the Republic? A note to close on: I think some of this book's failings are in fact remedied in his later work, The Face of Imperialism, which, while shorter, does give his examples more space to breathe. It is a more mature work, and better for it.
June 2, 2016
Parenti is the man. Noam Chomsky gets a lot of credit for his depth of analysis - and don't get me wrong, I love Chomsky - but I'd stack Michael Parenti's best right there with Chomsky any day. Parenti writes in a very conversational and approachable style that is meant for mass consumption.
Michael Parenti does a fabulous job summing up his criticism of American Imperialism in this volume. His class analysis describes how empire takes from the global many to give to the privileged few. His ideas are clear and easy to follow. If you haven't watched or listened to any of Parenti's speeches online do yourself a favor and check them out. Empire is the subject that allows Parenti to shine brightest.
I have seen some carping in other reviews about the lack of footnotes in this book. To me it seems like people are just looking for something to complain about. When Parenti cites a quote or specific fact there is often more than enough information within the text for a curious reader to go find out more - especially in the age of Google. Beyond that Parenti is not making things up. If you have questions about a specific incident that is referenced - please go explore and learn more about it. Parenti is an academic, that's what he wants you to do!
Michael Parenti does a fabulous job summing up his criticism of American Imperialism in this volume. His class analysis describes how empire takes from the global many to give to the privileged few. His ideas are clear and easy to follow. If you haven't watched or listened to any of Parenti's speeches online do yourself a favor and check them out. Empire is the subject that allows Parenti to shine brightest.
I have seen some carping in other reviews about the lack of footnotes in this book. To me it seems like people are just looking for something to complain about. When Parenti cites a quote or specific fact there is often more than enough information within the text for a curious reader to go find out more - especially in the age of Google. Beyond that Parenti is not making things up. If you have questions about a specific incident that is referenced - please go explore and learn more about it. Parenti is an academic, that's what he wants you to do!
August 11, 2023
In the 9th century, Charlemagne worked Slav miners to death – from Slav we get slave. “The Third World is rich. Only its people are poor.” Think of the Third World not as “underdeveloped” but as “overexploited”. Europe had used superior firepower, not superior culture, for supremacy. Before the Spanish invaded, the Mayan Indians in Guatemala had more architects, craftspeople, artisans and horticulturists than today. Think of imperialism as maldevelopment – luxury hotels for businessmen instead of housing for the poor. Highways and doctors that serve business but not the people. And food grown only for export instead of local markets. And aid leads to debt: Third World debt reached $2 trillion in the 1990’s – that sum is unpayable. How so? For example, in Paraguay, 80% of export earnings go to pay off just the interest on foreign debt. And so, “to avoid default, the poor nations keep borrowing.” But to get those loans each country must restructure their economy – neoliberalism and privatization, anyone? And of course, US aid usually means these poor countries have to buy US goods at US prices shipped in US ships. Foreign aid = political control of elites while the rich get richer and poor get poorer. Or as Michael adroitly says, “Foreign aid is when the poor people of a rich country give money to the rich people of a poor country.” Empire is not accidental, but is “welded together with deliberate deceit, greed, and ruthless violence.”
The New York Times called the US military backed killing of 500,000 to one million people in Indonesia in the 60’s, “one of the most savage mass slaughters of modern political history.” The US uses claims of fighting communism to obscure its attack of nationalism everywhere. The public record shows “that the United States is the foremost interventionist power in the world.” And these interventionist forces go where US capital is threatened. US endless war demands seeing a world of enemies, just as Rome did, just Hitler did. If you can’t find an enemy, no problem, just invent one. The tiny island of Grenada is a threat because we said so – perfect – now let’s invade. To be clear, when a country nationalizes something like a mine, it’s no threat to the US workforce – it’s a threat to corporations who wanted a piece of the action. The US reacts to protect US hegemony for its corporations. If your country doesn’t allow Western capital penetration, we’ll target you. Capitalism expands or it dies. Let us in - or we’ll huff, and puff, and blow your house down.
“The CIA owns outright over 200 newspapers, magazines, wire services, and publishing houses in countries throughout the world.” The US military averages 2,027 non-combat fatalities and several hundred suicides annually – none of that is combat. Victor Perlo estimated the cost of the Vietnam War as clearly above $518 billion. We all know how that war killed 58,000 of our soldiers, but did you know after the war ended, 70,000 returning vets to the US from that conflict have died for either suicide, murder, addictions or alcoholism? Reminds me of that ad: Be all you can be, in the Army. All we got from that war were a bunch of black POW flags sold to only those who never asked why would Vietnamese feed these POW’s for decades for free, or how could they stay undetected, or why was there no similar search for the 81,500 missing POW’s after WWII? “Between 1948 and 1994, the federal government spent almost $11 trillion on its military.” 70% of all US research and development money goes to the military. The search for new or better ways to kill fellow humans standing in the way of your resources never ends. As Madison wrote Jefferson in 1798, “Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real, or pretended, from abroad.”
One third of all US scientists work for the US military. We used to make stuff that employed lots of US blue-collar workers, oops… Realize the inverse – there are many rich in poor countries and many poor in rich countries. If our oceans die, we die because they make most of the world’s oxygen. Progress historically comes from the actions of the people not their rulers (e.g. Haymarket brought us the eight-hour workday).
Comedy Time: Note how Al Gore got all environmental on us but when in power he fought for NAFTA and GATT which crippled the ability for governments to maintain environmental protections. A capitalist government’s job is to get things onto the market, whether they are good for you or not. Peddling toxic cigarettes to the poor around the world? No Problemo. Didn’t give your vaccine a double-blind placebo test for safety? Who cares, look at all that profit for our drug manufacturers. All corporate welfare good, all individual welfare for poor Americans bad.
Nothing depressing here: Our government classifies millions of documents every year, omissions distorting history largely because our elites have something to hide and intend to hide it. To help them hide stuff, we have almost 4.3 million elites with security clearances (2019), the FBI, CIA, NSA, one million square feet of data collection in Bluffdale, Utah, and the bureaucracy of foreign aid used primarily to bleed other countries dry. CIA budget secrecy violates the Constitution Article I, Section 9. Funny how anti-Americanism is usually used to describe those on the Left who struggle for the many, rather than those on the Right who clearly protect only the interests of the elite few.
This book’s thesis: That US policy favors the few over the many is intentionally suppressed in all mainstream discussion. US Officials feel they must “protect global capitalism from egalitarian social movements.” US leaders keep repeating to the voting masses what the rest of the world PAINFULLY knows: the US is the strongest military force in the world. Today’s Presidents know if their approval ratings look low, then cry foul and attack some country. Bush attacks Panama and Iraq for his approval bump. Clinton air strikes Iraq for his easy approval points. Don’t think macho, think getting re-elected. Showing you have the courage to authorize strangers to bomb and shoot people who committed no crime against you, that’s clearly not macho. Kids become soldiers for the economic opportunities – not to kill and be killed. And so, they must be threatened to use deadly force when the time comes. Elections for both parties involve pretending our nation’s security is at stake.
We were taught to hate all Lefty revolutionaries like Castro, while the US supported all Right Revolutionaries like Savimbi’s UNITA in Angola, RENAMO in Mozambique, and the mujahideen in Afghanistan. We were taught as kids to hate Castro’s autocratic government – zero mention that Cuba under Batista’s nasty autocratic government was clearly worse for the Cuban people. Rule of Thumb: “Capitalism is much more comfortable with fascism than with social democracy.” (e.g. Nazi Nexus and Franco in Spain).
Pinochet was installed not because Allende’s reforms were failing, but because they were succeeding. Intentional Vicious Circle: Build lots of military bases around the world so that you then have more interests to defend – oops… what a lovely lucrative spiral. In 1993, 30,000 Haitians asked for asylum in the US, only 783 were accepted. Perhaps the Haitians should have all pretended to be Cuban – oh come right on in! The US hated Nassar – after all he gave the Egyptian people free education for the first time and overthrew a corrupt monarchy – but without US approval. In response, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles called Nassar “Hitler on the Nile” – for a laugh compare Nassar’s vs Hitler’s body counts.
Qaddafi’s crime was in 1969 overthrowing “a corrupt, obscenely rich ruling clique and moving toward a more egalitarian society, by using a larger portion of its capital and labor for public needs”. He nationalized, which to our mainstream media made his tiny country of three million, a mortal enemy of the US. Bush entered the comedy exaggeration wars with John Foster Dulles when he said Saddam Hussein was “worse than Hitler”. That was like calling Madeleine Albright or Margaret Thatcher a ten. The Washington Post in 1981 then accused Soviets and their allies of being the “principle source of terror in the world.” MLK clearly told us the US was the main purveyor of violence in the world - but in fairness to the WP, MLK had the advantage of a conscience, and he didn’t have to worry about offending the Washington Post’s financial backers.
Did you know the US invaded Dominican Republic five times in the 20th Century? The US also invaded Grenada because it started offering free grade school and secondary education, and it tried to turn from cash-crop exports towards self-sufficient food production. “After the invasion, these programs were abolished and unemployment and economic want increased sharply.” Pretty funny how our land of freedom and liberty enjoys actively depriving other countries of freedom and liberty. Did you know that Iraq agreed to withdraw from Kuwait over a three-week period? Bush intentionally gave them only a week, and then did an aerial slaughter that killed 100,000 Iraqis. Christian charity in action. Saddam had a record of US support through his torturing and killing “large numbers of communists”, so you’d expect the US to love his ass. Our mainstream media conveniently never told us that Saddam was trying to stop Kuwait from slant drilling into Iraqi oilfields. Better to make him look like a madman.
When Columbia was the leading human rights violator in this hemisphere (during Clinton’s time), it was the largest recipient of US military aid. Our CIA then overthrew a democratically elected government in Bolivia to install (you guessed it) a right-wing dictatorship leading to “mass arrests, torture and killings.” It’s new CIA approved leaders then “openly cooperated with Bolivia’s cocaine lords.” So, Nancy Reagan never said “Just Say No”, she MUST have said, “Just Do Blow”. Parenti openly states “if the war against drugs is being lost, it is because the national security state is on the side of the traffickers.” Yep, just read Alfred McCoy. The US has a long history of using illegal drug sales to get funds, and as an instrument for social control.
England made scads of money pushing opium on China – it was capitalism creating a new market and aided by England’s boot successfully crushing India’s neck to produce more opium. The Opium Wars were China resisting what England was pushing.
Enough with the bad Hitler analogies: Putin invades Ukraine, we instantly call him Hitler. Israel invades Lebanon and we say nothing, Turkey invades half of Cyprus we say nothing. Morocco invades Western Sahara, we say nothing. Indonesia invades East Timor, we say nothing. When our leaders invade Grenada and Panama, clearly no one calls them Hitler.
Africa: What the hell is the US doing in Somalia? What we aren’t being told is that US oil companies wanted Somali oil. The pro-US President Barre of Somalia gets overthrown which puts those US concessions at risk. The Times wrote an article about the troubling connection between the US and an oil company. “US taxpayers were paying for the troops in Somalia to protect Conoco’s interest.” American troops once again providing muscle for US business – Smedley Butler Redux. I picture the US looking at printed directions on Xmas morning for “how to create a nation-state suitable for transnationals”. US taxpayers only woke up from their Somali slumber, when eighteen US troops died there.
The US exploded not just two atomic bombs, but at least 950 nuclear bombs from 1945 through 1990. Lots of Pacific islanders who got cancer from that were profoundly appreciative the US used their islands for testing without permission. Go USA! Kim Il Sung of Korea said in an interview, “What would be the point of our making one or two nuclear weapons when you have 10,000, plus delivery systems that we don’t have?”
Haiti: The US invades Haiti in 1915 and stays there until 1934 by which time it had killed 15,000 Haitians. Don’t you just hate it when you invade some country and it gets reported how many people you really killed? Why did the US remove Aristide in Haiti? Because that guy was trying to double Haiti’s minimum wage from $2 to $4 a day. That’s Aristide wanting it to be $4 a day, not per hour. He had to be punished. Aristide was allowed to finish his term only after agreeing to a World Bank agreement designed to impoverish Haiti further. And Aristide supporters had to give up the right to demonstrate. Victory for US business! “US firms in Haiti continued to pay workers ten cents per hour for a ten-hour day.” Such generosity. The recipe for US intervention has four main ingredients: “Bolster the existing class system, suppress or marginalize popular organizations, disempower their leaders, and engage in a mild facelift of the military and police keeping the whole repressive system intact.”
In other words, to imitate the US, simply: “forcibly expropriate the land, labor, resources, and markets of overseas populations.” How? Teddy Roosevelt said, “I took the Panama Canal Zone and let Congress debate.” James Baker said, “We feel no obligation to go to Congress for a declaration of war.” Pop Quiz: Name a single country the US invaded to turn it from a dictatorship into a democracy? Question 2: Why has the US overthrown well over a dozen democratically elected governments? Edgar Chamorro testified that CIA advisors wanted him not to publicly mention he was returning private property the Nicaragua’s owning class but should say he was putting Nicaragua “back on the road to democracy”. The US can never explain how it somehow wants democracy to return to Cuba when the last time the US dominated Cuba it controlled a right-wing Batista dictatorship. One of Allende’s crimes was that he was “getting a daily half-liter of milk to every poor child in Chile.” Note that “the CIA-backed, pro-capitalist state destroyed not only Allende’s government but the democracy that produced it.” Achievement unlocked! It’s all about “the maximization of power on behalf of corporate interests and capitalist global hegemony.”
When a conservative says he wants less government, he means less “human services, environmental controls, and occupational safety.” He means less public assistance so the poor will work more hours for less wages. Business before morals. The Conservatives who wax on about liberal media, will never bemoan to death of the Fairness Doctrine which they worked hard to kill. Patriotism is the uncritical public admiration for your flag - not surprisingly the same went for the Nazis. When you work for an intelligence agency, you don’t want your loyalty to be questioned so you don’t challenge “red flags”: secret operations, aid to dictators, torture, immorality, etc. A system that doesn’t police itself, that lives only to insure funding and job security. Look into Oliver North being asked about “Rex Alpha 84 – a secret plan to suspend the Constitution and impose martial law in the USA”. Senator Inouye interrupted North’s testimony at that point on grounds of it being classified. Wow… (p.151) When a conservative says wants the government off his back, ask why he wants the government ON your back for school prayers, flag worshipping, library censorship, compulsory pregnancy, and intruding in your private lives. For them: School lunches = creeping towards communism while School prayer = Heaven and white Jesus smiling
Fun National Debt Facts: When Reagan took office the US debt was $900 billion; when Reagan left office, the debt was $2.7 trillion. The US debt tripled in only eight years under Reagan. And our national debt is like the Third World debt because 80% of we are borrowing today goes to only pay interest. Not sustainable. Reagan lowered the tax bracket from 70% to 28% - gifts to the rich at the expense of the poor – those who stabbed Caesar would have heartily approved.
We were all taught that Appalachia is poor but its not – Rockefellers, Mellons and Morgans made mountains of cash off turning the beautiful land into “slag heaps and toxic waste dumps.” Instead of mine owners paying for the social costs, locals had too. Only the Appalachian people are poor. “Welfare for the rich is the name of the game.” “Whether a conspiracy is to be accepted or rejected depends on the evidence.” Capitalism is the conversion of “nature into commodities and commodities into capital, to invest and accumulate.”
This was a great book, as are all books of Michael’s. For those of us who read everything by Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, and Arundhati Roy, reading Michael Parenti is essential because Michael is more of a classically trained historian. My next review of this grouping of eight Parenti books will be of, “The Face of Imperialism.”
The New York Times called the US military backed killing of 500,000 to one million people in Indonesia in the 60’s, “one of the most savage mass slaughters of modern political history.” The US uses claims of fighting communism to obscure its attack of nationalism everywhere. The public record shows “that the United States is the foremost interventionist power in the world.” And these interventionist forces go where US capital is threatened. US endless war demands seeing a world of enemies, just as Rome did, just Hitler did. If you can’t find an enemy, no problem, just invent one. The tiny island of Grenada is a threat because we said so – perfect – now let’s invade. To be clear, when a country nationalizes something like a mine, it’s no threat to the US workforce – it’s a threat to corporations who wanted a piece of the action. The US reacts to protect US hegemony for its corporations. If your country doesn’t allow Western capital penetration, we’ll target you. Capitalism expands or it dies. Let us in - or we’ll huff, and puff, and blow your house down.
“The CIA owns outright over 200 newspapers, magazines, wire services, and publishing houses in countries throughout the world.” The US military averages 2,027 non-combat fatalities and several hundred suicides annually – none of that is combat. Victor Perlo estimated the cost of the Vietnam War as clearly above $518 billion. We all know how that war killed 58,000 of our soldiers, but did you know after the war ended, 70,000 returning vets to the US from that conflict have died for either suicide, murder, addictions or alcoholism? Reminds me of that ad: Be all you can be, in the Army. All we got from that war were a bunch of black POW flags sold to only those who never asked why would Vietnamese feed these POW’s for decades for free, or how could they stay undetected, or why was there no similar search for the 81,500 missing POW’s after WWII? “Between 1948 and 1994, the federal government spent almost $11 trillion on its military.” 70% of all US research and development money goes to the military. The search for new or better ways to kill fellow humans standing in the way of your resources never ends. As Madison wrote Jefferson in 1798, “Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real, or pretended, from abroad.”
One third of all US scientists work for the US military. We used to make stuff that employed lots of US blue-collar workers, oops… Realize the inverse – there are many rich in poor countries and many poor in rich countries. If our oceans die, we die because they make most of the world’s oxygen. Progress historically comes from the actions of the people not their rulers (e.g. Haymarket brought us the eight-hour workday).
Comedy Time: Note how Al Gore got all environmental on us but when in power he fought for NAFTA and GATT which crippled the ability for governments to maintain environmental protections. A capitalist government’s job is to get things onto the market, whether they are good for you or not. Peddling toxic cigarettes to the poor around the world? No Problemo. Didn’t give your vaccine a double-blind placebo test for safety? Who cares, look at all that profit for our drug manufacturers. All corporate welfare good, all individual welfare for poor Americans bad.
Nothing depressing here: Our government classifies millions of documents every year, omissions distorting history largely because our elites have something to hide and intend to hide it. To help them hide stuff, we have almost 4.3 million elites with security clearances (2019), the FBI, CIA, NSA, one million square feet of data collection in Bluffdale, Utah, and the bureaucracy of foreign aid used primarily to bleed other countries dry. CIA budget secrecy violates the Constitution Article I, Section 9. Funny how anti-Americanism is usually used to describe those on the Left who struggle for the many, rather than those on the Right who clearly protect only the interests of the elite few.
This book’s thesis: That US policy favors the few over the many is intentionally suppressed in all mainstream discussion. US Officials feel they must “protect global capitalism from egalitarian social movements.” US leaders keep repeating to the voting masses what the rest of the world PAINFULLY knows: the US is the strongest military force in the world. Today’s Presidents know if their approval ratings look low, then cry foul and attack some country. Bush attacks Panama and Iraq for his approval bump. Clinton air strikes Iraq for his easy approval points. Don’t think macho, think getting re-elected. Showing you have the courage to authorize strangers to bomb and shoot people who committed no crime against you, that’s clearly not macho. Kids become soldiers for the economic opportunities – not to kill and be killed. And so, they must be threatened to use deadly force when the time comes. Elections for both parties involve pretending our nation’s security is at stake.
We were taught to hate all Lefty revolutionaries like Castro, while the US supported all Right Revolutionaries like Savimbi’s UNITA in Angola, RENAMO in Mozambique, and the mujahideen in Afghanistan. We were taught as kids to hate Castro’s autocratic government – zero mention that Cuba under Batista’s nasty autocratic government was clearly worse for the Cuban people. Rule of Thumb: “Capitalism is much more comfortable with fascism than with social democracy.” (e.g. Nazi Nexus and Franco in Spain).
Pinochet was installed not because Allende’s reforms were failing, but because they were succeeding. Intentional Vicious Circle: Build lots of military bases around the world so that you then have more interests to defend – oops… what a lovely lucrative spiral. In 1993, 30,000 Haitians asked for asylum in the US, only 783 were accepted. Perhaps the Haitians should have all pretended to be Cuban – oh come right on in! The US hated Nassar – after all he gave the Egyptian people free education for the first time and overthrew a corrupt monarchy – but without US approval. In response, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles called Nassar “Hitler on the Nile” – for a laugh compare Nassar’s vs Hitler’s body counts.
Qaddafi’s crime was in 1969 overthrowing “a corrupt, obscenely rich ruling clique and moving toward a more egalitarian society, by using a larger portion of its capital and labor for public needs”. He nationalized, which to our mainstream media made his tiny country of three million, a mortal enemy of the US. Bush entered the comedy exaggeration wars with John Foster Dulles when he said Saddam Hussein was “worse than Hitler”. That was like calling Madeleine Albright or Margaret Thatcher a ten. The Washington Post in 1981 then accused Soviets and their allies of being the “principle source of terror in the world.” MLK clearly told us the US was the main purveyor of violence in the world - but in fairness to the WP, MLK had the advantage of a conscience, and he didn’t have to worry about offending the Washington Post’s financial backers.
Did you know the US invaded Dominican Republic five times in the 20th Century? The US also invaded Grenada because it started offering free grade school and secondary education, and it tried to turn from cash-crop exports towards self-sufficient food production. “After the invasion, these programs were abolished and unemployment and economic want increased sharply.” Pretty funny how our land of freedom and liberty enjoys actively depriving other countries of freedom and liberty. Did you know that Iraq agreed to withdraw from Kuwait over a three-week period? Bush intentionally gave them only a week, and then did an aerial slaughter that killed 100,000 Iraqis. Christian charity in action. Saddam had a record of US support through his torturing and killing “large numbers of communists”, so you’d expect the US to love his ass. Our mainstream media conveniently never told us that Saddam was trying to stop Kuwait from slant drilling into Iraqi oilfields. Better to make him look like a madman.
When Columbia was the leading human rights violator in this hemisphere (during Clinton’s time), it was the largest recipient of US military aid. Our CIA then overthrew a democratically elected government in Bolivia to install (you guessed it) a right-wing dictatorship leading to “mass arrests, torture and killings.” It’s new CIA approved leaders then “openly cooperated with Bolivia’s cocaine lords.” So, Nancy Reagan never said “Just Say No”, she MUST have said, “Just Do Blow”. Parenti openly states “if the war against drugs is being lost, it is because the national security state is on the side of the traffickers.” Yep, just read Alfred McCoy. The US has a long history of using illegal drug sales to get funds, and as an instrument for social control.
England made scads of money pushing opium on China – it was capitalism creating a new market and aided by England’s boot successfully crushing India’s neck to produce more opium. The Opium Wars were China resisting what England was pushing.
Enough with the bad Hitler analogies: Putin invades Ukraine, we instantly call him Hitler. Israel invades Lebanon and we say nothing, Turkey invades half of Cyprus we say nothing. Morocco invades Western Sahara, we say nothing. Indonesia invades East Timor, we say nothing. When our leaders invade Grenada and Panama, clearly no one calls them Hitler.
Africa: What the hell is the US doing in Somalia? What we aren’t being told is that US oil companies wanted Somali oil. The pro-US President Barre of Somalia gets overthrown which puts those US concessions at risk. The Times wrote an article about the troubling connection between the US and an oil company. “US taxpayers were paying for the troops in Somalia to protect Conoco’s interest.” American troops once again providing muscle for US business – Smedley Butler Redux. I picture the US looking at printed directions on Xmas morning for “how to create a nation-state suitable for transnationals”. US taxpayers only woke up from their Somali slumber, when eighteen US troops died there.
The US exploded not just two atomic bombs, but at least 950 nuclear bombs from 1945 through 1990. Lots of Pacific islanders who got cancer from that were profoundly appreciative the US used their islands for testing without permission. Go USA! Kim Il Sung of Korea said in an interview, “What would be the point of our making one or two nuclear weapons when you have 10,000, plus delivery systems that we don’t have?”
Haiti: The US invades Haiti in 1915 and stays there until 1934 by which time it had killed 15,000 Haitians. Don’t you just hate it when you invade some country and it gets reported how many people you really killed? Why did the US remove Aristide in Haiti? Because that guy was trying to double Haiti’s minimum wage from $2 to $4 a day. That’s Aristide wanting it to be $4 a day, not per hour. He had to be punished. Aristide was allowed to finish his term only after agreeing to a World Bank agreement designed to impoverish Haiti further. And Aristide supporters had to give up the right to demonstrate. Victory for US business! “US firms in Haiti continued to pay workers ten cents per hour for a ten-hour day.” Such generosity. The recipe for US intervention has four main ingredients: “Bolster the existing class system, suppress or marginalize popular organizations, disempower their leaders, and engage in a mild facelift of the military and police keeping the whole repressive system intact.”
In other words, to imitate the US, simply: “forcibly expropriate the land, labor, resources, and markets of overseas populations.” How? Teddy Roosevelt said, “I took the Panama Canal Zone and let Congress debate.” James Baker said, “We feel no obligation to go to Congress for a declaration of war.” Pop Quiz: Name a single country the US invaded to turn it from a dictatorship into a democracy? Question 2: Why has the US overthrown well over a dozen democratically elected governments? Edgar Chamorro testified that CIA advisors wanted him not to publicly mention he was returning private property the Nicaragua’s owning class but should say he was putting Nicaragua “back on the road to democracy”. The US can never explain how it somehow wants democracy to return to Cuba when the last time the US dominated Cuba it controlled a right-wing Batista dictatorship. One of Allende’s crimes was that he was “getting a daily half-liter of milk to every poor child in Chile.” Note that “the CIA-backed, pro-capitalist state destroyed not only Allende’s government but the democracy that produced it.” Achievement unlocked! It’s all about “the maximization of power on behalf of corporate interests and capitalist global hegemony.”
When a conservative says he wants less government, he means less “human services, environmental controls, and occupational safety.” He means less public assistance so the poor will work more hours for less wages. Business before morals. The Conservatives who wax on about liberal media, will never bemoan to death of the Fairness Doctrine which they worked hard to kill. Patriotism is the uncritical public admiration for your flag - not surprisingly the same went for the Nazis. When you work for an intelligence agency, you don’t want your loyalty to be questioned so you don’t challenge “red flags”: secret operations, aid to dictators, torture, immorality, etc. A system that doesn’t police itself, that lives only to insure funding and job security. Look into Oliver North being asked about “Rex Alpha 84 – a secret plan to suspend the Constitution and impose martial law in the USA”. Senator Inouye interrupted North’s testimony at that point on grounds of it being classified. Wow… (p.151) When a conservative says wants the government off his back, ask why he wants the government ON your back for school prayers, flag worshipping, library censorship, compulsory pregnancy, and intruding in your private lives. For them: School lunches = creeping towards communism while School prayer = Heaven and white Jesus smiling
Fun National Debt Facts: When Reagan took office the US debt was $900 billion; when Reagan left office, the debt was $2.7 trillion. The US debt tripled in only eight years under Reagan. And our national debt is like the Third World debt because 80% of we are borrowing today goes to only pay interest. Not sustainable. Reagan lowered the tax bracket from 70% to 28% - gifts to the rich at the expense of the poor – those who stabbed Caesar would have heartily approved.
We were all taught that Appalachia is poor but its not – Rockefellers, Mellons and Morgans made mountains of cash off turning the beautiful land into “slag heaps and toxic waste dumps.” Instead of mine owners paying for the social costs, locals had too. Only the Appalachian people are poor. “Welfare for the rich is the name of the game.” “Whether a conspiracy is to be accepted or rejected depends on the evidence.” Capitalism is the conversion of “nature into commodities and commodities into capital, to invest and accumulate.”
This was a great book, as are all books of Michael’s. For those of us who read everything by Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, and Arundhati Roy, reading Michael Parenti is essential because Michael is more of a classically trained historian. My next review of this grouping of eight Parenti books will be of, “The Face of Imperialism.”
December 27, 2025
Świetna pozycja i dla osób, które dopiero rozpoczynają swoje rozkminy na temat antyimperializmu i dla tych, którzy już coś na ten temat wiedzą. Należe do tej drugiej grupy, ale książka Parentiego pomogła mi uporządkować trochę przemyśleń, lepiej ubrać w słowa argumenty przeciwko kapitalizmowi i amerykańskiemu imperializmowi oraz zauważyć kilka oczywistych mechanizmów, które teraz umiem prosto opisać (i skrytykować). Polecanko
May 25, 2011
Details about the many democratic and populist governments that have been toppled by Americans, and the many brutal dictators who have been set up and supported by Americans. A clear and consistent pattern emerges.
Said the author, "The essence of capitalism is to turn nature into commodities and commodities into capital. The live green earth is transformed into dead gold bricks, with luxury items for the few and toxic slag heaps for the many. The glittering mansion overlooks a vast sprawl of shanty towns, wherein a desperate, demoralized humanity is kept in line with drugs, television, and armed force."
Said the author, "The essence of capitalism is to turn nature into commodities and commodities into capital. The live green earth is transformed into dead gold bricks, with luxury items for the few and toxic slag heaps for the many. The glittering mansion overlooks a vast sprawl of shanty towns, wherein a desperate, demoralized humanity is kept in line with drugs, television, and armed force."
March 17, 2015
probably author's most comprehensive and sustained argument against US imperialism. other texts offer similar polemics, but typically they are assemblies of essays. this is more generalized and abstract than something like blum's Killing Hope, which is by contrast the locus classicus for detail-oriented narratives on specific operations.
June 30, 2012
I thought this was a good book to understand US imperialism that is not part of most mainstream accounts of US history. My reason for only giving 3 stars though is this because I felt that Michael Parenti was glossing over the excesses of russian/soviet imperialism in this book, and made me think he was a soviet apologist. I would hope that one who writes a book called against empire would be against empire in all its forms and manifestations.
August 26, 2021
This is a really phenomenal introduction to how the American Empire operates, and offers a cursory glance at the history of U.S. intervention, both militarily and economically. Having read so much history of U.S. empire, I didn't learn too much per se, but it definitely was really well written and I would suggest this to anyone who's relatively new to real history and wants to learn the dates and names of Third World movements and how the U.S. responds to them.
March 6, 2013
Totally prophetic... for those who care- the dismantling of our democracy was geared up in the 80's and those who observed and reported it became lonely voices in a sea of nationalistic fervor. An excellent read.
March 3, 2008
Politik, politik...
April 8, 2008
Great stuff. Only reason I give four is because there are no footnotes, which would really be helpful and are really necessary when putting forward such controversial points of view.
August 10, 2019
Very well-written, tightly argued book, that can serve as a primer or cheat sheet for anyone interested in analyzing current international goings-on. Only downside is that it lacks references, as Parenti has chosen to focus on explaining the patterns, and posing the analytical questions and alternatives he feels are worth asking.
Only major addition I would've liked to have seen added is a section explicitly about the role of the media in fostering and maintaining empire.
Only major addition I would've liked to have seen added is a section explicitly about the role of the media in fostering and maintaining empire.
November 24, 2007
It's really concise.
May 22, 2012
It is a brief overview of American empire building that will leave you pissed off. I found it radicalizing, as if I needed more of that, and it was an entertaining read. Recommended.
April 19, 2012
In the last decade the U.S. news media have been more open about the fact that the U.S. and its planet-wide military garrisons constitute an empire—a benevolent and reluctant empire (of course) but still an empire. Parenti's gem from the mid-90s explains in detail how empires, particular the U.S. American empire, function; specifically, he provides a Marxist, class-based analysis that fills in the holes left by many other commentators on empire.
Parenti demolishes the myth that empires are losing propositions for everyone in the imperial state, by reminding us that the folks who pay and the folks who profit are two quite distinct groups ("classes") of people. I don't think this point can be made often enough or strenuously enough.
Evidence to the contrary?
Small government, big state
Some dare call it "conspiracy theory"
Bailouts for those "Too Big to Fail" and "austerity programs" for the rest of us
On the disconnect between decisions and their consequences
I remember one time complaining to a friend that in a fair world the elites would be lined against a wall. Her response was, "Nah, they just ought to be made to use food stamps and take public transportation." Point taken.
Class warfare?
Written in 1995, even more relevant in 2012
Some critics have argued that economic factors have not exerted an important influence on U.S. interventionist policy because most interventions are in countries that have no great natural treasures and no large U.S. investments, such as Grenada, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Vietnam. This is like saying that police are not especially concerned about protecting wealth and property because most of their forceful actions take place in poor neighborhoods. Interventionist forces do not go where capital exists as such; they go where capital is threatened. They have not intervened in affluent Switzerland, for instance, because capitalism in that country is relatively secure and unchallenged. But if leftist parties gained power in Bern and attempted to nationalize Swiss banks and major properties, it very likely would invite the strenuous attentions of the Western industrial powers. (p. 43)
Parenti demolishes the myth that empires are losing propositions for everyone in the imperial state, by reminding us that the folks who pay and the folks who profit are two quite distinct groups ("classes") of people. I don't think this point can be made often enough or strenuously enough.
We are made to believe that the people of the United States have a common interest with the giant multinationals, the very companies that desert our communities in pursuit of cheaper labor abroad. In truth, on almost every issue the people are not in the same boat with the big companies. Policy costs are not equally shared; benefits are not equally enjoyed. The "national" policies of an imperialist country reflect the interests of that country's dominant socio-economic class. Class rather than nation-state more often is the crucial unit of analysis in the study of imperialism.... To be sure, empires do not come cheap. Burdensome expenditures are needed for military repression and prolonged occupation for colonial administration, for bribes and arms to native collaborators, and for the development of a commercial infrastructure to facilitate extractive industries and capital penetration. But empires are not losing propositions for everyone. The governments of imperial nations may spend more than they take in, but the people who reap the benefits are not the same ones who foot the bill. As Thorstein Veblen pointed out in The Theory of Business Enterprise (1904), the gains of empire flow into the hands of the privileged business class while the costs are extracted from "the industry of the rest of the people." The transnationals monopolize the private returns of empire while carrying little, if any, of the public cost.... In sum, there is nothing irrational about spending three dollars of public money to protect one dollar of private investment—at least not from the perspective of the investors. To protect one dollar of their money they will spend three, four, and five dollars of our money. In fact, when it comes to protecting their money, our money is no object. (pp. 47-49, emphasis mine)
Those who think of empire solely as an expression of national interests rather than class interests are bound to misinterpret the nature of imperialism.... Psychologizing about aching collective egos allows us to blame imperialism on ordinary U.S. citizens who are neither the creators nor beneficiaries of empire.... Whether they support or oppose a particular intervention, the American people cannot be considered the motivating force of the war policy. They do not sweep their leaders into war on a tide of popular hysteria. It is the other way around.... U.S. leaders feel free to intrude massively upon the economic, military, political, and cultural practices and institutions of any country they so choose. That's what it means to have an empire. (p.50, 52, 54)
[R]ather than being stupid, U.S. policy is, for the most part, remarkably successful and brutal in the service of elite economic interests. It may seem stupid because the rationales offered in its support often sound unconvincing, leaving us with the impression that policymakers are confused or out of touch. But just because the public does not understand what they are doing does not mean national security leaders are themselves befuddled. That they are fabricators does not mean they are fools. While costly in money, lives, and human suffering, U.S. policy is essentially a rational and consistent enterprise. Certainly the pattern of who is supported and who opposed, who is treated as friend and who as foe, indicates as much. (p.80)
Evidence to the contrary?
If these assertions are untrue, what is the evidence to support an alternative view? Why has the United States never supported social revolutionary forces against right-wing governments? Why does it harp on the absence of Western democratic forms in certain anticapitalist countries while ignoring brutal and widespread human rights violations in procapitalist countries? Why has it aided dozens of procapitalist military autocracies around the world and assisted their campaigns to repress popular organizations within their own countries? Why has the United States overthrown more than a dozen democratically elected, reformist governments and an almost equal number of left-populist regimes that were making modest moves on behalf of the poor and against the prerogatives of corporate investors? Why did it do these things before there ever was a Soviet Union? Any why does it continue to do these things when there is no longer a Soviet Union? Why has it supported and collaborated with narcotic traffickers from Asia to Central America, while voicing indignation about imagined drug dealings in Cuba? Why has it shown hostility toward every anticapitalist party or government, including those that play by the democratic rules and have persistently sought friendly diplomatic and economic relations with the United States? Neither "foolishness" nor a "misguided zeal" nor a need to defend us from "foreign invaders" explains such an unholy consistency. (pp.132-3)
Small government, big state
It is ironic that ... conservative interests—so overwhelmingly dependent on government grants, tax credits, land giveaways, price supports, and an array of other public subsidies—keep denouncing the baneful intrusions of government. However, there is an unspoken consistency to it, for when conservatives say they want less government, they are referring to human services, environmental regulations, consumer protections, and occupational safety, the kind of things that might cut into business profits. These include all forms of public assistance that potentially preempt private markets and provide alternative sources of income to working people, leaving them less inclined to work for still lower wages.
While conservative elites want less government control, they usually want more state power to limit the egalitarian effects of democracy. Conservatives, and some who call themselves liberals, want strong, intrusive state action to maintain the politico-economic status quo. They prefer a state that restricts access to information about its own activities, taps telephones, jails revolutionaries and reformers on trumped-up charges, harasses dissidents, and acts punitively not toward the abusers of power but toward their victims. (pp.144-5)
Some dare call it "conspiracy theory"
Some people reject this critique as "conspiracy theory." They do not believe that policymakers may sometimes be lying and may have unspoken agendas in the service of powerful interests. They insist that, unlike the rest of us, the rich and powerful do not act with deliberate intent. By that view, domestic and foreign policies are little more than a series of innocent happenings having nothing to do with the preservation of wealthy interests. Certainly this is the impression officials want to create....
The alternative is to have a coincidence theory or an innocence theory, which says that things just happen because of unintended happenstance, or a muddling through, with a lack of awareness of what is at stake, of who gets what, when, and how. It maintains that workers, farmers, and most other ordinary people might make concerted attempts to pursue their own interests but not the corporate elites and top financial interests, who own and control so much.
For some unexplained reason we are to assume that the rich and powerful, so well-schooled in business and politics, so at home in the circles of power, are unaware of where their interests lie and that they lift not a competent finger in support of them. Such an innocence theory appears vastly more farfetched than the idea that people with immense wealth and overweening power will resort to every conceivable means to pursue their interests—the state being their most important weapon in this heartless and relentless undertaking. (pp. 155-7)
Bailouts for those "Too Big to Fail" and "austerity programs" for the rest of us
In regard to all [the] corporate largesse, no mainstream commentator asks, "Where are we going to get the money to pay for all these things?" an inevitable question when social programs are proposed. Nor do they seem concerned that the corporate recipients of this largesse will run the risk of having their moral fiber weakened by dependency on government handouts. In sum, the myth of a self-reliant, free-market, trickle-down economy is just that, a myth. In almost every enterprise, government provides business with supports, protections, and opportunities for private gain at public expense....
As more of the federal revenue goes into debt payments, U.S. taxpayers get proportionately less in services.... Those at the top may take away our timberlands, oil reserves, mineral deposits, pension funds, airwaves, and jobs, but the national debt will always remain safely ours. (p. 163, 168)
On the disconnect between decisions and their consequences
People who never set foot in a supermarket and never have to worry over a food budget make public policies for people who have to count every penny. Health policy is formulated by people who never have to sit for hours in a public clinic. Transportation policy is made by people who never have to wait for a bus or search for a parking space. Our education system is legislated by people who have never had to send their children or grandchildren to public schools. Our daycare policy is devised by people who have au pairs and nannies. Public recreational policy is in the hands of people who vacation on private country estates and never have to visit a crowded, polluted municipal beach. And occupational safety laws are written by people who have never been inside a factory or gone down into a mine. (pp. 197-8)
I remember one time complaining to a friend that in a fair world the elites would be lined against a wall. Her response was, "Nah, they just ought to be made to use food stamps and take public transportation." Point taken.
Class warfare?
Those of us who point out the class basis of imperialism are accused of preaching "class warfare." But top-down class warfare by the ruling elites against the middle and lower classes is what we already have as an everyday occurrence. It is only when the many begin to fight back against the few that class warfare is condemned by political and media elites. (p. 207, emphasis mine)
Written in 1995, even more relevant in 2012
Along with all its horrors and cruelties, the history of imperialism is a history of resistance and rebellion, coming sometimes in the most unexpected moments and places. Resistance to the self-devouring empire is not a chimera but an urgent necessity. Our best hope is that in times ahead, as in the past, when things look most hopeless, a new cry will be heard in the land and those who would be our masters are shaken from their pinnacles.
Not only must we love social justice more than personal gain, we also must realize that our greatest personal gain comes in the struggle for social justice. And we are most in touch with our own individual humanity when we stand close to all of humanity. (p. 210)
February 15, 2023
This book is really good and could be classified as Capitalism in Action 101. My only two gripes with it are the lack of cited sources which makes following up on some interesting facts and points really difficult, and the conclusion with some of Parenti's opinions on the way forwards - which I felt could have been more impactful. I think the second point is largely due to the fact that this book was written in the '90s - I'd be really curious to read an updated version.
February 7, 2024
Some of the points of 1st 2 chapters i mentioned in short below relating to his introduction of american capitalistic neoimperialism throughout the world . How america uses aggression ,deceit, and various "aids" to win over countries for the benefit of transnational corporate conglomerates.
It have created a global military empire to sustain the profits of big companies and their market . It creates new enemies when it gets tired of crying agains socialism, out of the anticapitalistic rebellions. All from the taxes of common average americans for its expenses.
The popular theory of american psyche of being best, biggest , strongest , richest is exploited in making them believe that its "their" gain when imperialism spreads its wings in the world.
The cant understand that "their" is reffered to the big companies.
Similar cultural principle is tried to be spread across the world through mass media , tv , movies and other american propoganda.
Making the empire strong makes the republic weak to as jobs are exported where there are weaker labour laws.
Damaging both the citizens at home and outside.
By gatt, its easier to bypass consumer and environmental protections
American casuality during research development , or military operations abroad is there as well.
Big military spending impoverishes americans as well.
The class struggle exist between the haves and haves not.
A dreadful success:
≈==============/===================
He starts with imperialism , how it started in europe , germany, soviet across the globe. America do not believe its imperialist .
Dynamics of imperialism includes accumulation of capital through reduced labour cost, aquisition of natural resouurces, weak labour unions, low tax for corporates, export subsidies and destruction of self sustaining standard of living and making them dependant on capitalist market.
On question of whether imperialism is required for capitalism or not, maybe its not necessary. But its obviously more profitable so its compelling to be done.
Third world keyword is associated with countries to expropriate their natural resources under myths of underdevelopment, savagery , biological incapability. These pretexts are used to justify their unjustified oppression and extraction of wealth , and taking aways their means of production making them more poor .
The development theory categorise countries in developed , developing and underdeveloped. Rise of dependant capitalism.
Economic conditions have worsened drastically with the growth of transnational corporate investment.
The problem is not poor lands or unproductive populations but foreign exploitation and class inequality. Investors go into a country not to uplift it but to enrich themselves.
People in these countries do not need to be taught how to farm. They need the land and the implements to farm. They do not need to be taught how to fish. They need the boats and the nets and access to shore frontage, bays, and oceans. They need industrial plants to cease dumping toxic effusions into the waters. They do not need to be convinced that they should use hygienic standards. They do not need a Peace Corps volunteer to tell them to boil their water, especially when they cannot afford fuel or have no access to firewood. They need the conditions that will allow them to have clean drinking water and clean clothes and homes. They do not need advice about balanced diets from North Americans. They usually know what foods best serve their nutritional requirements. They need to be given back their land and labor so that they might work for themselves and grow food for their own consumption.
Neoimperialism:
Weaker countries are considered sovereign but they are being trapped under imperialist policies of transnational corporations which retains lions shares of their profitable resources.
A comprador class is one that cooperates in turning its own country into a client state for foreign interests. A client state is one that is open to investments on terms that are decidedly favorable to the foreign investors.
In a client state, corporate investors enjoy direct subsidies and land grants, access to raw materials and cheap labor, light or nonexistent taxes, few effective labor unions, no minimum wage or child labor or occupational safety laws, and no consumer or environmental protections to speak of. The protective laws that do exist go largely unenforced.
Market inequality
Poor nations compete agains other poor nations for market of industrial countries. The later then set trading terms highly favourable for them, playing one poor country off against another.
Third World countries are underpaid for their exports and regularly overcharged for the goods they import from the industrial world. Thus, their coffee, cotton, meat, tin, copper, and oil are sold to foreign corporations at low prices in order to obtain – at painfully high prices – various manufactured goods, machinery, and spare parts. According to a former president of Venezuela, Carlos Andrés Perez: ”This has resulted in a constant and growing outflow of capital and impoverishment of our countries
Debt domination
increasingly large portion of the earnings of indebted nations goes to servicing the debt, leaving still less for domestic consumption. The debts of some nations have grown so enormous that the interest accumulates faster than payments can be met.
One might wish that the poorer nations would liberate themselves from this financial peonage by unilaterally canceling their debts. Fidel Castro urged them to do as much. But nations that default on their debts run the risk of being unable to qualify for short-term credit to fund imports
Foreign aid as weapon:
Foreign aid is used as weapon to subsidizes the cash-crop exports of agribusiness at the expense of small farmers who grow food for local markets.
In some instances, aid is used deliberately to debilitate local production, as when Washington dumped sorghum and frozen chickens onto the Nicaraguan market to undercut cooperative farms and undermine land reform, or when it sent corn to Somalia to undercut local production and cripple independent village economies
World Bank built a highway into northwest Brazil's rain forests, then leveled millions of acres so that wealthy Brazilian ranchers could enjoy cheap grazing lands. Brazil also sent some of its urban poor down that highway to settle the land and further deplete it. Within ten years, the region was denuded and riddled with disease and poverty. As Jim Hightower put it: ”All the world's bank robbers combined have not done onetenth of one percent of the harm that the World Bank has in just fifty years
.
Rational violence:
what is distinct about imperialism is its highly unnatural quality, its repeated reliance upon armed coercion and repression.
In countries that have had anticapitalist revolutionary governments, which redistributed economic resources to the many rather than the few, such as Nicaragua, Mozambique, Angola, and Afghanistan, the U.S. national security state has supported antigovernment mercenary forces in wars of attrition that destroy schools, farm cooperatives, health clinics, and whole villages
The protracted war waged against the people of El Salvador is one of many tragic examples of U.S.backed counterinsurgency against people fighting for social justice. U.S.-trained and equipped Salvadoran troops massacred, as at El Mozote, whole villages suspected of being sympathetic to the guerrillas
The United States maintains the most powerful military machine on earth. Its supposed purpose was to protect democracy from communist aggression, but the U.S. military's actual mission – as demonstrated in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Panama – has been not to ward off Russian or Cuban invasions but to prevent indigenous anticapitalist, revolutionary or populist-nationalist governments from prevailing
Low intensity imperialism
United States, the seemingly endless Vietnam War caused the country to be torn by mass demonstrations, sit-ins, riots, draft evasion, and other radicalizing acts of resistance.
To avoid stirring up such political opposition at home, Washington policymakers have developed the technique of low intensity conflict, a mode of warfare that avoids all-out, high-visibility, military engagements and thereby minimizes the use and loss of U.S. military personnel
Globalization by gatt nd nafta:
WTO has the authority to prevent, overrule, or dilute the environmental, social, consumer, and labor laws of any nation. It sets up panels composed of nonelected trade specialists who act as judges over economic issues, placing them beyond the reach of national sovereignty and popular control, thereby ensuring that community interests will be subordinated to finance capital
Intervention , whose gain nd whose pain?:
It have created a global military empire to sustain the profits of big companies and their market . It creates new enemies when it gets tired of crying agains socialism, out of the anticapitalistic rebellions. All from the taxes of common average americans for its expenses.
The popular theory of american psyche of being best, biggest , strongest , richest is exploited in making them believe that its "their" gain when imperialism spreads its wings in the world.
The cant understand that "their" is reffered to the big companies.
Similar cultural principle is tried to be spread across the world through mass media , tv , movies and other american propoganda.
Making the empire strong makes the republic weak to as jobs are exported where there are weaker labour laws.
Damaging both the citizens at home and outside.
By gatt, its easier to bypass consumer and environmental protections
American casuality during research development , or military operations abroad is there as well.
Big military spending impoverishes americans as well.
The class struggle exist between the haves and haves not.
A dreadful success:
≈==============/===================
He starts with imperialism , how it started in europe , germany, soviet across the globe. America do not believe its imperialist .
Dynamics of imperialism includes accumulation of capital through reduced labour cost, aquisition of natural resouurces, weak labour unions, low tax for corporates, export subsidies and destruction of self sustaining standard of living and making them dependant on capitalist market.
On question of whether imperialism is required for capitalism or not, maybe its not necessary. But its obviously more profitable so its compelling to be done.
Third world keyword is associated with countries to expropriate their natural resources under myths of underdevelopment, savagery , biological incapability. These pretexts are used to justify their unjustified oppression and extraction of wealth , and taking aways their means of production making them more poor .
The development theory categorise countries in developed , developing and underdeveloped. Rise of dependant capitalism.
Economic conditions have worsened drastically with the growth of transnational corporate investment.
The problem is not poor lands or unproductive populations but foreign exploitation and class inequality. Investors go into a country not to uplift it but to enrich themselves.
People in these countries do not need to be taught how to farm. They need the land and the implements to farm. They do not need to be taught how to fish. They need the boats and the nets and access to shore frontage, bays, and oceans. They need industrial plants to cease dumping toxic effusions into the waters. They do not need to be convinced that they should use hygienic standards. They do not need a Peace Corps volunteer to tell them to boil their water, especially when they cannot afford fuel or have no access to firewood. They need the conditions that will allow them to have clean drinking water and clean clothes and homes. They do not need advice about balanced diets from North Americans. They usually know what foods best serve their nutritional requirements. They need to be given back their land and labor so that they might work for themselves and grow food for their own consumption.
Neoimperialism:
Weaker countries are considered sovereign but they are being trapped under imperialist policies of transnational corporations which retains lions shares of their profitable resources.
A comprador class is one that cooperates in turning its own country into a client state for foreign interests. A client state is one that is open to investments on terms that are decidedly favorable to the foreign investors.
In a client state, corporate investors enjoy direct subsidies and land grants, access to raw materials and cheap labor, light or nonexistent taxes, few effective labor unions, no minimum wage or child labor or occupational safety laws, and no consumer or environmental protections to speak of. The protective laws that do exist go largely unenforced.
Market inequality
Poor nations compete agains other poor nations for market of industrial countries. The later then set trading terms highly favourable for them, playing one poor country off against another.
Third World countries are underpaid for their exports and regularly overcharged for the goods they import from the industrial world. Thus, their coffee, cotton, meat, tin, copper, and oil are sold to foreign corporations at low prices in order to obtain – at painfully high prices – various manufactured goods, machinery, and spare parts. According to a former president of Venezuela, Carlos Andrés Perez: ”This has resulted in a constant and growing outflow of capital and impoverishment of our countries
Debt domination
increasingly large portion of the earnings of indebted nations goes to servicing the debt, leaving still less for domestic consumption. The debts of some nations have grown so enormous that the interest accumulates faster than payments can be met.
One might wish that the poorer nations would liberate themselves from this financial peonage by unilaterally canceling their debts. Fidel Castro urged them to do as much. But nations that default on their debts run the risk of being unable to qualify for short-term credit to fund imports
Foreign aid as weapon:
Foreign aid is used as weapon to subsidizes the cash-crop exports of agribusiness at the expense of small farmers who grow food for local markets.
In some instances, aid is used deliberately to debilitate local production, as when Washington dumped sorghum and frozen chickens onto the Nicaraguan market to undercut cooperative farms and undermine land reform, or when it sent corn to Somalia to undercut local production and cripple independent village economies
World Bank built a highway into northwest Brazil's rain forests, then leveled millions of acres so that wealthy Brazilian ranchers could enjoy cheap grazing lands. Brazil also sent some of its urban poor down that highway to settle the land and further deplete it. Within ten years, the region was denuded and riddled with disease and poverty. As Jim Hightower put it: ”All the world's bank robbers combined have not done onetenth of one percent of the harm that the World Bank has in just fifty years
.
Rational violence:
what is distinct about imperialism is its highly unnatural quality, its repeated reliance upon armed coercion and repression.
In countries that have had anticapitalist revolutionary governments, which redistributed economic resources to the many rather than the few, such as Nicaragua, Mozambique, Angola, and Afghanistan, the U.S. national security state has supported antigovernment mercenary forces in wars of attrition that destroy schools, farm cooperatives, health clinics, and whole villages
The protracted war waged against the people of El Salvador is one of many tragic examples of U.S.backed counterinsurgency against people fighting for social justice. U.S.-trained and equipped Salvadoran troops massacred, as at El Mozote, whole villages suspected of being sympathetic to the guerrillas
The United States maintains the most powerful military machine on earth. Its supposed purpose was to protect democracy from communist aggression, but the U.S. military's actual mission – as demonstrated in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Panama – has been not to ward off Russian or Cuban invasions but to prevent indigenous anticapitalist, revolutionary or populist-nationalist governments from prevailing
Low intensity imperialism
United States, the seemingly endless Vietnam War caused the country to be torn by mass demonstrations, sit-ins, riots, draft evasion, and other radicalizing acts of resistance.
To avoid stirring up such political opposition at home, Washington policymakers have developed the technique of low intensity conflict, a mode of warfare that avoids all-out, high-visibility, military engagements and thereby minimizes the use and loss of U.S. military personnel
Globalization by gatt nd nafta:
WTO has the authority to prevent, overrule, or dilute the environmental, social, consumer, and labor laws of any nation. It sets up panels composed of nonelected trade specialists who act as judges over economic issues, placing them beyond the reach of national sovereignty and popular control, thereby ensuring that community interests will be subordinated to finance capital
Intervention , whose gain nd whose pain?:
May 30, 2008
This book is shocking and eye-opening to those who are unaware of the history/implications of our country's economic policies. The fact that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, shines glaringly through the history of the west's interactions with developing nations. It becomes obvious that the wealth and splendor of industrialized capitalist nations is built on a foundation of exploitation, that does not wash with the morals and values of the citizens living those enriched lives. How to change those systems without destroying the current economy, will be the focus of activists and protesters and politicans for decades to come.
"By 'imperialism' I mean the process where-by the dominant polito-economic interests of one nation expropraite for their own enrichment the land, labor, raw materials, and markets of another people" -- Page One
i.e. minings the diamonds of Africa, the rainforests of South America, or sweatshop labor through-out the globe.
Outdated by now, but still useful and informative. His writing style is direct and his biases or intentions are clearly stated. A great book for those of us who are generally mislabeled by the right as "People who hate America".
"By 'imperialism' I mean the process where-by the dominant polito-economic interests of one nation expropraite for their own enrichment the land, labor, raw materials, and markets of another people" -- Page One
i.e. minings the diamonds of Africa, the rainforests of South America, or sweatshop labor through-out the globe.
Outdated by now, but still useful and informative. His writing style is direct and his biases or intentions are clearly stated. A great book for those of us who are generally mislabeled by the right as "People who hate America".
May 28, 2007
Concise and easy to read description of American Imperialism. Parenti spells out how American foreign policy and domestic policy serves the interests of global capital and the wealthy political-economic elite through global economic imperialism. He argues that the empire of the American state is controlled and gained at the expense of the American people and our republic, with nothing gained for the common citizen. His argument is effective, and this book is a great addition to other texts about globalization and class inequality around the world.
March 10, 2010
This is one of the best short, summaries of the sins of U.S. empire. It's a great starting point for understanding the wide array of issues. It's strength is its shortness in pulling together and interpreting many topics -- military interventions, drug trafficking, free market myths, debt control, globalization, and more. Its broadness means one has to use it as a primer for more detailed empirical treatments such as William Blum, Alfred McCoy, Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, and others. Parenti's closing, constructive chapter is weak due to a typical statism.
May 22, 2014
Like many I think this book is a broad overview and one could spend a life-time researching the individual examples (that is to say if there is some legitimate historical documentation to find.) I finished this book on the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. It has been a rough 10 years, though from reading, I gather it has been more than that for most of us. I wasn't crazy about chapter 10, thought it was a little "soapboxy," but the author admitted more than once that he falls prey to that tendency.
February 15, 2023
It's hard to overstate how much more useful this book would be if Parenti had included sources. As written, it is a potent indictment of American imperialism, replete with examples as well as analysis. Not being able to check specific claims or read more about specific instances is very frustrating though. That being said, the book is very well-written and challenging to the idea that US intervention is a force for good, and Parenti is especially articulate as to how "failures" of American foreign policy are only failures when their true goals are obfuscated.
October 31, 2024
Although the final two chapters felt a bit slow Against Empire is a well paced, consistently engaging, genre defining masterpiece. Parenti writes seemingly effortlessly whilst consistently spewing masterfully crafted collections of knowledge in every single chapter. If I wasn’t so familiar with his lectures this book would have been almost entirely new news to me. Absolutely phenomenal book, if you like Blackshirts and Reds you’ll adore this.
April 23, 2008
Much of what he wrote in this book in the mid-90s still holds true. An interesting thing about this book is that the examples of capitalist exploitation of "the Third World" are from the early 90s and before and yet seem to mirror many political events of the last eight years.
Parenti also has an excellent writing style that will keep you interested in reading until it is finished.
Parenti also has an excellent writing style that will keep you interested in reading until it is finished.
December 26, 2020
Damn. This was really really good. I’ve never seen so much information laid out so efficiently. Real analysis and actual solutions. This was incredible.
June 6, 2021
May each one of us in world live with dignity and peace!
June 3, 2024
An absolutely excellent exposé on US empire. From the military and state to academia, this book analyses the realities of empire and the interests involved.
December 4, 2025
A sub-theme of my reading this year has been a drift towards leftist analyses of the American Empire. “Against Empire” is a scalding polemic of the “free” world’s incessant use of finance capital and militarism to open markets across the globe, in turn building wealth for the wealthiest and stomping out local grass roots movements hoping to maintain some modicum of autonomy amongst globalization. Are you a people uninterested in participating in the game of capital accumulation and agribusiness? In that case, the US Treasury, Wall Street, and the International Monetary Fund will do all in their power to strip you of your cultural dignity and force you to participate at the risk of economic sanctions, political unrest, and even death.
For many growing up in the US, it’s touted as the land of the free and home of the brave. This is a remarkably useful rhetorical mask; in truth, the US provides the freedom for you to subject others to your own accumulation of spoils, and the security that her bravest will willingly invade sovereign nations to protect your freedom to accumulate.
Mr. Parenti, you’ve got me.
For many growing up in the US, it’s touted as the land of the free and home of the brave. This is a remarkably useful rhetorical mask; in truth, the US provides the freedom for you to subject others to your own accumulation of spoils, and the security that her bravest will willingly invade sovereign nations to protect your freedom to accumulate.
Mr. Parenti, you’ve got me.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 115 reviews