Responses to Comments by William Robinson and Bill Bollinger

The critiques of my article formulated by William Robinson and Bill Bollinger form part of a necessary debate over the nature of imperialism in the age of globalization and its all-important political implications. I agree with Robinson that globalization does not inherently rule out the existence of imperialism. Indeed, contrary to what he claims, my article does not make such an affirmation. What I do say is that there is a “tendency” among globalization scholars “to reduce the importance of both the nation-state and imperialism.” The main difference between Robinson and myself has to do with the role of the nation-state, and specifically that of the United States.

Robinson argues that globalization and the dominance of transnational capital “compels us to shed this territorial fetish and return to a conception of imperialism as a transnational class relation.” In contrast, my article underlines the centrality of U.S. hegemony and the need to prioritize the struggle against U.S. imperialism. I point out that U.S. military domination is not even remotely matched by the world-wide military presence of any of its allies and foes, and that geopolitical motivations partly account for its unilateral interventions, which in the case of Latin America are an expression of the Monroe Doctrine. Robinson writes that while these observations are correct, they are “crying out for an explanation.” Material explanations, however, do not all point in the direction of the all-encompassing role of transnational capital. Washington’s military and non-military deployments, for instance, help safeguard the dominance of the dollar, which is a singular concern for Washington that is not shared by its allies, at least to the same degree (Ellner, 2023b: 42).

Robinson goes on to state “What we really mean to ask is, what are the class interests behind what the U.S. state does in Latin America and the world?” Again, the transnational capitalist class is not the sole factor. U.S. capitalists have intricate ties with politicians in Washington who exclusively represent U.S. voters. Hedge fund mogul Paul Singer, for example, may have the bulk of his investments in transnational companies that transcend the nation-state, but given his influence in Washington it is in his interests that the U.S. maintain global hegemony, and not have it diminished or ceded to any other nation. The same U.S. government promotes through its diplomatic officials and representatives in the World Trade Organization commercial relations with the U.S., as opposed to those with its allies. I agree with Robinson’s focus on class interests, but would caution against class reductionism whereby the military, cultural and political sides of imperialism get relegated to secondary importance. The transnational capitalist class may be hegemonic, but on the political front it has junior partners that take in other sectors including those of the upper middle class and the middle class, whose interests are more territorially based. In short, there is a material basis for the territorial focus that has hardly become obsolete in the age of globalization.

I have long admired Robinson’s extensive work on global capital. In it he shows how Marx’s predictions regarding the centralization of capital have reached a new threshold over the last half century in the form of transnational capital. My major concern is that overstating the role of the emerging transnational state may divert attention from U.S. imperialism and the struggle against it, which needs to be prioritized. The slogan of a “multi-polar world” serves as an inspiration for progressive governments of the Global South that have been subjected to imperialist aggression. But in line with his warning against territorial “fetishism,” Robinson argues that the shift to a multipolar system “within the capitalist order . . .remains part of a brutal, exploitative, global capitalist world” (Robinson, 2023). As I point out in my article, the strategy to achieve a multi-polar world, along with the struggle against U.S. imperialism, provides progressive governments in Latin America much-needed breathing space in its quest to achieve meaningful change. The importance of multipolarity should thus be underlined, not dismissed.

With regard to Bollinger’s comments, it is necessary to distinguish between what I said and didn’t say about U.S. imperialism. Nowhere did I deny what is well known and what Bollinger stresses, namely that U.S. economic power is on the decline. Bollinger writes that I “seem[s] to believe that U.S. imperialism is as powerful today as in the early 1970s, both as an economic system and as a political-military system.” Nowhere in the article do I make this claim, though certainly U.S. military might is more powerful than ever, especially because there is no countervailing power of a Soviet Union. But just because U.S. strength has declined doesn’t mean it is any less aggressive or interventionist. Bollinger writes, “U.S. elites seem no longer to see socialist movements in Latin America as a national security threat.” To prove this, he points to isolationist sectors of the far right and goes on to call Trump the heir to Pat Buchanan, “working to consolidate the nativist and fascist current in the Republican party.” But Trump has hardly renounced imperialist aggression, everything to the contrary.

Washington’s bipartisan strategy toward the Pink Tide, as has always been the case, is to support the destabilizing efforts of the local elite until the threat posed by the left in power reaches a certain threshold, at which point interventionism becomes more blatant and often assumes military dimensions. The two major threats to the U.S. in Latin America in the twenty-first century have come from the governments of Venezuela and Bolivia and in both cases the destabilizing role of the U.S. was overwhelming. In the case of Venezuela, it has been well documented including in the pages of Latin American Perspectives (Clement, 2005). It has consisted of support for military coup attempts, open encouragement of the kidnapping of President Maduro, sharp increase in financial support for pro-opposition NGOs, incentives to military officers to rebel, a commercial media that consistently praised the parallel government of Juan Guaidó and labeled Maduro “authoritarian,” crippling sanctions, the naval deployment of the U.S. Fourth fleet close to Venezuelan shores “intended to ratchet up pressure on Maduro” (Jakarta Post, 2020), economic support for trade unionists who carried out an indefinite general strike with insurrectional aims, and ongoing efforts to isolate Venezuela internationally.

Elsewhere Bollinger objects to my reference to Robert Kaplan’s statement on the “benign” nature of U.S. imperialism on grounds that Kaplan is not a “progressive scholar.” Yet I clearly identify Kaplan as a “pro-establishment commentator.” He then refers to my “rosy view of China’s economic role.” Nowhere in my article do I make such an assertion. In fact, in a recent Comment published in Latin American Perspectives I take issue with such a “rosy” view of China’s economic role that was presented in an article published in the same issue. I contended that the “ambiguity” with regard to China’s economic system “is undoubtedly the result of a mixture of features some of which are associated with capitalism and others with socialism” (Ellner, 2023c: 253). Bollinger then accuses me of “geopolitical reductionism” on grounds that in another Comment in Latin American Perspectives, I opposed the “attempt to play down the [Daniel] Ortega government’s leftist credentials.” In fact, I assumed no such position in that Comment or any other published work of mine on the Latin American left in recent years. The only point I made in the Comment is that the efforts of the U.S. government to promote economic and political instability in Nicaragua cannot be dismissed or downplayed (Ellner, 2021).

Bollinger also writes “in demanding that leftists ‘prioritize foreign policy,’” that I “want[s] flaws of Pink Tide governments always explained by damage done by the United States.” This, however, has never been at the heart of my writing on the Latin American left. In fact, toward the end of a recent article of mine, I write “there are reasons. . . to reject a mechanical view that subordinates all revolutionary goals and objectives to the challenges posed by imperialism” and, as Fidel Castro made clear, “all Cuba’s problems cannot be attributed solely to imperialist aggression” (Ellner, 2023a: 409). In none of my writing on the Pink Tide, and Venezuela in particular, do I let the left in power “off the hook” for its errors (for my most recent article, see Ellner, 2024: 10-11).

In general, Bollinger rejects writing which brushes off errors committed by Pink Tide governments and uncritically praises them. In this respect Bollinger and I overlap in our thinking regarding the role of the left in the global North. Indeed, I have been criticized by fellow leftists on grounds that the U.S. left should refrain from criticizing a pro-socialist government like that of Venezuela (Ellner, 2008: 173-174). That said, I firmly maintain the left needs to prioritize the struggle against U.S. imperialism, a position evidently not shared by Bollinger.