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Introduction
The study of international trade, in all respects, has generated heated debates on whether it is the U.S that exercises its state power or cooperation thar dictates the free flow of goods among trading partners. In his analysis of the structure of international trade, Krasner begins with an assumption that such a structure is guided by state power and its interests to gain control over how goods move to and from its vast domestic market with a view to maximize its goals (Keohane 21).
In assessing whether the U.S is exerting her hegemonic Ideals, gained from disproportionate costs, it is perhaps important to examine the role of three major aspects that are intimately related to the cooperation and free movement of factors of production global trade (Keohane 21). They include a states national income, stability in social structure, overall economic growth and a powerful or potentially powerful political structure. The degree, to which international trade and its allied partners freely move their goods, depends on the magnitude of economic power and control exercised by one or more states within the international trade structure (Kindleberger 72). This paper assesses the U.S as a hegemonic power aimed at gaining control over international systems.
Discussion
Since real or potential economic power of a state is derived from the states ability to marshal its already massive economic resources, it is evident that the U.S is a real or perceived hegemony, at least according to the assessment based on its substantial growth of the economy and military power (Keohane 21; Gilpin and Gilpin 99). Economists content that the degree of freeness and openness in international trade is likely to be realized when there is a hegemonic distribution of economic and political power. It can be said, albeit with little empirical proof, that the absence of state power is necessary if international cooperation is to thrive to fruition (Ravenhill 112).
Whether large and powerful states cooperate and support openness, it is less likely that their economies and total factor endowments shall suffer regardless of the degree of openness and cooperation (Karl 70). The degree of social stability, domestic economic growth of a powerful state runs in opposite directions with the extend of openness that is perceived to be the backbone of international trade. It should be stated from the outset that greater openness, in the true sense of a state, succeeds in exposing the domestic economy and social stability of a state to negative factors in the global market (Karl 70).
The domestic economy of the U.S is extremely large by all standards, and exposing it to the principle of cooperation as a core parameter for successful international trade would mean creating social instability. This is because of the pressure to accommodate the unrestricted movement of goods and factors of production from other states (Ravenhill 115). As such, to assert its power, a hegemonic country such as the U.S will be unwilling to expose its domestic structures at the behest of players in international trade. Instead, the U.S has succeeded in creating impression of openness by allowing free trade and movement of goods back and forth of its market and international markets it has control over by providing incentives in various forms (Benhjamin 289).
Insofar as the U.S continues to find space where it permeates and sanctions rules of engagement in the international system, it will exercise its hegemonic power. However, it is sometimes difficult to tell whether hegemons such as the U.S actually exhibit their hegemonic power by looking at the rules by which all other players must play. Hegemons, according to (Karl 70), do not just determine the rules, they also engage in the supply of goods as Incentives for the vulnerable majority to play by the rules. For example, the U.S persistently engages in programs that deliver basic commodities such as clean air and water to the less developed economies.
Because of Americas cooperation and collective effort to deliver humanitarian assistance and other public goods such as assured global security, free markets and a seemingly loose monetary system, it is likely that other parties (states) will resist the benefits that arise from these provisions (Gilpin and Gilpin 99). However, one thing remains clear: the U.S is always willing to incur disproportionate cost as it supplies these public goods and all forms or assistance (Benhjamin 301).
However, there can never be a scenario where the state that extends help can leave the scene without enjoying disproportionate benefits from the incentives it gives to encourage them to play by the rules. Useful examples of such goods are supported by international economic and financial bodies that come in the form of free flow of capital, liberal trade and flexible international exchange rates, and political order derived from a need for sustainable human rights (Barry 5; Art 26). In terms of ensuring that a stable economic, political, and social order, U.S successfully engineered a global security order under the enforcement eye of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). (Art 26)
In assessing the relationship between a states political power and the existing global systems, it is essential to examine the opportunity cost of trading or closing shop. When trading is put rest, the state with the highest chances of closure tends to have a less powerful political control relative to that of other parties. According to (Karl 70), the cost can be understood by assessing the loss of income and the adjustments that come in the wake of the new circumstances. When all other factors are held constant, analysts suggest that the states that have large economies will have a lower utility cost than smaller states or developing economies in the international trade. In this respect, the U.S is a relatively large economy and has a lower utility cost when it engages in trading in an open and cooperative manner.
With that said, such a state is potentially capable of using its vast amount of economic resources to threaten, influence or interfere with the system having a view to secure what it considers to be in its best interest (Barry 5). This explains the reason why the United States has been on the frontline calling for an open-door policy to strengthen its influence on how foreign markets operate and to secure control of developing countries from the imperial colonial powers (Bush and Scowcroft 45). The U.S foreign policy has, since the beginning of the 19th century and until recently, advocated for and supported a free market economy and liberal societies (Barry 6).
The U.S culture is curved on competition and has become part of the nations ethos. In the todays world characterized by capitalist competition in political, social and economic spheres, the U.S has an outright advantage over the rest of the world. From Woodrow Wilson to the Obama administration, America has been actively engaged in remaking its global image (Kindleberger 56). This policy has, at its best been catalyzed by the persistent call for open-door policies that seek to navigate virtually every market in the sovereign markets worldwide. Simply put the globalization is a vehicle through which the U.S achieves its objective of shaping the world order (Ravenhill 110).
Conclusion
It is difficult to imagine a situation where the Soviet Union had won the battle of the Cold War. Experts say it would have been less likely for the world to see the extent to which globalization has been realized. The model, argues economic and political pundits, would have been one that would exercise imperial power where the benefits of such a system would possibly be flowing from the less endowed periphery to the vast center (Spero, Joan, and Jeffrey 4). From this analogy, it is justified to say that globalization and its related components such as liberal markets, democratization and distribution of economic power would have been unimaginable.
Therefore, it can be argued that globalization is the outcome of hegemonic world, especially of the U.S hegemony. This analysis is premised on the argument that global economic, social and political structures are synonymous with American hegemony, which conceived, gave birth to and fed it to maturity through its powerful political, social and economic structures that have a substantial influence on the international systems (Spero, Joan, and Jeffrey 6). From the foregoing, the U.S hegemony, supported by the vastness of its domestic and international influence, is projected to play at the international gallery as long as the U.S controls the global political, social, and economic agenda as a superpower.
Works Cited
Art, Robert. Why Western Europe Needs the United States and NATO. Political Science Quarterly 111.1. (1996): 1-39. Print.
Barry, Clark. Political Economy: A Comparative Approach. Paeger, New York, 1991, Print.
Benhjamin, Cohen. Containing Backlash: Foreign Economic Policy in an Age of Globalization. in R.J. Lieber (ed.), Eagle Rules? Foreign Policy and American Primacy in the Twenty-First Century. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2002. Print.
Bush, George, and Brent, Scowcroft. A World Transformed. New York: Knopf, 1998. Print.
Gilpin, Robert, and Jean M. Gilpin. Global Political Economy: Understanding the International Economic Order. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2001. Print.
Karl, Polany. The Great Transformation. Boston: Beacon Press, 1957, Print.
Keohane, Robert. After Hegemony. Pinceton University, Princeton NJ, 1984, Print.
Kindleberger, Charles P. The World in Depression, 1929-1939. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Print.
Ravenhill, John. Global Political Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Print.
Spero, Joan E, and Jeffrey A. Hart. The Politics of International Economic Relations. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010. Print.
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