Suchergebnisse

Throughout the twentieth century, the U.S. government willingly deployed power, hard and soft, to protect American investments all around the globe. Why did the United States get into the business of defending its citizens' property rights abroad? The Empire Trap looks at how modern U.S. involvement in the empire business began, how American foreign policy became increasingly tied to the sway of private financial interests, and how postwar administrations finally extricated the United States from economic interventionism, even though the government had the will and power to continue

"Throughout the twentieth century, the U.S. government willingly deployed power, hard and soft, to protect American investments all around the globe. Why did the United States get into the business of defending its citizens' property rights abroad? The Empire Trap looks at how modern U.S. involvement in the empire business began, how American foreign policy became increasingly tied to the sway of private financial interests, and how postwar administrations finally extricated the United States from economic interventionism, even though the government had the will and power to continue. Noel Maurer examines the ways that American investors initially influenced their government to intercede to protect investments in locations such as Central America and the Caribbean. Costs were small - at least at the outset - but with incremental step, American policy became increasingly entangled with the goals of those they were backing, making disengagement more difficult. Maurer discusses how, all the way through the 1970s, the United States not only failed to resist pressure to defend American investments, but also remained unsuccessful at altering internal institutions of other countries in order to make property rights secure in the absence of active American involvement. Foreign nations expropriated American investments, but in almost every case the U.S. government's employment of economic sanctions or covert action obtained market value or more in compensation - despite the growing strategic risks. The advent of institutions focusing on international arbitration finally gave the executive branch a credible political excuse not to act. Maurer cautions that these institutions are now under strain and that a collapse might open the empire trap once more. With shrewd and timely analysis, this book considers American patterns of foreign intervention and the nation's changing role as an imperial power."--Provided by publisher.

These two titles are recommended to specialized researchers in the economic and diplomatic issues, as well as leaders of employers' associations. Each book deals with the interaction between the world of American business and government circles in Washington, seeking to determine first how far the spontaneous or constructed perception of external threats (spoilers United States and competitors) affect the conduct of foreign policy and then in what ways the United States can mitigate the leakage of hegemony and their cascading fallout. Adapted from the source document.

The Mexican expropriation of 1938 was the first large-scale non-Communist expropriation of foreign-owned natural resource assets. The literature makes three assertions: the United States did not fully back the companies, Mexico did not fully compensate them for the value of their assets, and the oil workers benefitted from the expropriation. This article finds that none of those assertions hold. The companies devised political strategies that maneuvered a reluctant President Roosevelt into supporting their interests, and the Mexican government more than fully compensated them as a result. Neither wages for oil workers nor Mexican government oil revenue rose after the expropriation.

Banks in Porfirian Mexico widely engaged in the practice of making
long-term loans to their own directors, a practice known as 'auto-prestamo'. This
was neither pernicious nor fraudulent. Rather, Porfirian banks behaved as the
financial arms of extended kinship and personal business groups. These groups
used banks to raise impersonal capital for their diversified enterprises and give
their partnerships a more permanent institutional base. Investors in these banks
knew full well that they were investing in the businesses of a particular group and
developed sophisticated techniques to monitor bank directors. However, because
entry into banking was severely restricted under Porfirian law, the system
concentrated economic power in a few hands and contributed to Mexico's
oligopolistic industrial structure.

RESUMENEste artículo revisa el desarollo más reciente en el campo de la historia económica mexicana. Argumenta que en los últimos diez años ha ocurrido un cambio significativo en la metodología, se ha pasado de la teoría de la dependencia y el analisis institucional tradicional, hacia el uso extensivo de técnicas cliométricas e hipótesis tomadas de la Nueva Economía Institucional. Este cambio ha aumentado nuestro conocimiento de diversas claves de la historia ecónomica de México. Ciertamente el área ha experimentado un progreso importante, pero todavía falta un cierto ordenamiento.