The Political Economy of the Special Relationship: British Development and American Power
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The Political Economy of the Special Relationship: British Development and American Power Jeremy Green A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN POLITICAL SCIENCE YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO © Jeremy Green, 2013 Abstract Breaking from the traditional understanding of Anglo-American relations in terms of the cultural, diplomatic and military ‘Special Relationship’, this thesis explores the interdependent political-economic development of Britain and the United States. I argue that this interdependence has generated a specifically Anglo-American field of capitalist development that has been crucial to the transformation of the global political economy, particularly with regard to the creation and eventual undermining of the Bretton Woods monetary order. Reflecting the imbalance of power between Britain and the U.S., the thesis focuses principally upon the role of American power in shaping the transformation of Britain’s political economy and affecting Britain’s position within the global political economy. Moving away from the narrow preoccupation with decline that has dominated studies of British capitalism, I open up the study of British development within a broader transatlantic horizon that enables an alternative analysis which reveals important aspects of the politics of financial globalisation and the transformation of the U.S. political economy. I argue that the financial relationship between the two states and the key role of interaction between bankers in London and New York, in collaboration with their respective Treasuries and Central Banks, was crucial to the post-war transformation of the global political economy. The interactive development of Anglo-American finance was central to the development of financial globalisation, undermining the Bretton Woods order in the process. Anglo-American bankers alongside their respective Central Banks and Treasuries formed the basis of enduring economic orthodoxy within both states and ii presided over financial deregulation that critically undermined the basis of the Keynesian state in Britain. In the U.S., these transatlantic deregulatory dynamics eroded the basis of financial regulations that had been central to the politics of the New Deal. In both countries, the financial communities supported monetarism and the neoliberal central banking regimes of the Thatcher-Reagan era, which spurred a wider endorsement of the politics of price stability throughout the global political economy. iii Acknowledgements Undertaking this kind of intellectual project requires the support of many different people. My family in England have always been very supportive and in particular my mother, Victoria, has provided unwavering and unquestioning support for my endeavours, despite the fact that I was many thousands of miles from home throughout much of this PhD. Special thanks must also go to my brother Oliver, who provided me with a place to stay in London while I carried out archival research and made several visits to see me while I was studying in Canada. My second family over in Canada have also played a crucial role. Eric George, Joseph Baines, Sandy Hager, Julian Germann and Brigitte Noel, all gave me incredible support and encouragement through some testing times. When studying abroad these support networks become even more important and I am forever indebted to their kindness and encouragement. The many intellectual discussions I shared with my closest friends at York over those years have also had a crucially formative impact upon my outlook on the world and the study of political economy. Within the department, I have to thank first and foremost, Hannes Lacher and Leo Panitch. Their intellectual encouragement, knowledge and experience have been crucial in enabling me to complete this PhD thesis. Without their consistent input this project would have never been possible and without their critical comments and attentive reading of my work, I would no doubt have produced a much less convincing and consistent analysis. Both Hannes and Leo have also provided support during other difficult moments during my iv time living in Canada and I am very much indebted to their support and the support from the entire department through some challenging circumstances. The third member of my committee, Stephen Gill, provided and inspirational introduction to York while teaching the IPE core course at the beginning of my studies. On the administrative side, I would like to thank Marlene Quesenberry and in particular Judy Matadial for helping me navigate my way through the organisational aspects of the PhD. I must also thank Andreas Bieler, at the University of Nottingham, without whom I would never have thought to undertake the PhD in the first place. Over in Britain, my employers at SPERI gave me the space and support required to finish off this PhD while also undertaking post-doctoral work. In particular, Sarah Boswell, Colin Hay and Tony Payne have provided a great deal of support and encouragement. Tony in particular needs to be singled out for the patience and belief he has shown in me, I am very much indebted to him for that. Scott Lavery has also provided camaraderie and many moments of levity during the arduous final year of the PhD project. I am also grateful to the assistance of the archivists at the Bank of England during my two research visits there. Their knowledge and professionalism has made conducting this research much easier. Finally, I dedicate this thesis to the memory of Ray Lock: a dear friend of the family and someone who maintained an enduringly critical attitude towards America’s role in the world and its impact upon Britain. v 1.1 List of Figures 1.1 London Banks Market Share Current Account Deposits of Overseas Residents 175 1.2 American Banks Total Current Account Deposits of Overseas Residents 177 1.3 British Overseas and Commonwealth Banks Total Current Account Deposits of Overseas Residents 178 2.1 Comparative Interest Rates: UK Bank Rate, US Federal Funds Rate and London Eurodollar Rate 182 2.2 Comparative Interest Rates: Eurodollar Rate and US Federal Funds Rate 185 3.1 UK Banks Capitalization as a share of National Market Capitalization 326 vi Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv List of Figures vii Introduction 1 Synopsis 6 A Note on archival sources 14 1 Conceptualising the Political Economy of the Special Relationship 16 The decline paradigm 21 Internationalising the City-Bank-Treasury nexus 25 The transatlantic vector 33 U.S. power: redefinition or retreat? 42 Beyond structural power: power as process 52 2 The Great Reversal: Anglo-American Development from 58 the Nineteenth Century to the 1930s Interdependence, war, and the rise and fall of the gold standard 62 Resuscitating the gold standard 71 The Great Depression and the road to war 87 The limits and effects of the great reversal 94 3 British Development and Post-war American Power: 97 Beyond the ‘Hegemony/Rivalry’ Binary The continuity of process: integrating war and post-war 101 Anglo-American currents of institutional development 104 Disaggregating the national interest: Bretton Woods and beyond 109 The ‘capitulation thesis’ 121 The ‘inter-imperial rivalry’ thesis 125 Beyond the capitulation/rivalry binary 127 The restoration of orthodoxy 131 The stillbirth of the ‘Keynesian’ state 144 vii 4 Anglo-American Development, the Euromarkets, and the 147 Decomposition of Bretton Woods States, markets and the Euromarkets 150 The Bank, sterling, and the City’s international role 153 American development and the Bretton Woods dimension 159 The birth of the Eurobond and the paradox of the Eurodollar 164 The parallel of deficits 167 The Americans arrive in the City 173 The fiscal basis of the British state 195 Anglo-American finance and the crisis of Keynesianism 204 5 Britain and America in the Eye of the Storm: From the Breakdown of 208 Bretton Woods to the IMF Crisis of 1976 The internationalisation of the state 211 The death throes of Bretton Woods 219 The breakdown of the post-war consensus 229 Internationalising the British state 241 A prelude to Thatcherism 270 6 Internalising Discipline: The Bank, the Fed and 274 the Political Economy of Price Stability Floating rates and the inflationary challenge 280 Opening the floodgates 287 The epistemological break: monetarism triumphant? 303 The differential impacts of neoliberal central banking 313 Anglo-American symbiosis and the termination of the Keynesian compromise 328 Conclusion: The Persistence of Orthodoxy 333 References 343 viii Introduction ‘Little by little, the two countries established an instinctive conjunction of financial interests, so that it seemed impossible on either side, to imagine life without it. This, and not sentiment and language, was the innermost guts of the ‘Special Relationship’ (Strange, 1971: 71). The close post-war association between Britain and the United States has come to be known by a single mnemonic, the ‘Special Relationship’. The term refers to an unusually close and cooperative relationship, encompassing diplomatic, military- strategic, political, economic and cultural spheres, between two independent nation states. For Britain, the Special Relationship has offered a means to preserve Great Power status even though its capacity for unilateral action in pursuit of foreign policy objectives has been greatly diminished (Curtis, 1998: 19). While for the U.S., Britain’s possession of nuclear weapons, its access to political and military intelligence and its position on the United Nations Security Council to name but a few factors, have served as valuable appendages to American power (Watt, 1986: 10). Diplomatic relations between the two states have, despite the occasional spat and periods of cooling, remained extraordinarily close, perhaps never more so than during the so-called ‘War on Terror’ marshalled by George Bush and Tony Blair to devastating and tragic effect in the aftermath of 9/11 (Dumbrell, 2006: 4). Yet for all that the concept of the Special Relationship has illuminated, there is also a great deal that it has obscured.