Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

OIL AND THE GULF WAR: AN "AMERICAN CENTURY" OR A "NEW WORLD ORDER"

1993; Pluto Journals; Volume: 15; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

2043-6920

Atif Kubursi, Salim Mansur,

State Capitalism and Financial Governance

malaise of the American economy became the major topic of heated debates and not so polite discussions. At the beginning of the Eighties, despite the recession aggravated by the second oil shock which followed the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran, the American economy did not appear marooned in a profound structural problem. The Cold War still on, and Reagan began his first term with the call for the largest ever peacetime build-up of American military and naval forces, while announcing tax cuts as a stimulant to the economy. By the time Reagan left office America, as Kevin Phillips noted, was weakening in everything from chemicals and electronics to banking and capital markets.1 The sense of the American economy in trouble brought home in two sets of figures. At the beginning of the Eighties, America still a creditor state; by the end of the decade it had become the largest debtor state in the world. During Reagan's second term, military expansion and domestic consumption brought the accumulated American debt to under $2 trillion. By mid