Newly published Howard Zinn interview on US empire
In November 2004, I met the author of A People's History of the United States at the Harvard Trade Union Program in Boston, USA. The illegal invasion of Iraq had begun the previous year.
Do you see any similarities between American power and empires of old such as Rome, Britain, China?
I guess all empires have something in common. They all involve the determination to have influence or power over other countries for various reasons – for economic reasons, for political reasons, even for psychological reasons. There is a psychology of empire that operates. So there is a basic similarity among all empires.
I guess another similarity is that they all reach a certain point where they become top-heavy: the point where they overextend themselves and they are driven to require more and more power, and eventually they topple both from external resistance and a kind of internal decay. Very often the economics of empire require a militarization of the economy which then starves the domestic economy and eventually causes collapse.
Now what is different about the American empire is that it is simply the biggest: it’s the greatest and most powerful. Its reach extends even further than the British Empire at its height and is buttressed by the most powerful military machine in history. And this is accompanied not just by economic power but by a cultural imperialism which because of the new technology – television, the internet and so on – has an even greater effect than cultural imperialism as it has existed before.
Much of the world was intensely disappointed when Bush was re-elected on November 2. It was seen by many as a mandate from the American people to continue imperial actions in the Middle East and the wider world. Do you see it as a mandate for this?
A mandate is a much too strong a word to use for what happened. After all, Bush got 51% of the vote. He got 51% of the 60% who voted — that is only 60% of the eligible voters voted. So if you multiply 51% by 60% it means that Bush actually got 31% of people who are eligible to vote. It’s true that Kerry got less — he got 28%. But my point is that this is far from a mandate.
The American political system is such that if you defeat your opponent by even a miniscule margin you then have total power. You win by 51%, you then take 100% of the power. So the President then on the basis of a 1% margin considers himself as having a mandate. But consider the fact that half of the American population at least now – a little more than half – believe the war in Iraq is wrong, that we shouldn’t have got ourselves into the war. Obviously Bush is determined to continue the war but it is very clear that he does not have a mandate from the American people to continue the war.
Do you think there is any difference between the Democratic and Republican parties attitude toward imperial power? Or is the same framework in place?
They both believe in imperial power. There is no fundamental difference between them. There may be a tactical difference between them. Democrats may believe that foreign policy should be conducted in a slightly different way than the Republicans but their aim is the same: to extend the American empire.
You can see this if you just compare the Carter and Clinton administrations’ policies with those of Reagan and Bush. You don’t get a very stark difference in foreign policy but you get some difference. That is, Carter was not as war-like as Bush, and Clinton not as war-like as the second Bush. But Clinton, for instance, raised the issue of Weapons of Mass Destruction before Bush did. It was in his presidency that the issue of WMDs was used as an excuse for, firstly, maintaining the sanctions on Iraq and, secondly, bombing Iraq: British and American planes bombed Iraq continually all through the years between the two Gulf wars. So there is not a fundamental difference between the two parties.
Do you see the anti-imperial movement coming from the streets rather than the mainstream Democratic Party, then?
There is no question that the anti-imperial movement is not going to come from the mainstream Democratic Party. It could conceivably come from a grassroots rebellion inside the Democratic Party. That’s one possibility as a result of the selection during the election run-up, which I think demonstrated that the caution of Democratic Party in approaching the war – the hesitancy in opposing the war – did not help them. The move towards the Republicans did not help them and it could be that there would be a grassroots rebellion inside the Democratic Party which would move Party to the left and question the existing foreign policy. That’s a possibility. It’s only a possibility but, I think, whether that grassroots movement inside the Democratic Party develops or not what is most important is the development of a mass movement outside of the party system. That is, yes, the streets. The kind of movement that we saw in the years of the civil rights movement against racial segregation or in the years of the movement against the Vietnam. A movement that is outside of the orthodox political institutions but which creates an atmosphere in the country and enlists enough people in its cause and frightens the establishment sufficiently so that something is changed.
Are we seeing this grassroots movement in America now?
We are seeing the beginning of it. We’ve seen large demonstrations against the war in Iraq – hundreds of thousands of people. Of course, the press has not given them much attention and so most people don’t know about the existence of these demonstrations. But not just these large demonstrations in key cities like Washington D.C., New York, San Francisco: there have been anti-war actions, gatherings, vigils, teach-ins, meetings all over the country. In small towns all over the country and in remote states. I get regular communications from the state of Montana. There are not very many people living there and these are ranchers, sheep herders, farmers and so on. But there is a very vibrant anti-war movement in Montana.
I marched in London against the war and there was a great sense of optimism that we could change things. Before the war started polls were saying 82% of Europeans were against the war so it was disheartening to see it did nothing to stop the attack. Obviously large-scale protest within American borders would have a huge effect but is there anything Europeans and the wider world can do to change US policies?
As you pointed out, the rest of the world was overwhelming opposed to the US war in Iraq and yet this government went ahead. And, yes, this government can ignore European and world public opinion for a while. But I don’t think it can ignore that opinion indefinitely. You are beginning to see the few nations that the US was able to muster to send troops to Iraq, half of them have withdrawn their troops now from Iraq. This is the kind of phenomenon that will have an effect as you get more and more defections from within the circle of American influence. When you look at any phenomenon at a fairly early stage, you’re disheartened because it looks as if what is being done has no effect but effects on policy come cumulatively.
My own feeling is that people in the anti-war movement must not be disheartened by the fact that they have huge demonstrations but the policy stays the same because if you look at the history of social movements, they suffer defeat after defeat after defeat before they finally win. There is an accumulation that goes on and exactly when that accumulation will begin to change policy is impossible to predict.
But even without the 'war on terror’, many people would argue, there is still an American empire, in the form of multinational corporations and other economic instruments. Even if the anti-war movement succeeded in stopping the Bush administration when it pursues future wars, we’d still have an American empire, wouldn’t we?
We certainly would. Just as when we stopped the Vietnam war – the US was forced to withdraw from Vietnam – we still had an American empire. No, it will take something much more powerful than simply the movement against the war to begin to change the fundamental nature of American foreign policy. It will probably take some kind of economic collapse and some rebellion of other countries – the refusal of other countries to come into the American economic sphere. Now we see some of the beginning of that in Latin America, where we see the election of some leaders who will not simply kowtow to the US. Of course, Fidel Castro in the prime example.
And Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.
And Chávez, of course. And Lula in Brazil. There’s an article in today’s New York Times about how it has now been revealed through the very diligent research of this group in Washington – the National Security Archives – that the US knew about the coup in 2002 against Chávez and they were aware all the way along about what was happening. At first they denied that they had known about it. The coup failed: Chávez was out for a couple of days and then he was back. Very embarrassing for the US, but the fact that Chávez is there and the fact that Lula and the other newly-elected Latin American left leaders are there points to the possibility that more and more nations will begin to remove themselves from the American sphere and will resist American domination. When enough of that happens only then will American corporate control over the world economy come to an end.
A lot of left critiques of imperialism say it is inextricably linked to capitalism. Lenin, for example, said it was the “highest stage of capitalism”. Do you agree?
There is no doubt that capitalism moves almost inexorably towards imperialism. That is, capitalism is based on the drive for profit and so long as overseas control increases profit then capitalism and imperialism are intertwined. But the reason I hesitate to endorse that position fully is that I think there are nations that have not yet eliminated capitalism – that are in between a capitalist and a social democrat economy, the Scandinavian countries, for example – but there are no imperial foreign policies operating. Capitalism in its classical form – and certainly the form it has taken in most countries – moves towards imperialism but I don’t think it’s inevitable.
Right-wing commentators argue that the corporate imperialism of America brings foreign investment and jobs to places that would otherwise not have them. Is there any truth to this? Can economic imperialism bring any benefits to the colonized?
I think it can. But these benefits are generally mal-distributed – that is, the benefits that come to another country are generally concentrated in the upper and middle classes of that country. What you see is a very sharp difference in income and prosperity, the polarization of wealth and poverty, as a result of imperialism. When you look at the surface of country, like South Korea, you see prosperity. Just like when you look at the surface of the US you see prosperity, you don’t see the other side.
How self-conscious is the Bush administrations pursuit of empire? Could it just be a by-product of a genuine war against terrorism, or is it something more sinister and preconceived?
I think they’re very conscious of it. After all, they have a vision that now the Soviet Union is gone it is possible for the US to dominate the world unhindered. To be the big superpower. And this belief of theirs antedated the events of September 11th. In fact, we have it from the former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill, who sat in on the cabinet and now has gone. But he says that right after Bush was elected, at cabinet meetings, and this was before 9/11, they were talking about invading Iraq. The strategists of the Bush administration understand that the purpose of going into Iraq is not really to do anything about terrorism but to establish another American base in the Middle East and establish American control over Iraqi oil. They understand this. The strategy is, I believe, a very conscious one.
Some posit the idea that some sort of informal control over the Middle East is the only way to protect the American homeland.
The whole idea of America being under attack is sort of absurd. Who is going to attack America? There’s no country in the Middle East, there’s no combination of countries in the Middle East, that are capable of attacking America.
But they say if there is some form of informal control over the governments then they can, in turn, control their populations and stop the terrorists – non-state actors – from attacking the US.
Oh, you’re talking about terrorist actions. I don’t think these governments are capable – even governments that are friendly to the US – of stopping the activities of terrorists because it’s in the nature of terrorist groups not to be really apprehended, controlled by the ordinary police or military forces, or intelligence services, of governments. They operate in clandestine ways. They have networks. And so long as there is no attempt to get at the roots of terrorism – that is to get at the fact that American foreign policy is responsible for the fanaticism that fuels terrorists – so long as that isn’t done, whatever compliant regimes want to do will be of no avail when it comes to stopping terrorism.
Many neo-imperialists argue that we have the power to oversee an empire, why not?
Well, you can look at the US and ask: in what way has the enormous power of the US over other countries, in what way has the stationing of troops in a hundred different countries, helped the American people? Here we are, yes, an empire, with military and corporate power all over the world, and yet we have over 40 million people without health care, yet we have millions of people going hungry. In fact, according to the official Bureau of Labor statistics, 12% of the population does not have enough food. This is a shocking notion. 12% of the population – that means 30 million people – in the US actually go hungry from time to time. Then think of maybe 2 million people homeless and many millions more living in substandard housing. So there is a large group of Americans – 40 or 50 million – who are not benefiting in the least from the American empire.
Some people like Emmanuel Todd – the French essayist and demographer – say that American power is now on the wane. Do you see the American empire crumbling due to economic reasons or the emergence of rival powers like China?
I think both, it’s all connected. The American economy is tide in with the rest of the world and China’s economic growth is now twice that of the US. Meanwhile, the US has been accumulating enormous debt as well. It now stands at $7 trillion, and Congress just alluded to the statutory limit for debt and they keep raising that limit. It was $7 trillion – now its $8 trillion.
All of the internal economic factors, as well, the rivalry with other countries, it leads to increasing power that other countries will have over our country. More and more of our debt is to other foreign powers that buy up American bonds – that lends money to America. The US is in a condition of being a debtor nation. When you have large debts which are owed to a bank then you become more and more subordinate to that bank so I think all of these factors will operate together and I agree with Todd.
Is this decline being accelerated by the Bush administrations policies? The aim of their policy is surely to keep the empire growing, but are they doing the opposite?
I think the Bush administration’s policies are just making things worse and worse. The more money you pour into war and into militarization, the less you have for growth which is really productive. In fact, the Gross National Product looks artificially large because so much of it is unhealthy. So much of it is for military purposes and therefore is not producing any goods for the population. The Bush administration, by increasing military spending from $300 billion to $400 billion and then, adding on to that another $87 billion for the war in Iraq, they certainly are exacerbating the economic situation and I think they are accelerating the move towards economic collapse.
Norman Mailer has said that America is in a “pre-fascist state”. The military belligerence in the Middle East; the incestuous relationship between the political and corporate spheres; the perversion of democracy in Florida and across the US in 2000; the messianic Christianity of Bush; the Patriot Act’s attack on civil liberties; the tax cuts for the rich. There are parallels between the Bush administration’s policies and fascist states throughout history. Do you think there is any validity in what Mailer says?
I think Mailer is absolutely right. For some time people have hesitated to use the word fascism in connection with the US. It seemed like an extravagance and exaggeration but I think that more and more it is not an exaggeration. What are the elements of a fascist state? I mean the elements are visible here. One of the crucial elements is simply the militarization of the economy and of the culture. The super-nationalism, the super-patriotism. You look around and you see more American flags, you see more indications.
The militarization is the same kind of thing that happened in Italy and Germany. Then there is what is happening to our civil liberties – at first to a small number of people but the threat becomes larger and larger for more and more people.
I just saw this play in New York, Guantanamo, which played in London as well. What it depicts is really a fascist environment in Guantanamo Bay for hundreds of people who are picked up all over the world. Some of them were picked up on battlefields but many of them were picked up just going to an airport. Then they were not allowed to have lawyers, not having any hearing for two or three years without any charges being bought against them. A lot of people say, ‘It’s a small number of people; a tiny phenomenon,’ but actually there was a story the other day about how in the US hundreds of immigrants, maybe thousands we don’t know how many, have been picked up and held in detention in the same conditions that you find at Guantanamo.
The Patriot Act gives the President the authority to do this – to pick up people. It starts with non-citizens, then it goes on to citizens. Two of the people who are held without hearing were American citizens. So I think it’s only accurate to talk about a ‘pre-fascist’ situation but I also think it is politically important to talk about it because I think the American people need to be alerted to the danger that is impending. They need to be alerted to the fact that what the American people always considered to be our democratic rights are being taken away from us.
That’s one of the weirdest thing about coming as a Brit to an American university. People just don’t know any of this stuff. Why do think the American people are so unaware of what is being done in their name?
It’s interesting. The American people have the greatest access, quantitatively, to information but the quality of the information Americans get is extremely poor because of the monopolization of the media. Most Americans – and this includes educated Americans – get their news, their information, from television. They don’t even get it from the newspapers. So, in order of importance, I would say television, then talk radio, then mainstream newspapers, and then local newspapers.
Now, the television is the most controlled. The major television networks are controlled by industrial and financial corporations. Viacom, General Electric, Comcast, for example, they own CBS, ABC, MSNBC, and, of course, the most watched news program is Fox News. These are blatantly pro-patriotic, pro-war networks, so television has completely misinformed the American public and that really explains why it is still true that large numbers of Americans believe that WMD have been found in Iraq. It’s incredible to learn that.
Then, of course, there is talk radio, which is listened to by huge numbers – there are some radio programs, like Rush Limbaugh, that are listened to by up to 30 million people. But talk radio is dominated by right-wingers and there is one corporation – Clear Channel – which owns 1,000 radio stations. So Clear Channel, for instance, when the musical groups Dixie Chicks spoke out against the war, their channel sent the word out to a 1,000 channels not to carry their music. The combination of television and talk radio is obvious.
And, of course, the major newspapers have also been very cowardly – I was looking for a better word than that, looking for a nicer word than cowardly – but really cowardly about reporting the war and reporting the casualties. So it’s not surprising that the American people are so misinformed.
To a degree it’s happening in Britain as well. There are newspapers like the Guardian and the Independent which still carry some dissident comment, but it’s pretty similar situation. In terms of Britain and Israel would you see them as modern-day vassal states of the American empire in the same way that past empires had satellite states that would enforce their interests?
Yes, absolutely. In fact, those are the two most important vassal states of the American empire: Britain and Israel. They have been the most reliable and, of course, in Britain in spite of public opinion; in Israel it’s a somewhat different situation: public opinion in Israel is split. But certainly these have been the most reliable allies of the US.
It’s quite obvious why Israel is so loyal – they are biggest receivers of US military aid. But what about Britain, what are we getting out of it?
That’s a very good question. I wish I knew the answer to that and I think a lot of people wonder about that. What does Britain get out of it? Have they been made any promises about Iraqi oil? I don’t know. I have not seen any evidence of any material benefits coming to Britain out of the alliance with the US? In Britain itself, do they talk about that?
I suppose the it goes back to the “special relationship”. Every British prime minister, Labour or Conservative, has always – apart from the Vietnam war where we refused to send troops – supported the Americans. In terms of Blair specifically, I suspect he is in thrall of power: he loves the fact he’s friends with the most powerful man in the world. I think, in terms of the anti-war movement, one of the big achievements is that now if Blair wanted to launch another war it would virtually impossible because the mobilization against the war in Iraq was so huge.
Do you think it is clear that Blair will lose the next election?
I think he will win it.
You think Blair will win it? Why?
Because in Britain it is a weird situation because the Labour Party is seen as the traditional left-wing anti-war party and the Conservative Party – which is the other mainstream party – supported the Iraq war even more strongly than Labour. So we don’t have a choice. Anti-war voters are now mostly voting Liberal Democrat.
So it’s like Kerry and Bush. The people in Britain will not have a choice other than Blair or a Conservative. There’s no chance of an internal rebellion within the Labour Party?
Well, people are wondering why is hasn’t happened yet. But Blair has been clever, he has filled up the party with ‘yes men’ so they are all supportive of him. He’s chucked out the people who were a threat. But, yeah, I think he will definitely win the next election, which is sad.
That is sad. When is that?
2005. Last question, Howard, before we have to finish. How likely do you think it is Bush will use his second term to move on to Iran or Syria or North Korea?
He won’t be constrained by moral reasons but he will be constrained simply by the resources of the American military. Even the most hawkish people in the Bush administration know that the US simply does not have the military capacity to invade another country. We are obviously having such tremendous difficulty in Iraq – we don’t have enough forces to quell the rebellions in Iraq. So I just don’t think it will be feasible for the Bush administration, as much as they would like to.
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Howard Zinn died in January 2010 at the age of 87. This interview was conducted as part of research for my book The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American Empire. In June 2024, Bloomsbury are releasing a 2nd edition of the book with a new preface by me and a new foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges. It can be pre-ordered here.
