Do American Workers Benefit from U.S. Imperialism?
A NUMBER of people–both inside and outside the U.S.–think that American workers get material benefits from U.S. imperialism. Corporate America’s exploitation of workers in the economically less developed countries is believed to maintain and improve living standards here. And the U.S. military is said to defend the comfortable lifestyles of U.S. workers. But the experience of the 1990s proves otherwise. Starting in the 1980s, the U.S. undertook to rebuild its confidence and ability to intervene militarily throughout world. The U.S. government had suffered a humiliating defeat when it lost the Vietnam War. Ronald Reagan attempted to overcome the “Vietnam Syndrome” by invading Grenada in 1984 and bombing Libya in 1986. Papa Bush then invaded Panama in 1989 and ordered the first Gulf War in 1991. Bill Clinton sought to occupy Somalia in 1993 and invaded Haiti in 1994. He used depleted uranium weapons to bomb Serbia, Kosovo, the Sudan and Afghanistan in the second half of the 1990s. Clin
