This is a weekly thread in which we read through books on and related to imperialism and geopolitics. Last week's thread is here.
Welcome to the tenth week of Michael Hudson's Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of US World Dominance! I'm reading the Third Edition.
We are reading one chapter per week, meaning we will finish in June. Obviously, you are totally free to read faster than this pace and look at my/our commentary once we've caught up to you.
Every week, I will write a summary of the chapter(s) read, for those who have already read the book and don't wish to reread, can't follow along for various reasons, or for those joining later who want to dive right in to the next book without needing to pick this one up too. I will post all my chapter summaries in this final thread, for access in one convenient location. Please comment or message me directly if you wish to be pinged for this group.
This week, we will be reading Chapter 9: The Imperialism of US Foreign Aid, which is approximately 33 pages.
Imagine if there was some president who was idiotic enough to cancel a lot of American aid programs abroad because they thought it was actually trying to help them, instead of merely being yet another method by which the US asserts control over foreign countries without needing the resource cost of direct annexation.