Van der Pijl, Kees. The Making of an Atlantic Ruling Class. London: Verso, 1997. 331 pages.

This book emerged out of the author's 1983 doctoral dissertation at the University of Amsterdam; his neo-Marxist emphasis is on economic trends in the U.S. and Europe since World War I. An internationalist bourgeoisie, associated with money capital, integrated the American and Western European ruling classes. The New Deal, and then the Marshall Plan, formed a new corporate liberalism, with its own tendency toward international expansion. Then statism emerged as a sphere-of-interest struggle against the Soviet Union eclipsed the class struggle that once characterized labor movements.

One shortcoming of this book is that abstract macroeconomic and political analysis leaves no room for the role played by the secret state. The author briefly mentions that in 1966 Walter Reuther accused the AFL-CIO of working with the CIA, but since the Kennedy era is seen as the high point of Atlanticism, and Vietnam its downfall, little room is left for more recent revelations. Most academic historians still haven't fully recognized the massive role played by CIA covert operations. The Marshall Plan itself, for example, was directed by the secret state. When choosing a dissertation topic, neo-Marxist categories work fine. But if you want to aim for deeper understanding, then it becomes necessary to leave academia behind so that conspiracism can be given its rightful place in recent history.
ISBN 0-86091-801-7

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