The Capitalist World-System and U.S. Cold War Policies in the Core and the Periphery: A Comparative Analysis of Post-World War II American Nation-building in Germany and Korea

• Main Author: Y. Hugh Jo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University Library System, University of Pittsburgh 2015-08-01
• Series: Journal of World-Systems Research
• Online Access: http://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/jwsr/article/view/420

In response to the emerging cold war, why did the United States stress industrial expansion in Western Europe but focus on primary production alongside policing operations in the non-western world? Examining US postwar occupation in Germany and Korea from a world-systems perspective, this article argues that a given countrys standing in the capitalist economy generally shapes American foreign policy toward that particular country in the early cold war years. A paladin of system-wide prosperity and peace, the United States sought to restore the international division of labor after World War II. Reactions varied across the system, however, because of distinct socio-economic developments. The presence of capital-intensive export-dependent industry afforded western Germany flexible labor-management relations. Politics was overall stable there, and America dispensed with heavy-handed intervention. In southern Korea, labor-exploitive tenancy farming rendered interclass compromise virtually impossible. As intransigent peasants threatened the market economy, the United States used force to keep the ally in the system.