The world role of American imperialism SCIENTIFIC WORLD Space age batteries

CAPITALISM'S ability to survive as a world system into the second half of the 20th century has depended and still depends upon the productive power and military strength of the United States.

After 1945, for the second time in history, the United States had to come to the rescue of European capitalism, enabling it to survive the strains of post-war reconstruction and bolstering the forces of counter-revoluThe ruling classes of the European states paid a heavy but inescapable price for American assistance.

Under the cloak of decolonization the way was open for the penetration of American capital into all the former preserves of European imperialism.

Through the monetary and trading policies which were imposed under American influence to 'restore' the world economy, Europe itself was thrown open on much freer terms than ever before for the operation of the giant US corporations.

The establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization formally established American political and military hegemony in Europe.

American capital and milltary power made possible the restoration of the German Federal Republic as the main bastion of capitalism in Europe.

Germany thus became the frontier post of the imperialist world system, where it met the antagonistic social relations in the workers' states of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Rescue

In the same way, the discredited ruling classes of France and Italy— to whose rescue the Communist Parties also came at the critical juncture in 1944-1946-were provided with the means to secure a new lease of life.

The case of Britain was different only in form from that of continental western Europe. The so-called 'special relationship' of the Anglo-American / countries concealed a long-standing rivalry for world dominance.

The Second World War struck a blow at British imperialism from which it could never recover, at the same time as it completed the rise to world predominance of the United States.

In the circumstances of the post-war world, with the aftereffects of Nazism still uppermost and the threat from the East supposedly imminent, the German rulers accepted client status almost with relief.

Satellization met with more resistance from British governments under the spurious assumption that they were somehow 'partners' of Washington.

Growing economic difficulties and the relentless drive of the US corporations have made it difficult to conserve this illusion.

In France a succession of weak governments meekly accepted dependence on the USA.

Then, with the accession to power of de Gaulle, an attempt was made to strike out on an independent course.

It required intolerable burdens on the economy, was never really practicable and was opposed by important sections of the French bourgeoisie.

The events of May-June 1968 showed its futility.

Nevertheless, European capital has its own interests to defend and necessarily, where it can, it fights back against American economic penetration.

It does so, however, on increasingly difficult terms.

Modern technology and the ever-growing scale of production require immense resources for research and development, for launching new products and for opening new plants incorporating the latest techniques.

The big US corporations, operating on a world scale, have been steadily invading the preserves of European capitalism, absorbing many old-established firms as they do so and increasingly able to tap European sources of finance as well.

'On rations'

American imperialism has thus, since the last war, Pon European capitalism rations' in a particularly tantalizing way.

Firstly, from a position of military strength it declares that without its nuclear striking force western Europe would be open to invasion trom the East.

Secondly, it stands as world defence against revolution, both in Europe and in dependencies of world capitalism threatened by national revolutionary movements.

Thirdly, it holds the purse strings to bale out those countries which run into economic difficulties, exacting, as it does so, its own pound of flesh.

For European capital this creates thoroughly undesirable situation, but one from which there can be no escape.

It cannot make an independent deal with the Soviet Union: de Gaulle tried and failed because the Kremlin bureaucracy itself wants to do business with the American principals and not with a branch office.

It is as much interested as Washington and Wall Street in opposing revolution whether in Vietnam or in Latin America so it can have no alternative but to support, however 'critically, US action against national liberation movements. It no longer has any independent basis from which it can hope to solve its monetary and financial crisis or fight back successfully against the invasion of its preserves by the big American This is just as true from the standpoint of such organizations as the European Economic Community or the European Free Trade Association as it is from that of single countries.

American imperialism has become the arbiter of the fate of European capitalism which, behind a facade of prosperity, descends ever deeper into parasitism and decay and is brought nearer to social revolution.

American involvement with Europe now extends back over four decades.

At its outset it was brilliantly analysed by Trotsky :

'Europe will be permitted to rise again, but only within well-defined limits, that restricted sectors of the world market will be reserved for her. American capital now dominates; it commands the diplomats. It is likewise preparing to give orders to the European banks and trusts, to the entire European bourgeoisie,' he wrote soon after the First World War. come apologists for the State Department.

But Stalin had also concluded that American capitalism could stabilize itself for a long time to come. His successors, who preach 'peaceful co-existence' , whatever saving phrases they may find to cover up their retreat from MarxistLeninism, are of the same opinion.

The political history of European Stalinism, apparently anti-American, has been that of smoothing over the contradictions of European capitalism and thus easing the way for American imperialism to re-organize its part of the globe.

Needless to say, European capitalism is caught up in a web of contradictions which are aggravated by growing competition with, and dependence on, the United States.

At the same time, all the processes at work in the world world power of American im. perialism have thrust the United States into. ever-deeper involvement with the capitalist world market.

If American imperialism operates politically and militarily in a way which recognizes no frontiers except those of the so-called 'free world', if it arrogates to itself a general right of intervention to suppress popular movement and even to remove governments it dislikes, if it literally has to support the whole decrets WhOlE decreDit capitalist world system on shoulders, this is not a matter of choice but of objective necessity.

Super-power

The United States performs the role which British imperialism assumed in the 19th century in the era of its world preponderance. But it does so more completely, in a much magnified form, as a world super-power commanding unprecedented economic and military resources.

It does so, not in the era of small capitalist firms and the steam engine, not with the diplomacy of the gunboat, but on the basis of the extreme development of monopoly capitalism become ripe and over-ripe and armed from head to foot with means of destruction which are terrifying in their proportions.

The involvement of US capitalism with the world can be established with incontrovertible statistics.

The high levels of productivity attained by US industry and the standard of living enjoyed by the population at large rests upon suppiles of indispensable raw materials and sources of energy obtained on favourable terms from the entire world.

The means employed to acquire and ensure supplies of these materials add chapters to the history of imperialism which are as • lurid and disgraceful as any.

It is, however, as an exporter of capital and through the world-wide operations of the giant corporations that American imperialism ensures its economic stranglehold, penetrating increasingly into the home domain of the old-established capitalist countries and ensuring the dependence and continued underdevelopment of Latin America, Asia and Africa.

American imperialism possesses few colonies or dependent territories in the strict sense, yet it operates on a world scale, as an empire without frontiers.. drawn • together by golden threads which find their centre in Wall Street, its military headquarters in the Pentagon and its political front men in the administration.

Complex

No one can seriously doubt where, in this complex of institutions, real power lies and who have the last word: the banks and giant businesses which dominate American economic life, shape its political programme and determine its outward thrust which has established American hegemony over the whole capitalist world system.

This gigantic world process has, it must be again insisted, been a matter of necessity, not of choice for the rulers of America.

Contrary to what some liberals maintain, there was no alternative path of peaceful, non - imperialist development possible for American capitalIsolationism was never a practical possibility and never, in fact, determined American policy at any time in this The 'anti-monopoly' coalition, to include the peaceloving sections of American capitalism, patented by the US Communist Party, was at all times a fraud where it was not a delusion.

Continued tomorrow 10.30 Peyton olden Capucine, Susannah WYork. no more than three times as much.

In its wake, it is hoped that there will follow a wide variety of 'cordless' electronic apparatus-from TV sets and tape recorders to military radios — whose power demands are too heavy to be conveniently met by present-day batteries.

This important technological development is only one of many that have emerged recently in the quest for more efficient — and profitable — energy sources.

Efficiency means more wattage per cubic foot and per pound weight, negligible pollution and a big, lucrative market for the successful.

In particular, out of the total US government spending of £65 million on fuel cells last year, £55 million went to Pratt and Whitney, who produced the fuel cell for the Apollo spacecraft.

Big difference However, there is, of course, a big difference between the development of the Apollo power plant or similar units tor military use and the development of fuel cells for motor vehicles.

No expense was spared to make sure that an American was the first man on the moon and therefore there was no need for the various private contractors to keep down costs.

On the other hand, 130 years after the principle of the fuel cell was first established, the decisive breakthrough to a commercially viable unit has not yet been made.

The batteries with which we are most familiar - are of two types.

A torch battery is an example of a primary cell, that is one in which the voltage is produced by the battery consuming itself in a chemical reaction, once the circuit is closed.

Rechargeable units—secondary cells-are of the type used in cars to power the electrical These batteries have only found limited use as Happy landing —Quatermass? VITAL information has come into our hands concerning the latest American moon landing.

It is rumoured that the three astronauts will be placed under strict quarantine on their return, as it is thought that they • have been taken over by alien beings.

The symptoms were becoming clear as our Intrepid explorers approached to within 12,000 feet of the lunar surface.

Alien A: Hey! There it is! Son of a gun! Right down the middle of the road! I can't believe it! Amazing! Fantastic! ... That's so fantas11.05 Hadleigh. 11.59 Pulse, Weather Forecast.

BY MARTIN ZARROP our science correspondent power units in motor vehicles, such as milk floats, as they are bulky, heavy, give relatively low speeds and mileages and require long periods for recharging.

A fuel cell is a battery that instead of consuming itself or requiring recharging, continuously consumes a feed of fuel.

In 1839, W. R. Grove carried out experiments in which electricity was generated by supplying hydrogen and oxygen to two separate electrodes immersed in sulphuric acid. This early device incorporated the essential features of the Apollo hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells.

Series link

As fuel cells are essentially low voltage devices giving outputs of about one volt or less, they are usually connected in series to form a fuel battery.

As early as 1897 a . 1.5 kilowatt system had been designed and constructed.

The immediate attraction of the fuel cell is its potentially The 2 kW fuel cell power plant designed to supply electrical power and drinking water for the Apollo Command and Service Module.

tic I can't believe it!

Isn't that great? Right where it's supposed to be!

Alien B: Watch for the dust!

forty teet, coming down at two. Looking good.

A: Got plenty of gas, Pete.

Looking good.

B: Contact light! Drop probe!

The spacecraft lands.

A: Okay, we're in hot shape, Houston! Real good shape!

Man, oh, man, Houston! I think we're in a place a lot dustier than Neil's.

B: Holy crow, it's beautiful out here!

An analysis of this astounding interchange indicates that the creatures are equipped with a kind of proboscis, find light and dust troublesome and maintain a high body temperature through some sort of gas process.

Their archaic method of addressing men and the reference to the 'holy crow' obviously indicates a primitive religious influence.

Alien A speaks again: 'Well I was on gauges and that was the only way coula see where I was going. I sau that blue contact light and I shut that baby down and we didn't hit for six feet?

Obviously the creatures move about on six legs and were disturbed by light while carrying out some form of fiendish breeding experiment.

Earthlings beware!

We are about to be taken over!

SERIOUSLY, though, ten days of chuckles, jokes, banalities, superlatives and general linguistic slaughter can leave the sharpest scientific palate a trifle jaded.

Perhaps in future an interpreter would be in order or am I being 'square"?

By the way, they actually said it, so I'm keeping the insecticide handy... just in case. high efficiency.

November ON SALE in Britain next year will be a new kind of battery, storing nearly twice the amount of energy of the best primary cell on the market today, and ten times as much as an ordinary torch battery, yet costing PAGE THREE

Car engines are rarely more than 30 per cent efficient, while theoretically the fuel cell should attain 60-70 per cent.

In practice a fuel cell turns out to be a complex machine —at least as complex as the motor car engine-with three-quarters of its cost tied up in ancillary electronic controls and much less efficient than 60 per cent at present.

The field attracted many research workers who attempted various combinations of materials, other than hydrogen and oxygen, in their quest for the best system. The work of Bacon at Cambridge, begun in 1932, culminated in 1959 with the demonstration of a five kilowatt hydrogen-oxygen fuel battery and gave a new impetus to fuel cell research.

Bacon saw that when substatial power outputs were required over prolonged periods, the hydrogen-oxygen fuel battery coupled with high pressure gas storage cylinders would be extremely light and compact compared to conventional batteries.

These factors were decisive in their use for the Apollo spacecraft which incorporate a two kilowatt fuel battery in the command modules and a one. kilowatt battery in the lunar modules.

These operate at a temperature of 200 degrees Centigrade and water produced in the process can be used for drinking purposes by the astronauts.

Expensive

However, hydrogen is an expensive fuel and its use outside such highly specialized applications as Apollo entails coupling the fuel cell system with a hydrogen generator.

This reduces the efficiency of the overall unit to such an extent that it is unlikely to be • commercial competitor of the diesel electric generator for some time, unless economics are not the sole consideration.

For small submarines this type of system offers very much greater performance and range than can be obtained with storage batteries. Contracts have been placed both in the US and Sweden to study the possibilities.

Hydrogen-air batteries are the most suitable candidates for replacing small generators.

The advantages which such units offer in comparison with existing petrol- and dieselpowered generators are: relative Silence, greater reliability, possibly lower weight and lower fuel consumption.

The overall cost of such systems is likely to be such that they will be used only for military applications.

Undoubtedly, a marked reduction in fuel cell costs will have to be achieved before fuel cells are widely manufactured.

Several major US corporations, including General Electric, Monsanto and Union Carbide dropped work in this field because of the difficulties -chiefly because their government grants were cut off.

In Britain, development has proceeded over the past eight years, financed by the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC), British Petroleum, Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds and British Ropes.

This collaboration has taken place through Energy Conversion, a wholly-owned subsidiary of NRDC.

Research teams Its main asset was the patents to the Bacon cell and today it runs a research team of 150, spends nearly £500,000 a year and enjoys the collaboration of the 800-strong research team of Pratt and Whitney to whom it licensed the Bacon patents for the Apollo fuel cell.

Energy Conversion has just completed a run of 1,200 hours on a three-kilowatt unit fuelled by hydrogen and air and condensed into a volume of only two cubic feet.

At £2,000 per kilowatt, this begins to compare favourably with the best diesel-electric generator sets.

However, the motor corporations can rest easy for • the present.

Until the price per kilowatt drops to tens rather than thousands of pounds, the commercial challenge of the fuel cell to them remains nonexistent and polluting the atmosphere will remain a highly-profitable activity.