I am grateful for Chris Maisano’s “Beyond Chomsky and Walzer” in the last issue of Jacobin, which is both generous and balanced. But I want to clarify what he calls my support for “American primacy” in world politics. So long as the society of states is radically unequal, I do prefer US hegemony to that of any other likely hegemon — for the same reasons that drove East European countries to prefer NATO to the Warsaw Pact. But I also believe that left politics requires opposition to every particular instance of hegemonic rule.

Just as we oppose a Russian sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and a Chinese sphere of influence in Southeast Asia, so should we oppose an American sphere of influence in Central America — or anywhere else. The critical principle here comes from the young Karl Marx, who wrote (in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844), “If you wish to influence other people you must be a person who really has a stimulating and encouraging effect upon others.” This principle applies also to states in the society of states, and the Left must stand against any other kind of “influence.”

 — Michael Walzer, New York, NY