GLOBALIZATION

by Richard K. Moore
 

THIS IS AN EXCERPT

Global capitalism in crisis

Capitalism must have growth and change in order to operate.

The engine of capitalism is driven by wealthy investors who put their
money into the economy in order to increase their wealth. If the
economy offers no growth opportunities, then investors withdraw their
money and the whole system collapses. A minor collapse is called a
recession, and a major collapse is called a depression. The history
of capitalism is punctuated by such collapses.

Capitalism came into existence along with the Industrial Revolution
in the late 1700s in Scotland and northern England. Before that time
societies were not based on growth. Certainly there were people
before then who sought to increase their wealth, but economies as a
whole did not require growth in order to operate. Societies were
ruled by aristocratic elites whose wealth was measured by the estates
they owned, and the peasants who worked their land. Such aristocrats
were more interested in stability than change, and more concerned
with maintaining their estates than with economic growth.

When the Industrial Revolution came along then all this began to
change. With the steam engine and other new technologies, it became
possible for an entrepreneur to make a great deal of wealth rapidly.
A new wealthy elite began to emerge made up inventors,
industrialists, bankers, and traders. These were the people who
built the factories, invested in them, and figured out ways to get
the new products to markets.

The interests of this new elite clashed with those of the old
aristocratic elite. The aristocrats favored stability, and laws
which provided stability - such as tariffs, price controls, etc. The
new elite, on the other hand, wanted change and growth - they wanted
to develop new products, build new factories, and capture new
markets. While aristocratic wealth was based on land and stability,
industrial wealth was based on investment, development, change, and
growth.

This new kind of economics, based on investment and growth, is
capitalism. And the new elite, gaining its wealth through change and
growth, is the capitalist elite. At first capitalism existed along
side aristocracy, competing with it to control the laws of society. 
But then in Britain, and later in other nations, the capitalist elite
won out. Laws, economies, and societies were transformed to favor
capitalism and growth over stability and land-based wealth. Banking,
monetary systems, and taxation were re-engineered so as to compel
businesses to seek growth whether they wanted to or not.

No one can deny that capitalism and its growth have brought many
kinds of benefits to some people. America was based on capitalism
from its very founding, and American wealth and prosperity are
legendary. But there is a fundamental problem with capitalism. How
is it possible for an economy to grow endlessly? How can growth be
forever achieved in a finite world? Is capitalism, in the final
analysis, sustainable?

In fact, providing for ongoing growth has been the primary challenge
faced by every nation that has adopted capitalism.

The history of the 19th and 20th centuries has been primarily the
story of how nations have competed for markets and resources to
support growth. Our history books tell us about noble causes and
evil enemies, but in truth every significant war since 1800 has been
about competition among Great Powers for economic growth.

Before capitalism, nations built empires because kings or individuals
were greedy and wanted more territory and wealth. After capitalism,
nations developed empires out of necessity. If they didn't expand
their markets and access to resources their economies would collapse.
As industrial capitalism got into high gear in the late 1800s, that
was accompanied by an unprecedented expansion of imperialism on a
global scale.

From 1800 until 1945 the world system was a matter of competition
among Great Powers for empires, in order to provide for capitalist
growth. In each empire there was a core nation which ruled over
peripheral territories. The peripheral territories were exploited in
order to provide growth for the core ruling nation. The populations
of the core nations were convinced by propaganda that they were
helping or aiding the periphery to develop. This propaganda was
lies. The fact was suppression, exploitation, and the prevention of
healthy development in the periphery - so as to enable capitalism to
flourish in the core Great Powers.

In 1945 this global system was radically changed. Under American
leadership, with the help of both incentives and coercion, a new
paradigm of capitalist growth was launched.

Instead of competitive imperialism, a regime of cooperative
imperialism was instituted. Under the protection of the American
military, the so-called "Free World" was opened to exploitation by
capitalism generally. This led to the rise of immense transnational
corporations, who were no longer limited in their growth to a single
national empire. This new post-1945 system was invented in order to
provide another round of growth to capitalism.

Under the post-1945 system, part of the scheme was to provide
prosperity to the Western middle classes. In Europe, the USA, and in
Japan as well, populations experienced unprecedented prosperity.
Cooperative imperialism provided immense growth room for capitalism,
and the wealth was being shared with the core-nation populations.

But no matter what system might be set up, growth eventually runs
into the limits of that system. The post-1945 system was no
exception. By the early 1970s the growth machine was beginning to
slow down. Recessions began to replace prosperity. As a consequence,
the global capitalist elite designed yet another system, offering yet
another round of capitalist growth. This new system goes under the
name 'neoliberalism', and it was launched under the auspices of
Ronald Reagan in the USA and Margaret Thatcher in the UK.

The purpose of neoliberalism was to rob the wealth of the prosperous
capitalist nations and transfer that wealth to the capitalist elite
and the corporations which they own and control. That's what
privatization, deregulation, and other so-called 'reforms' were all
about. In addition, neoliberalism was aimed at disempowering
democracy itself - because it was the democratic nations which were
implementing laws which limited the power of corporations.

Any limit on the power of corporation is a limit on their ability to
grow. And the one thing capitalism cannot tolerate is limits to its
growth. That is a matter of life and death to capitalism.

Again, as must ALWAYS happen, the neoliberal system also began to run
out of growth room. In this case, the system only provided growth
for about ten years, the decade of the 1980s. And thus we were
brought to the era of GLOBALIZATION. Propaganda tells us that
globalization is simply the continuation of 'natural' trends in
technology, trade, and commerce. This is not true. Globalization
represents an _intentional and _radical policy shift on the part of
the global capitalist elite.

Globalization amounts to four radical changes in the world system.
These are
(1) the destabilization of and removal of sovereignty from Western nation states,
(2) the establishment of an essentially
fascist world government under the direct control of the capitalist
elite,
(3) the greatly accelerated exploitation and suppression of the third-world, and
(4) the gradual downgrading of Western living
conditions toward third-world standards.
By these means, elites hope
to achieve yet another round of capital growth.

During most of the decade of the 1990s globalization proceeded almost
unnoticed by the world's population. The WTO and IMF began to
establish their tentacles of power without publicity. Government
leaders worldwide, under the pressure of capitalist elites, were
quietly signing their sovereignty over to the new global
institutions. When globalization was mentioned at all in the media,
it was described in propaganda terms as sharing 'progress' with the
downtrodden of the world. Lies as usual from the capitalist elite
and the media outlets which they control or own.

And then in December 1999 the people of the world began to wake up. 
The demonstrations in Seattle marked the beginning of a new global
movement. In fairness, one must acknowledge that there were earlier
signs of the movement, in Europe and the third world. But only when
the movement reached the USA did it become 'real' in the eyes of the
world. And ever since Seattle the movement has been growing by leaps
and bounds on a global scale.

The movement does not yet have well-defined goals, but it is a very
promising and very radical movement. It is based on a clear
understanding that global capitalism is leading us to ecological
disaster and to tyranny. The movement does not have a clear
organizational structure, but that itself is promising. The
decentralized nature of the movement points to the way to a new kind
of genuine, grass-roots, locally-based democracy - a democracy that
is not subject to elite manipulation as have been our Western
pseudo-democracies with their manufactured 'majorities'.

Having presented this (highly abbreviated) historical background, I
can now describe the nature of 'the global crisis of capitalism'. On
the one hand, the capitalist elite must accelerate the pace of
globalization in order to continue providing room for capital growth.
On the other hand, the people of the world, notably in the West, have
begun to wake up and oppose the dangerous and ominous path of
globalization. The elite know that as the path of globalization is
pursued more vigorously, more and more people will rise in
opposition. The crisis of globalization is a crisis of population
control, requiring the subjugation of the people of Europe and North
America. 
People in the third world have been subjected to imperialist tyranny
for centuries, and this has been possible because of suppression by
Western military force. If the people of the West arise in
opposition to globalization, then the hegemony of the capitalist
elite is seriously threatened. THIS IS THE CRISIS OF GLOBAL
CAPITALISM.

"War on Terrorism" - a solution to capitalism's crisis 

[In writing this section, I refer frequently to the 
President Bush calls it a "War on Terrorism", but what is it really?
Let's look at some of the specifics...

* Congress has authorized the President to do "whatever is * necessary".

* Congress has allocated 40 billion dollars to do "whatever".

* The $40 billion came from Social Security funds.

* $15 billion is being allocated to bail out the airline industry.

* For the first time, NATO has invoked the treaty clause which says
"an attack on one nation is an attack on all".

* We've been told to expect significant curtailment of civil liberties.

* Bush declared that "Every nation in every region now has a decision
to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists."

* Fleets, planes, and ground troops have been dispatched to the
Middle East to do "whatever".

* We are to expect a long, protracted war, much of which will be
covert and we won't be told what happened even after it's all over.

* After Bin Laden is dealt with, Secretary of State Colin Powell
tells us "we will then broaden the campaign to go after other
terrorist organizations and forms of terrorism around the world."

* Bush tells us that "We will use every necessary weapon of war", and
"Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign
unlike any other we have ever seen."

* The Pentagon specifically refuses to rule out the use of nuclear weapons.

* Bush tells us that "God is not neutral".

This is a very comprehensive list. Bush has a blank check to do
whatever he wants, wherever he wants, using whatever means he
chooses. He has made it clear he intends to pull no punches and that
he will keep drawing on this blank check for a long time to come. 
From such an agenda, one cannot easily predict where it will all
lead. In such a case, it is instructive to look at the historical
precedents.

Pearl Harbor aroused the wrath of Americans against the Japanese...
but as soon as the blank check was signed, it was Europe that
received the initial focus of American military attention. After the
Battleship Maine was blown up (from an internal explosion we have
since learned), the thirst for revenge was translated into the
imperialist capture of the Philippines. In other words, when one of
these outrage incidents occurs, the modus operandi of the U.S. elite
is to pursue whatever objectives are most important to it -
regardless of the incident that provided the blank check.

And the most important issue before the elite at this point in
history is the preservation of global elite rule, the acceleration of
globalization, and the suppression of the anti-globalization
movement. They must deal with the crisis of global capitalism.