By Francis Lee for the Saker Blog
Globalization – i.e., neo-liberalism writ large – is essentially a negative phenomenon destroying the sovereignty and cohesion of nation states and thereby depriving markets of the social and political guidance without which they cannot function effectively…The result will be a socially divisive, politically destructive, ethically abhorrent and even economically inefficient structure.(1)
JOINED AT THE HIP
Transnational Corporations (TNCs) can be compared to a tree: they have extensive branches everywhere, but their roots are firmly based at National HQ. Of late this has become a disputed view. One of the contemporary clichés in the current discussion of global political economy is the rather dubious concept of the end of the nation state and the subsequent breaking of the shackles which had hitherto tied TNCs to specific geographical and legal locations. It has been argued that these organizations have moved beyond the control of nation states who can no longer exercise effective jurisdiction over their activities.
This ‘state-denial’ thesis has been articulated by the influential hyper-globalist faction ensconced in the financial press, academic economics departments and political parties. In a ‘borderless’ world the state apparently no longer matters; economic power has shifted from sovereign states to global markets. In the words of the German political and social theorist, Wolfgang Streeck, ‘Markets were once fitted into states; now states are fitted into markets.’(2)This change has involved a global transmutation which reputedly has been brought about by the invention of revolutionary technologies in transport and communications. Such is the thesis put forward by the spokespersons of globalization.
True to say that in general terms all states have to choose a global strategy; they have to look at the full range of choices, then they have to decide what is in their best interests. In the current era of global competition, trade liberalization via the market remains the riskiest choice of all. It demands that trade barriers of all kinds be dismantled – the EU model being the archetype. With this policy governments have to let international competitive pressures restructure industries without recourse to state aids or other protectionist methods. This requires states to open their borders regardless of the costs and consequences in industries and vulnerable workers. Russia in the 1990s was a textbook example of what would happen if a state opened its economy too early, namely, a massive economic contraction. In the official textbooks among the neo-classical scribblers in academe and the media, markets are seen to be self-organizing social and economic space responding to universal demand and supply signals.
For countries which accept this view of the world economy, state power to make policy independent of a country’s major trading partner is being progressively eroded as countries find themselves trapped in a seamless web of interdependency. Larger markets do not come without a cost. This much is axiomatic.
Since the 2008 crisis, however, and now the 2020 blowout the state-denialist view has been more difficult if not actually impossible to sustain. It was after all the allegedly redundant state (or states) which pulled capitalism’s chestnuts out of the fire with the bail-out of insolvent American banks in 2008. As the story goes, during the meeting between Obama and the Wall Street elite at the height of the 2008 crisis the President apparently remarked that it was only himself who stood between the assembled financial movers and shakers of Wall Street and ‘the pitchforks’. The US government also ponied up some US$50 billion to bail out distressed auto manufacturers General Motors and Ford who were based in ‘Motor City’ (Detroit). Detroit itself was also bankrupt but the Federal government was unable to find an additional US$13 billion to bail out the city itself. Maybe – just a thought – because the population of Motor City was largely African-American.
However, the received wisdom emanating from the neoliberal elite has been challenged with a more critical assessment coming from heterodox economic theorists.
As follows.
‘’Contrary to the globalist supposition and as a matter of fact, the (sovereign) state always has, and continues to be the mobilizing force in shaping and guiding national economic development, including globalization itself. Given that an increased capability to overcome geographical distance made possible by technological innovations in transport and communication technologies is of little use if there are political barriers to such movements. Thus, policies of liberalization, deregulation and privatisation were necessary to overcome non-technical barriers to the free flow of labour, capital, and commodities. Therefore, the enabling force of globalization was the state. In fact, the bigger and more powerful states have used globalization as a means of increasing their own power and interests.
States actively construct globalization and use it as soft geo-politics and to acquire greater power over, and autonomy from, their national economies and societies respectively … E.g. … The US and G7s other dominant members design and establish the international trade agreements, organizations, and legislation that support and govern trans-border investments, production networks, and market penetration constitutive of contemporary globalization. Advanced capitalist states, particularly, use these political instruments to shape international economic decision making and policy making in their interests.’’ (3)
In addition, nation-states protect, subsidize, manipulate currencies, impose quotas, sanctions, give tax breaks and exemptions to export industries, R&D, and grant patents, use procurement policies and intellectual property rights to their indigenous corporations to both protect their home markets and help them penetrate overseas markets. This is laughingly described as ‘free trade’. States and corporations are not antipodes they are twins, and arguably the state is the senior partner in this arrangement.
For example, in 1934 the Roosevelt administration passed the Glass-Steagall Act. This involved a forced separation of investment banking from commercial banking which stopped banks speculating with depositors’ monies. In 1999, however, Bill Clinton signed the Financial Services Modernization Act, commonly known as Gramm-Leach-Bliley, repealing the key components of Glass-Steagall whose articles became largely toothless. This was what Wall Street had been angling for and which gave an additional push to the eventual debacle in 2008.
The state giveth, and the state taketh away.
Thus, the notion that powerful trends of internationalization and interdependence have ended national sovereignty is vastly overstated. States remain in charge of the essential part of their national sovereignty: monetary policy, (except in the Eurozone of course) law-making, macroeconomic policy, finance and taxation, environment, education, labour markets, industrial relations, pensions, health and welfare, social policy, science and technology and so forth. Arguably no supra-national entity has yet been designed to replace what has been an effective system of national government. Unimpeded global flows of capital in search of lucrative investment opportunities, are hardly conducive for countries wishing to plan and stabilize their future free from the vagaries of uncontrolled markets
TENSIONS
Power to shape/control the global system is concentrated in the hands of states and/or the newly emergent TNCs. Of course, there is not going to be a simple description of this development as the relationship between these two pillars of modern imperialism is both fractious and permanently mutating. The received wisdom, as put forward by the various spokespersons for globalization, ranging from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) OECD, WTO, World Bank and IMF, and through the globalist house journals of the global Transnational Uberklasse – The Financial Times, The Economist and Wall Street Journal – is predictable enough. Namely that the state is always in a subservient position vis-à-vis the dominant TNCs.
This perhaps would qualify as a procrustean effort to make the facts fit the theory. Contrary to the image of the all-powerful TNC demanding fealty and obedience from prostrate states, the relationship is somewhat more symmetrical; corporations and states are always to a certain degree joined at the hip.
They are both competitive and competing, both supportive and conflictual. They operate in a fully dialectical relationship, locked into unified but contradictory roles and positions, neither one nor the other partner completely able to dominate.
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Additionally, the widespread notion that a TNC can simply up sticks and move lock, stock, and barrel to a more compatible venue if its home base no longer suits its purposes, is fanciful in the extreme. All TNCs have home bases, national HQs. Here is where global strategy is determined; here is where top-end R&D is carried out; here is where design and marketing strategies take place; here is where the domestic market is situated and where long-term domestic suppliers are located; here is where overseas operations are conceived planned and carried through; here is where AGMs of the Corporations takes place with published accounts circulated to all shareholders; here is where the local workforce, at all levels, is recruited; here is where the political bureaucracy and the above mentioned institutions are situated and amenable to lobbying. Picking an obvious example, the US defence industries, Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics, Boeing, are all based domestically and are not, even if they could, going to jump ship anytime soon.
It is unquestionably true that TNCs and states often have divergent goals: TNCs’ primary function is to maximise profits and enhance shareholder value, whereas the economic role of the state should be to maximise the economic welfare of its society. But although this conflictual relationship exists, states and TNCs need and lean on each other in a variety of ways. States might wish that TNCs are bound by allegiance to national borders – and in many ways they are (see above) – but total allegiance is not an option in a liberal capitalist economy. Indeed, it would be true to say that some states regard TNC (activities) as being complementary to their foreign policy. Here economic issues merge with geopolitical imperatives. For example, American political leaders have believed that the national interest has also been served by the foreign expansion of US corporations in manufacturing and services. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has been considered a major instrument through which the US could maintain its relative position in world markets – as is of course the US$ acting as the world’s reserve currency – with the overseas expansion of TNCs being regarded as a means to maintain America’s dominant world position. As it was succinctly stated. ’What’s good for General Motors is Good for America’.
THE EU: SUPRANATIONAL OR NATIONAL STATES.
Which brings me to the EU. The state-declinist thesis seems to have gained a considerable traction in Europe among the orthodox left. No less a personage than Yanis Varoufakis – the initiator of DiEM2025 (Democracy in Europe) – has been reading the last rites of state democracy and sovereignty in Europe. Apparently, the model of politics based on the nation state is ‘finished’. The sovereignty of national parliaments has been dissolved. Today, national electoral mandates are impossible to fulfil. Hence, reform of the European institutions (specifically the Euro Parliament), is the only remaining option.
Essentially this is the latest version of the TINA ‘argument’, (there is no alternative), pioneered by Mrs Thatcher and rolled out with monotonous regularity ever since by every cornered establishment politician, both left and right. As has been noted elsewhere. ‘’Tell the population that the nation-state is ‘finished,’ that it is unable to guarantee full employment (or to work towards it) and you free yourself of the responsibility of even trying.’’ The same goes for austerity or anything else. If the nation state is ‘kaput’ it is futile to oppose it.’’(4)
Globalization, however, is far from being the all-powerful and all- encompassing Leviathan postulated by the declinists. ’There are major cultural and linguistic differences that preclude a full mobilisation of resources across national borders. There is ‘home bias in investment portfolios. There is a high correlation between national investment rates and national saving rates. Capital flows between rich and poor nations fall considerably short of what theoretical models predict. There are still severe restrictions to the international mobility of labour. The truth is that we do not live in a completely globalised world, far from it. Ergo, nation-states can pursue their own fiscal and monetary policies.
Ex-leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn’s (quite moderate) policy proposals, during the 2017 and 2019 UK elections, namely, peoples’ QE, renationalisation of the Railways, taking into public ownership the energy and water industries together with the Royal Mail were not beyond the scope of the UK qua sovereign and democratic state. Additionally, these policies found considerable support among the UK’s population at large. (5) Unfortunately Corbyn’s programme was derailed by pro-EU elements in the Parliamentary Labour Party, the MSM and a vicious and mendacious ‘antisemitic’ smear campaign aimed at Corbyn. But this doesn’t alter the fact that a sovereign country can issue its own currency and formulate its own fiscal and monetary policy that can override the EU neo-liberal package of free movement of labour, capital, and commodities. This in addition to blocking the drive to deregulate labour markets (euphemistically, ‘flexibilization’). The sovereign state is perfectly capable of a policy for growth rather than for continued austerity which has become the hallmark of the EU area. But to carry out such growth policies would require an exit from the EU. There’s the rub. Social-democratic policies are incompatible to the EU’s liberal orientation, which is a structurally, neo-liberal capitalist institution.
The euro has in fact simply been designed to ensure that Germany runs a permanent trade surplus whilst the southern periphery runs continuing trade deficits – a simple accounting identity. Eventually something will have to give. It is also noticeable that Germany seems to be harbouring increasingly regional hegemonic ambitions regarding the rest of Europe. It seems to be positioning itself as the EUs anti-Russian key front-line probably with US backing. Euro state Socialism or even tepid social democracy can never truly thrive within such a hostile and increasingly militarised political environment. But that’s another explosive can of worms.
The position of the globalist left as outlined in the DiEM2025 manifesto, however, seems like a back-to-front attempt to by-pass national institutions and to attempt through a supra-national democracy to make fundamental reforms, through a democratised and strengthened EU. But even Varoufakis regards this as being ‘utopian.’ But he continues, it is ‘a lot more realistic than trying to maintain the system as it is’ or ‘trying to leave.’ (6)
More realistic, really? But this begs the obvious question of why such an entity is going to be any different from the present dispensation; will be any less neo-liberal and undemocratic if it is given greater powers and is integrated further? It seems to make more sense to work from the national to the supra-national level than the other way around – particularly given that most states in the EU are governed by centre right coalitions with social-democrats in tow (but acting like centre right liberals). Moreover, the transfer of local democracy – which we are told is now obsolete – to supranational democracy contributes to a weakening of popular control. This leapfrogging of national democracy to supranational democracy perforce requires a supranational electorate. This is problematic however since for the great majority of ordinary European citizens linguistic barriers and cultural differences impair the opportunity for political participation at a supra-national level. And so the dialogue, such as it is, goes on – ad nauseam.
This should not be considered a mere academic nit-picking issue for Socratic Senior Common Room dialogue. It is the key geopolitical issue of the day, as to whether sovereign nation states can determine their own future and political structures and policies, against the globalist project to turn the world into a borderless playground for international finance, corporate hegemony and the corollary of extinguishing democracy.
IDEOLOGICAL INTEGRATION OF STATES INTO NEOLIBERAL MARKET THEORY
But perhaps a more disturbing feature of the state/economy relationship has been the ongoing and gradual privatisation of the state itself. The role of the state has traditionally been a provider of public goods – education, healthcare, culture, parks, libraries, museums, transport infrastructure, including water, energy, forests and national parks, defence, law and order and judiciary, telecommunications, egalitarian social policies and so forth. The role of the market qua economy is to produce private goods and services for sale on a market. There has always been a tension between ‘the commons’- i.e., that which is public and open for everyone to use – and ‘commodification’ which turns things into commodities for private ownership and money-making. To use Marxist terminology, the commons has use-value, not an exchange-value (a market price) simply because it is not – and by definition cannot be – a commodity that can be bought, sold, or commercialised. The elevation of use-value over exchange-value is integral to the commons.
Throughout history, powerful interests have sought to privatise, close, and commodify the commons whether land, other spaces, amenities, or even intellectual ideas – to contrive scarcity and create income-earning assets. To the extent to which the succeeding enclosure and privatisation drives up rental income and proliferate its sources, increasing private riches while eroding public wealth. Such asset-stripping, rent-seeking behaviour by private companies intent on rent-extraction is not only tolerated by public authorities but actually encouraged.
Other examples of this have been the government/private sector liaison whereby private companies are now employed by the government to perform the role which was once the prerogative of governments. These government/private financial arrangements were called Private Financial Initiatives PFIs or Public Private Partnerships PPPs and were operationalised in both the UK and Australia. These predatory organizations were simply looking for public authority institutions to milk. Their incompetence – and outright looting – was legendary. The privatisation of British Rail, for example, led to increased accidents, higher costs, monopolistic rents (in terms of ticket prices), overcrowded trains, and failure to meet the timetable criteria.
In Australia, a report by the New South Wales Auditor General in 2002 warned of the considerable risks associated with the outsourcing of information technology and of the need to ensure that agencies are clear why they should do so. The previously inconceivable opportunities for the security of private information, collected and held by governments to be compromised, opening the way for identity fraud and held by governments was dramatically exposed in November 2007, when the British Department of Revenue and Customs was unable to account for two compact disks which had been sent through the mail at the National Audit Office. These disks contained highly detailed personal information concerning the 25 million citizens who received child benefits, information which included their addresses and bank account numbers, along with details of their children.
This was not an unusual occurrence it was simply another example – among many – of the ongoing rip-off of the public taxpayer by rent-seeking marauders. The market is always right, always works best, and always delivers the goods, or so it is ordained. Such is the categorical imperative of neoliberalism.
Coming full circle, the point of arrival involves a recognition that the relationship between (usually capitalist) states and markets has been a permanent and alternating process which started with the industrial revolutions in western Europe and North America. On the one side there are the permanent state bureaucracies and organizations which function as the basis for the production of public goods, and the national interest as they define it. This is complemented by the free-wheeling, cosmopolitan, financial and corporate interests whose outlook and policies are global as well as national and whose objectives are both practical and ideological. Practical in the sense that their motives are commercial and predicated on the imperative of growth and development not necessarily restricted to their national base. Ideological in terms of their neo-liberal Weltanschauung.
It was the great American social and political theorist C. Wright Mills who postulated the existence of what he called, The Power Elite as early as 1956. The American elite groups were composed of most importantly The Corporate Rich, The Warlords and The Political Directorate which together with various lower ranking sub-elite groups controlled the United States. State and Economy have to an extent always coexisted, their positions and influence moving back and forth, but in recent years (circa 1980) there has been – to put it mildly – a marked tendency of power and influence to tilt away from the state and toward the corporate/commercial configurations. Whether this trend will continue is an open question; but it would not be amiss to assert that nothing goes on forever.
NOTES
(1)Manfred Bienefeld – Is a Strong National Economy a Utopian Goal at the end of the 20th Century? – States Against Markets – pp. 434,435
(2) Wolfgang Streeck – ‘Buying Time’ – The Democratic Crisis Of Democratic Capitalism. ‘
(3) M. Gritsch – (2005: 2-3) (Nye 2002) Quoted in – The State Really Does Matter, Global Shift 2012 – p.223
(4) Picciotto, S. 1991 The Internationalisation of the State – Capital and Class 43.43-63 – quoted in Global Shift 2012– Peter Dicken)
(5) Although it should be said that the 2019 – the Brexit election – was very much watered down to the policies of the electoral manifesto of 2017.
(6) The Independent. UK Newspaper
(7) In Government We Trust – Market Failure and the Delusions of Privatisation. pp.90
I beg to say that national sovereignties have already been erroded, or are in the process of being quickly erroded especially in key countries like the United States. Government institutions are being wholly corrupted by corporate and finacial entities who have no alligence to any nation. It is like the tail wagging the dog, and the tail being a wolf guarding a hen house. Sure, in the theory, the State still is in control, but as even the Author himself points out toward the end of his essay, National States are being subverted by those very corporate and financial entities that the National State is supposed to control. The State, and their democracies thereof being reduced to a facade.
Of course. Each nation state is at its own phase. The USA in particular seems to barely have a state at all; money has totally replaced public service & goodwill in the blood vessels of American society. In some respects it is a facade, in others it is a well-oiled mercenary agency (the “law & order” industry).
Strategic responses to the current pandemic are hardly surprising when we evaluate the healths of respective nation states. “Authoritarian” has become a synonym for “has a functioning state”. America slanders authority while simultaneously clutching-pearls over a profound dearth of leadership. Perhaps some reflection is in order in the West.
Couldn’t agree with you more, Robert. The Anglo-Zionist Empire was never about enabling “national sovereignties” to be free of “corporate and financial entities.” They’re only about domination, not cooperation. They, however, will soon be buried in the sands of time along with all other corrupt decadent empires. It’s happening before our eyes.
What hopefully will take its place are local communities who are much faster on their feet than the big corpse who will de-dollarize and de-globalize and turn to local production for local consumption with local sovereign money and local public banking that works for the wellbeing of local people. That’s the only way out of this that I can see. Big problem is, the Empire has most of the guns and all the nukes.
To Robert Shule
The author has ignored the MOST important component – the PEOPLE. It does not matter how powerful the State is or Trans National Corporations are, at the end of the day it will be the PEOPLE that will be dictating the outcome. Of course these people are now being mass brainwashed and lied to, but it is NOT sustanable. Not in the long run. Sooner or later the survival instinct WILL kick in!
I’m always taken away by those mid-evil battle scenes like that engraving of Roland at the Battle of Roscenvalles* where the leader sits high up on a horse, while the minions on foot below are being slaughtered by the adversaries. In reality, it is more like what is described by the Dead Sea Scrolls where the leaders stand well back from the battle where the minions are getting slaughtered. They stand on a high hill so that their pure white robes do not get stained with any blood.
*https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/roland-at-the-battle-of-roscenvalles-engraving-1892-gm1159732825-317217083
What world do you come from? We the people willl what? The god of this World has no need for people, and the people have no need for God. This whole world scene would be painful if it wasn’t SO hysterical. Yeah , look into that ,Hysterical. Still doomed ,or damned, or whatever.
I live in South America.
And am to core convinced of one thing.
Globalist is pretty much the best of world if and when you- are in a position to ‘globalize’ the others. Clearly.
But to be globalized by them is quite another thing. It is dancing the exact music that they choose for you to dance.
Thing is, we’re all “being globalized” by them, whether we realize it yet or not. That’s the beauty of the system. As the Globalists learned in Nazi Germany oh so well, the key is to “divide and conquer” by picking off populations gradually one by one. In that way, each population will ignore their impending doom by focusing on whatever temporary momentary advantages they enjoy, while rationalizing that they’re not coming for me just yet, until inevitably, they finally are. And so it goes.
It was the great American social and political theorist C. Wright Mills who postulated the existence of what he called, The Power Elite as early as 1956.
Good grief one need only look back to the participants of the Treaty of Versailles to see and know who the true power players of the world are and what should interest us all is what these attendees would have thought and believed if Hiroshima and Nagasaki was hanging over their heads?
I think that what is occurring in the world today can be summed up this way. With the creation of the Atomic Bomb not even bankers and the power elite are safe from being wiped out and that has ultimately horrified them more than anything else. Especially so the Monarchies of Europe and elsewhere. Who among them looking at the Emperor of Japan don’t look in horror and think the same awaits them at the front door?
Shockingly however, if it wasn’t for the MAD phenomenon our world would have already seen a third world war.
The only escape from total destruction of civilization will be a world government, or we will perish in a war of the atom.
—Harold Urey
In the field of atomic energy, there must be set up a world power.
—Robert J. Oppenheimer
World government has become inevitable.
—Arthur Compton Cantelon
One world Government is in the making. Whether we like it or not, we are moving toward a one-world government.
—Dr. Ralph Barton Perry of Harvard
I further wonder how is it possible to remain sane while trying to control the entire world? I would have to admit if it weren’t for the computer chip and now with the deploying of some 50 thousand satellites into earth orbit the day of success for them is at the door! Technology has been a godsend for these people and no people or nation understand this better than the Chinese with their Social Credit System. A system that has prophetic overtones and consequences with talk by people like Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates and their Fourth Industrial Revolution. Can you imagine people being implanted with computer chips? Insanity of the highest order.
Just to be clear, the “Chinese Social Credit System” is a ridiculous hoax in the West. Talk to anyone in China.
In the West we have credit score, criminal record, medical record, biometric record, employment history, tenancy history, insurance record, social media record, etc. Unfathomable amounts of critical information are opaquely available to powerful interests, and they use it to shape our lives without us even knowing. So let’s stop the “look, squirrel!” deflection towards Evil China. The future is dark and it is already here.
“Globalization – i.e., neo-liberalism writ large – is essentially a negative phenomenon destroying the sovereignty and cohesion of nation states…”. Yes, that is correct. Globalization is, in fact, the introduction of a world wide empire run by private banks and corporations, who despise sovereign countries. They require “open borders” to do as they please. The sovereign state needs to be destroyed.
The European Union is a perfect example of what globalization means. In 1946 the Council on Foreign Relations decides to create a “United Europe”, ie. the European Union. A step by step approach is applied, as after Hitlers New World Order, Europe was in no mood for another “association”. The bankers therefore use war hero General George Marshall to introduce “The European Recovery Program”, which quickly becomes known as “The Marshall Plan”. A total of 17 billion dollars of bribery money is offered to Europe as a loan on condition Europe creates an 18 member “Organization for European Economic Cooperation”, which ostensibly was a supervising body whose aim was to ensure that the money was not misappropriated, but which in reality was an administrative body for the future European Union. Only 15 % of the 17 billion dollars was payed back to the US, which generously “forgets” the rest.
In 1957 the Organization creates the Common Market, which leads – officially – to the creation of the European Union in 1993 and the mess in which Europe has found its self today. The “open borders” policy has lead to mass immigration of false refugees and migrants from third world countries, which is already creating social and ethnic friction, and which will certainly cause financial problems. The intent, of course, was to destabilize the governments of sovereign European countries and give Brussels dictatorial power. As I have written before, a day will come when historians will have a tough time explaining how the EU was created. It’s days are certainly numbered.
I have to disagree with the author when he stated that “The euro has in fact simply been designed to ensure that Germany runs a permanent trade surplus whilst the southern periphery runs continuing trade deficits – a simple accounting identity”. I am afraid not. Back in 1989 when Germany was reunifying, both the UK and US tried to prevent the reunification. They failed. After that both stated that they would accept the reunification if Germany accepted the euro. When the demand was made, German university professors stood up, pointing out that the euro was a trap, designed to terminate sovereign currencies. Germany accepted the UK/US demand. However, some ten years ago private analysts have pointed out that Germany had covertly started to reprint it’s marks, preparing for the implosion of the euro.
I partially disagree with the author when he stated that Germany “seems to be positioning itself as the EU’s anti-Russian key front-line, probably with US backing”. That is half true. Germany has assumed an anti-Russian stand with the Navalny false flag affair, which is logical, as Germany is a NATO member. However, it is also true that Germany cannot forget Drag Nacht Osten, an eastward expansion policy began in the 13th century when Alexander Nevsky fought the Vatican sponsored German knights. It is quite obvious that Germany, foolishly, believes that there is a possibility that Russia might still implode. I am afraid not. Today this possibility applies more to the US and not to Russia.
However, the author is correct about German regional hegemony. According to some analysts, it is planning to reduce the size of the EU, turning South European states into EU dependents, ie. transforming them into colonies. The German mark is held in reserve, should the whole of the EU dissolve. At the moment it is eyeing the Serbian province of Vojvodina, which it intends to colonize with descendants of the Prince Eugen SS Division, who lived in Vojvodina up till 1944, when they fled to Germany due to the advance of the Red Army, fearing retribution for the crimes they committed. Germany wants to create a German state in the Balkans which would become both it’s grainery and political factor in Eastern Europe. On the other hand Merkel has stated that the Navalny case will not influence the building of the Nord Stream – 2 gas pipeline, which is an economic project and not a political one. Merkel has shown an interesting logic, and one which is very practical as far as Germany is concerned. This type of narrow minded logic, where threats and demands are made at the same time, has in Eastern and Central Europe earned Germans the reputation of an ethnic group which cannot be trusted. It’s imperial foreign policy will see a defeat, like it has in the past. It remains to be seen what the consequences will be.
And finally, what conclusion can be reached ? A very simple one. Globalization is facing a defeat. For it to have worked would have required Russia to implode and for China to be fully integrated into the Western political and economic system. it did not happen. The West spent trillions in globalist wars in the Middle East and Asia, not to mention in the encirclement of Russia and China. It has accumulated enormous debts, while it’s elites have accumulated immense wealth. In trying to destabilize Russia and China, the West has ended up destabilizing its self, creating social, financial, economic, political and ethnic tensions. Analysts have for years stated that a financial collapse is inevitable. The question is if this collapse will be peaceful, or if the elites will provoke a wider war – an old trick – to prevent this collapse. We shall see.
That’s an interesting question, will the Fed go down the peaceful 1% path of inflation which it abhors so much, or will they be allowed to pull the (2 %) lost leverage trigger and admit they will not be paying back the borrowed trillions from country’s and lenders and such, open the door for a shooting (your mouth off) war.
I agree with most, but strongly disagree on your analysis of Germany’s current intentions. Firstly, the notion that NS2 is somehow purely economic is absurd. Economics and politics cannot be decoupled on the level of an international energy relationship (if at all).
Navalny was obviously a false flag affair organized by some US asset, precisely to destroy NS2 politically. I think any thinking person can see through this fraud, including Merkel herself. But the fact is that most people are not thinking individuals, so Merkel has to take a certain aesthetic stance, while simultaneously preventing the insane goals of the false flag from materializing.
The next financial crisis is already being engineered, led by Maxine Waters in the spirit of what created the 2008 financial crisis, in full cooperation with the financial sector again. What do they care if it destroys the country? That is the goal! They intendend to increase loans based strictly on race. How sweet, caring, and generous of Mad Max to load up financially illiterate individuals with high risk high interest loans that they have no way to repay, and will destroy their lives, or set them back for years in MOST cases.
If a bank can make money off of a loan, they would not care if you were a chain saw murdering Martian. They do not discriminate based on race, or anything else other than income and credit history, contrary to popular belief.
The 2008 financial crisis was caused by the same type of measures aimed at reducing income disparity between whites and blacks. Barney Frank was one of the major drivers behind this which led to an enormous sub-prime mortgage loan bubble. These were referred to as liar loans, because applicants were just taken at their word and credit histories and verification of income were not essential for the high interest rate, adjustable rate, no money down loans which were rebundled and packaged in mortgage backed securities since bankers were unable to sell the loans by themselves to third parties since they carried such high risks.
Unless the Federal Reserve starts a match maker service, the problem will not be solvec because the largest factor of racial household wealth disparity is that over 70% of black children are in single parent house holds. White children who were born to un-wed mothers and their children are in virtually identical socio-economic situations as un-wed black women and their children are.
Obviously a divorced or widowed single mother may have an income source that an un-wed mother does not have, depending on the length of marriage and the divorced or deceased husband’s income or insurance and savings.
Andrea Iravani
About giving some context to this article :
1. the last 5000 years have been the triumph of power societies.
A small minority of men of power got to decide the fate of nations and their citizens. The last iteration of power following the crusades and the advent of “long distance trade”. Western European Christian merchants accumulated, largely through plunder, the capital that was used to finance the European industrialization at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Soon thereafter Western big capital holders owned “the economy-world” and the “state decision making processes” worldwide.
Note that big capital holders are the ones who control societal power in Modernity and not some professional elites as Mills and other political theorists would want us believe. These professional elites are merely the highly visible servants of the big capital holders who themselves remain hidden.
2. a protest against the status-quo by the Western youth, at the end of the sixties, awakened Western big capital holders to the risk that they they could one day potentially lose their hegemonic ownership of “the economy-world” and the “state decision making processes” worldwide. So they came up with a strategy addressing the following :
2.1. they financed the production of the intellectual foundations of the following ideologies :
— Postmodernism : the target was to destroy all “grand narratives”, or worldviews, at the exception of their own TINA narrative.
What ensued was ‒ the decapitation of the trade-unions and the atomization of the working-class (the middle-class) ‒ the melting away of the Marxist movance followed by the slipping of nearly all leftist narratives in TINA mode ‒ the silent retreat of believers from their churches which, in the West, soon fell in desuetude ‒ the banalization of the arts into entertainment and decoration that killed the traditional function assumed by the arts, since their emergence with tribal societies, which was to share with the community the foundational narrative of their societies; a necessity for ensuring sufficiently high levels of societal cohesion so that their societies could reproduce over the span of the many generations to come.
Seen from a historical perspective the result was instantaneous ‒ the arts have lost their traditional “raison d’être” and have transformed into gimmicks serving the interests of speculators ‒ all grand narratives that glued the minds in earlier times have vanished and Western societies suddenly atomized. That societal atomization was on full display for all to see in the spectacle of societal madness that pervaded the response to Covid-19 by the entire West.
— Neo-liberalism : the target was to liquidate all state institutions in charge of the production of goods and services, or of social solidarity, while enhancing all state institutions of power necessary to control the populations. In that sense the state was never meant to vanish. It was meant to be re-organized as a stick used by big capital holders to quell all resistance to their ultimate power. The militarization of police services is emblematic of such a reinforcement of the institutions of power.
2.2. in the field of economics big capital holders observed that by the sixties their profits had ceased to grow and as a strategy they wanted to expand the territory where their enterprises could operate. In other words they have been fighting to open the whole world to their capital investments. As a result they got globalization and the ensuing pauperization of Western citizens. Postmodernism and Neo-liberalism were meant to mold the cultural and institutional context for globalization to succeed. And it was an unmitigated success for big capital holders and their servants…
3. three unforcast obstacles emerged that put the whole strategy, of big capital holders, at risk :
3.1. the pauperization of the Western middle-class is unleashing Western nationalism, protectionism, and isolationism. And Western big capital holders divided in two camps ‒ the nationalists who are culturally conservative ‒ the internationalists who are culturally liberal and open to use whatever identitarian movances within the population to attain their goals. The ultimate target of capital holders is to increase their capital base so there should be no doubt that the internationalists are in the majority among big capital holders and that they control the bulk of the present Western capital base…
3.2. the success of Russia at disentangling itself from the chaos that followed the fall of the Soviet-Union and to restore its societal cohesion by encouraging the restoration of its traditional worldview (Christian Orthodoxy) was a huge surprise tor Western big capital holders and their servants. As a result the Russian society grew more cohesive by the day and this served as a trampoline for a clever governance team to restore Russian “national grandeur” through the restructuring of its national economy and its state machinery while operating a re-alignment with Est-Asia and mor particularly with China.
3.3. the emergence of China as the leading national world economy came as an even bigger surprise to Western big capital holders and their servants. Chinese state controlled capital was soon perceived as a threat to their hegemony and they resuscitated Mc Kennan’s Doctrine that says the destruction of the Communist party will collapse their society… But questioning the legitimacy of the CPC is a rather peculiar strategy when, according to US polling institutions, this party has approval ratings approaching the mid 90th percentile.
4. Faced with such a context it becomes evident that Western state is not going to vanish soon. On the contrary, by necessity of keeping the control over their populations, Western states have embarked on a path of hardening power. Some talk about fascism. The fact of the matter is that the biggest Multi National Tech Corporations are implementing the traditional control work of the state in silence but in stealth mode. There seems to be a partial fusion today of the functions of the state with the activities of Multi National Corporations while the populations are regarded as expandable chattel.
If interested to know more about this line of thought check https://laodan.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-ebook-first-societal-blow-in-late.html
Thanks for the link. I’ve downloaded all of your ebooks. Very original and interesting reading so far. So nice to have a fresh take on things and I think you’re definitely on the right track.
Peak humanity on the public level has been reached some time ago, on the private level though, it has bought some time. But yet again at the expense of the public level, an environmental balancing act not even a clown would enjoy working in.
At the beginning this extremely well-though out article states:
“One of the contemporary clichés in the current discussion of global political economy is the rather dubious concept of the end of the nation state and the subsequent breaking of the shackles which had hitherto tied TNCs to specific geographical and legal locations.”
I believe the reason some people draw this conclution is that they observe that some of the large “international corporations” undercut and sabotage the interests of the general economy in their home.base states (nations).
But this is a falllacy built upon the mistaken notion that the international corporations are at all interested in promoting the general welfare of the majority of their home states’ inhabitants.
Francis, I would like to record my genuine appreciation of your articles. I’m not educated in economics, and the jargon seems to me to be deliberately designed to obfuscate issues. What little I understand of economic talk seems to me to be empty-headed vacuity that posits an endless supply of resources/labour/transport/markets, which is more than a little dubious from the standpoint of common sense. Under these circumstances your writing is always a breath of comprehensible and logical fresh air. Thank you.
The State is also needed to crush opposition to globalism.
I am not saying that is good, but (especially in the United States) the state and political-media system have been a powerful tool to divert anger away from the results of globalism.
True. The state provides the legal and enforcement arms of the equation, both heavily influenced by the private sector, yet still distinct. The state serves as the thin patriotic veneer over the whole arrangement to keep the masses bamboozled and resigned to the inevitability of their plight. In that sense, the radical right, if left to their own devices, would seemingly undo the whole thing by dismantling government altogether – at least for the poor – which is where the pseudo-left comes in to balance the equation out again. Of course the whole thing’s just political theater – the two sides march in lockstep on every key issue that matters, cheap rhetoric not withstanding – but it serves to keep the masses suitably confused and perpetually spun up, enabling the now rampant theft by both sides of the political aisle from the public sphere to proceed unabated.
The New World Order wants its One World Government, to achieve this some consolidation is needed. All of the world’s states can’t just become one immediately, its a process whereby separate states are consolidated into bigger groupings, until all the groupings eventually merge. The 4’th Reich under Germany is going exceedingly well in Europe, North and South America will soon be one big Latino zone (bye bye AngloSphere), China has been over empowered to achieve consolidation in the East, its gone very well with Tibet. The Muslim world has been suitable chastised, with some exceptions – still to be pursued. Some Caliphate (Jewish) can be established to consolidate the Muslim World. Africa is such a disaster its easy to control. Don’t know what the plan is for India.
The Western Governments and Trans National Corporations are all controlled by the same people, so they support the objectives of the other. When the TNC’s need some help with business in some corner of the globe the CIA is happy to oblige, when the CIA needs some help in some corner of the globe the TNC’s make all their resources in situa available.
The UK will remain separate to better control matters, and Russia will remain separate being the biggest stumbling block to the NWO.
Stimulating Article by Francis Lee!
I borrow the title of my comment and make it:
“Old Wine In New Bottles”
In the age old struggle between egoic “The Few” Self-Styled “Born to Rule” Elites with their “long-arc” intention of preserving and extending their power (and ownership) to the Entire Planet versus “The Many” ordinary citizens of the nations of the world………..Technology, Advances in Science, and the Power of Ideas themselves have always been a “two edged sword”:
Gates of Hell may be close to vaccinating the entire species and modifying your DNA (so that you technically become his GMO to “harvest” )……. but the other edge of the sword may just cut his Utopian/Dystopian Megalomania off……at the knees.
As the “swords” get more awesome, the stakes rise…….literally to “all the marbles”……ALL the Chips on the Table of a shrinking and more highly connected “globe”.. Since “we are many, they are few”…..THEY face perhaps insurmountable resistance.
I found it interesting and synchronistic that this article echoes some ideas I read in the following (much shorter) article:
https://craigwright.net/blog/economics/nation-and-state-old-wine-in-new-bottles/
which ends thusly, and with a photo of an apparently ancient fountain in Rome, with the Abbreviation Inscription
“SPQR” (Senātus Populusque Rōmānus) in its vertical stone background:
“Anderson promotes an idea of old wine in new bottles: the argument that no use of the word nationalism was recorded before the eighteenth century falls flat when you compare the meaning of the word to its use. Whether in ancient China, India, Israel, or Rome, the principle that you are bound to one another without blood ties and ever having met has been a strong influencing factor. Communities exhibit periods of isolationism and periods of openness across all times—reflective of modern society. Before World War I, the United States of America had sought to remain isolated. At other times, they have exercised their hegemonic power.
To ignore such parallels is to merely put one’s head in the sand and promote the concept of nationalism as something new, or something that derives from capitalism. Nationalism can be seen as neither modern nor capitalistic; it is an idea as old as history, and no matter which model you put it in, or how new the definitional label, the wine is old. Against the suggestion that capitalism is the foundation of nationalism and that such notions are modern, I have but one thing to say:
SPQR (Senātus Populusque Rōmānus)!”
ME: Interestingly, that article was written by such a polymath of an individual of so broad-based study and experience (Whose ideas I have studied as deeply as time permits, for the last three years……) that I will assert that if you choose to delve into ANY serious exploration of the topic of the Evolution of Data Tech (Information in the Digital Age) and the Evolution of Money (Value and various means of its Exchange and Store) ….BOTH of which will enormously affect the outcome of the Struggle of The Many Nations (and citizens of them seeking to avoid GMO status as commodities owned by the Few…and retain both individual and national identity and sovereignty, instead!) you will be very hard put to refute his public assertion, since 3-4 years ago that he IS the Inventor of Bitcoin,,,,(“Satoshi Nakamoto”,of the pseudonym in place since release of the Bitcoin White paper in 2009.
Furthermore, as we see in the US “Blues” threatening the balancing act achieved by the United States Constitution between Centralization and Decentralization…..in Federalism…between the Central Government and the States…down to the Bill of Rights of the Individual residents of the states……….that .the author/inventor Craig Steven Wright, an Aussie who knows more about US History than 99.99% of all Americans (and probably more about the History of Rome than 99.99% of all Italians! LOL) in his blog articles and many video interviews which I have reviewed, that he goes very, very deeply into THE CORE issues in the tricky business of People and Better, Happier Government VERSUS the Hideous Extremes of Anarchy/Despotism/Totalitarianism/GLOBALSIM.
Dozens of articles there: craigwright.net of a less technical nature will show that to be the surprising, unexpected case!
Furthermore, I would recommend this related topic be more and more at least in the peripheral vision of any serious student of the current crossroads that Humanity & Civilization finds itself in, simply because the frauds of suckling and siphoning by the Few of a great deal of the energy, vitality and VALUE of the Many through Central Banking and other Elite Swindles …..CAN….at least in theory……and quite possibly to be put into practice within this decade……………..to be effectively mitigated through the “Bitcoin” and Blockchain Discoveries/Inventions.
Which does NOT mean replacement of sovereign national currencies at all with The Mark of The Beast!
What it does mean, in theory and perhaps in the beginnings of adoptions and practice SOON……is Honesty and Transparency in such currencies through a global, (but decentralized!!!!) Immutable Ledger (as well as an unhackable, Data Secure—– and Creator-Owned….of their data …and in effect, the whole network in a HIGHLY (by billions of owners) way….. new internet…the Metanet) that nations are incentivized to employ as their trusted recording device.or accounting ledger …..stripping away the multiple entry book keeping swindles from the private owners of The Federal Reserve (and other corruptions of money the world over) out of The Dark Shadows where the Elites have conspired for milennia…. and into the light of honesty and transparency.
THEN, you’d have a much, much, more “level playing field” of The Many Citizens of Many Nations….. versus The Few Bloodline Families that are the megalomaniacal egoic impetus behind despotic “Globalism” proclaiming the need for the End of National (and individual) Sovereignty.