by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog
It was very pleasant and informative to read Mr. Gary Littlejohn’s April 19 article, Strengthening the US Dollar: Comments on Ramin Mazaheri. I am very happy that he agreed with my article No, the dollar will only strengthen post-corona, as usual: it’s a crisis, after all, which sought to temper the eager glee of those whom I call the “dollar demisers” with some historical facts and socialist-based analysis.
What it seems Mr. Littlejohn essentially did was combine my analysis with a very popular article from “high finance dissident” site ZeroHedge, “Down The Rabbit Hole” – The Eurodollar Market Is The Matrix Behind It All, penned by Michael Every of the Netherlands’ Rabobank, and then add his own considerable insights and commentary.
Mr. Littlejohn wrote such a fine article that I am happy to respond to both his and ZeroHedge’s articles.
He began, ”This supportive response aims to provide recent relevant evidence that many of the likely changes Mazaheri describes are already happening very quickly.”
Things are indeed happening very quickly, but they could also be arrested quicker than people think. My article was a counterweight to the idea that the US (and their Western allies, and their client/puppets) is somehow entirely out of control of this process – it is not. I hope that I have overestimated a prediction of 20-30 years more of dollar dominance, but my article demonstrated how from 2008-20 they have more than just weathered a Great Recession they primarily caused. There will be a true anti-dollar revolution, but nobody can accurately predict any revolution – who could have even predicted this Great Lockdown hysteria?
I’m very glad Mr. Littlejohn agrees with the class-based analysis that the 1% is indeed international – it is not some tinfoil-hat conspiracy claim. This fundamental tenet of socialist analysis seems odd in the West only because it is so rarely said – after all, hedge funds, billionaires and wannabe-billionaires decide the editorial policy of Western media.
But, above all, this remains a competition between two ideologies: capitalist-imperialist cultures (and their repressed client states) and socialist-inspired cultures. The latter culture acknowledges this openly – the former hide and denies it, famously declaring an ideological “end of history“. Both of these cultures remain supranational in scope and reach, even if capitalist-imperialists continue to falsely assume their global political dominance and persist with their “clash of civilisations” (which first came for the Muslims) with a book of self-flattering “universal values” at the tip of their spear.
What Westerners have started to realise – 2008 began this process and the looming 2020 crisis will accentuate it – is that the neoliberal empires they cheered on always intended to come for their 99% as well. For proof just look at Greece, the Yellow Vests and the decade-long austerity self-cannibalisation of the Eurozone. There are those who believe the upcoming explosion of this critical mass will cause the revolution implied by the fall of the dollar – this article will pose an alternative view; it’s a view which Westerners cannot even conceive of much less discuss because – of course – they have no enemies, There Is No Alternative, their ideology conquered even before their armies arrived, they are so willing to die for their own rightly-guided governments… right?
Mr. Littlejohn was right to marvel at the primacy of Western/international high finance in his discussion of the enormous consequences of the recent decisions by the Fed & ECB to purchase corporate bonds.
If we care about our nation, then we must ensure corporations and individuals (and in the US corporations are now legally treated as individuals, in a major 1%er victory) are legally and fiscally subservient to not only our nation’s laws but our nation’s moral values (i.e. the spirit of the law). Capitalist-imperialist ideologies do not have this type of patriotism: their patriotism, due to a system predicated on competition and not cooperation, cannot be displayed via this positive defense but only via a very negative attacking – be it Putin, Russia, Muslims, those on the other side of the political aisle, socialists, the Iraqis, the Vietnamese, the Algerians, etc.
Mr. Littlejohn writes of the corporate debt purchases: ”This seems to allow the development of a possible strategy that discriminates against foreign-owned companies (such as Chinese-owned Huawei) to be starved of Fed funds.”
Indeed it does. But nations have a right to defend themselves (like with protectionism), after all; contrarily, national aggression (like with blockades) is the cardinal sin of international law. The new Fed-Treasury open alliance, with BlackRock as their bureaucratic arm, is a problem for the American citizen in that the priority is not the elevation of American corporations/individuals, but of Western/international high finance.
This lack of patriotism is rightly offensive to the many Tyler Durdens of ZeroHedge, but because they reject socialist analysis they don’t fully understand it nor can they proffer actual solutions instead of a useless, destructive Fight Club-esque rage.
ZeroHedge: the West does not rule the whole world, try as they might
It’s important to note the very fair criticism often made of “dissidents-but-not-really” like ZeroHedge: they have been wrong for years. They keep saying that capitalism is about to collapse because just look at this excellent data we culled and this fine analysis… and yet it has not collapsed. This doesn’t make ZeroHedge permanently wrong, necessarily – it could make them ahead of the curve. Mr. Littlejohn was quite right in relying on them as he did.
I also wonder if ZeroHedge would do any better if they were put in charge of the Western economy? ZeroHedge’s editorial line is resolutely Austrian/Chicago economics. They do not publish any articles advocating socialist reforms, but they do publish many anti-socialist diatribes which may or may not be reprinted from the 1930s. Indeed, I am always flattered when they do occasionally reprint some of my geopolitical articles, and I definitely find it very amusing because many of the comments are – and this is a direct quote: “This is the worst thing I have ever read on ZeroHedge!” LOL!!! Well, they are based around socialism, not Austrian/Chicago economic brutality, selfishness and egotism. But when it comes to economics ZeroHedge is not about providing balance and objectivity – they are trying to protect their investments.
But in most newspapers the best, objective hard news about foreign countries is actually found in the business section – they need some truth because they are trying to protect their investments. ZeroHedge is indeed indispensable during this economic crisis because of their excellent taste in culling key hard business news from around the world – we can never find such contrarian-yet-factual, everything-is-not-100%-rosy, up-to-the-minute hard news at any of the Mainstream Media business sections or websites. ZeroHedge knows what to look for regarding Western economic problems and it wants them fixed – they are trying to protect their investments.
One of the favourite sources of analysis for ZeroHedge is Rabobank. Perhaps it is because they are Dutch, and their “junior partner” status in the North European strangulation of Latin Europe gives them some pause regarding the ruthlessness of the Germanic-Austrian-Chicagoan mindset? Perhaps because it is a bank based not only around cooperatives but agriculture as well that they have a very un-New York City view on the desirability of empire? Or maybe not… anyway.
As Mr. Littlejohn wrote of their “Rabbit Hole” article: “It treats the global market for Dollars under a single label, namely Eurodollars, but if one adopts that approach then it tends to downplay the historical significance of the rise of the petrodollar….” Indeed to both assertions – calling the eurodollar the “matrix behind it all” is rather magical thinking – it would be nice if the flaws of capitalism-imperialism could be entirely sourced to this one issue but, alas…. I think Mr. Littlejohn may agree with me that Every overrates the exceptionalism and risk of eurodollars. It’s very name is misleading – “globodollars” would be more accurate than “westdollars”, as socialist countries have participated. Eurodollars are a key part of offshore banking money laundering – they are not some new development – and I will discuss later how they are still, in application and spirit, dollars.
Yet the Rabobank analysis of the future of dollar dominance by Every is useful and has great merit. Here is how Every sees the possible outcomes of this QE Infinity post-corona hysteria world:
“Indeed, look at the Eurodollar logically over the long term and there are only three ways such a system can ultimately resolve itself:
- The US walks away from the USD reserve currency burden, as Triffin said, or others lose faith in it to stand behind the deficits it needs to run to keep USD flowing appropriately;
- The US Federal Reserve takes over the global financial system little by little and/or in bursts; or
- The global financial system fragments as the US asserts primacy over parts of it, leaving the rest to make their own arrangements.”
Thus, the first possibility is for the US to abandon dollar dominance via essentially declaring bankruptcy/refusing to pay debts.
The third possibility is for the global financial system to collapse and for the US to assert primacy over parts of it. But this idea is inherently flawed: socialist-inspired systems would NOT fragment, due to the independent, anti-capitalist, anti-Western nature of their systems.
Argue all you want about how China, Iran, Cuba, Vietnam and others would be negatively impacted by the Great Depression II, but I will argue just as long about how all their laws, governmental economic control, and a culture of interventionism will allow socialist-inspired nations to weather this storm EXACTLY as they have weathered Hot War, Cold War and Western blockades. This report for PressTV I did from Havana on “How the Cuban blockade works” opens with a rare sight in Cuba: a billboard. It reads “The blockade: the longest-running genocide in human history.” What is Great Depression 2 compared to that, at least for Cubans?
So I would not be arguing small points, indeed: Cuba exists, Iran exists, China exists – all resist. Every fatally assumes that the West and the entire globe are synonymous – they absolutely are not!
Thus, option three’s critical mistake is seemingly caused by common Western arrogance: It is not “The global financial system fragments” but the “WESTERN financial system fragments”. Again, this is not a small difference between our analyses: the West does not run the entire globe, try as they might and as self-flattering as that has been for them to insist. Here is the new, corrected option #3:
“The WESTERN financial system fragments as the US asserts primacy over parts of it, leaving the rest to make their own arrangements.”
The West’s incestuous 1% will maintain their primacy over the West and their most-favoured puppets, i.e. no change, except for the obvious, looming degradation of THEIR financial system.
Yet Every seems to believe some clients will perhaps slip away from the US/West – really? When he writes “leaving the rest to make their own arrangements” he is completely vague, probably because he is used to equating “the West” with “the world”: how can a nation leave the world, after all? No wonder he is vague. What Every fails to see is that any nation making “arrangements” outside of the West’s orbit can only go over to a necessarily China-focused – which is to say, a socialist-inspired bloc-focused – arrangement which is indeed already in place.
How can it not be binary in this fashion?
Is Every saying that some nations will soon adopt the 1979 slogan of the Iranian Islamic Revolution – “Neither East nor West but the Islamic Republic of Iran”? That would be quite interesting and I would cheer very loudly… but I do not expect that many nations will reclaim their sovereignty in such an emphatic fashion in 2020. Every is predicting revolutions (and many of them), which is even riskier than predicting a date for a Covid-19 vaccine.
And why should we be optimistic, when all it takes is some bribes and just a couple thousand soldiers to hold a nation’s capital, transportation hubs and sources of natural wealth (as in all over West Africa with France) – why would the Western 1% just “leave the rest” alone? That would be terrible for the capitalist bottom line: if France stops getting African uranium for peanuts then the consumer costs of their nuclear-dependent energy system will skyrocket, to give a single example among many. Thus, any nation which says to the West that they want to “make their own arrangements” will either need strong patrons (i.e., the anti-Western socialist-inspired bloc), or 1979-Iran style determination for true independence.
Anyway, no nation is a (geopolitical) island – Iran’s turn away form the West necessarily implied a turn to the East, and today they are China’s most trusted non-Oriental ally. Every, in a historical nihilist fashion, negates the existence and reality that There Is An Alternative… sorry Westerners, this IS real and is not some mere fad.
While the US (which leads the Western 1%) may say, “You want your money? Come get it,” (option 1) they will definitely not abandon neo-colonialism (option 3), which is so very, very profitable.
Thus, we appear to be stuck with option 2 – “The US Federal Reserve takes over the global financial system little by little and/or in bursts;”.
But we are not: Every is entirely mistaken to present that as some sort of new development!
The Western central banker collusion which was the “solution” to the 2008 crisis was based around following the diktat of top US bankers regarding when to issue QE and when to enact ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policies). Discussing this evidence that the Fed has colluded with the central banks of their allies was the basis of my 10-part series on the Western “bankocracy” from last winter, but the idea that bankers collude is not at all a new development in socialist thought.
Therefore what will happen is his third option, but accurately modified: The global Western financial system fragments, as the West asserts primacy over as many puppets/clients as possible, but the persistent economic success of the socialist-inspired camp attracts fresh allies.”
Such a development is entirely in keeping with my original article’s thesis of continued, but not endless, dollar dominance. The competition between two ideologies has never ended: the fallout from the corona hysteria may indeed bust out capitalism-imperialism but it cannot & will not cause the socialist-inspired camp to suddenly quit just as their popularity and relative strength is about to peak; just as after 2008 China peaked so high that they were able to end the (allegedly) “unipolar” world.
So where do we go from here? Answer: a slow decline for the West, which – again – is NOT the entire globe
I will keep saying it because it is true: Even if we judge via their own capitalist metrics, China, Vietnam, Iran – these countries have soared over the past four decades while the real economy of the West has been trashed. Iran only began to have postwar hardship when the inhuman Western blockade ramped up with the EU, US, UN triple sanctions of 2011. Even Cuba has had more economic growth and stability since the end of the Special Period (the fall of the USSR) than the West! ZeroHedgers will protest, “But we said not THIS capitalism (the neoliberal form)”, but it’s not like they have remained anywhere but the powerless fringe and, anyway, that is not my problem.
So a “slow decline” is imprecise journalism – it is a continued decline. Maybe a drastic plummeting in dollar dominance is indeed around the corner, but anyone in April 2020 who says they can predict the future is lying.
So what was Every’s take on the most certain scenario? We should learn it because despite its flaws, caused by its unbalanced and blinkered pro-“capitalism with Western characteristics”, it’s a very fine article.
“In other words, the BIS (Bank for International Settlements) is making clear that somebody (i.e., the Fed) must ensure that Eurodollars are made available on [a] massive scale, not just to foreign central banks, but right down global USD supply chains. As they note, there are many practical issues associated with doing that – and huge downsides if we do not do so. Yet they overlook that there are huge geopolitical problems linked to this step too.
Notably, if the Fed does so then we move rapidly towards logical end-game #2 of the three possible Eurodollar outcomes we have listed previously, where the Fed de facto takes over the global financial system. Yet if the Fed does not do so then we move towards end-game #3, a partial Eurodollar collapse.”
Again it’s a fine analysis but hobbled by the same two flaws: Every does not realise that #2 (“where the Fed de facto takes over the global financial system Western financial system”) has already happened, although it certainly must increase in order to forestall #3; and he does not realise that the Fed will NOT take over the financial systems of the “socialist-inspired bloc” with any amount of QE due to the laws, culture and modern history of said bloc. I hope it’s clear where Every goes astray and why.
This is also not my problem, but: To preserve the Western system we should assume that the long, LONG-awaited downloaning of Western QE “right down global USD supply chains” has finally come. However, it has come too late, and it has only finally arrived on top of the economic disaster which is the suicidal (for the West’s lower classes) Great Lockdown, and it will be expressly designed to be just enough downloaning to forestall mass domestic revolt yet not enough to prohibit the endless increasing of the 1%’s market concentration.
QE Infinity (barring an absurd amount of downloaning, which is politically impossible and would amount to a debt jubilee) cannot forever forestall a dollar collapse, but the “dollar demisers” falsely believe that fiscal policy/money issuance is the only tool the Western elite has. The end-of-the-dollar-revolution will not occur after, as I wrote in my first article, rounds of QE are rotated among different allies, and – as needed – massive Western propaganda campaigns, very watered-down but socialist-inspired concessions to the 99%, debt moratoriums, military distractions and maybe even World War III. Maybe even World War IV, too, and this is why I don’t exaggerate against a culture which believes deeply in their “clash of civilisations”:
The Western 1% simply cannot get “in” the socialist-inspired bloc or the yuan – after all, the aristocratic class in Iran, Cuba, China and elsewhere was totally expelled (to the West) – think they won’t make the dollar their “last stand” and use all their tools? As always, the West underrates the totalitarian nature of their most successful sons and daughters, but Iranians, Cubans and others do not. Yes, the economic scale of the crisis in 2020 is (potentially) revolutionary, but anyone who says it has already gone beyond the capacity of the Western 1% to rein it in and keep profiting… all this accuracy-driven journalist can say is, “Maybe, it’s still early.”
At the heart of Every’s argument, ZeroHedge’s complaints, Austrian/Chicagoan indignation that a national economy is indeed the same as a household, and also the West’s many “dissidents but not really” is a common theme that capitalism will implode because they cannot keep “rolling the debt over”. This is essentially echoed by Trotskyism, which holds that capitalism will eventually crumble under the weight of its own contradictions. (It is also notable that all these Westerners also think that the West – which has no enemies, which has no competition, to which no credible alternative exists – can never be defeated, only implode. More arrogance, but I have digressed.)
But they can keep rolling it over.
Again, they can keep rolling it over.
Every believes that the “eurodollar” is so very risky and exceptional because, “They (are dollars which) are not under the US’ legal jurisdiction, nor are they subject to US rules and regulations.” What he has ignored is that the high-finance holders of these dollars and markers are still very, very much informal upholders of the US-led Western system: Every has ignored culture, psychology and history in favor of a purely legal view of these eurodollars, instead of how the owners of these eurodollars operate in practice.
The Caymans, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore (all in the top 13 for eurodollar-dependant nations) – we should be worried that these tax havens will disobey the US and jeopardise the system? We should believe that they are even being honest about their claimed dollar reserves? We should be worried that the 1% is going to start sending their dollars to the average person instead of into these tax havens, creating a liquidity crisis? Anyone who has their money in the Caymans is certainly a parasite on society – we should worry for them, or fear them creating a “moral hazard” reckoning-implosion of the Western financial system? If all these eurodollars in the Caymans disappeared the real global economy would be fine – some rich people would be forced to get by on what’s in their Swiss bank accounts. Eurodollars are a problem – they are often the imaginary credit used by the elite who manipulate the West’s imaginary FIRE/QE economy – but there are bigger fish to fry in April 2020.
“However, at root the Eurodollar system is based on using the national currency of just one country, the US, as the global reserve currency. This means the world is beholden to a currency that it cannot create as needed,” – exactly: a large percentage of these tax-haven eurodollars are hoarded, immorally stolen dollars, but they are still dollars. Again, they are not being held by the types of people who can be called “revolutionaries” or “patriots” or “moralists”, LOL – they will not be used in international warfare against the West because they are part of a truly supranational 1% Western financial system. They are held by people who are very over-leveraged, true, but these are not people whom repo men visit, eh? Again – it’s still the dollar which is in charge, and the dollar is on the 1%’s side, not America’s side.
Every’s “nationalist” view – that the Caymans are about to make a geopolitical power play – lacks the wider, better perspective provided by the socialist lens: the Western 1% can indeed collude to create more dollars as they need, and they have since 2008. This group can, “keep USD flowing out or else a global Eurodollar liquidity crisis will inevitably occur”, which Every mistakenly fears. They can indeed keep “rolling it over” via QE Infinity – the fact that QE Infinity is a term which journalists finally devised came up after years of foolish waiting for QE to end shows that the Western 1% has a very sound, but immoral, grasp on reality.
Fundamental question: Why would the West stop rolling it over?
If you ask ZeroHedge they might say – with an oxymoronic “capitalist idealism”: because we can’t reward excessive greed nor failure. LOL….
But who among the West’s high-finance 0.01% will be the class traitor who calls in the marker which implodes the system? He or she would implode his or herself, as well. The West is so big it is not just one person who can implode it, anyway: there is no single marker with a “quadrillion” after the number.
And forget mass domestic protests (which will be banned for months and months in the few Western countries which actually have a protesting culture) because whoever heard of mass protests for “reformism” (which is all Western semi-dissidents propose)? That is nonsensical – mass protests either lead to revolution or they fizzle quickly in the “can’t we all just get along”, middle-class, political status quo-ism which defines the West’s eternally anti-socialist culture.
Thus there is no saviour – individual or national – to be had – there is only long, hard opposition via socialism, which is an entirely new system that has fixed the errors of the old capitalism-imperialism system. Therefore the only entity which could cause the system to explode – if we are being pragmatic – is a bloc led by China. Only they have they weight, combined with their allies, to ever break the dollar’s dominance. But they are not going to do that next Tuesday:
They are not economically strong enough, nor are their few allies, nor do they have enough allies, nor could they be aided within a Western society which has nearly no “5th columnists” but merely “semi-dissidents” whose greatest minor achievement is to not want more war/blockades with the socialist-inspired bloc (because it could blow up the planet, negatively affect the rainforest, trigger negative emotions, disrupt the avocado-toast supply chain, etc.). Look at where we are in April 2020: it is a radical, unheard of idea to be reading of any “socialist-inspired bloc” – how can we say that China today is anywhere as omnipresent and dominant as the USSR-led bloc was in, say, 1945, ’55, ’65, ’75 or ‘85? Many of you right now are denying this idea that in 2020 there is any possible “socialist-inspired bloc” – remember that your (likely) reactionary grandfathers and grandmothers had no such illusions of their total victory.
This relative weakness, this inability to provide an alternative to dollar dominance, is why Iranians will tell you: China is not going to “save” anyone except for China, because they are not strong enough. Iran was the first non-Oriental country to learn this fact, even if some in Iran haven’t learned it yet.
However, what China will do is work with you – they will create long-term plans with you (as China and Iran have done on the Belt and Road Initiative) if you prove your socialist and anti-imperialist bonafides. They will work with you even if you are imperialist-capitalists – it is the only way to gain strength and ultimately beat them.
Every, ZeroHedge, the countless Western Rabobanks – they believed the socialist-inspired bloc had been crushed; they are incredibly upset that the 2008 Great Recession and the phony QE “solution” has permitted China to rise and have the temerity to question their neoliberal, neo-imperial, greedy “universal values”. China is indeed now a threat to the West but it is not yet what the USSR was for decades – a concrete alternative which was willing to foot your bills (the USSR was the only empire where the centre bled for the periphery) while your national culture reforms itself away from imperialist ideals in order to (don’t you get this yet?) break the grip of international high finance on your people.
Thus, the dollar will not be beaten next Tuesday.
This is why corona hysteria will ultimately be manipulated by the Western 1% to strengthen the dollar, i.e. – their dollar and not America’s dollar. Barring reforms – and I have seen none which hyper-financialisation did not take advantage of since 2008 – 2008 will only largely repeat itself.
Indeed, it would take a revolution for a Western crisis to be unsuccessfully manipulated… but “semi-dissidents”, i.e. liberal reformists, hold out that mere false hope. They don’t see – like China, Iran, Cuba and others – that the Western 1% will do, like Mario Draghi of the ECB, whatever it takes to maintain their neoliberal empire.
The proof that this analysis is correct could not be more clearly illustrated than by World War I: a war started by international high finance to forestall the victory of socialism and to defend capitalism-imperialism despite its failure for their 99%.
Mr. Littlejohn grasps these historical concepts, and their political-moral implications, far more than the rabidly capitalist ZeroHedge and their preferred analysts.
Mr. Littlejohn and the dream of Eurasia, a concept which strikes down European exceptionalism
I disagree with Mr. Littlejohn where he gives his extension of Every’s three-outcome analysis:
”Even a partial Eurodollar collapse would do serious damage to those countries (more than half) which have sought emergency IMF support, and so this new power gives the Fed enormous political leverage over most major economies and over multilateral agencies such as the IMF, the World Bank or even the European Union [EU]. Given that Trump sees the EU as a potential competitor to the USA, and given the low proportion of US Dollars that its major economies have in relation to their trading needs, the EU is very vulnerable to US economic pressure in the present circumstances.”
Indeed, the developing world who are Western clients and not socialist-inspired clients will have huge problems very shortly. The impact of the Great Lockdown hysteria on the developing world is another article I have been meaning to write, but it will be an extension of Part 3 from the “bankocracy” series: QE paid for a foreign buying spree: developing countries hurt the most.
However, while Trump (who looks even riskier post-corona to the 1% free-trade globalists than he did in November 2016, when they did all the could to prevent his election and his protectionist ideas) may personally see the EU as a competitor, the many people richer than him know that this is not the case – the US and EU will continue to collude. Ergo, not only does the Fed want that “enormous political leverage” but the European 1% wants the Fed to have it, too. The dollar needs to remain in charge for the Western financial system to profitably continue for Europe’s 1% – the structure of the Eurozone was penned by the US for precisely this reason, as was the Plaza Accord for the yen. (As I wrote in the final part of a 7-part series in 2017, which socialistically examined the QE crisis in the Eurozone, “With the Plaza Accord of 1985, Japan adopted the US-orchestrated neoliberal changes that were designed to suck the surpluses from Japan back into the United States.”)
Thus the Fed’s sidelining (outspending) of the IMF and World Bank (but not the ECB, as they can print money) should be viewed as what it is – increased market concentration which will profit the Western 1%, as predicted by Marx. Every’s analysis is so unblinkered-capitalist that he likely cannot see this Eurogroup-Fed alliance, but the fine analyst Alastair Crooke alludes to it; however, Crooke still fails to use the socialist class analysis lens and instead fundamentally looks at such global political changes via a slightly-wider but still outdated nationalist lens.
Europe’s 1% may publicly gripe against the Fed’s decisions but they cannot go against them without effectively declaring war on the dollar. The US, Eurozone, Japan, and Saudi economies, plus their clients, are all intertwined – happily, for their 1%. If they did declare war on the dollar they would only have two options:
- Join the socialist-inspired bloc – this means renouncing capitalist-imperialist culture, and that will never happen.
- Europe carves out a “Third Way”, in a drastic revolution to the binary ideological system which has raged for over a century. This revolution has been so very often discussed in Europe but it has never, ever happened precisely because Europeans are so very devoted to their capitalist-imperialist culture. They have proven that they don’t want a Third Way, should one even exist. Talk of a “Third Way” has proven to be merely a way for Europeans to arrogantly assert their alleged exceptionalism/chauvinism. At some point they will give up and embrace “Eurasia”, but that is a ways away.
I think Mr. Littlejohn need not worry about “if the Euro collapses as a currency in the coming depression” – the euro, the yen and the dollar will all strengthen in a crisis because that is when investors seek safe havens and these are three of the four biggest global economies in what is soon to be an increasingly economically-depressed global market. All three also collude to fix their currencies relative to each other, due to the interconnected nature of the Western 1%, so while they will jockey for position for export power it is only within agreed-upon limits as it is as a fundamentally-united trio, and also fundamentally (as of 2008) united against the yuan, the champion currency of the socialist-inspired bloc.
So, overall, I think perhaps Mr. Littlejohn underestimates the way the euro/EU can burst free of these bonds to become a sovereign counterweight to the dollar/US, and also that Europe will embrace a culturally-unwanted idea of Eurasia anytime soon. Crooke does a good job in his article of linking the actions of the Fed with what I wrote about in Part 3 of the 2017 series, The hopelessly corrupt structure of the Eurozone & the Eurogroup. I think we simply have to look at how then-Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron organised the takeover of national giant Alstom Energy for GE in 2015 to show that Europe’s leaders will prioritise the US 1% (who are richer and thus have more influence ) than the EU’s 1%. It’s not a “new” or “slow” decline for Europe, but a “continued” decline as well.
Europe does not want sovereignty, which is a modern concept; sovereignty has become “modern” because it has been wiped out by Western-led globalisation. The neoliberal (and thus also neo-imperial) empire which is the EU does not respect sovereignty but suppresses it, as Europe is obviously NOT modern.
It’s difficult to change the matrix which modern Western commentators place the world upon – nationalism, imperialism-as-inevitable, chauvinism against non-Western cultures, existentialism (the feeling of being trapped due to not perceiving any alternative) and the historical & political nihilism which is the legacy of WWII.
It’s thus a radical, unheard of concept which still easily upends Every’s analysis – the West is NOT the entire world. New York, London, Paris and Tokyo will grow even more powerful post-corona due to even-greater wealth/market concentration, but their Greeces, “Flyover Country” and their developing world clients will continue to be bled. And as Western inequality, dominance, militarism and market concentration re-doubles amid their supranational financial system chaos, a whole other bloc is poised to not just weather the storm but thrive amid the post-corona chaos precisely because they rejected the Western legal and cultural system.
It’s not that as if these entities didn’t all collude to try and stop China’s rise – WWII was only more murderous to the Soviets, after all – it’s that they could not. It’s not as if they didn’t beg the CCP to change their laws to allow foreign control of Chinese industries – it’s that China would not. The West finally gave up because the CCP made the Western 1% too much money while still retaining control and serving the Chinese people. It’s not as if the West hasn’t tried to get Iran to go “neoliberal” (LOL) and sell off the 90% of the non-Black Market, non-carpet economy which the Iranian government controls – it’s that they could not. It’s not as if the West hasn’t tried to break Cuba, North Korea and others – it’s that they could not.
You cannot stop an idea, especially a superior idea.
My original article was aimed at the hasty, gleeful “dollar demises” and sought to, as the French say, “put some water in your wine”. The West’s “double bubble economy + Great Lockdown hysteria” crisis now is indeed enormous, but it cannot possibly ruin the socialist-inspired bloc – only themselves because that is THEIR economy, not ours.
That is a very sober – and not immoderately gleeful – analysis from the socialist-inspired bloc.
Mr. Littlejohn is on the right track and hopeful that Europe will come around – who would argue with hope in right action? I would remind Mr. Every that there IS an alternative and that it is not new. I would remind ZeroHedge that socialism does not ban competition and that socialism WILL win the binary ideological struggle, as they have been doing since 1980 (as ZeroHedge keeps pointing out via their fine documenting of the West’s continued economic failures).
I thank Mr. Littlejohn for his time, consideration and efforts.
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Corona contrarianism? How about some corona common sense? Here is my list of articles published regarding the corona crisis, and I hope you will find them useful in your leftist struggle!
Capitalist-imperialist West stays home over corona – they grew a conscience? – March 22, 2020
Corona meds in every pot & a People’s QE: the Trumpian populism they hoped for? – March 23, 2020
A day’s diary from a US CEO during the Corona crisis (satire) March 23, 2020
MSNBC: Chicago price gouging up 9,000% & the sports-journalization of US media – March 25, 2020
Tough times need vanguard parties – are ‘social media users’ the West’s? – March 26, 2020
If Germany rejects Corona bonds they must quit the Eurozone – March 30, 2020
Landlord class: Waive or donate rent-profits now or fear the Cultural Revolution – March 31, 2020
Corona repeating 9/11 & Y2K hysterias? Both saw huge economic overreactions – April 1, 2020
(A Soviet?) Superman: Red Son – the new socialist film to watch on lockdown – April 2, 2020
Corona rewrites capitalist bust-chronology & proves: It’s the nation-state, stupid – April 3, 2020
Condensing the data leaves no doubt: Fear corona-economy more than the virus – April 5, 2020
‘We’re Going Wrong’: The West’s middling, middle-class corona response – April 10, 2020
Why does the UK have an ‘army’ of volunteers but the US has a shortage? – April 12, 2020
No buybacks allowed or dared? Then wave goodbye to Western stock market gains – April 13, 2020
Pity post-corona Millennials… if they don’t openly push socialism – April 14, 2020
No, the dollar will only strengthen post-corona, as usual: it’s a crisis, after all – April 16, 2020
Same 2008 QE playbook, but the Eurozone will kick off Western chaos not the US – April 18, 2020
We’re giving up our civil liberties. Fine, but to which type of state? – April 20, 2020
Coronavirus – Macron’s savior. A ‘united Europe’ – France’s murderer – April 22, 2020
The same 12-year itch: Will banks loan down QE money this time? – April 26, 2020
The end of globalisation won’t be televised, despite the hopes of the Western 99% (2/2) – April 27, 2020
What would it take for proponents to say: ‘The Great Lockdown was wrong’? – April 28, 2020
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of the books ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’ and the upcoming ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’.
Well, honestly…
If the us dollar has been shedding its foreign debt obligations this entire time while gathering real world assets and physically evidenced holdings under its umbrella (or, is that the rial?… ), then yes…
Of course the dollar will be stronger…
Otherwise, no. Not so much.
Unless a genuine re-evaluation of labour, production, distribution, and revenue of real world commodities has been arranged while the television bobble heads were busy making up the dumbest shi# their execs could think of…
Or something…
I disagree with the idea that the dollar will do anything other than collapse as a result of the hyperinflationary process that the Fed and Treasury have initiated. I would point to an article by Alasdair Macleod, “Anatomy of a fiat currency collapse” to provide a detalied explanation., see https://www.goldmoney.com/research/goldmoney-insights/anatomy-of-a-fiat-currency-collapse
I mean, c’mon man…
Every great once in a while,
This really is fun,
Right?
Brilliant and sobering analysis. My take: No, this time – yet again – won’t be the final time for western imperialist capitalism. Why? Inertia and inevitability. It’s truly and aptly been made “too big to fail” for those who have profited most from it as well as those who serve them. But much more than that, it’s been wholeheartedly embraced as a cultural paradigm by the fawning masses, such that genuine socialism, as opposed to the recent Bernie Sanders inspired watered-down proposals, is simply incomprehensible to the western mindset. As such, the western leviathan will not be defeated in pitched battles or by catastrophic internal collapses, no matter how pervasive and obvious the corruption; but rather, by a painfully gradual and no doubt utterly miserable strangling of western interests, due to what will eventually be recognized as slow motion cultural suicide. Death by cultural, social, and economic malnutrition due to parasites, in short.
Try to think of wealth as things that you can measure, weigh, and put on a boat. Then, start counting and comparing from ground zero, right?
Wrong. Can I put my yacht in a boat?
You’re describing a medeival economy, not a modern one.
ZeroHedge has been pwned.
They would happily drive the tanks over any anti-capitalist country to protect their investments. Doesn’t make them a bad website, just biased. The Economist is where ZeroHedge guys wind up after they get older, greedier and uncool.
I don’t see how BlackRock is going to ever get in places like Cuba, North Korea or anti-Israel Iran. China has to give the hedge funds a taste, sure, but it’s the price of doing business and hardly threatens anything.
Superlative article, very unique perspective these days, but even if they find Kim Jong Un I’m not allying with Pyongyang just yet. It is going to get very, very bad though.
In order to clarify matters Let’s look at the dollar since 1971.
The Triffin Dilemma
There was always a fundamental incompatibility between the attainment of global economic stability and possession of a single national currency to perform the role of the world’s reserve currency. As a global reserve currency the dollar has to be the anchor of the world’s trading system. However, as a domestic currency the dollar needs to have sufficient flexibility for internal policy. Thus at the heart of the dollar’s value and use there is this contradiction for the dual roles of this currency.
During the Bretton Woods ‘golden age’ which lasted from 1944 until 1971, the US$ was fixed against gold at $35 per oz. However the cost of US wars of choice in Korea and Indo-China, as well as ambitious social programmes like LBJ’s ‘Great Society’, saw a global build-up of surplus dollars accumulating in central banks around the world. These surplus dollar countries then began trading in their surplus dollars at the gold window at the Fed. This was a situation which the US could not tolerate as gold was flying out of the US to various overseas central bank venues.
Thus it was that on August 15, 1971, President Nixon suspended dollar/gold convertibility for a temporary period, which in fact morphed into a permanent arrangement – an arrangement which persists to this day. The gold standard was replaced with the US$ fiat standard. The dollar was to be regarded as being as good as gold, which was rather more like an act of faith than rational economic policy.
The maverick Belgian economist Robert Triffin first drew attention to this anomaly during the 1960s in his seminal work Gold and the Dollar Crisis: The Future of Convertibility. He observed that having the US dollar perform the role of the world’s reserve currency created fundamental conflicts of interest between domestic and international economic objectives.
On the one hand, the international economy needed dollars for liquidity purposes and to satisfy demand for reserve assets. But this forced, or at least made it easy, for the US to run consistently large current account deficits.
He argued that such a policy of running persistent deficits would eventually put pressure on the dollars convertibility and ultimately lead to the demise of the Bretton Woods system of international exchange which is exactly what happened in 1971.
This arrangement led to what in effect were tangible advantages for the US, at least to the current situation.
‘’A controversial benefit’’ (among others) ‘’of the dollars international currency status is the real resources that other countries provide the United States in order to obtain our dollars. It costs only a few cents at the Bureau of Engraving to produce a $100 bill, but other countries have to pony up $100 of real goods and services to obtain one. (The difference between what it costs the government to print the note and a foreigner to procure it is known as seignorage after the right of the medieval lord, or seigneur, to coin money and keep for himself some of the precious metal from which it was made. About $500 billion of US currency circulates around the world outside the United States, for which foreigners have had to provide $500 billion to the US for actual goods and services.’’ (Barry Eichengreen – Exorbitant Privilege – pp.3/4)
Nice work if you can get it. International trade as denominated in US$’s meant that the US$ qua world reserve currency could use its dollars to buy foreign assets and pay for them in dollars. These dollars were then held by foreigners who could no longer convert surplus dollars into gold but could only purchase US Treasuries and other US dollar-denominated assets which were never going to be repaid. Surplus dollar countries would sell their hard-earned dollars to purchase US Treasuries which pushed up the value of the dollar and kept US interest rates low; and the US in turn would buy goods and services from these same surplus countries. It worked rather like this: a foreign computer company – say ‘Japcom’ – sells you a computer by lending you the money to buy it! The ultimate free lunch.
But of course there’s always a catch! The effect of a strong dollar which raised domestic US industries costs, lead to the hollowing out of the US domestic economy which ultimately could not compete with more efficient overseas competition. The last thing that the US rust belt needed was/is a strong dollar which had the effect of making its export industries less competitive. This left the US in an economic quandary. Namely, that the United States must on the one hand simultaneously run a strong/dollar, policy and on the other a weak/dollar policy, or put another way must allow for an outflow of dollars to satisfy the global demand for the currency, but must also engineer an inflow of dollars to make its domestic industries more competitive. As explained thus: when the Fed cuts interest rates, investors sell dollar-denominated assets and buy foreign assets, which tends to weaken the dollar’s exchange rate.
Having it both ways! Which of course is hardly possible.
Moreover, it is a moot point as to whether the rest of the world will continue to support this ‘exorbitant privilege’ in perpetuity. So far, the Vichy-Quisling-Petainst regimes in Europe and East Asia have to touch their forelocks and prostrate themselves before their Lord and Masters, but it would be wrong to imagine that this can continue as a permanent arrangement. Ironically, however, the US hegemon treats its friends and allies considerably worse than its putative enemies. Such is the nature of geopolitics. Like the man said: ‘‘A nation does not have permanent friends or allies, only permanent interests.’’ (British Statesman, Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount (Lord)…Palmerston, (1784-1865).
La Lotta Continua.
sadly it seems like “Exorbitant Privilege” is one of the few books he wrote that is not avaiable @ archive. org.
they have a ton of his other books tho.
https://archive.org/search.php?query=Barry%20Eichengreen&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22texts%22
‘’Lord give me celibacy and continence – but not yet.’’
St.Augustine
With due respect this seems to be the essence of what Mr Mazaheri seems to be saying. The dollar system and the US global dominance will eventually end – but not yet! This much is certainly correct, but not particularly profound.
I have to say that I found the whole analysis regarding the present geopolitical conjuncture to be a one-sided, top-down structuralist theory of process and change. Human agency seems to be conspicuous by its absence. This is all very reminiscent of recent continental European thinking regarding the supposed ideological incorporation of the working class into the capitalist system. It is tacitly assumed that future struggles will be struggles amongst the elites with the masses playing a merely subordinate role or no role at all. But this rather begs a number of questions. Initially the Brechtian premise ‘the people should be dissolved and a new one elected’ was in fact a confirmation of the role of human agency in the process of change.
Such a futuristic possibility is, however, ruled out by George Orwell, Yevgeny Zamyatin and Jack London whose views of the future are predicated on a similar structuralist analysis. This is clearly evident in the famous novels – 1984, We, and the Iron Heel. The poor downtrodden proles are incapable of making revolutions or even minor change into a socialist direction. Socialism is definitively ruled out in this dystopian civilization. The proles have been eugenically bred and transformed into a distinct species essentially no different than short-horned cattle. Such has been the fashionable view among the petit-bourgeois elements – those chique habitues of fashionable salons in New York or Paris.
Actually there can be no revolution without the participation of the masses. And initially the driving force will be nationalism or a mixture of nationalism and socialism. But nationalism and a national state-building movement itself can take on either revolutionary or reactionary forms. It was a reactionary force with regard to Fascism in Italy and Germany during the 20th century but revolutionary in the anti-colonial movement which incorporated radical movements such as the FLN in Algeria and the National Liberation Front in Vietnam.
Turning to Europe – which I would say is the key player in future events – I think that it would be true to say this is a geopolitical bloc which is dominated and controlled by US imperialism at every level – political-economic-militarily-cultural. This has been the case since 1945 where the Euro-bloc is ruled by comprador/vassal elites. However, the masses in Europe seem to be stirring, amidst signs of panic among its Quisling rulers. Sovereignty is become the key issue – without border controls or the ability to print their own currency and define their borders European nations will cease to exist. So a new chapter is slowly opening with an increasing rejection of comprador-liberalism and a turn to national sovereign states.
Another salient feature of this process has been the ongoing depopulation of the EU’s eastern periphery. So now Europe has problems in both its eastern and southern peripheries. I think Lenin once used this observation of populations when once remarked that they were ‘voting with their feet’.
These pressures coming from below could be compared to magma pushing up against the volcanic crust which has so far held them in check. Europe is entering into crisis mode which the euro-elites are struggling to contain.
With regard to socialism. This is not something which has to be imposed upon or taught to Europeans. Socialism both social-democratic and Marxist was a European invention which other states to a greater or lesser degree incorporated into their own political systems and political structures. The periphery learned some valuable things from the imperial centre. It also learned some undesirable qualities from the same source. When Gandhi was once asked what he thought about British civilization, his classic response was – ‘’I think it would be a very good idea.’’
That takes some beating.
“The dollar system and the US global dominance will eventually end – but not yet! This much is certainly correct, but not particularly profound.”
But the articles were only designed to counter the idea that the dollar system and US global dominance will end very soon, which is neither correct nor profound. There are plenty of those going around, but that’s just giving people what they want to hear.
Real excellence with this content. I don’t generally overall agree with Mr. Mazaheri’s economic paradigm, but definitely agree with the diagnosis of the ZeroHedge editorial culture posited here. I’ve got my own, heterodox theories on economic matters. Great commentary here.
Was going to post the same thing about the take on ZeroHedge.
They run articles which defend as heroes those who hoarded medical masks and resold them for huge profit, but condemn Wall Streeters in the same breath! They post interesting stuff, but who could take their holier-than-thou approach seriously?
“And so, that’s what you get for buying up things that are going to be in demand and reselling them for a profit – a U.S. attorney accusing you of “illegal” profits. Perhaps if the U.S. attorney’s office really want to rope in “illegal” profits their time would be better served overseeing Wall Street and the Fed, instead of hassling a local store owner.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/capitalist-who-hoarded-masks-and-ppe-resell-his-store-now-faces-jailtime-under
Amazingly I pointed this very same thing out. I do not think they have a premise. It’s truly nihilistic.
I follow ZeroHedge closely. I am retired and living on investments. They have good informative stuff on that site.
By the same token, I don’t buy their thesis that “casino capitalism is a perverted form of capitalism.”
That simply is not true.
Capitalism always leads to “casino capitalism” – that is simply what capitalism does. Any time you glorify greed as a primary driver of society you will end up with exactly the type of corruption that is endemic in the West.
It is inevitable.
I don’t follow the ZeroHedge, ZeroHedge. Doesn’t the author know that ZeroHedge just posts the articles, they don’t write them.
Not true – ZeroHedge has staff writers. They are all “Tyler Durden”.
As for the Eurodollar analysis, I described as much and even commented on the ZH article re: the very same problem with “dollar system blinders” and how that bias affects the three solutions – in effect the same way. This article is a very accurate assessment of the current state of economic /cultural /social /political / moral/ humanity equation in the larger world. In other words, “multi-polarity”. But I will reserve judgement as to which form of socialism is essentially “superior” to which form of capitalism that ZH / RABO / Every and their ilk envision.
The larger issue, and the overriding factor, is the ubiquity of human nature among our supranational 1%.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The evidence for this could never be more clear. Show me a system that defeats moral hazard intrinsically and we can have a better world. I can make recommendations, but that is a very long and linear journey (www.roacheforque.blogspot.com).
But I do salute your understanding of reality as it stands today.
So that makes two of us. Try getting the rest of the world to somehow emerge from the cognitive dissidence and manufactured disparity. Clearly the 99% could mostly be written off as a lost cause to that end …
Really valuable perspectives. It gives us time to make the necessary adjustments: in my case gold purchases.
Thanks again Ramin. Very appreciated.
“a very popular article from “high finance dissident” site ZeroHedge”
Yawn. ZeroHedge is a crucial high-level JMafia (Removed language,MOD) operation.
The fact that Americans have been so brutaly mind-controlled against socialism determines their inabilitiy to respond to the current situation. Let’s remember that one of the most important class struggle episode took place in the USA. But the represion was so ruthless that there could not be any dialectical synthesis or outcome of this historical process other than the one we are witnessing. This pattern of patron terrorism was later exported to every possible fascist spot in the world. Look at Bernie Sanders. He is a living joke. And he is considered to be a hardcore communist. They would need to attack Big pharma, Big oil, Big banking, Big real state, Big casino and Big show business. Not only the deep state but the very society (if such thing exist in that country) of the country and mind-controlled and unable to get over its business focused mind. They can’t see anything beyond business. They will never do it. They will never make it. The whole house of cards will stumble and fall. And life will have to restart from very different premises and from unexpected wisdom sources, like native, latino, rural or black Americans
At the end what really matters is real economy… Since 2014 U.S GDP-PPP has been smaller that of China. Now the gap is 30%. If we take key figures of real economy China’s superiority is even more striking.
The problem with this analysis is not that it is incorrect – it’s that nobody else shares these views.
Does a “socialist-inspired bloc” exist? Something like that clearly does exist, but it is in a nascent and vulnerable state – it is certainly not what the USSR was.
But the problem is that it is so informal that nobody else is openly talking about it. If Iranians are talking like this and the Chinese are talking about this they are only doing it in their own languages.
This post is hard to refute but who is and where is the audience? It does help explain a lot of decades-long trends which have defied easy explanation and blind spots, but this post is simply too foreign in mentality. It might be right, but it certainly is easy to dismiss and move on for that reason. Great post.
Well, that’s an assessment I can’t argue with:
there IS a socialist-inspired bloc, but it’s nothing like the USSR (as I wrote), but nobody I’m aware of is really putting it in these terms. Socialists are incredibly divided, but the main problem has been TINA – There Is No Alternative – propaganda, so global society has propagandised not to even think in these terms.
I don’t even know what websites would or could even republish this article, and many of my other similar articles also lack an audience. The main problem is the above but many others.
This is not merely whining – Islamophobia is a hindrance. The leftists in the West are so totally secular that they have zero receptivity to socialism in the Islamic world.
Leftism in the West is also fake-leftism: they understand what’s wrong with wrong with militarism and imperialism, but they often have ZERO understanding of economics. They understand that cultural chauvinism is wrong, but despite their tolerance they have so much resistance to any non-Western ideas – they simply don’t want to learn but only teach.
The problem for Iran is that the MKO-MEK – which is so despised and so unpopular, even more than the royalists – really made it impossible to be an open socialist, even an Islamic one. It has taken a generation to erase the enormous stain their murderous, traitorous, psychotic actions created. We are making progress, and the fact that Iranian government PressTV publishes my articles is a real example of progress in Iran.
China is not about to scare off the West with very tough and pure ideological talk… but we see how they have been emboldened to do just that with this corona hysteria. But prior to 2008 it was clearly too risky for them to do that. But this crisis – we see how China is growing in their confidence, due to their success thanks to socialist ideology.
So we are getting there, but I agree – it’s very easy to dismiss these ideas even though I (obviously) think they are logically and critical sound. This trend can’t go on forever – the denial of reality produces so many issues, of course, and people will come around, Inshallah.
Nothing labeled “Socialism” has a chance in this country (USA). But the same essential idea, “Populism” (i.e., government by and for the average American), a la George Wallace, would be a slam dunk. (Honest polls showed him with a commanding lead in 1968 before they shot him).
“Kick the pointy-headed bureaucrats out of Washington and throw their briefcases into the Potomic” will resonate more and more as this debacle continues.
Hitler put Germany back on its feet in five years. It can be done.
@Talk to Cats
Dr. Ellen Brown explains it well in her “Web of Debt”
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/bankrupt-germany.php
“Hitler and the National Socialists, who came to power in 1933, thwarted the international banking cartel by issuing their own money. In this they took their cue from Abraham Lincoln, who funded the American Civil War with government-issued paper money called “Greenbacks.” Hitler began his national credit program by devising a plan of public works. Projects earmarked for funding included flood control, repair of public buildings and private residences, and construction of new buildings, roads, bridges, canals, and port facilities. The projected cost of the various programs was fixed at one billion units of the national currency. One billion non-inflationary bills of exchange, called Labor Treasury Certificates, were then issued against this cost. Millions of people were put to work on these projects, and the workers were paid with the Treasury Certificates. This government-issued money wasn’t backed by gold, but it was backed by something of real value. It was essentially a receipt for labor and materials delivered to the government. Hitler said, “for every mark that was issued we required the equivalent of a mark’s worth of work done or goods produced.” The workers then spent the Certificates on other goods and services, creating more jobs for more people.
Within two years, the unemployment problem had been solved and the country was back on its feet. It had a solid, stable currency, no debt, and no inflation, at a time when millions of people in the United States and other Western countries were still out of work and living on welfare. Germany even managed to restore foreign trade, although it was denied foreign credit and was faced with an economic boycott abroad. It did this by using a barter system: equipment and commodities were exchanged directly with other countries, circumventing the international banks. This system of direct exchange occurred without debt and without trade deficits. Germany’s economic experiment, like Lincoln’s, was short-lived; but it left some lasting monuments to its success, including the famous Autobahn, the world’s first extensive superhighway.”
Indeed…it also has to be viewed in the context of 80 million despondent Germans feeling that there was a new purpose and a future for them…the society was buzzing with a new energy… there was also investment in new technologies such as synthetic rubber, and synthetic fuels, to get around the boycotts and sanctions…long before things took a bad turn with the territorial expansion phase…Theres quite an extensive list of patents that the West stole from Germany post WW2…
ZHers are really not that anti socialism, as they are any statism. A Bakunin or a Proudhon, they even timidly respect.
The issue is not the fight between the non competitive equality of socialism, and the competitive fairness of capitalism – both systems are necessary. The former for needs, the latter for wants.
The issue is that we live in evolutionary autocracies, and that whether you want fair competition, or universal non-competition, your wishes cannot directly materialise into law and policy. The issue is representative democracy, as opposed to semi-direct democracy as the yellow vests demanded.
When the people can check the state bureaucracy outside of a second amendment or a Mandate of Heaven, then laws will be more just.