By Richard Moore

Extract from

www.cyberjournal.org

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(slice)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Having presented this (highly abbreviated) historical background, I can now describe the nature of 'the global crisis of capitalism'. On the one hand, the capitalist elite must accelerate the pace of globalization in order to continue providing room for capital growth. On the other hand, the people of the world, notably in the West, have begun to wake up and oppose the dangerous and ominous path of globalization. The elite know that as the path of globalization is pursued more vigorously, more and more people will rise in opposition. The crisis of globalization is a crisis of population control, requiring the subjugation of the people of Europe and North America.

People in the third world have been subjected to imperialist tyranny for centuries, and this has been possible because of suppression by Western military force. If the people of the West arise in opposition to globalization, then the hegemony of the capitalist elite is seriously threatened. This is the crisis of global capitalism.

President Bush calls it a "War on Terrorism", but what is it really? Let's look at some of the specifics...
*  Congress has authorized the President to do "whatever is necessary".
* Congress has allocated 40 billion dollars to do "whatever".
*  The $40 billion came from Social Security funds.
*  $15 billion is being allocated to bail out the airline industry.
*  For the first time, NATO has invoked the treaty clause which says "an attack on one nation is an attack on all".
*  We've been told to expect significant curtailment of civil liberties.
*  Bush declared that "Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists."
*  Fleets, planes, and ground troops have been dispatched to the Middle East to do "whatever".
*  We are to expect a long, protracted war, much of which will be covert and we won't be told what happened even after it's all over.
*  After Bin Laden is dealt with, Secretary of State Colin Powell tells us "we will then broaden the campaign to go after other terrorist organizations and forms of terrorism around the world."
*  Bush tells us that "We will use every necessary weapon of war", and "Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen."
*  The Pentagon specifically refuses to rule out the use of nuclear weapons.
*  Bush tells us that "God is not neutral".

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

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

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

From this perspective, the real meaning of the "War on Terrorism" begins to come into focus. Permit me to speculate as to the scenario which is likely to unfold...

*  Nearly every country in the third world has some local ethnic group which is struggling against some kind of dictatorial government, usually installed by the USA. Every one of these ethnic groups can be labeled 'terrorist'. Thus Bush can always intervene anywhere he wants for whatever reason and call it part of the "War on Terrorism".
*  In the Middle East, Balkans, and Western Asia, the U.S. will continue the process of turning much of the region into an occupied imperialist realm, as we now see in Kosovo. Afghanistan occupies a very strategic geopolitical position, and military bases there will be important in the coming confrontation with China. Vast reserves of oil remain in that region, along with other minerals, and control over these resources will be critical as global supplies become increasingly scarce.
*  U.S. dominance of the NATO agenda will be important in this region, as will the careful management of European public opinion. One should not be surprised if U.S. intelligence agencies covertly arrange for terrorist attacks in Europe along the same lines as the WTC attacks.
*  Even without covert U.S. encouragement, one can expect terrorist responses to the indiscriminate U.S. bombing which is likely to be unleashed in Afghanistan and who-knows-where-else. Any such terrorist attacks will galvanize Western public opinion still further, adding depth to Bush's blank check.
*  Already Greenpeace and many other progressive organizations are categorized as 'mildly terrorist' in the FBI lexicon. And it is the anti-globalization movement, which includes such organizations, which is the real threat to the global capitalist elite. Agent-provocateur tactics have already been used against the movement, from Seattle to Genoa, and in the media the movement has been falsely portrayed as being essentially a violent movement.

When Colin Powell talks about "other forms of terrorism", it seems very clear that the movement will be systematically suppressed on a global scale. The overt fascism we saw in Genoa will be raising its ugly head in the U.S., Germany, the UK, and elsewhere. Right-wing paranoia about FEMA-managed concentration camps in the USA will soon seem much less paranoid.

George Bush senior announced the New World Order, and it seems that George Bush junior is destined to complete its implementation. With a blank check to dominate the globe militarily, and to suppress the American people in the name of 'security', there seems to be little to stand in his way.

This does not mean that the movement should give up. It means that the movement needs to be aware that the game being played is totally hardball. And hardball does not mean violence, at least not on the part of the movement.

Hardball means to realise that the enemy is nothing less than global fascism.