Globalization and The Divine Right of Kings

I'm getting impatient with economists who always put growth at the top of agenda.  Why don't we have an economy like say, 2004.  People were busy, living well, kids could get jobs.  If that existed only due to great liquidity well, why not recreate that kind of liquidity?  We don't need a bigger economy than 2004, just the same one. (David Creelman - Creelman Research)


My response;
I have to conclude that we are systematically building a human disaster. It makes no sense so why are we doing it? The answer is that a small number of obscenely rich people are benefiting and they have the financial means to corrupt our politicians and courts to do their bidding and control the media to baffle the public. They are seeking a return to the 17th century when the Divine Right of Kings ruled the land. It was a political doctrine of royal and political legitimacy asserting that a monarch was subject to no earthly authority thereby deriving the right to rule directly from the will of God. Like these ancient kings the obscenely rich don't want the nations they live in touch any of their wealth. It has been estimated that this off shore theft amounts to between 21 and 32 trillion dollars; a staggering amount exceeding the GDP of the US and Europe.

In the United States the rationale for this modern day Divine Right has been packaged in a witches brew from the philosophy of Ayn Rand (an ardent atheist, a hack writer of pot boilers, and worshiper of male power) , Milton Friedman (a naive believer in unregulated markets that will eventually work things out for the best) and Religious Fundamentalists (who proclaim the Divine Right of  their leaders).  Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan were Rand's and Friedman's ardent cheerleaders. Financed by their kings (the Koch brothers and others) the Tea Baggers enthusiastically repackaged this rubbish and have led the political charge with leaders like Paul Ryan, Mike Huckabee, Sharon Angle, and Sarah Palin all professing divine inspiration and a return to a marriage of church and state, long discarded by the Founding Fathers. I suspect the Libertarians and visible spokespersons on Fox News and talk radio don't necessarily buy into all this rubbish and take a deep breath to let it wash over them in order to support their shared neocon agenda of enriching the rich ( and their paid servants) at the expense of the rest of us.

It took revolutions to end the Divine Right of Kings in Europe, Russia, and Iran (and it removed a few heads). With youth unemployment and underemployment in Europe and the United States running as high as 50% , wages and social services collapsing, public anger and demonstrations mounting, there is no end in sight. All of this is happening while the 1% become richer each year, It is only a matter of time before this anger spills over with unpredictable outcomes. The demand for reform has become violent in parts of the Middle East (The Arab Spring) and something like this (hopefully without the religious part) could happen here.

Democracy enroute to Barbarism

In the Tea Baggers the Republican Party seems to have joined forces with quite a gang of social misfits. Here is the latest in a Nazi SS uniform.

Saturday's Le Monde has several pages dedicated to the French philosopher who recently died, Claude Lefort, and in particular his book entitled "democratic invention" that deals with the theme of 'neither socialism nor barbarism' , a refreshing examination of the spectrum of political and power systems. A fascinating read when looking at the world we live in and the political struggles taking place.

History clearly has shown us that total power corrupts. Monarchies, communism, dictatorships and religious dynasties inevitably become self serving and end up victimizing their citizenry. Their replacement, Democracy, a relatively modern intervention on a large scale (admittedly invented in ancient Greece) , attempts to mix a blend of centralized power with a fair amount of economic freedom to independently pursue ones own interests. As a system in North America and Western Europe it seems to have enjoyed its heyday from 1945 to the end of the century.

Now we are seeing the rapid rise of oligarchic power undermining that of central governments. If the current political struggle in the United States is an example of what is happening then democracy may just be a brief passage en route to the barbarism Claude Lefort talks about.

Where can this end? We are already seeing oligarchies doing battle with nation states to undermine their power so that they can escape into an international world where they can freely fight it out with their peers to own it all. I see the governors of nations states where an oligarchy unduly controls power as increasingly becoming the paid servants of this New World Order.

Under these conditions citizens are increasingly powerless, democratic elections become meaningless, and social systems break down. In the past this predictably led to social unrest, a sense of desperation, marching in the streets, civil disobedience, economic breakdown and if unchecked, revolution. A major difference over the past several decades has been the creation of a consumer society of entertained, preoccupied and indoctrinated citizens. In English speaking countries this has resulted in a surprisingly passive public and the streets are empty. In the United States living under permanent wartime conditions this has further reinforced their sense of loyalty and faith in their country.

The American oligarchy is clearly financing and controlling the Republican party including their inept and confused Tea Party members. If they should gain power they will clearly serve their masters by ensuring the deregulation of banking and corporations, reducing taxation by down scaling or eliminating social legislation that has evolved over the past century and the introduction of a church state alliance to control the allegiance of the masses. An assured highway to the barbarism that Claude Lefort talks about.

The US experience with democracy has lasted now for over two hundred years. The first 160 years reflects a heroic struggle by many great leaders to create an essentially middle class and just society. With the arrival of Reagan and his successors Bush Snr, Clinton, Bush Jr. and now Obama much of this is being dismantled, presumably to service the demands of their oligarchic princes. 

T Hobbes, J Locke, JC Rousseau vs Ayn Rand

Dave's Observation
I don't find the usual attribution of the US financial meltdown to greed to be particularly helpful.
By and large people were just trying to maximize their sales, hit their targets or whatever. There is greed there but I don' t know that it expressed itself in a different way than in normal times. One wonders if it is even useful to ascribe a human vice to something like a financial system.

My Response

The word "Greed" clearly reflects the anger and resentment of a public who feel betrayed and exploited by a collapsing financial system. It's true, as you point out, that the people involved were simply maximizing their performance as they have always been inclined to do, but you have to accept that free of constraints, self interest inevitably leads to excesses. This is what has happened.

The belief that dismantling regulations would free the entrepreneurial spirit and thereby benefit humanity has proved to be utterly naive. The philosophers,Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau who profoundly influenced Western thinking and the formation of our governments understood that man is driven by self interest and by necessity had to enter into a social contract with his fellow man to control his behaviour by establishing governments for societies protection.

Ayn Rand took the opposite view that self interest should be the foundation of morality. Since all participants are acting selfishly the market is self correcting. She chose to be blind to the fact you could harm others while pursuing your self interest. The Chicago School and Greenspan were captivated by this ideology and thus the disaster we have today. In short, you need rules of the road to prevent disasters; regulations to restore our confidence in the integrity of the fiscal system

Yes, there is a moral element in all this. A social contract saves us from ourselves and makes for a fairer society. A world run by corporate interests is unlikely to have any collective moral compass.

The neo-conservatives and their Republican friends really believe that no government is good government and by starving tax revenues all public effort to set a social agenda and offer regulatory controls will be starved into extinction. Thus man can again be restored to his "noble savage" state of freedom.

I think the answer to "what does it all mean and what needs to be resolved" will only be found by America shifting politically to the radical left. Leftist values invariably respect intellect and education, and demand a fair redistribution of the nation's wealth through universal health coverage, adequate minimum wage policies, taxation commensurate with earnings, arts subsidies and the list goes on. It is fair to say that this sense of fairness eventually becomes a universal public value and spills over into international relationships.

Would it happily end there? Obviously not. Our world changes, our environment is threatened, in the absence of any weapons agreement the proliferation of atomic weaponry goes on, and our vastly expanded global trade has us tripping over each other. The social contract to manage the pursuit of self interest becomes increasingly a vital global concern. It is now self evident that the US role of "The World's Policeman" by necessity must give way in an increasingly multipolar world.