That is how Gordon Brown is describing the current crisis.
In a speech in London ahead of a series of meetings with the heads of world financial institutions and Asian economic powers, Mr Brown will say there must be no retreat into trade protectionism or a "financial mercantilism" which would restrict banking activities like lending to domestic markets.
Brown is expected to say that this current economic crisis should not be used as an excuse to ditch globalisation. He is wrong. I know a lot of people on the right think that globalisation is a good thing - supposedly market driven, capitalist and conservative - but it isn't.
Let's just put some historical perspective on this first of all. Since industrialisation there have been two major worldwide depressions. The first in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the second in the 1930's. Both came after a period of "globalisation" and on both occasions, the countries that fared best during those depressions were those countries that retained some degree of self-sufficiency and trade protection.
Globalisation is not a form of capitalism either, rather it is a form of corporatism - the situation whereby governance is by or influenced by unelected bodies of people rather than by direct democracy. The obvious examples of corporatism are the usual suspects - the UN, EU, WTO and World Bank - but less obvious are the countless NGOs that have proliferated in recent years and which have developed very sophisticated methods for influencing governments by utilising the pre-existing corporate bodies such as the UN, EU and so on.
The one thing these groups all have in common is the Utopian dream of establishing a corporatist network of world government - the "new global order" that Brown speaks of - and globalisation is a key tool of that dream. It always has been. It would be wrong for me to assert that corporatism is exclusively socialist - it is not - but it is a key component of socialism and with the vast majority of western governments being left leaning there is a natural tendency for any drift to corporatism to result in a socialist dominance.
And although corporatism isn't about business corporations, the rise of corporatism does give big business a massive advantage over smaller companies as they can influence policy making in their favour. This restricts the "free market" and "free trade" rather than encouraging it resulting in a few huge global corporations having larger and larger slices of a market.
This is why I claim to be a supporter of capitalism and free markets, but opposed to globalisation. Capitalism, a free market and free trade are essential for any national economy, but equally essential is the ability of a nation to decide what it imports and what effect that will have on the national economy and independence. It is also why I am opposed to us allowing foreign ownership of major key industries.
This isn't xenophobia - I have no problem with foreigners starting new British businesses - but a nation has to retain a considerable degree of control over its economy or it will suffer in the long term and you can not do that if your economy is subject to the whims of a global economy.
Let me reiterate that this is nothing new. It has happened before and in exactly the same way. Incidentally - and probably connected - on all three occasions where there has been a period of globalisation it was preceded by the birth of a new global communications system. The telegraph in the late 19th century, the radio in the early 20th century and the Internet in the late 20th century/early 21st century.
That doesn't mean I am opposed to new technologies - far from it - but it does mean that we have to keep an eye out for those people who will use these technologies for their own ends - as there always are - and guard against it. Does that mean I think we should restrict the Internet? Good God, no! What it does mean is that we shouldn't fall for the lies of people like Brown who claim to put Britain first, but who really puts his own socialist ideals above anything to do with this nation.
Globalisation (along with interdependence) is a key tool of establishing a system of world governance through corporatism. It is anti-competitive and therefore anti-free market and anti-free trade. Don't be fooled with the "free trade", "free market" and "capitalism at work" hype - people like Gordon Brown wouldn't support it if that was what it was really about.
7 comments:
First of all, so called free trade is not trade as historically defined and practiced. It is primarily about making production portable ready to be moved from place to place for the sake of cheaper labor. When factories come and go they leave behind conditions worst than before they came. Mexico and in many places in the Far East.
It is senseless to devalue labor and workers who are also consumers.
The cheaper imports come but this results in a new working poor class in the USA and underclass stayed frozen in time as Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans exposed. Both find it more difficult to afford even the cheaper imports at places like Walmart
Our economies based on making money on money instead of making things are burning out. The value of labor and workers as suffered a severe deflation cycle. This value is a real tangible asset and acts as a money standard especially when paper money is an intangible value requiring the manipulation of transactions to produce value.
Free traders keep harping about protectionism and how it caused the depression. In the roaring 1920s it was all about the manipulation of money values and we had both periods of free trade and tariffs. The stock market crashed in 1929 and it was about a money crisis and not about trade.
The Smooth Hawley act was passed in 1930 after the crash and free traders use this as an example of how protectionism causes depressions.
The Smooth Hawley never really got off the ground since there was a money crisis and no one had money to do much of anything but excite wars.
President Roosevelt was elected in 1932 and in 1934, he was given the option of raising or lowering tariffs in a new trade agreement act. This too was non-applicable because the money crisis. Then we suddenly were into the wars and President Roosevelt unleashed the Lend Lease Act to provide goods to our allies no matter what.
Roosevelt said he was not going to let the dollar sign stand in his way. In the ensuing years, the most awesome industrial power the world has ever known was created without money being the issue. This industrial power won World War 2.
The real core value of this industrial might was the value of workers and labor used as assets to create commerce.
Lets start telling it like it was and like it is too.
For more info and resources, see http://tapsearch.com/tapartnews/
http://tapsearch.com/flatworld/
http://www.bizarrepolitics.com/
http://www.therationale.com - asking is it a money crisis or is it a human nature crisis.
Interesting Tapsearcher!
Quick point - I doubt very much that "corporatism" is a socialist concept. It was the very description Mussolini gave to his fascist movement.
My main point. All the logic, argument and sound conjecture in the world is irrelevant right now. NO-BODY is listening and if they were it would STILL be irrelevant because the idea of this NEW GLOBAL ORDER/ NEW WORLD ORDER is not to make a better world. The idea is patently to enrich the most powerful with all the wealth and power in the world, in a power structure that can never be challenged.
Protectionism was a response to depression not a cause of it. A depression is always preceded by a period of globalisation.
Corporatism is not solely a socialist doctrine - I think I said that in the post - but it is a key component of socialism. Fascism is just socialism with honesty.
Read the works of Barry Smith and of Grant Jeffrey for insight into what the New World Order/ New Global Order is about
CHUCK MISSLER - COPYIST !
Many these days are abandoning the pretribulation rapture view, and the June, 1995 article by Chuck Missler (”Byzantine Text Discovery: Ephraem the Syrian”) reveals why there is such a mutiny! First of all, the authoritative scholar that Missler cited, Dr. Paul Alexander, referred only to “Pseudo-Ephraem” and not to Ephraem the Syrian. (If an unsigned ancient manuscript resembles the real Ephraem but there is a question of authorship, they assign it to “Pseudo-Ephraem” - the word “pseudo” meaning “possibly.” For some groundless reason, Grant Jeffrey, the one who reportedly found the “discovery,” changed Dr. Alexander’s terminology! For more info on Jeffrey, Google “Wily Jeffrey.”) And Missler’s scholarship is also questionable. According to the Los Angeles Times (July 30, 1992), about one-fourth of Missler’s 1992 book “The Magog Factor” (which he co-authored with Hal Lindsey) was a daring plagiarism of Dr. Edwin Yamauchi’s 1982 book “Foes from the Northern Frontier”! Four months later Yamauchi’s publisher revealed that both Lindsey and Missler had promised to stop all publishing of their book. But in 1995 they were found publishing “The Magog Invasion” (which was either a revision or a replacement of “The Magog Factor”) - which had a substantial amount of the same plagiarism! (Dave MacPherson’s 1998 book “The Three R’s” has complete documentation on this and other pretrib scandals.) After listing “1820″ as the reported date of the birth of pretrib (he should have said “1830″), Missler sees a pretrib rapture in that Medieval writer’s phrase “taken to the Lord” and, since he evidently favors rewriting others instead of researching, is unaware that Dr. Alexander explained that this phrase really means “participate at least in some measure in beatitude” - which has reference only to doing acts of virtue on earth and not being raptured away from earth! Alexander added that the same ancient writer held to only one final second coming (and not to any prior coming) which would follow the time of Antichrist! (Readers can Google “Deceiving and Being Deceived” by MacPherson to see how groundless the Pseudo-Ephraem claim is and to learn how desperate pretribs are to find any pre-1830 evidence for their escapist view. Dr. Robert Gundry of Westmont College has also demolished the Pseudo-Ephraem claim in his 1997 book “First the Antichrist.”) Since Missler also leans on Thomas Ice, readers can evaluate Ice’s qualifications by Googling “America’s Pretrib Rapture Traffickers,” “Thomas Ice (Bloopers),” “Thomas Ice (Hired Gun),” and “Pretrib Rapture Diehards” (the latter part). For further light on the 179-year-old, fringe-British-invented pretribulation theory, Google or Yahoo “Pretrib Rapture - Hidden Facts.” Finally - why would anyone who has the brains of a rocket scientist want to be taken up with the concept of an any-moment pretrib rapture? The answer may well be that there’s more money in elevating a rapture than launching a rocket!
DOLCINO? DUH!
Eschatological enforcer Thomas Ice claims that someone named Dolcino taught a pretribulation rapture in 1304 A.D. What Ice doesn't like to reveal is that Dolcino's "proof" DOESN'T EVEN EXIST! So what does Ice's claim rest on? Well, LONG AFTER Dolcino's death an ANONYMOUS person wrote a SECONDHAND history of what Dolcino reportedly penned - a history that was CHANGED SEVERAL TIMES between the 1300s and the 1900s! If you're wondering about Thomas Ice's qualifications as a scholar, Google "America's Pretrib Rapture Traffickers," "Thomas Ice (Bloopers)" and "Thomas Ice (Hired Gun)." Many are unaware that after the Communists took over Russia and China, there were Christians in those countries who became violent with pastors who had constantly assured them that they would be raptured before anything resembling end-time horrors. Can Ice and other pretrib rapture merchandisers rest assured that if such scenarios occur in America and some other "rapturized" countries, Christians won't be just as violent towards them?
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