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From Global Poverty to Exclusion and Despair:
Reversing the Tide of War and Globalization
Global Research, February 01, 2019
An earler version of this text was published on
October 6, 2017.
Text of Michel Chossudovsky’s presentation to the
Regina Peace Council Anti-war Panel, Regina, Saskatchewan, June 8, 2018.
The Regina Peace Council panel will focus on
the history of America’s wars of aggression, the role of Canada in supporting
US led wars and the need to rebuild Canada’s anti-war movement.
***
We are at the juncture of the most serious crisis in
modern history.
An unfolding New World Order is destroying sovereign
countries through acts of war and “regime change”. In turn, large sectors
of the World population are impoverished through the concurrent imposition of
deadly macro-economic reforms. This New World Order feeds on human
poverty and the destruction of the environment, generates social apartheid,
encourages racism and ethnic strife and undermines the rights of women.
In the wake of the tragic events of September 11,
2001, in the largest display of military might since the Second World War, the
US has embarked upon a military adventure which threatens the future of
humanity.
War is presented as a peace-making undertaking. The
justification for these US-led wars is the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P)
with a view to instilling (Trump style) Western “democracy” Worldwide.
Global warfare sustains the neoliberal agenda. War and
globalization are intricately related.
What we are dealing with is an imperial project
broadly serving global economic and financial interests including Wall Street,
the Military Industrial Complex, Big Oil, the Biotech conglomerates, Big
Pharma, The Global Narcotics Economy, the Media Conglomerates and the
Information and Communication Technology Giants.
Also, September 11, 2001 followed by the
invasion of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, also marks the official
launch of the so-called “global war on terrorism” which has served as a
justification for US-NATO led wars and interventions in the Middle East,
Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and South East Asia.
The Global War on Terrorism is Fake
Amply documented, Al Qaeda and its various affiliates
including ISIS-Daesh are creations of US intelligence.
Pre-emptive Nuclear Doctrine
Meanwhile, a major shift in US nuclear doctrine has
occurred with the adoption of the doctrine of preemptive
warfare, namely war as an instrument of “self defense”. The
ideology of preemptive warfare also applies to the use of nuclear weapons on
a pre-emptive basis. In 2002, the US administration put forth
the concept of preemptive nuclear war, namely the use of nuclear weapons against
enemies of America as a means of self defense.
The Trump administration is openly threatening the
World with nuclear war. How to confront the diabolical and absurd proposition
put forth by the US administration that the use of nuclear weapons against Iran
or North Korea will “make the World a safer place”?
Where is the Antiwar Movement?
Since the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the antiwar
movement is dead. Piece-meal activism often funded by Wall Street
prevails, focussing narrowly on environmental concerns, climate change, racism,
civil rights. Invariably war and the extensive war crimes committed by US-NATO
as part of an alleged counterterrorism agenda are not the object of organized
public dissent. The motto is a non sequitur: “we are against war,
but we support the war on terrorism.”
War propaganda prevails, thereby providing a human
face to US-NATO atrocities and human rights violations. In turn, the
governments of the countries which are the object of US aggression, are
casually accused of killing their own people.
Media disinformation turns realties upside down. North
Korea is not a threat to global security. Belgium with 20 B61 tactical
nukes deployed under national command has a larger arsenal than the DPRK
(allegedly 4 nuclear bombs).
These B61 nuclear bombs in five undeclared European
nuclear weapons states (Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey)
are targeted at both Russia and the Middle East.
.
The mainstream media has failed to warn public opinion
that a US led nuclear attack against North Korea or Iran could evolve towards World War III, which in the words of
Albert Einstein would be “terminal”, leading to the destruction of humanity.
“Today there is an imminent risk of war with the use
of that kind of weapon and I don’t harbor the least doubt that an attack by the
United States and Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran would inevitably
evolve towards a global nuclear conflict.
In a nuclear war the “collateral damage” would be the
life of all humanity. Let
us have the courage to proclaim that all nuclear or conventional weapons,
everything that is used to make war, must disappear!” (Fidel Castro
Ruz, Conversations with Michel Chossudovsky, October 12-15, 2010)
I do not know with what weapons World War III will be
fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones”.(Albert
Einstein)
The anti-war movement is dead, nuclear war is not
front page news.
The justification of America’s long war is to “make
the world safer”.
War is presented as a humanitarian
endeavor. Global Security requires going after al Qaeda as part of an
alleged counter-terrorism campaign.
The world is led to believe that the Islamic
State and Al Qaeda are threatening the World. The truth is that Al Qaeda and
its numerous affiliates as well as the Islamic State (ISIS-Daesh)
are without exception creations of US intelligence. They are intelligence
assets.
When a US sponsored nuclear war becomes an “instrument
of peace”, condoned and
accepted by the World’s institutions and the highest authority including the
United Nations, there is no turning back: human society has indelibly
been precipitated headlong onto the path of self-destruction.
From Colonialism to Post-Colonialism
Post-colonial history is a continuation of colonial
history which established America’s contemporary imperial agenda, largely as a
result of the displacement and defeat by the US of the former colonial powers
(e.g. Spain, France, Japan, Netherlands). This US hegemonic project largely
consists in transforming sovereign countries into open territories, controlled
by dominant economic and financial interests. Military, intelligence as well
economic instruments are used to carry out this hegemonic project.
Militarization marked by more than 700 US military
bases and facilities worldwide under the unified combatant command
structure indelibly supports a global economic agenda.
Moreover, this military deployment is supported by US
macro-economic policy which imposes austerity on all categories of civil
expenditure with a view to releasing the funds required to finance America’s
military arsenal and war economy.
Military intervention and regime change initiatives
including CIA sponsored military coups and “color revolutions” are broadly
supportive of the neoliberal policy agenda which has been imposed on indebted
developing countries Worldwide.
The Globalization of Poverty
The “globalization of poverty” in the post-colonial
era is the direct result of the imposition of deadly macroeconomic reforms
under IMF-World Bank jurisdiction. The Bretton Woods institutions are
instruments of Wall Street and the corporate establishment.
The time path of these reforms –which has led to a
process of global economic restructuring– is of crucial significance. The early
1980s marks the onslaught of the so-called structural adjustment
program (SAP)under the helm of the IMF and the World Bank. “Policy
conditionalities” largely directed against indebted Third World countries are
used as a means of intervention, whereby the Washington based International
Financial Institutions (IFI) impose a set menu of deadly economic policy
reforms including austerity, privatization, the phasing out of social programs,
trade reforms, compression of real wages, etc.
It is worth noting that a parallel process of
neoliberal economic reform –which largely consisted in privatizing as well
gradually dismantling the welfare state– was instigated in the 1980s in the US
and Britain under what was described as the Reagan-Thatcher era.
Post-Cold War Era Reforms
A second phase of economic restructuring commences at
the end of the Cold War with drastic economic reform packages imposed on
Eastern Europe and the Baltic States, the Balkans as well as on the constituent
republics of the former Soviet Union (e.g. Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan).
Concurrently in Western Europe the Maastricht
Treaty –which came into force in 1993– was imposed on the member
states of the European Union. What was referred to as the The
Maastricht criteria (or convergence criteria) which eventually
led to the formation of the eurozone largely consisted in imposed the
neoliberal policy agenda on the EU member states. These Maastricht
criteria also served to derogate the sovereignty of individual member states.
Maastricht is a structural adjustment program (SAP) in
disguise. Essentially Maastricht and the subsequent instatement of the eurozone
contributed to paralyzing national monetary policy, foreclosing the use of
internal public debt operations as an instrument of national economic
development. The requirements of budgetary austerity imposed under the
“Maastricht criteria” limited EU member states ability to finance their social
programs leading to the gradual demise of the post World War II welfare state.
The public debt is taken over by the European Central Bank (ECB) as well as
private creditors. The longer term impacts are mounting external debts as
well as debt conditionalities and the repayment of debt from the proceeds of an
extensive privatization program.
It should be mentioned that this phase of
restructuring also coincides with the inauguration of the World Trade
Organization (1995) and the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) which has been conducive to a dramatic
transformation of the North American economic landscape, leading to the
demise of regional and local level economies throughout North America.
In turn, the 1990s coincides with an extension and
expansion of NATO, including massive “defense” expenditures which are not the
object of neoliberal austerity measures. In fact quite the opposite.
Neoliberalism feeds the Military Industrial Complex.
What is at stake is the “Thirdworldization” of the
so-called developed countries leading to mass unemployment in several EU
countries including Spain, Portugal and Greece, whose economies are now
subjected to same IMF style reforms as those applied in Third World countries.
What this signifies is that the Globalization of Poverty has extended its grip,
leading to the impoverishment not only of the former Soviet block countries and
the Balkans but also of the so-called high income countries of Western Europe.
More generally, the 1990s coinciding with NATO’s
“humanitarian” war against Yugoslavia is the launchpad of NATO’s military
buildup as well as the globalization of NATO beyond it’s North Atlantic
boundaries in the post Cold War era.
The Asian crisis of 1997-98 also marks an important threshold in the
evolution of the neoliberal economic framework, pointing to the ability through
speculative manipulations of foreign exchange and commodity market to literally
destabilize the national economy of targeted countries. In this regard,
institutional speculators have now the ability of artificially pushing up the
price of food staples, or pushing up or down the price of crude oil.
The Global Cheap Labor Economy
The neoliberal agenda characterized by the imposition
of strong “economic medicine” (austerity measures, freeze on wages, privatisation,
repeal of social programs) has in the course of the last 30 years supported the
extensive delocation of manufacturing to cheap labor (low wage) havens in
developing countries. It has also served to impoverish both the developing and
developed countries.
“Poverty is good for business.” It promotes the supply
of cheap labor commodities worldwide in industry as well as in sections of the
services economy.
This global process of economic restructuring (which
has reached new heights) relies on compressing wages and the cost of labor
worldwide while at the same time reducing the purchasing power of hundreds of
millions of people. This compression of consumer demand ultimately triggers
recession and rising unemployment.
The low wage economy is supported by exceedingly high
levels of unemployment, which in developing countries are also the result of
the destruction of the regional and local production not to mention the
destabilization of the rural economy. This “reserve army on unemployed” (Marx)
contributes to keeping wages down to their bare minimum.
China is the most important haven of cheap labor
industrial assembly with 275 million migrant workers (according to official
Chinese sources). Ironically, the West’s former colonies, as well as countries
which are the victims of US military aggression and war crimes (e.g. Vietnam,
Cambodia, Indonesia) have been transformed into cheap labor havens. The
conditions prevailing in the aftermath of the Vietnam war were in large part
instrumental in the imposition of the neoliberal agenda starting in the early
1990s.
Cheap labor is also exported from impoverished
countries (India, Bangladesh, Philippines, Indonesia, etc) and used in
the construction industry as well as in the services economy.
High levels of unemployment serve to maintain wages at
an exceedingly low levels
Aggregate Demand
This global economic restructuring has been conducive
to a dramatic increase in poverty and unemployment. While poverty is an input
on the supply side favoring low levels of wages, the global cheap labor economy
inevitably leads to a collapse in purchasing power, which in turn serves to
increase the levels of unemployment.
Cheap labor and the compression of purchasing is the
mainstay of neoliberalism. The transition from demand oriented Keynesian
policies in the 1970s to the neoliberal macro-ecoomic agenda in the 1980s. The
neoliberal economic policy agenda applied Worldwide sustains the global cheap
labor economy. With the demise of demand oriented policies, neoliberalism
emerges as the dominant economic paradigm.
Structural Adjustment in the Developed
Economies
This generalized collapse in living standards which is
the product of a macroeconomic agenda, is no longer limited to the so-called
developing countries. Mass unemployment prevails in the United States, several
EU countries including Spain, Portugal, Greece are experiencing exceedingly
high levels of unemployment. Concurrently, the revenues of the middle class are
being compressed, social programs are privatised, social safety nets including
unemployment insurance benefits and social welfare programs are being
curtailed.
Underconsumption
The generalized collapse of purchasing power is
conducive to a recession in the consumer goods industry. Commodity
production is not geared towards the basic necessities of life (food, housing,
social services, etc) for the majority of the World’s population. There is a
dichotomy between “those who work” in the cheap labor economy and “those who
consume”.
The fundamental injustice of this global economic
system is that “those who work” cannot afford to purchase what they produce. In
other words, neoliberalism does not promote mass consumption. Quite the
opposite: the development of extreme social inequalities both within and
between countries ultimately leads to recession in the production of necessary
goods and services (including food, social housing, public health, education).
The lack of purchasing power of “those who produce”
(not to mention those who are unemployed) leads to a collapse in aggregate
demand. In turn, there is surge in the demand for “high end luxury consumption”
(broadly defined) by the upper income strata of society.
Weapons and Luxury Goods. The Two Dynamic Sectors of
the Global Economy
Essentially, while global poverty contributes to
underconsumption by the large majority of the World’s population, the driving
force of economic growth are the upper income markets (deluxe brand names,
travel and leisure, luxury cars, electronics, private schools and clinics,
etc).
The global cheap labor economy triggers poverty and
underconsumption of necessary goods and services.
The two dynamic sectors of the global economy are
1. Production for the upper income strata of society.
2. The production and consumption of weapons, namely
the military industrial complex.
Neoliberal policy is conducive to the
development of a global cheap labor economy which triggers decline in the
production of necessary consumer goods (Marx’s Department IIa).
In turn, the lack of demand for necessary goods and
services triggers a vacuum in the development of social infrastructure and
investments (schools, hospitals, public transportation, public health, etc) in
support of the standard of living of the large majority of world population.
The global cheap labor economy alongside the
restructuring of the global financial apparatus creates an unprecedented
concentration of income and wealth which is accompanied by the dynamic
development of the luxury goods economy (broadly defined) (Marx’s Department
IIb) .
Department III in the contemporary global economy is the production
of weapons, which are sold Worldwide largely to governments. This sector of
production in the US is dominated by a handful of large corporations including
Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, British Aerospace, Boeing, et al.
While neoliberal policies require the imposition of
drastic austerity measures, the latter apply solely to the civilian sectors of
government spending. State funding of advanced weapons systems is not the
object of budgetary constraints.
In fact, the austerity measures imposed on health,
education, public infrastructure, etc, are intended to facilitate the financing
of the war economy, including the military industrial complex, the regional
command structure consisting of 700 US military facilities Worldwide, the
intelligence and security apparatus, not to mention the development of a new
generation of nuclear weapons which is the object of a one trillion dollar
allocation by the US Treasury to the US Defense Department. This money is
ultimately trickles down to the so-called defense contractors, which constitute
a powerful political lobby.
The reproduction of this global economic system is
dependent upon the growth and development of two major sectors
(departments): the Military Industrial Complex and the Production
of High Income and Luxury Consumption.
High income luxury consumption for the upper social
strata is combined with the dynamic development of the weapons industry and the
war economy. This duality is what generates exclusion and despair.
It can only be broken and dispelled through the
criminalization of war, the closure of the weapons industry and the repeal of
the gamut of neoliberal policy instruments which generate poverty and social
inequality.
How to Reverse The Tide of War and Globalization
The people’s movement had been hijacked. The antiwar
movement is defunct. The civil society organisations which have all the
appearances of being “progressive” are creatures of the system. Funded
by corporate charities linked to Wall Street, they form part of a
politically correct “Opposition” which acts as “a spokesperson for civil
society”.
But who do they represent? Many of the “partner NGOs”
and lobby groups which frequently mingle with bureaucrats and politicians, have
few contacts with grass-roots social movements and people’s organisations. In
the meantime, they serve to deflect the articulation of “real” social movements
against the New World Order.” While the neoliberal paradigm is the focus of
their attention, the broader issues of war and regime change
are rarely addressed.
The programs of many NGOs and people’s movements rely
heavily on funding from both public as well as private foundations including
the Ford, Rockefeller, McCarthy foundations, among others.
The anti-globalization movement is opposed to Wall
Street and the Texas oil giants controlled by Rockefeller, et al. Yet
the foundations and charities of Rockefeller et al will
generously fund progressive anti-capitalist networks as well as
environmentalists (opposed to Big Oil) with a view to ultimately overseeing and
shaping their various activities.
The mechanisms of “manufacturing dissent” require a
manipulative environment, a process of arm-twisting and subtle cooptation of
individuals within progressive organizations, including anti-war coalitions,
environmentalists and the anti-globalization movement.
The objective of the corporate elites has been to
fragment the people’s movement into a vast “do it yourself” mosaic. War and
globalization are no longer in the forefront of civil society activism. Activism
tends to be piecemeal. There is no integrated anti-globalization anti-war
movement. The economic crisis is not seen as having a relationship to the US
led war.
Dissent has been compartmentalized. Separate “issue
oriented” protest movements (e.g. environment, anti-globalization, peace,
women’s rights, climate change) are encouraged and generously funded as opposed
to a cohesive mass movement. This mosaic was already prevalent in the counter
G7 summits as well as the World Social Forum.
The Development of a Broad Grassroots Network
What is required is ultimately to break the
“controlled opposition” through the development of a broad based
grassroots network which seeks to disable patterns of authority and
decision making pertaining both to war and the neoliberal policy agenda. It is
understood that US military deployments (including nuclear weapons) are
ultimately used in support of powerful economic interests.
This network would be established at all levels in
society, towns and villages, work places, parishes both nationally
and internationally Trade
unions, farmers organizations, professional associations, business
associations, student unions, veterans associations, church groups would be
called upon to integrate the antiwar organizational structure. Of crucial
importance, this movement should extend into the Armed Forces as a means to
breaking the legitimacy of war among service men and women.
The first task would be to disable war propaganda
through an effective campaign against media disinformation. The corporate media would be directly
challenged, leading to boycotts of major news outlets, which are responsible
for channelling disinformation into the news chain. This endeavor would
require a parallel process at the grass roots level, of sensitizing and
educating fellow citizens on the nature of the war and the global
economic crisis, as well as effectively “spreading the word” through advanced
networking, through alternative media outlets on the internet, etc.
The creation of such a movement, which forcefully
challenges the legitimacy of the structures of political authority, is no easy
task. It would require a degree of solidarity, unity and commitment
unparalleled in World history. It would require breaking down
political and ideological barriers within society and acting with a
single voice. It would also require eventually unseating the war criminals,
and indicting them for war crimes.
Text of Michel Chossudovsky’s address to the Regina
Peace Council Panel, Regina, Saskatchewan, June 8, 2018.
In this new and expanded edition of Chossudovsky’s
international best-seller, the author outlines the contours of a New World
Order which feeds on human poverty and the destruction of the environment,
generates social apartheid, encourages racism and ethnic strife and undermines
the rights of women. The result as his detailed examples from all parts of the
world show so convincingly, is a globalization of poverty.
This book is a skillful combination of lucid explanation
and cogently argued critique of the fundamental directions in which our world
is moving financially and economically.
In this new enlarged edition – which includes ten new
chapters and a new introduction — the author reviews the causes and consequences
of famine in Sub-Saharan Africa, the dramatic meltdown of financial markets,
the demise of State social programs and the devastation resulting from
corporate downsizing and trade liberalisation.
INVITATION TO THE INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION
FOR THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF NATO
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