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Choiceless Democracy
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| PeacefulWarrior |
Something was stripped bare in the days ahead of the war in Iraq. It was that rare moment in which an actual world majority could see that ultimate chimera - the system - working against them. On the one side, overwhelming public opposition to the war.
On the other: wildly disproportionate mass media support for a conflict (overwhelmingly so in the US and Canada); corporate cheerleading (or, at best, corporate silence); and, of course, the embarrassing spectacle of national governments horse-trading their morality in exchange for protection from the tantrums of the White House and Wall Street. Who could forget 1990, when struggling Yemen cast its UN vote against the first Gulf War and lost $70 million in US aid within a week?
All of it was just a reminder. This is the way politics is played every day, out of sight - terms like "economic war" and "capital strike" are only unfamiliar because they're better known as "diplomacy" and "investor nonconfidence." To see these assaults in action, look to Brazil, the newest whipping dog. At the end of last year, President Lula da Silva came to power promising to narrow the rich-poor gap (wider in Brazil than almost anywhere on Earth) and campaigning fiercely against the International Monetary Fund's globalization agenda. Now, only a few months later, da Silva is treading carefully to avoid an economic preemptive strike from the planet's most powerful banks and investors. His social programs are on hold, and an austerity budget is planned to keep Brazil in the imf good books.
It's hard to blame da Silva; if he wants to see the results of making war with local and global economic powers, he can look to his neighbors, Venezuela and Cuba. For even greater comfort, he might even look to Germany. In 1998, Gerhard Schröder campaigned on popular promises to firm up social welfare. Chancellor Schröder then abandoned that plan as nothing more than pretty rhetoric. International investors had mobilized for a pullout, spooked by the threat that Schröder might govern not for them, but for the voting public.
The effect has been called "choiceless democracy." Cast whatever ballot you like; you have already lost the most fundamental options. Government is only one force, and not a strong one, alongside corporate power, corporate media, the investment elite and the influence of the world's most powerful nations and institutions - all of which cross-pollinate. It's not a conspiracy. It's just business as usual.
Where does that leave the so-called "global citizen"?
The short answer is: frustrated and angry. More and more of us are stretched thin, genuinely fearful that the next tremor in the market will put us out of a job or a home - it seems safer not to rock the boat. Political philosopher Slavo Zizek, who has lived under and studied both communist regimes and liberal democracy, sees too many similarities for comfort. "Choices made by people in democratic states are not necessarily less compulsory, and yet they experience these choices as though they are free," he says. "We have returned to the concept of history as fate."
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/4..._democracy.html |
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| Izzy |
| quote: | Originally posted by PeacefulWarrior
Something was stripped bare in the days ahead of the war in Iraq. It was that rare moment in which an actual world majority could see that ultimate chimera - the system - working against them. On the one side, overwhelming public opposition to the war.
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those countries who supported the war participated, those who didnt were not involved in the war. Occrider had proved the majority of americans supported the war, hence nothing was worked agianst the majority. the same holds true for the UK (i showed BBC polls proving a majority approval of the war, days before the war)
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On the other: wildly disproportionate mass media support for a conflict (overwhelmingly so in the US and Canada); corporate cheerleading (or, at best, corporate silence);
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wouldnt it be financially wise to follow the needs of the majority?
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and, of course, the embarrassing spectacle of national governments horse-trading their morality in exchange for protection from the tantrums of the White House and Wall Street. Who could forget 1990, when struggling Yemen cast its UN vote against the first Gulf War and lost $70 million in US aid within a week?
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im not even going to shed a tear for yemen. if you give up soverignty you will you are left standing for nothing you belive in.
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All of it was just a reminder. This is the way politics is played every day, out of sight - terms like "economic war" and "capital strike" are only unfamiliar because they're better known as "diplomacy" and "investor nonconfidence." To see these assaults in action, look to Brazil, the newest whipping dog. At the end of last year, President Lula da Silva came to power promising to narrow the rich-poor gap (wider in Brazil than almost anywhere on Earth) and campaigning fiercely against the International Monetary Fund's globalization agenda. Now, only a few months later, da Silva is treading carefully to avoid an economic preemptive strike from the planet's most powerful banks and investors. His social programs are on hold, and an austerity budget is planned to keep Brazil in the imf good books.
It's hard to blame da Silva; if he wants to see the results of making war with local and global economic powers, he can look to his neighbors, Venezuela and Cuba. For even greater comfort, he might even look to Germany. In 1998, Gerhard Schröder campaigned on popular promises to firm up social welfare. Chancellor Schröder then abandoned that plan as nothing more than pretty rhetoric. International investors had mobilized for a pullout, spooked by the threat that Schröder might govern not for them, but for the voting public.
The effect has been called "choiceless democracy." Cast whatever ballot you like; you have already lost the most fundamental options. Government is only one force, and not a strong one, alongside corporate power, corporate media, the investment elite and the influence of the world's most powerful nations and institutions - all of which cross-pollinate. It's not a conspiracy. It's just business as usual.
Where does that leave the so-called "global citizen"?
The short answer is: frustrated and angry. More and more of us are stretched thin, genuinely fearful that the next tremor in the market will put us out of a job or a home - it seems safer not to rock the boat. Political philosopher Slavo Zizek, who has lived under and studied both communist regimes and liberal democracy, sees too many similarities for comfort. "Choices made by people in democratic states are not necessarily less compulsory, and yet they experience these choices as though they are free," he says. "We have returned to the concept of history as fate."
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/4..._democracy.html |
i dont belive its choiceless democracy. you know why? because at the end of the day you have the freedom to support who ever you want. no one is pointing a gun to your head and tell you what to chose, what to buy, and who to vote for. if you get enough people to support you view the current democracy will allow for and aid in change. sorry though, im going to stick on my side. |
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| PeacefulWarrior |
| quote: | | those countries who supported the war participated, those who didnt were not involved in the war. Occrider had proved the majority of americans supported the war, hence nothing was worked agianst the majority. the same holds true for the UK (i showed BBC polls proving a majority approval of the war, days before the war) |
check these numbers: USA versus The World
| quote: | | wouldnt it be financially wise to follow the needs of the majority? |
Needs of the majority? The media should just report what is going on--straight, objective, undeniable facts--and keep their own views to themselves.
| quote: | | because at the end of the day you have the freedom to support who ever you want. |
Yes, you may support whoever you want. However, at the end of the day the people with the most power (corporations, apathetic politicians, people with $$$$$$$$$) usually win out. |
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| Izzy |
you're right. however what world democracy does the world have to meddle in the affairs of countries? none, each country has to souverginty to do as it likes, and in a democractic country it usually reflects the wants of the majority.
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Needs of the majority? The media should just report what is going on--straight, objective, undeniable facts--and keep their own views to themselves.
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you're right, the media should always be fair, straight and objective. i was refering to corporate support, they have the right to support whom ever they want.
but then agian if you were to form a majority and started to support those media outlets who you saw as being objective, capitolism will see to their rise. it is because people want to see what they belive in that causes foxnews or al-jezeera to succeed so heavily. as i said no one is forced to watch to news stations. do me a favor and just this once instead of seeing it from the media dictating what the populace gets, view it as the populace dictating what the media puts forth. the former could be a result of a dictatoriship while the latter can only be a result of democracy.
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Yes, you may support whoever you want. However, at the end of the day the people with the most power (corporations, apathetic politicians, people with $$$$$$$$$) usually win out. |
word of the day: interdependence.
once can not succeed with out the other. buyer/seller, supporter/opposer |
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| Renegade |
I think the issue here is not so much about US policy as it is neo-liberal globalism, but the two issues certainly overlap.
When you say "interdependence" Izzy, you have to realise that the dependence - when dealing with nations of highly disparate economic wealths - is usually very much one way. Let's face it, the US can exist just fine without Brazil as a trading partner, yet Brazil - like most of the other Latin American countries - relies heavily on its trade with the US. Now in a truly laissez-faire global market, the rules of "comparative advantage" would kick in here and ensure a relatively balanced trade-agreement: for instance, the US is more capable than Brazil at producing finished products (especially technology based products, and products such as cars that require a prohibitively large amount of capital/machinery to produce) yet Brazil is probably more capable at producing primary produce. So the relationship in a truly free market would be thus: Brazil sells the US primary produce/natural resources cheaper than the US can produce it, the US sells Brazil back the finished products that Brazil would otherwise be unable to produce due to either lack of access to the required technology or the prohibitively high costs of attaining the capital necessary for production. So, in this sense, there is a symbiotic relationship of sorts in a truly free-market global economy: each nation, theoretically, can offer something to another nation that is either cheaper or of a higher quality (and they would then specialise in this production) in exchange for goods they would struggle to produce efficiently themselves. As I said, this is the nature of economic comparative advantage.
However, in the real, neo-liberalistic world, this relationship is not quite so balanced and any claim to "interdependency" in severely diminished. Firstly, there are protectinist policies implemented by first-world nations, economically secure enough to introduce tarrifs that protect industries far more inefficient than their equivelent industries overseas. To use an example, Australia and the US supposedly had a free-trade agreement, where Australia would export beef to the US (which is - supposedly anyway - produced at a far lower cost and of a higher quality than US beef) freely (i.e. without protectionist tarrifs imposed on the goods once they hit the US shores) in exchange for US goods to be exported to Australia without any tarrifs on those goods at this end. Recently, however (can't remember when, though, or if the decision has since been overturned or not) the US introduced a 20% tarrif on Australian beef imports in order to protect US farmers, unable to produce beef as efficiently as their Australian counterparts. By doing this, the US would have theoretically stimulated domestic economic growth (by pumping money into the agricultural sector of the economy) and cut back the trade deficit, by reducing imports (as Australian beef would be made artificially more expensive, causing American businesses to purchace US produced beef instead) while maintaining the same level of exports to Australia. Now you may say that the US had every right to do this (I may not even disagree) but the action results in two hard truths:
1) Free trade is not as free as we suppose and the neo-liberal globalism the US purport to champion is decidedly only implemented where it suits them.
2) The concept of "interdependency" is eroded when we condsider that stronger nations are able to make other, weaker nations dependent on their exports by beginning with a free-trade agreement, affording the weaker nations the opportunity to pursue "competitive advantange" by putting all their economic eggs in one basket (focusing on specific areas of production under the assumption that everything else can be attained by trading away these products) but then pulling the carpet from underneath their feet by introducing protectionist measures which ensure export levels remain constant (as the weaker nations are now dependant on the stronger nations for many goods) while imports are reduced.
So that's how protectionist measures erode "interdependency" but perhaps more damaging to this concept (and to global economic equality) are the policies implimented by organisations such as the World Trade Organisation (who set up global trade policies) and the World Bank (who fund the economic projects in under-developed nations). Essentially, in order to become a member of the WTO and to receive assistance from the WB, a nation must open up its economy to investors world-wide: that is, it must set up a stock-exchange, it must sell it's currency on the world-market and so on. In addition, high degrees of privitization - the selling off of state owned assets to investors, both domestic and foreign (such as "banks, insurance firms, telecommunications companies, tour operators, hotel chains and transport companies") - are entry level requirements. The theory behind it is that all countries are thus on a level playing field from the beginning, each required to trade freely with all other nations and each benefitting from this free access to comparitively cheaper goods and services as a result. The reality, however, is quite different.
Take for example the Asian market of the mid-late 90's. They opened their markets up to foreign investment (primarily private investment) and experienced a short-term benefit. To use Thailand as an example, they sold off state-owned property and company shares to foreign investors and used the money to fund their economic development, much of it going into the construction of hotels and other tourist resorts (tourism being one of their major industries). What they failed to realise, though, is that they were essentially using other people's money to fund these projects, thus the very foundation of their (quite rapid) economic growth was fragile from the very beginning. All of a sudden then, the economy began to stumble and at the very hint of things going awry, the investors started to pull their money out, and the whole situation snow-balled. The market stalled, investors pulled out, the market got worse as a result so even more investors pulled out and so on. Thailand was then the catylist for one of the most catastrophic regional economic collapses since the depression as nation by nation had all the money they'd used to fund their industrialisation pulled from under their feet. 10, 20, 50 years of economic growth evaporated in a few months. All of a sudden these nations were left in a situation where there was no money left in their economy, and they didn't even own many of the remaining foundations of this economy, sold off to foreign investors in the throws of a neo-liberalistic epiphany. And that's the fundamental problem with insisting that these policies are best for nations - their entire development is essentially based on the whim of wealthy investors, who will jump ship the second their investment is put at risk. You can't rely on businesses and corporations to stick around in a sinking economy when there are more lucrative opportunities elsewhere. So basically all the Asian nations who submitted to these global policies were left bankrupt and in a far worse shape than before these policies were implemented. But surely, you say, they could just resist these policies if they have such dire consequences?
It's not quite that easy. Consider, once again, Brazil. The president resists the "aid" of the organisations responsible for policing the implementation of these global policies, and Brazil gets shut out by the more powerful advocates of such policies. All of a sudden - as neo-liberalism spreads its tenticles more globally - poorer nations are being forced to trade on the terms dictated by more powerful nations, or being prevented from trading at all. The dependency is entirely one way - if Brazil doesn't want to play by the rules of "global trade" it gets shut out of the loop, with minimal loss to the more powerful nations, yet at a massive cost to itself (as it is not self-dependant - the US can import coffee from somewhere else, but where is Brazi going to get its automobiles from?). Let me use a rather crude example:
A farm produces primary produce and sells it to the city, so that it may acquire things only the city can produce (obviously the farm doesn't have the means to produce computers or TVs like the city does). Time goes by and the city eventually dictates that in order for this exchange of goods to continue, the farm must open itself up and allow citizens of the city to purchase certain items on the farm. The farm is, of course, powerless to resist because the city can always buy wheat from a more complicit farm in the area, but there's only one city the farm can sell its goods to. So the farm agrees to these conditions and sells off its tractor - and for a while everything's great! The farm uses the money it receives from the sale of the tractor to increase the sizes of its paddocks and to give the farmhouse a long overdue renovation all the while being able to use the same tractor to cultivate the crops. "Wow", thinks the farmer, "what's the catch?".
Out of nowhere though, a drought strikes the area, and the farmer fails to yield as many crops as he'd like. The owners of the tractor decide that using the tractor on that farm is no longer profitable, so they take it away and use it on another more fertile farm. Now the farmer's stuffed: he has no crops to yield and nothing to yield them with! He can't even buy back the tractor because he used all that money to expand his enterprise! So, with no other options left, he goes to some citizens from the city and gets a loan from them. With it he buys a new tractor and his farm is back up and running again. However, the drought continues and the farmer is hamstrung - he can't produce enough to pay back the people who lent him the money. So the interest debts mount up and up and up. So, with no other option left - and with the loan sharks beating down his door - he takes out a hefty loan from a bank just to make sure he can pay back the interest owing on the money he borrowed from the citizens. Even though the drought ends and he can start producing decent crops again, all the profits he makes are just directed straight back to the bank and to the citizens to repay his loans. As a result his farm cannot grow, though the city - and the competing farms - do. As a result his farm becomes stagnant and uncompetitive and everything begins to collapse back upon itself..... all this just because the city forced him to sell his tractor!
Anyway, I think I've made my point. And before anyone accuses me of being a capitalist hating communist, allow me to just say this: I agree with capitalism - I don't think its benefits can be denied. It's just this kind of capitalism (i.e. the neo-liberal kind) that I disagree with.
Hopefully rupert can add something to all this.... |
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| cougar23 |
Wow, that was truly a comprehensive easy to understand picture of the US's economic warfare on the world.
You see, the US uses fear just like any other empire uses fear, only fear based on military power and violence is the last resort. The first and foremost fear is the fear of money. The US knows that on the world stage, money can buy everything. And the US controlls nearly 50% of it, or more. Anyone greedy enough to become a leader of a country has to be greedy enough to sell out his own country in the face of economic warfare. And if you're not scared by the US takng away your money, then the army comes in, and the money the US has is converted into precision guided explosions. And money the US has beleaguers media outlets into shutting up and not questionning its actions. It's like the whole world is under a spell. Like any situation of control, however, it's only an illusion. To uphold this illusion, you must knock out anyone who dares question your authority or compete with you before too many people start believing in them.
Hello, PNAC statement of principles, goodbye UN.
It feeds on the most basic human emotion: fear. People will join your side not because they like you, but because they are afraid of you. And the more people join your side, the more fearful you are so the more people join your side...
As disgusting as it may be, It's really ingenious. America was always the best at doing things in the most efficient way. It's what led to the victory in the cold war. You piss us off, you get bad press, you lose money = infallible chain reaction. Controlling the world through paper and electronic files and a little glass box. Who would have believed it? I guess the pen really is mightier than the sword. |
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| Tranex02 |
nicely written:)
It was definatly interesting to read! |
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| Izzy |
nice post renegade... i agree with you a lot
lots to say but i got to study for finals. :whip: :( |
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| occrider |
I also agree with much of what you say renegade. Especially with respects to trade barriers. As I've stated before, I'm against all trade barriers in the sense that they only pass on the costs to the consumer and they encourage inefficient industry. Japan does a similar thing to the US with respects to the automobile industry. Did you ever wonder why the Japanese auto industry has so thoroughly permeated the US markets whereas the Japanese market for US cars is virtually non-existent? It's a comparartive level of technology so one would expect some Japanese to favor American cars. However, the import costs drive up the price of American vehicles such that it is essentially a closed market.
Out of curiosity Renegade, what alternative would you propose for the current global market? Would you advocate the abolishment of the IMF or World bank, or a tierred approach to developing countries? Additionally when we're talking about globalization it isn't just America ... it's G8. |
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| AnotherWay83 |
| great posts renegade and cougar :D |
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| PeacefulWarrior |
| It's also probably worth looking at the handful of countries that have managed to build succesful economies since the 1950's. Take for example South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. South Korea and Taiwan followed strongly protectionist industrial policies, very much in conflict with the ideology of the Washington Concensus. High protective tarriffs were raised around "infant industries," and once the industires were ready to compete internationally, only then were the tarrifs lowered. As already mentioned, a similar paradigm is followed by the US. South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore also managed to successfully impose laws that required investors to buy locally produced components when possible and consistently cut better deals for the transfer of technical skills to their own workers. Capital controls, which impede the amount of money going in and out a country were established and followed. In other words, these countries ensured a level playing field for themselves mainly by acting in opposion to many free trade policies. |
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| Renegade |
| quote: | | Out of curiosity Renegade, what alternative would you propose for the current global market? |
Good question actually. My problem is that I'm economically literate enough to understand these sorts of forces, but probably not skilled enough to create solutions of my own (how's that for a cop-out? ;)). Nonetheless, there are several areas of neo-liberal globalism that need to be addressed, and this is a start:
http://www.globalexchange.org/econo...emocratize.html
In fact this site itself is a good start to read about the sorts of things I'm talking about :
http://www.globalexchange.org/economy/
A bit left-wing, but worth a read.
| quote: | | Would you advocate the abolishment of the IMF or World bank, or a tierred approach to developing countries? |
I'm not sure that their abolishment is necessary (I have no problems with organisations overseeing international trade) but as I said, there are issues with their policies that need to be addressed. The problem is, these organisations police trade, bur who's policing the police? Who are these organisations accountable to if it can be established that their policies promote the increased welfare of first-word countries at the denigration of developing countries?
Also, what do you mean by advocating a "tiered approach to developing countries"?
| quote: | | Additionally when we're talking about globalization it isn't just America ... it's G8. |
Agree completely. Sorry, I should have made it clear that it was developed nations in general that I was talking about - I use the US only as an example (as the largest proponent of free-market capitalism and this form of globalism). |
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