By Francis Lee for the Saker Blog
When everybody talks of new eras – blissfully unaware of the fact that soon he will be talking of the hopeless failure of capitalism – an increasing volume of business is being done on the assumption that things will continue to boom. A superstructure of such transactions rises above what is substantially sound and comes down with a crash as soon as, under the impact of new products, or increased quantities of new products, recovery and readjustment set in – and the whole process begins anew … (Joseph Alois Schumpeter-1883-1950).
However, Schumpeter was adroit enough to know that nothing lasts forever and that the termites eventually get into the woodwork and carry out their destructive toil. He was also smart enough to recognize that all things which come into the world, have a life expectancy, and then pass on. So, to the question, ‘Will capitalism survive, he answered, ‘’No, I do not think it can.’’ (Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy first published in 1941)
It should be borne in mind that the cyclical nature of the capitalist system, boom-to-bust, has not just been a purely economic phenomenon, it has also been a political, social, and economic process of growth and expansion. Suffice it to say that this growth is both internal and external. The developmental organization does not run in a straight line. Its movement is subject to recurrent cycles of boom and bust combined with concomitant political and social crises which have been identified from the middle to late 19th century to the present day. Different capitalist states developed at a different rate. Thus, the United Kingdom was the first in the race to be followed by the United States and Germany in the late 19th century. During this late period both the US and Germany were playing catch-up with the UK which had established an early lead, not purely in economic terms, though these were important, but also, and this is crucial, in terms of a global empire, which is examined below.
Pure capitalism as such, probably emerged in England during the period of trade and mercantilism in the 16th and 17th centuries. From an historical point of view, economic doctrines and ideas can be seen to have been the most important and influential form of ideology. As with other forms of ideology, the evolution of ideas – and practices – depends on the development of economic forms and the class struggles of the time. Economic ideas do not form in a vacuum. They invariably arise out of the stir and strife of social and political conflict, and upon the battleground of different social classes. In these circumstances, economists have acted as arms-bearers for these classes, forging the ideological weapons needed to defend the interests of particular social (class) groups, who often no longer concern themselves with mere theoretical abstractions. This was the lot which befell the economists of the mercantilist period (16th and 17th centuries) who devoted countless topical pamphlets to the ardent defence of the interests of merchant capital.
It should be understood that the study of mercantilism, trade, and industry was never a merely fashionable academic notion, but rather a clash of economic interests by contending classes. This was seen to be manifest in the writings of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels. (See below). These expansions gave rise to the later development of a more fully developed capitalism which emerged in the 18/19th century.
From Capitalism to Imperialism
India which was at that time the Jewell in the British crown of Empire, was administered firstly by Major-General Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive and early overseer of India. Of course, this occupation of India by the British was carried out and managed by the India Office in London and supplemented by the East India Company – both were purely commercial undertakings. The East India Company, for example was an English, and later British, joint-stock company first founded in 1600. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies and later with East Asia. The company seized control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, and kept trading posts and colonies in the Persian Gulf residencies.
India was long controlled by the aforementioned East India Company but was finally granted full nationhood and freedom by the British as late as 1948. (1) But this process resulted in a breakup between the Muslim minority and Hindu majority with the bitter partition between what became India and Pakistan. Sometime later there came a further rift when Old East Pakistan broke with West Pakistan and established the separate state of Bangladesh. Other British states in the area were Burma, Singapore and Hong Kong So much for the British/Indian Eastern Empire.
Further British imperial expansions were concentrated in Africa being established by Cecil Rhodes and the British South Africa Chartered Company (BSACC) and the empire, formal and informal, which stretched from Cape Town to Cairo.
The same line of plunder which took place in India was replicated in Africa. Then began the descent of the Euro states into the plunder and pillage of Africa. These states included Britain (of course) Germany, Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, and even little Belgium who carved out its own little empire of the Belgian Congo, latterly known as Zaire. But this was no ordinary empire. On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State by brutally seizing the African landmass in the middle of tropical and mineral rich Africa as his personal possession. Rather than control the Congo as a colony, as other European powers did throughout Africa, Leopold privately owned the region. Colonizing other peoples, regardless of the justification, is of course an outrage. (2)
Cecil Rhodes statue – Oriel College Oxford
Thus, individual, and national capitalist businesses, and nations themselves, competed with each other in order to sustain and expand profitability and an increase in the mass of profits and also unrestricted access to global markets. Moreover, the structures of contemporary capitalism/imperialism, which came into being in the late 19th century and which are still with us – a fortiori – and the competitive drive to increase profitability has not changed since the dawn of the system. The global capitalist/imperialist system has of necessity to expand beyond its national boundaries and relegate areas of expansion to subordinate status in order to extract value from these states.
Not to be left out of the generalized imperial scramble the United States for one, developed into a fully-fledged imperial power and through its acquisitions of vast swathes of territory which it won in the Mexican/American wars, included Nevada, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and, that was just the American internal US buildup of its domestic real-estate. (3)
One of the seminal works on imperialism was written by J.A. Hobson, Imperialism: A Study first published in 1902. Hobson explored more comprehensively and systematically than any other writer of his time the political, economic, and social interconnections between capitalism and imperialism, the effects of imperialism on the conquered peoples, and its legitimating arguments. Indeed, imperialism was the first attempt to understand the politics of western capitalism as it entered the 20th century. Central to the book is the structural change of capitalism whereby both home and overseas markets developed into the imperialist structure of a global system with which to feed the homeland.
‘’In the last years of the 19th century the United States nearly trebled the value of manufacturing export trade, and it was to be expected that if the rate of progress for those rates to continue, it would be able to overtake the more slowly advancing export trade and stand first in the list of manufacture-exporting nations.
This was the avowed ambition, and no idle one of the keenest businessmen of America; and with the natural resources, the labour of administrative talents at their disposable it was quite likely that they would achieve their objective. The stronger and more direct control of politics exercised in America by businessmen enabled them to drive more quickly and more straightly along the line of their economic interests than in Great Britain. American Imperialism was the natural product of the economic pressure of a sudden advance of capitalism which could not find a significant population at home and needed foreign markets for goods and investment. The same needs existed in many European countries and as is admitted drove governments along the same path. Overproduction in the sense of an excess in manufacturing plant, and surplus capital which could not find sound investments within their respective countries, forced Great Britain, Holland, Germany, and France to place larger and larger portions of their economic resources outside of their present political domain, and then stimulate a policy of political expansion so as to take in the new areas. The economic sources of this movement were laid bare by periodic trade depressions due to the inability of producers to find adequate and profitable markets for what they could produce …
This process we are told, is inevitable, and so it seems of superficial inspection. Everywhere appears excessive powers of production, excess capital in the search for investment. It is admitted by all businessmen that the growth of the powers of production in their country exceeds the growth in consumption, that more goods can be produced than can be sold at a profit, and that more capital exists than can find a remunerative investment. It was this condition of affairs that forms the taproot of imperialism’’ (4)
The shifting shape of contemporary or ‘late’ capitalism.
Any attempt to identify the rise and fall of the global ‘system’ of capitalist development is fraught with difficulties. History is usually the best guide to what has gone before and might arise in the future – but it cannot say with any certainty that its prognostications will turn out to be correct. This being said I think that we can situate the breaks in the historical process since WW2.
Starting in 1945 there came the long period of post-war reconstruction and sustained high-level growth lasting into the 1950/60s until the first stutter started to occur around the late 60s and early 70s. This political/economic period was dominated by the United States and to a lesser extent Western Europe. The Soviet Union was the economic laggard, but it had sustained massive damage – in both manpower and infrastructure – during the war period 1941-45 and as a consequence lagged behind Europe’s more dynamic reconstruction. The United States of course was sheltered from the war having the two oceans which served as oceanic moats on either coast.
After the immediate post-war reconstruction 1945-50 and the peace dividend of the 50s and 60s the accumulation process began to slow and started to lose economic impetus. This was to give rise to an inexorable decline of the dollar standard. The fixed rate of the US$ was abandoned and the other currencies were allowed to float against the $. This situation was brought about by the $s negative trade deficits with the euro currencies who simply cashed in their surplus $s which led to an outflow of gold from the US and in inflow of surplus $s back, in the purchase of US Treasury Bills. The entire bloated edifice of the dollar standard resulted from the early 1960s with US government’s excessive spending on the wars in Indochina and President Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ social programme. Something had to give – and it did. Johnson, the Democrat resigned, Nixon, the Republican took over. With inflation on the rise and a gold run looming, President Richard Nixon’s team enacted a plan that ended dollar convertibility to gold and implemented wage and price controls, which soon brought an end to the Bretton Woods System.
In a televised statement Nixon solemnly informed the American public that the US$ was, to all intents and purposes, no longer the lynchpin of global Bretton Woods system. President Richard Nixon, 1971.
President Richard Nixon, 1971.
The New Era.
The Indo-China wars petered out in the mid to late 1970s. The epoch of controlled capitalism, starting with the wartime coalitions and the Bretton Woods system was effectively over. Now a new social and economic paradigm began to establish itself. Keynesianism was now regarded as being hopelessly passe and Monetarism was all the rage. Mrs Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Regan in the US were now calling the shots. The system of free-market capitalism was in the ascendant. It was thought that Markets should be given maximum free rein to make investment decisions without any government interference. This would maximise output and growth – or so it was argued by economic gurus such as Milton Friedman the one-time famous American economist and standard bearer of monetarism.
However, since the end of the Bretton Woods system the putative outcomes of the new theory has not quite delivered the goods promised. Indeed, the years since the early 1970s have been unprecedented in terms of the volatility in the prices of commodities, currencies, real estate, and stocks and bonds. There have been at least 4 waves of financial crises – does Schumpeter come to mind? – a large number of banks in three, four or more countries collapsed at about the same time. Each wave was followed by a recession, and economic slowdowns that began first in the period from 1980s to 2008, to be followed by the covid-debacle in 2020.
It seems an open question as to whether the Covid episode was either cause or effect of the latest financial/economic blowout. Be that as it may, in large part the number of financial market crashes in the last 30 years or so reflects that there are more independent countries, and, despite the fact of perfect compatibility across time-periods, the conclusion is unmistakable that financial failure has been more extensive and pervasive in the early part of the 20th century. More and more the present economic dispensation is becoming a recognisable Ponzi Scheme.
‘’Ultimately excessive debt’’ … which we have in abundance … ‘’resembles a Ponzi Scheme. Nations, businesses, and individuals need to borrow ever increasing amounts of money in order to pay existing borrowings and maintain economic growth. In the half-century leading up to 2008 and now 2020 – the amount of debt needed to create was US$1-2 to US$4-5. This rapid rise is unsustainable, given an ageing population, declining female fertility rates, and unstoppable population decline, slower growth, and low inflation.’’ (Satyajit Das – ‘The Age Of Stagnation’ – p.37).
Yep, sounds about right. It might be a good idea to get yourself an uninhabited atoll somewhere in the Pacific.
NOTES
(1) Prior to what in fact was an outright massacre such events in Britain’s overseas possessions were often routine. Frederick Engels wrote the following.
‘‘The fact is that there is no army in either Europe or America with so much brutality as the British. Plundering, Violence, Massacre – things that everywhere else are strictly and completely banished – are a time-honored privilege, a vested right of the British soldier … The sack of Lucknow (India) in 1858 will remain an everlasting disgrace to the British military service.’’
Written on 8 May 1858, first published in the New York Daily Tribune, 5333 May 25, 1858
(2) The Rape of Africa. Item 1. Zimbabwe: The British South Africa Chartered Company operated by borrowing monies from investments for whom they had to earn by selling or letting to Europeans. Unfortunately for the native population these new settlers expected ‘’to be allowed to run the country’. Neither the Colonial Office nor the Governors had expressly admitted this claim on their part, but the colonial government economic policy consistently favored the economic interests of the Europeans as immigrants and the British Government has not exercised in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) its nominally reserved right of control over the local executive government and the interests of the natives.
(3) The United States had always regarded itself as being in a sense superior to the European states. This, however, was a rather extravagant belief. Its various conquests were plain to see (above) for anyone who had eyes. Moreover, its military involvement in which might have once been sovereign were simply taken apart piece by piece.
(4) Imperialism: A Study. J.A.Hobson. 1902.
Chapter VI – ‘The Economic Taproot of Imperialism.’ pp.71-93.
“Yep, sounds about right. It might be a good idea to get yourself an uninhabited atoll somewhere in the Pacific.”
Don’t be too surprised when company shows up.
In the meantime there are some humble US folks, this could be the Empires new theme song.
https://soundcloud.com/lynyrdskynyrd/gimme-three-steps-2
Every author writing about capitalism should begin by defining it as clearly and comprehensively as possible for its particular use in the article that uses that definition.
I agree. Define “Capitalism”. To me, “capital” is profit/savings from efficient production. “Capital” can also be obtained from “fractional reserve banking”….and that I think is criminal. If you create “capital” from thin air without turning a screw or planting a seed, and make it easy (low rates) to borrow such, you will get investments into many things that fail to create enough REAL capital to pay back the principal and interest. The government then steps in to subsidize those hurt by the failure with tax money, bond and treasury sales, or pure unbacked fiat$. Not a sustainable business model and we witness it’s collapse. Then, war. Don’t have to honor “entitlements” to dead people. Oh, have you gotten your “Jab” yet? I haven’t. Guess they will have to shoot me (again). I survived the Nam war with only two holes in me. They gave me a nice Purple medal and sent me home. I guess they sent me there to steal that county’s resources, their “capital”?
Wolfhound
@Steve Pahs: ” To me, Capital is profit/savings from efficient production. [But so-called] “Capital” can also be obtained from “fractional reserve banking”….and that I think is criminal. If you create “Capital” from thin air without turning a screw or planting a seed, and make it easy (low rates) to borrow such, you will get investments into many things that fail to create enough REAL Capital to pay back the principal and interest. The government then steps in to subsidize those hurt by the failure with tax money, bond and treasury sales, or pure unbacked fiat$. Not a sustainable business model”
You got it in a nutshell, Steve.
But I think the government only steps in “to subsidize those hurt by failure” when they are “too big to fail” ie Socialism for the rich.
@Steve
Your “efficient production” includes exploitation, i.e. not paying each worker what they’ve contributed to profit.
See: Absolute and Relative Surplus Value (altho Marxists themselves can’t agree on definitions, btw)
The point is, before there was ‘capital’ there was only labor. That’s how profits were amassed.
And then we can start talking about the colonial exploitation of other peoples’ natural resources, e.g. Calcutta (now Kolkata) was the richest city in India before the British Raj. By the time they left it was the poorest.
And then we need to understand how after King Edward I’s 1290 Edict of Expulsion (of jews for their use of usury) usury was re-introduced into Britain with the parachuting in 1688 of William & Mary of Orange (the Netherlands) from Europe’s financial center at the time (Amsterdam) & the establishment of the Banks of England (1694) & Scotland (1695).
See: William Cobbett’s excellent ‘A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland
The Act of Supremacy (1534) declared King Henry VIII was the “Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England.”
The traditional protestant narrative of the British Reformation goes that it allowed the nation to throw off the shackles of the ‘superstition’ that it had been held under by Roman Catholicism.
But rather than simply focusing on Henry VIII’s reign, Cobbett analyzes the continuing impact that Protestantism had on the English & Irish peoples right through to the early C19th. Rather than liberating the people, this act “impoverished and degraded the main body of the people” causing great distress, tension and even bloodshed. Think even more recently of the Enclosure Acts (1830 & 1835) in England & what’s known as The Clearances in Scotland where people eking out a meager subsistence on the land were moved off it and large pools of surplus labor were moved into the big industrial cities of Manchester, Liverpool & Birmingham. Now in order to just to survive, they had only their labor power to sell. 6 y.o. kids were down coalmines & men & women were losing limbs in industrial machines – with none of the pensions, insurance, or welfare benefits we have these days.
Surplus labor, of course, allows real wages to be driven down (supply and demand – many sellers and few industrialists).
This is how poverty was engineered amongst people living in a land of plenty.
Similar arguments have been prosecuted by historians e.g. Eamon Duffy & Christopher Haigh.
Great comment. The ultimate absurdity of capitalism is that it demands infinite growth, otherwise how will financial institutions lend money and charge a (compound) interest? This does not apply just to a few corporations, but to all of industry in the form of ever-increasing profits, government in the form of ever-increasing tax receipts, and individuals in terms of ever-increasing productivity. Thus, every year GDP/capita has to be higher than the previous year to pay off the money-lenders and their infernal compound interest: pension funds, hedge-funds, banks that loan out mortgages, credit-card companies, etc… Without growth there is no paying back that interest or even the principal, and without payback there is eventual bankruptcy. Yet I have got some news for the Chicago Boys and other capitalist ideologues out there: infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible, and once all of our energy resources (oil, gas, coal being the big three – forget “renewables” for too many reasons to cite here) become too expensive to extract it will be game over. We will have had a wild ride for approximately 250 years but that’s barely a glitch in Humanity’s 10,000-year History.
When the British arrived in India it comprised 30% oof global economy.
When they left, India had 5% of global economy.
It is still only 5% of global economy.
Draw your own conclusion as to who controls the Indian economy. Which is why it is so difficult for India openly go against the West.
Such definitions should be made, but actually would be useless, because none of them relate to human beings and civilizations as energy systems operating through unitary mechanisms, but rather, such definitions continue to rely upon false fundamental dichotomies.
The dominate languages are overflowing with backward absurdities, such as “capitalism” where money is created out of nothing as debts, which means that “capital” has apparently been created out of nothing. Of course, that is not the case, rather, governments enforce frauds by private banks as achievements of symbolic robberies.
The excessive successfulness of building “imperialism” on the abilities to enforce frauds enabled “money” made out of nothing as debts to be used to “pay” for strip-mining the natural resources of a fresh planet, using the series of technologies provided by industrial revolutions.
“Where to Start” should be with the series of profound paradigm shifts which enabled those series of industrial revolutions. That leads to a radically different language regarding political processes, which would not use terms such as “capitalism” because the standard dictionary definitions have no relationship to the actual social facts.
How can terms be better defined if there is nothing to connect those terms to the physical world?
One can define economic processes better using the languages of energy systems, however, doing so pretty well wipes out all of the standard discourses about politics that have been common, because those kinds of public debates all take place within the frame of reference of using the biggest bullies’ bullshit as the basis for discussions.
Hence, all the nonsense about “capitalism” and its various alternatives, which can be expected to get much worse in the foreseeable future, since the established systems have already reached the point where their imperatives to continue about exponentially increasing fraudulence are reaching ever more flabbergasting doublings.
“Where to Start” is with series of profound paradigm shifts in political science.
Though I have not yet read the whole piece, your reference to termites is very apt. There is a term used in the Australian ‘bush’ that something is being “white anted”. That is sneakily destroyed from within and not immediately noticed as such.
The machinations of our Western WEF inspired, 6th column ‘leaders’ sure fit the bill.
Only the Americans surpass the British in terms of mismanagement of funds.
If a proper audit was carried out on the US & UK Financial Institutions tomorrow, most folks would be praying for a visit from Mr Sarmat.
Pension Funds for one have been raped. $350 & £30 Trillion respectively in un/under funded liabilities, hundreds of metric tonnes of gold-plated tungsten in the vaults and currently more concerned if the lights will be on this winter.
Now the world is under maritime law (civil law). The old law was common law. This is a big difference.
We are now under the law of pirates.
In my own country I can study the history of the Swedish East India Company.
The ruling elite in Sweden got their fortune from selling opium to China… Drug dealers.
Piracy was allowed under Swedish law until 1850. You could get a letter from the king. “Letter of marque”
BUT! Not many read history…
Nothing has changed. Still piracy. One can see capitalism from many ways. There is a healthy “capitatlism”. The local capitalism where you sell your knowledge or products on the local market.
The opposite is the piracy capitalism. The bad capitalism. When you robb under threat and weapons.
The pirates rule the world. And these pirates have now very famous capitalist names. I will not give the names. Many have for som strange reason Anglo-Saxon heritage.
Oh, so famous…
I think you forgot to mention the Dutch? They had a significant role in the “East India Trade” and opium trade….
And the famous clipper ships… Developed for the tast trade with opium from India to China… Was the name of Morgan involved? Morgan as in J P Morgan? Who knows?
And, interestingly. is there any connection to the Royals in Netherlands?
And for some extention… what about the dutch royals connection to nazism?
And for my own country… What about our connections to nazism?
And… all to many connections with capitalism and royals to piracy an drug trade.
Wonder why the “elite” and royals get so old?
It is a sick world out there.
There are two cord blood banks that have laboratories in Kyiv, Ukraine: Hemafund and the Institute of Cell Therapy. To learn more about cord blood banking, visit Parent’s Guide to Cord Blood Foundation at https://parentsguidecordblood.org/en/news/safety-cord-blood-stored-ukraine
Disgusting!
@Frank.
Interesting info about the pirate past of Sweden and Holland. Confirms the suspicious odor I began to smell from those 2 countries some years ago. From Holland, it has grown stronger ever since an Israel airliner spread poison liquid in Schiphol (declared as “Perfume”) and nobody was prosecuted. I began to detect “there’s something rotten in the state of Sweden” only when its Prime Minister was gunned down and nobody was prosecuted; in stark contrast with Swedish “honey-trap” and Euro-wide persecution of lone truth-teller Julian Assange.
“Now the world is under maritime law (civil law). The old law was common law. This is a big difference.
We are now under the law of pirates.”
I had seen this assertion at some places, but what is the supporting evidence?
The United States is the ultimate Common Law country – where the Supreme Court judgments are seen as good as legislation; and that is the basis of the Common Law – that the Sovereign / Legislature is not the only source of law, there are other sources too, like customary laws, etc, and the court’s decisions are binding on the subordinate courts.
A Civil Law country is where the Sovereign / Legislature is the only source of laws, and the court’s decision in one case is not binding on other similar cases.
As for as I know, America continues to be a Common Law country; recently there were protests when the American Supreme Court overturned its own decision in Roe vs Wade, and sent the matter to the State Legislatures, who alone are competent to decide the issue. Still the Supreme Court thought it fit to forget the Constitution and decided in Roe vs Wade in 1971, and that judgment was obeyed by all the States and the Federal government, as under the Common Law. In a Civil Law jurisdiction, whatever was the Supreme Court’s judgment in Roe vs Wade, it would not have been a compelling precedence in other cases. The mere fact it was not so, shows clearly that the United States continues to be a Common Law country.
Since it has been mentioned here, I will say very briefly that I celebrated with champagne and with great joy the sentence that knocked down Roe vs. Wade. Salud!
At sea and among the satrapies the Pirate Law prevails, while at Safe Harbor’s domestic operating base something akin to common law abides, unless this interferes with plunder. There is a conflicted duality. An obdurate Court will discover that the bailiffs do not obey the Court, but the Pirate Junta.
Doesn’t matter what kind of law you have in the US. The reality is that the US is a mixture of oligarchy and kleptocracy. The multi-billion dollar firms (of whatever speciality – arms, pharma, etc.) buy senators and congressmen by the container-load, and they then do what they are paid for, regardless of any law, or more realistically, absence of law.
While technically true the US is still common law, that system has been corrupted by the pirates and now civil law under the U.C.C. (uniform commercial code) is the system acknowledged in most courts. the best resource on this can be found at 1215.org (that is the year that Magna Carta created common law in its first written form). US civil law is based on Roman law which is a rewriting of Babylonian law. Nothing is new, the history is only buried in a heap of lies and falsehoods. the us courts system is in practice a kangaroo court system owned by oligarchs. People are fooled into slavery by deception. we have the same tax laws today as 100 years ago yet only 18% of Americans filed returns because the rest had no obligation to do so. Now we all believe we do. During WW2 congress slipped in a line into the law to let everyone voluntarily to declare themselves as federal residents (live or work on federal territory) and thus be subject to tax. By the 1970’s all states changed their tax code to support that con. You can’t get a job unless you declare to be US citizen, defined in the constitution to be subjects. The people are the sovereign but that sovereignty has been co-opted by deception. It is all fraud. You can only win in the court system by knowing how to stay outside the court system. Common law is no longer acknowledged.
It is quite true that pirates (which were organized by the bankers) govern the world economy. The Infancy of the US was a fight between the local aristocratic governors and the stooges for the East India Company. It is the latter that spent 150 years bribing and killing their way to a permanent federal bank (the Federal Reserve, and private international consortium). Anyway, usury is all make believe and a fantasy for demons to control people through greed. Anyone playing the game loses so you have to learn how not to enter in the game. Meanwhile, the pirates have been systematically destroying all markets they do not control in order to maintain the monopoly. During Covid all mom and pop owned business were shuttered while the huge corporations were given even bigger markets. Truly to win you must cast off your desires of this world. Christ taught us the way. In Him is victory. Meanwhile the demons will encourage our selfish will and try to bring as many humans down with them as possible.
Jay Dyer has suggested that the Spielberg film The Goonies also points to the old families, piracy and opium…
“Operate in enhaced security mode”…
Capitalism at it’s best…? My God! Ukraine of course… Sickening.
Profit in wars. Baby blood, What about organ harvesting? Who knows?
Well, they also sample cord blood from babys in my own country Sweden. Blood that by nature is meant for the baby, tje newborn. Capitalism in it’s finest… Greed. Indeed a deadly sin.
https://parentsguidecordblood.org/en/news/safety-cord-blood-stored-ukraine
There are two cord blood banks that have laboratories in Kyiv, Ukraine: Hemafund and the Institute of Cell Therapy. To learn more about cord blood banking, visit Parent’s Guide to Cord Blood Foundation at https://parentsguidecordblood.org/en/news/safety-cord-blood-stored-ukraine
I discovered a little more of business with stem cells in poor Ukraine. So disgusting!
Stem cells fromm fetuses i guess since they are the very best. Or from newborn babies.
Can someone younger and with more energy please discover more?
Who is involved?
https://stemcell-ukraine.com/
So sickening.
@Frank.
Re: Organ Harvesting, Bio-Labs and the unusually long life of the ultra wealthy.
There are rumours that people like Rockefeller or Rothschild might be benefitting from their second or third transplant (not confirmed AFAIK). But rumours of organ harvesting crop up wherever NATZO invades: for example in Serbia, Syria and now Ukraine.
Russia and China have politely requested the UN to set up a world conference on Bio-Labs, with special reference to an excessive number of U$ funded Bio-Labs in Ukraine, China and elsewhere in Eurasia.
Where to start ?
First nationalize all the banks.
According to Marx, Capitalism reaches the Imperialism stage when capitalist powers find it necessary to fight over markets (which are inherently finite).
Recently, Putin indicated that he did not think that political science is really a science. I would further suggest that Economics is a not a science. At best, it is simply math. Hence, i don’t think that this article is particularly informative.
“I would further suggest that Economics is a not a science. At best, it is simply math.”
Interesting. So you’re also saying that math is not science. Which sounds correct to me.
Also science is not science, at times (i.e. “social science”, “political science”, “historical science”… even “human science”… this crap is no science at all).
Putin is right. Hallelujah, someone sait it, finally!, I could add.
The only real science is: physics, chemistry, and (partially) biology. Nothing else (that I’m aware).
Behavioral science is coming to fore as its relevance is demanding it in the form of the technology of man.
Economics uses mathematics to describe events or behaviors inherent to its field; they are probabilistic and believe it or not they can have a margin of error when they are more complex. Another matter is that he falls into “scientism” and from that sin more “sciences” fall than you imagine.
“Yep, sounds about right. It might be a good idea to get yourself an uninhabited atoll somewhere in the Pacific.”
Or, more productively, a cattle ranching operation in Brasil. Only major problem is the increasing tendency of the locals to view ALL Americans as agents of imperialism and oppression of the working class.
^^;;^^
Morcegão
Francis Lee says,
“It seems an open question as to whether the Covid episode was either cause or effect of the latest financial/economic blowout.”
It may not be self evident to the great majority but a pretext, excuse, cover, reason, validation, false flag, and obfuscation is always necessary to continue, maintain or initiate any action for the sake of political and economic power.
Governments always lie.
How else does a system like a debt based monetary system survive, that Francis Lee descibes as a “ponzi scheme” without constant expansion of the money supply? Every currency unit ( or any other unit of account ) ever created into existence is built on debt as a claim on future energy. By the smoke and mirrors of double entry book keeping and the use of sophisticated computerised financial jiggery-pokery the public is kept unaware and vulnerable to the consequences of the end of such a corrupted monetary system.
I don’t necessarily agree or disgree with everything Greg Mannarino has to say, but his latest article covers the basics. Use of caps is his. Copied with permission.
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A Complete Lock Up of The System Will Occur.
July 11, 2022
By Gregory Mannarino
Why is the world awash in never ending and inflating debt? Moreover, why does global debt keep expanding relentlessly every day, every month, and every year, in what seems like some kind of twisted mass insanity?
What is THE REAL TRUTH behind all this?
The answer is simple, and frightening. The expansion of debt cannot ever stop! Additionally, it must constantly and ceaselessly be expanded on EXPONENTIALLY.
What this means is that the amount of debt being borrowed into existence CANNOT EVEN REMAIN STATIC! It must be expanded on VASTLY every moment, every day, every week, every month, and every year, just to allow the system itself to function day to day. If the amount of debt being borrowed into existence were to remain at its current level, without being expanded on, the entire system would FREEZE UP in an instant.
The insanity of all this actually gets even worse.
Despite the FACT that global debt is continually expanding, there is not enough of it.
As most people who follow my work are already aware, the current central bank run global financial system is debt based, and at its core what this means is every conceivable reason, including things which the average person could not even dream of, must and will be utilized to continually find reasons/create more reasons to borrow more cash into existence. As of late the two biggest machinations being forced upon the people of the world and are currently being used as mechanisms to pull EPIC sums into the now by more borrowing are:
1. Global disease processes like Covid and the various variants thereof, also
2. Expanding war(s).
It’s this crisis-to-crisis economic model which has given world leaders a blank check, spending which is not allowed to even be questioned! As they have turned this upside down on the people of the world as ANYONE who now dares question as to why all this crisis-to-crisis spending is being done is then branded as being “unpatriotic!” Or a person who does not care about “helping” people.
NOT ONE mainstream media source will EVER be allowed to explain the truth behind the crisis-to-crisis borrowing debt expansion mechanism, nor will a single world leader, OR a central banker explain it.
Will it ever end?
YES! The system, despite ever expanding debt, will eventually become illiquid.
A lack of liquidity in the system, despite finding ever more reasons to borrow, will eventually reach a saturation point. This saturation point will, and is already, manifesting itself in the form of skyrocketing inflation worldwide.
The inevitable end of the current debt-based system is rapidly approaching, and a move to yet another central bank run system is coming. A system of extreme control, a cashless system, where every single transaction is tracked down to the ten thousandth of a cent.
https://youtu.be/8vY16huG8G0
What is capitalism in the west?
You are allowed to exploit and become incredibly rich if the real rulers are in on the game and like your politics
If you betray them…then look at Epstein…look at Eccleston now he said the wrong words publicly…he will have to come out on how he now hates Putin and Russia otherwise a show trial will be held like in Assanges case and the moron masses will be taught to hate him.
That your “free rules based society” in a nut shell.
Capitalism and Mercantilism are opposite
Mercantilism ideology go together with Colonialism and Imperialism.
Schumpeter’s analysis explains the particularly strong propensity of democratic states to engage in imperialist war making and why the Age of Democracy has coincided with the Age of Imperialism.
…it is noteworthy that the first instance of sustained global imperialism in the Western world was that of the democratic city-state Athens. it is noteworthy that the first instance of sustained global imperialism in the Western world was the democratic city-state of Athens. Victor Davis Hanson has emphasized this in his path-breaking work on the Peloponnesian War. By the standards of the time, the expanse of the Athenian empire was breath-taking. By the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, the Athenian empire had swelled to “nearly two hundred states run by seven hundred imperial overseers.” According to Hanson, “To maintain such an empire, in the fifth century [B.C.] Athens had fought three out of every four years, a remarkable record of constant mobilization, unrivaled even in modern times.”
https://mises.org/library/imperialism-and-logic-war-making
Why Capitalism Will Win by Gary North – August 29, 2015
Schumpeter was startlingly wrong. Economic growth has not declined. Economic growth was about to enjoy an extraordinary increase. What happened in Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea after 1950, and in China after 1979, has completely and utterly refuted Schumpeter.
The triumph of the Keynesian version of capitalism is so comprehensive that Schumpeter’s prediction looks silly in retrospect. How could he have been so blind?
Almost 30 years later, a friend of mine, economist Ben Rogge [ROWEguee], wrote a book: Can Capitalism Survive? Following the lead in Schumpeter’s essay, he concluded the same thing: probably not. He focused on the capitalists themselves. Schumpeter had done the same. They send their children to prestigious universities, where the children are taught by socialists who despise capitalism as a culture and as a means of organizing production. In other words, capitalists are suicidal. They are cutting off the future of the world they have built.
https://www.garynorth.com/public/14208.cfm
Francis Lee says,
“It seems an open question as to whether the Covid episode was either cause or effect of the latest financial/economic blowout.”
It may not be self evident to the great majority but a pretext, excuse, cover, reason, validation, false flag, and obfuscation is always necessary to continue, maintain or initiate any action for the sake of political and economic power.
Governments always lie.
How else does a system like a debt based monetary system survive, that Francis Lee descibes as a “ponzi scheme” without constant expansion of the money supply? Every currency unit ( or any other unit of account ) ever created into existence is built on debt as a claim on future energy. By the smoke and mirrors of double entry book keeping and the use of sophisticated computerised financial jiggery-pokery the public is kept unaware and vulnerable to the consequences of the end of such a corrupted monetary system.
Thanks to blogs like The Saker and an infinite amount of information available online in 2022, unlike at any other time in history, people are now more aware of the deception and lies, the
illusion of money, and the malignant power structures it creates.
Inflation Is The Kryptonite That Will End Our Decades-Long Monetary Policy Ponzi Scheme
https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/inflation-is-the-kryptonite-that
Money: Humanity’s Biggest Illusion
https://youtu.be/MFO6OtnmEDo
Thanks Francis for this exhaustive presentation of the vision of the world in the minds of economists. I understand your vision but I think that it does not bring us nearer to the question of the title of your article which implies indeed “where to start” to understand the mess we are in today ? .
You write “Pure capitalism as such, probably emerged in England during the period of trade and mercantilism in the 16th and 17th centuries”.
This conception is most generally shared by economists and is distracting us from the more profound mechanisms that enslave the mind to the vision of Modernity and in that sense this conception constitutes the most potent barrier to change.
Your interpretation is indeed unfortunately based on the rationalist practice of separating the holism of life into specialized silos of knowledge. But the separation of life in different silos, like — the economy — social relations — the formation of knowledge — culture — the arts — and so on, separates peoples’ attention from what really counts in the reality of daily life and in the process people lost track of “the First Principles of Life” that earlier had been the foundation of the field of their societal culture.
Having lost track of “the First Principles of Life” the philosophers of the Enlightenment constructed what Alastair Crooke, in his article “The ‘Wrong’ Turning Brings on the ‘Fourth Turning’ ”, calls “a very particular ‘vision’ ” that separates Western Modernity from the vision of the people in the rest of the world. The first volume of my series “From Modernity to After-Modernity” titled “The Continuum of the Cultural Field” is an exposition of how the vision of the West got disconnected from the vision of the rest of the world.
The submission to economic rationality was a cultural choice that emerged in 12th century Frank Western Europe and further spread to all Western Europe’s societies over the span of the following 6 centuries of Early-Modernity (commercial capitalism). And, over the 3 centuries following the industrial revolution, the societies in the rest of the world were in turn forced to submit in order to preserve their existence. Their choice was indeed limited to submission or to death… Today the whole world has submitted in some way or another to the vision of the world represented by the rationality contained in “the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital”.
But the Ukrainian conflict is acting as a vital chemical reagent that puts in motion a human reaction of rejection, by 87% of the world population, of this Western cultural vision.
But as you yourself state “Economic ideas do not form in a vacuum”.
The fact is that Modernity, which is the vision of the world of capitalism, emerged in the context of South-Western Europe in the 12th century and that it set in motion a chain reaction of causes and effects that would result in the emergence of the historical era of Western Modernity which drastically changed the course of world history. See “Pre-Modernity was the context of Modernity’s emergence” in (”Modernity”) .
But six centuries had passed when the philosophers of the Enlightenment (18th century), and in their footsteps the classical economists, thought that it was rational to separate life in distinct silos that were functional to the acquisition and the production of material richness. Yes rationalism emerged indeed from 6 centuries of an ever increasing craving from Western Europeans for the material richness projected in their eyes by the long distance merchants who had converted to this new paradigm. See “Part 2. Early-Modernity” in (”Modernity”) .
@Laodaon: “But the Ukrainian conflict is acting as a vital chemical reagent that puts in motion a human reaction of rejection, by 87% of the world population, of this Western cultural vision.”
I hope so. At present, as an internet blogger, I find myself having to defend Putin’s basically Christian morality by staying on their rationalist-atomistic turf: that is, I say that Putin is simply serving currently acceptable “Modern SW European” standards of “Enlightened Self Interest” for his own particular country.
True Capitalism cannot not exist with funny money.
@JerryW: “True Capitalism cannot not exist with funny money.”
Correct. “False currency drives out good currency” — Gresham’s Law.
Latest buzzword is stakeholder capitalism. Basically same same. Elites(stakeholders either private corp or gov or a mixture ) benefit from each other. Foreign policy gives profit to certain sectors that the richest and a few politicians all just so happen to invest in. Crony capitalism dressed up. Theres always a site that lets u copy congress persons stock trades as they magically seem above industry standard returns.
“It seems an open question as to whether the Covid episode was either cause or effect of the latest financial/economic blowout. Be that as it may, …”
Oooooohhh, beware of conspiracy theories! – Seriously; you remind me of those who, after 9/11, said it wouldn’t make a difference whether or not it’s been a false flag. No need to dare to hit this hot topic.
When do you guys finally come to terms with Covid-19? I know it has been a quite divisive topic on this site but there will be no way around you eventually realizing that e.g. calling Covid-19 a “plandemic” is just accurate.
I don’t want to set off a new avalanche of (sometimes really ugly) comments as happened last year and even less so in times you’re under attack as last week. So if you think this comment could spark something like that I don’t take offense if you don’t publish it (I can’t estimate it). But sooner or later we need to come clean about it.
This is well researched and enlightening, but the oil crises of the 1970ies should also be mentioned. The first one started in September 1973 and my childhood recollections can be summed up with “austerity”. This was the moment where the Arab League had finally realised that it had a leverage on the West. From then on those treaties with the European Parliament in Strasbourg, where a future “Eurabia” was envisioned, albeit without making it public to the then predominantly christian population of Europe. Since then, real estate in Paris (and other European Capitals) has passed into the hands of wealthy Qatari’s, while a steady flow of oriental immigrants kept trickling in. The buy-out of western goods and heritage was covered up by leftist rambling and pro-Palestinian battle-cries. The buy-out of western skills and knowledge to the rising Dragon was equally the result of economic decisions that are suicidally short-sighted. The politicians being in office aren’t up to their task, since they avoid taking unpopular decisions, which have to be wisely explained to the electorate.
Well, including Italy and neglecting the Netherlands to the list of plunderers doesn’t seem fair to me.
Italian colonies have always been laughable, if not non-existent.
Basically the only place where we could have done something is north-Africa, and even there Italian’s dominion has always been preferrable to that of the other predators (especially Britain, France and Belgium), as Lybian situation clearly shows.
Italy also never spoiled local resources as others did, particularly in central Africa.
I’m also quite dubious about the involvement of Germany, whose imperial power outside Europe was nothing compared to its continental competitors.
The only real imperialistic power within the WW2 Axis was Japan.
Also, a wordwide imperialistic mindset has never been the one of Mediterranean powers: that is typical of Atlantic powers (Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands) and that’s not a coincindence.
This is well researched and enlightening, but the oil crises of the 1970ies should also be mentioned. The first one started in September 1973 and my childhood recollections can be summed up with “austerity”. This was the moment where the Arab League had finally realised that it had a leverage on the West. From then on those treaties with the European Parliament in Strasbourg, where a future “Eurabia” was envisioned, albeit without making it public to the then predominantly christian population of Europe. Since then, real estate in Paris (and other European Capitals) has passed into the hands of wealthy Qatari’s, while a steady flow of oriental immigrants kept trickling in. The buy-out of western goods and heritage was covered up by leftist rambling and pro-Palestinian battle-cries. The buy-out of western skills and technology to the rising Dragon was equally the result of economic decisions that are suicidally short-sighted. The politicians being in office aren’t up to their task, since they avoid taking unpopular decisions, which have to be wisely explained to the electorate. Sadly, they lack a statesman’s sagacity.
Where to start? The first merciless phenomenon of pure capitalism may be pointed out in the Czech town called Kuttenberg/Kutná Hora, which was built right above a complex of mining shafts. Everyday the poor & wretched where sent down the shafts by slides, where they in the dark had to search for silver ore. At the end of the day they climbed up along wooden ladders and were driven into the Italian court. There they were stripped of their clothes and searched upon their bodies for silver ore. In the court there were lots of smithies that melted the silver ore. Finally the silver was transformed into coins. When you visit the museum, the Czech guide will proudly tell you that these silver coins were called ‘tollars’, a name from which the ‘dollar’ may have originated.
But next to this pure capitalist money making business there is something else to point at in Kuttenberg/Kutná Hora, what is of true revelance with regard to the origin of capitalism. The rich of Kutná Hora built a magnificent cathedral, dedicated to Barbora, the patron saint of the mining industry, which is up to today one of the finest examples of late gothic architecture. The poor of Kutná Hora had their own church on the other side of the town. Max Weber wrote in the early twenties an eye-opening book about the link between the Calvinist/Protestant work ethos and the spirit of Capitalism. Well, in order to appease their concience, the first capitalists of Europe donated lots of money to churches, whose leaders in return preached the atonement of sin. On Monday the mining business started up again, and on Sunday the rich received the Eucharist. And so on, and so on. When you visit the City of London, just look around and wonder why especially the City is packed with churches…
Paraphrasing Mark Twain, history doesn’t repeat itself, it just rhymes. With that said, a market based system has ALWAYS been UNSUSTAINABLE. As the author of the article had admitted. Nothing lasts forever.
“Yep, sounds about right.”
For those with ears to hear and eyes to see, get yourself near a food supply, harvest your own rainwater & find a way of generating your own power.
In other words, enjoy the fruits (leafy-green veggies) of your own labors.
Because the Elites’ iron-fist has been removed from the velvet glove.
Two quick notes:
The first one is a nuance, and does not affect the substance of your argument, but I don’t think saying Johnson “resigned” properly describes the events of 1968. Johnson relinquished his party’s nomination to the primary process — and ultimately to his vice president — who proved ineffectual and was handily defeated by Nixon. He served out his full term, though I don’t think he was able to accomplish anything in those last months.
The second one is a typo. Towards the end you write “the early part of the 20th century”, when I believe you are in fact referencing the 21st.
All wealth is created by the labor force.
The banks are just parasites, who are authorized to create money ex nihilo as debt to plunder the industrialists.
The Industrial capitalists do at least produce goods that are useful to the general population, but over the past thirty years or so competition has been reduced by means of mergers and acquisitions funded by the banks, enabling quasi monopolies and reductions in the number of people employed. Also profits have been used to buy back corporate shares to boost stock prices enabling CEOs and CFOs to cash in on their stock option awards, instead of being plowed back into research and development and employee pay raises to keep pace with the ever increasing cost of living. Also why is it that capital gains by the rich are taxed at a lower rate than earned income ? The answer is the bribes paid to political parties, euphemistically described as campaign contributions. So called democracy has been usurped
“United States for one, developed into a fully-fledged imperial power and through its acquisitions of vast swathes of territory which it won in the Mexican/American wars, included Nevada, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas”
This steps over the fact that the Founding of America was the most tragic parasitic move made in recent history. These colonial bandits (Founding Fathers) were British cutthroats that ravaged the native Americans before they ravaged the Mexicans. America is a stolen Land, another British colony steeped in blood of innocents. Who would expect anything from its beginning to change? America is a British parasite looking for a new host to take over.
As Noam Chomsky has said “the United States was the first nation in history established as an empire”.
“It seems an open question as to whether the Covid episode was either cause or effect of the latest financial/economic blowout.”
Effect, guaranteed, as is the current SMO in Ukraine.
They are doing their evil best to create inflation. The financial system depends on it.
They will not give up their privilege.
Govt spending and supply side inflation are their last resort to achieve monetary inflation.
It seems both desperate and ominous to me.
Good and timely article.
I just don’t agree with the conclusion: It might be a good idea to get yourself an uninhabited atoll somewhere in the Pacific. Unless the author is referring to the Solomon Islands, which are being protected by China… ;-)