Globalisation is the Code for Rampant
Capitalism
submitted by George
Anthony (17/06/06)
When Sean O’Casey put the words
“The whole country is in a state of chaos”, into the mouth
of Boyle, in his play Juno and the Paycock, he was paraphrasing Marx’s
description of Capitalism as the epoch of uncertainty. Indeed it is
never more painfully obvious than it is today.
The mistakes of the past, rather than being learnt are being repeated
over and over again. One doesn’t have to go back to the decline
and fall of the Roman Empire or even the defeat of the Spanish Armada
at the height of Spain’s power. The thrashing suffered by the
massive American war machine at the hands of the Vietnamese is sufficient.
Perhaps it’s because Bush, described as the worst president
in history, is at the helm of American politics; or that the US economy
has the biggest budget deficit in history(currently $900 billion),
that makes them so desperate to maintain their hegemony; that the
neo-cons hold sway because the Declaration of Independence of 1776,
no longer has any relevance in today’s world of rapacious globalisation.
Perhaps it’s because the history of America is soaked in blood,
first in the destruction of the native American Indian way of life,
the murderous use of African slaves to work the cotton plantations
and the Klu Klux Klan grip on power in the Southern states by lynching,
continues a habit they can’t get out of.
That their history is short, and that they lack the knowledge that
goes with experience is often offered up as excuse; for in these days
of instant communication, their inhumanity is plain for all to see.
Whereas the evils committed by William the Conqueror for instance,
after the invasion of 1066, when murder and ethnic cleansing was a
commonplace, is all accepted as part of the growing up of a new, British
nation.
The British ruling class,
nowadays have a more subtle way of oppression, at least at home, but
not in Iraq, where license to kill is how they maintain control. For
both the US and UK hegemony’s rely more and more on the diversion
and distortion supplied by the media to get by. John Pilger can fulminate
in the Morning Star and the New Statesman against capitalism and its
attendant evils, but the Sun, the Daily Mail and the News of the World
call the shots when it comes to how the voters show their preference.
Yet, the truth as they say, has a way of filtering into the daylight.
For however much the media tries to cover up the “nexus between
man and man being reduced to a naked self interest and a callous cash
payment” it is continually surfacing to display the Achilles
Heel of Capital.
For instance at the trial of Enron, when the government prosecutor
accused Lay and Skilling of “accounting tricks, fiction, trickery,
hocus-pocus, misleading statements, half-truths, omissions and outright
lies,” in spite of their enormous wealth, friends in high places,
and their protestations of innocence; the jury found them guilty.
In fact, all the swindlers and fraudsters in today's news proclaim
their innocence, and swear like Enron that they will appeal. Not one
admits to being guilty, because after all, they’re only doing
what every Capitalist eventually does, to maintain their hold on more
and more profit.
A few examples of recent months illustrate the point.
Australia's biggest rogue trading scandal
of $272 million by two foreign exchange dealers, who engaged in unauthorised
trading and falsely inflating profits to hide losses.... “smoothing”-
shifting profits and losses from one day to another - was found to
be a common practice at the National Australian Bank.
Companies-Financial Times 29 May 2006.
Carousel fraud involves a chain of cross-border
purchases, typically of small, high-value items such as computer chips
or mobile phones. In its simplest form, a fraudster obtains a VAT
registration to acquire goods free of VAT from a trader in another
EU state. The goods are sold on at a price which includes VAT and
the seller disappears without paying to the tax authority the VAT
which was paid by their customers. In the carousel version of the
fraud, the goods are sold through a series of transactions before
being exported to another member state, after which they may be re-imported
to the UK. Since the fraud involves the export and re-import of the
same item several times, it also distorts the trade figures by inflating
both exports and imports.
Financial
Times 11 May 2006.
UK fraud prosecutions in the past 6 months have reached the highest
recorded level with the money involved for a decade. In the second
half of 2005, 134 cases came to court, with the alleged frauds worth
£693 million. That compared with 88 frauds in the first six
months of 2005 and valued at £249 million. Overall, 222 fraud
cases in 2005 had a value of £942 million. In 2004 there were
174 cases worth £29 million.
Financial
Times 30 January 2006.
Three former Ahold executives recently received suspended prison sentences.
Two for nine months, suspended for two years, and one for 4 months
suspended for two years, and fined a total of $860,000 for their part
in a 2003 accounting scandal that cost investors billions of euros
and brought the Dutch food retailing industry to the brink of bankruptcy.
Financial Times 23 May 2006.
Japan's Yoshiaki Murakami, who managed $3.6bn
in funds, has been arrested and accused of insider trading in shares
in Nippon Broadcasting (NBS) with insider information that Livedoor,
an internet services group would launch a takeover bid for NBS.....When
Livedoor announced in February that it had acquired a 35% share in
NBS, the share price surged, allowing Murukamai to sell at a considerable
profit. He described his demise as “an unfortunate lack of caution
on his part”.
Financial
Times 6 June 2006.
Below are some statistics of the vulnerable human beings traded for
profit in the modern version of the slave trade.
“Between 800,000 and 900,000 people worldwide are trafficked
across borders each year, the majority of them in south-east Asia,
Japan, Russia and Europe, according to a US government report of 2003.
UK Home Office research found that up to 1,420 women were trafficked
into the UK for sexual exploitation in 1998.
Police estimate that trafficked women, forced into prostitution in
London, see between 20 & 30 men per day.
Worldwide an estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked each year.
Estimates suggest that, in 1990-1998, more than 253,000 women and
girls were trafficked into the sex trade of the 12 EU countries. The
overall number of women working as prostitutes in these countries
in these countries has grown to more than half a million”.
Observer 2 April 2006.
While
these examples are not the worst sins committed in the name of profit,
prompting former TUC General Secretary John Monks to describe globalisation
as “code for rampant capitalism”, they are constant reminders
that the pursuit of money has a corrosive effect on human beings.
In sharp contrast, compare how Cubans for instance, relate to the
people in Venezuela when it comes to medical treatment. Here we find
a completely different ethos being developed. That no monetary reward
is sought, only the winning of hearts and minds for conversion to
a different set of ideas, friendship, solidarity and a new way of
life, i.e. Socialism, is all that is asked for in return. |
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