The other day during a facebook discussion among several people, the issues of communism and crony capitalism were mentioned. One woman who claimed to have a degree in Political Science responded with the standard definition that has been burned into the brains of Americans: communism is an economic system in which the government owns and controls the means of production. My response was that the economic system does not exist outside of the political system so what we are really talking about is power – who has it and how they are using it.
Crony capitalism which is actually corporatism is the merger of political power between business and government for the economic benefit of business owners. It should be noted however that not all business owners are equal. The wealthiest business owners win because they can buy more political power than less wealthy business owners.
From the point of view the average citizen, there is no difference between corporatism and communism. The average citizen can’t buy any political power so he loses his voice in both the political and economic systems reducing his position in society to merely a factor of production – a worker and workers are fungible. To maintain any kind of legitimacy with the people who vote politicians into office, the government is obligated to “create jobs” – meaningless and unproductive though they may be.
Decay of the Nation-State
It is a maxim that if you fight with the king, you have to kill the king. Globalization is the process of transferring sovereignty to international bodies in effect, creating a new king. The creation of a new king at the international level means that national kings have to die. In other words, national governments have to die as the international bodies receive more and more power. On January 21, 2015, Brent Scowcroft gave testimony to the Armed Services Committee and he said that very thing using slightly different language but the essence of his testimony was the same because “softening of national sovereignty” is just a process leading to decay and ultimately death of national sovereignty.
Scowcroft’s statement should have made headline news. The think tanks should have held panel discussions and politicians should have been incensed by it but none of that happened. The hearing passed virtually without comment leaving the public still scratching their heads as to what is happening to our country. Fortunately, about a week ago, I watched an excellent video about the New World Disorder and the breakdown of the Westphalian system of nation-states that explains it brilliantly. It should be noted however, I do not agree with everything said in the video, just most of it.
So, we have Brent Scowcroft admitting what they did with the international system and what the consequences have been. The second video with highly credible people talked about the same thing – decay of the Westphalian system of nation-states. There is no question that the decay of the nation-state system is causing tensions around the world in all segments of societies.
To add to the confusion, we have military conflict as the defenders of their respective societies attempt to regain some say in what is happening to their
countries with military leaders as defenders of nation-states talking about ideas like the Thucydides Trap. The Trap is a concept described by Graham Allison, the ideas of which pertain to rising and declining nation-state powers – specifically as it pertains to the U.S. and China.
It seems to me that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the world today. Globalization is an economic paradigm in which business interests have been severed from national interests so the rising powers aren’t nation-states, they are corporations. Corporations are economic war machines without loyalty or attachment to any geographic territory. The transnational corporations have more money and power than nation-states due to the international system that was built for them so they can hire their own mercenaries. In other words, they really don’t need the military of the nation-state except to the extent that the free protection saves them money and since politicians are always for sale to highest corporate bidder corporations always have a ready team of cheerleaders and tools for any demands of business.
Two Systems
In the last article I wrote on this subject, I described the agreement that China had with Great Britain and the legislation that Senator Mitch McConnell sponsored to accommodate the concept of a nation-state divided – not on geographical terms, but on economic terms. China as a nation-state has political control over Hong Kong, but Hong Kong is independent economically as a special administrative region. This arrangement of separating the political system from the economic system is the model for globalization. It is an economy for business under a different set of rules than for the nation-state. These international economic regions where corporations rule exist in all the nation-states under different names – free trade zones, enterprise zones, ports, inland ports, etc., but they are all under the same international system – separate international territory under a different set of laws than for the government and people in the territory in which they reside. These separate international territories obviously are what is causing the bifurcation in national interests making it impossible for governments to function legitimately opening the door to government corruption and as a consequence, gangster capitalism.
In the system of gangster capitalism, the gangsters own the politicians. As the system breaks down and corporations get more bold with their extraction of wealth from the nation-state, they are aided and abetted by the people within the government as a way to try and hold on to nation-state power and/or to enrich themselves – get it while the getting is good. The following videos are classic examples of corrupt corporations assisted in their criminal activities by corrupt government officials.
The above videos are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of gangster capitalism. The people on Wall Street knew precisely what they were doing. One would have to be either brain-dead or a liar to not understand that the whole episode was an attack on our nation-state and the financial system proving that you cannot separate the economy from the political system and have the political system survive. They are the twin foundations upon which everything else depends. As you think about that, watch this video. Do you think anybody in that room was hurt by the corporate corruption that nearly destroyed the economy?
See if any of these stories about Australia sound familiar:
10 Comments
Kristin
As per usual, brilliant stuff Vicky- I want you to know, that I haven’t been avoiding reading your posts- just that I have nothing to ADD – only applause. Reading your pieces on what is going on: it is akin to a person suffering terminal cancer, yet has to read everything they can on cancer, malevolent neoplasms and how cells divide and rebel against the organism, until the organism’s eventual death. It’s an ugly subject that not unlike “They Live” – when that one character guy refuses to put on the sunglasses that identify the bad aliens- I have been avoiding your site. It gets uglier and uglier- your research is brilliant and I find it’s never incorrect! very rare, extremely rare to find a mind as sharp as a steel trap especially in these dumb, dark days.
Vicky
Kristin, I do so appreciate you reading what I write whether or not you comment. I do know what you mean about it getting uglier and uglier. There are so many things I could write if I had the energy but I’m wearing down. The blindness in this country is enough to drive one insane. My personal delusion is in thinking that there is a magic key out there somewhere to unlock the minds of people. If you find the magic key – the one critical piece of information, then the door will open and they will understand what has happened and is happening to our country and they will know how to stop it. That’s a deepest darkest secret for you 🙂
Kristin
Vicky I think to get masses to read your writing, is you must make it less “tedious” quotes intentioned. It is by no means tedious to me, or to anyone who wishes to know it all- but it mus be fed in “bite size” pieces at first, then with a link or add on to read the rest of it further, at the end of the page or?. In other words, provide delicious hors d’oeuvres on your page, with grabby images, catch phrases to capture people’s attention. You have a BOOK here- a great book! but people want a pamphlet, a brochure they can scan over & get the gist almost immediately. Listen to Mark Levin on AM talk radio or on his page where he has his archives- he’s very popular, get the flavor of what lures people in. You might not LIKE it, but you gotta appeal to the general public- I don’t believe it’s sacrificing one’s beliefs or tenets, only making a small compromise.
In other words- you’re doing the same thing that happens to most geniuses- they’re not all that popular with the in crowd.
There’s nothing at all wrong with your writing- I merely am giving you a tip on how to appeal to the basic reader- you want to grab them by the lapels and keep them with you. When someone sees your stuff, they know it’s brilliant, and love it, but they don’t have time, so they save it til later- when it gets put off.
I am convinced your writing will go down in history just as many of the well-known thinkers we take for granted today- but were virtually unknown during their time (Mendel for one, there are many historians & political writers who also went unread and unknown during their lifetimes). Vicky you MUST get on Twitter, Instagram, all of the social sites because THAT is where people ARE. A great comedian from radio history(Fred Allen) is forgotten today because he sneered at the new tech then of television. Vicky don’t be a Fred Allen. Also, I wish you would publish your writing- it’s book stuff. All this digital noise will disappear, but books are forever. In the meantime, you absolutely must get on social media sites and get active- it takes work, you need to keep updating it daily if not hourly, and you’ll blow up in popularity. I know it, I guarantee it.
Also I ask you, what the heck is the deal Trump made with China recently? what is it all about? News showed him with a handshake with the old Chinese govt, but they failed to give the viewer what it was all about really. I would love to know.
cheers
Carol Ray
Hi Vicky,
I have come to you for help . Check into what is Stakeholder Capitalism which Marc Benioff is helping to create.. Here is a link to an article concerning Stakeholder Capitalism – https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2019/06/13/stakeholder-capitalism-for-long-term-value-creation/?fbclid=IwAR2aVMKmDleRpPsmlEjj6jn_RvVHRmqNGKhz5GufnJRukIsK0uqumRYQSI4 Take notice of EPIC – “EPIC was formed by the Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism” Mark Weinberger, EY Global Chairman and CEO, He was appointed as Assistant sec..of the treasury tax policy … Inclusive Capitalism is Lynn de Rothschild . Conference was held several years ago Bill Clinton was a guest speaker .
Ivanka Trump and Marc Benioff are working together – Here is an article from CNet – Trump co-chairs the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board, which is made up of tech leaders including the CEOs of Apple and IBM. She told the crowd of over 1,000 that Americans need “the skills that enable them to compete in the long term.” https://www.cnet.com/news/ivanka-trump-is-at-ces-2020-heres-everything-she-said-about-tech/
I also have information on the developing payment system – This was added to the USMCA ” each country will maintain a legal framework for electronic payments consistent with UN’s model e-commerce law”
Vicky Davis
This is a very interesting comment. It sounds like the multinational corporations and their tools are sensing the barbarians at the gates and they can see the guillotines in their future.
I’m definitely interested in helping you. I have quite a lot of information on workforce development (human resources management) going way back. Ironically, I wrote a paper about the problem for a class I was taking in 1989.
After William Brock kicked off negotiations for the Uruguay Round of trade, he was appointed to be the U.S. Secretary of Labor. He commissioned the Hudson Institute to do a report. The report was called Workforce 2000. This report gives you the basic understanding of the problem they knew they were facing even though their solution was idiotic and obviously not viable. Essentially their solution was “more education”.
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED290887.pdf
I’m sure the corporations and their political stooges were blinded by the money involved in the global business model so they ignored the obvious logic flaws in the plans for dealing with excess labor in all countries. Marketing has been their solution. Their problem is and continues to be that people are figuring out that the marketing of a prosperous future is a marketing fraud and so corporations and the Chamber of Commerce are trying to remedy the situation with the Stakeholder Capitalism (better marketing) and Inclusive Capitalism.
It looks like Marc Benioff has become a social entrepreneur. Social entrepreneurship is a concept pioneered by Richard Florida – also a Harvard graduate. They sell Selling. Have you ever been to an Amway sales recruiting meeting? The pros can really get you going – at least until the next day when reality comes back which brings me to another logic flaw. In the selling of the idea of an all technology future, sub rosa, they are selling people on the idea of a panopticon – a future of total control and loss of autonomy, individuality and most importantly, freedom. They are selling the end of freedom.
On the World Economic forum website do a search on the Fourth Industrial Revolution. That will give you more information.
They’ve already developed the electronic payments system that operates globally. It operates out of the Hague. They did it under the guise of an international system for child and family support. The name of the system is iSupport. When the legislation was passed here in Idaho, we fought it because it didn’t make sense in the terms presented. Here is a link to my archive of research. You’ll notice that I was writing and researching at the same time because the legislation came through committee at the end of the session so the research was a rush job.
https://thetechnocratictyranny.com/senate-bill-s-1067-uniform-interstate-family-support-act/
There is no shortage of skills and there never has been. They’ve used that tired worn out marketing spiel for twenty-five years that I know of for sure. What they’ve been doing is merging our system of education (destroying it) with a system of vocational training as mitigation for the lack of jobs. Training jobs is their solution to excess labor. People who are marginally educated can be sold the idea that their failure in life is their own fault – even though it isn’t.
I was going to write a section on workforce development, but if you are going to do it, I’d be happy to supply you with as much information about it as you want.
Kristin
Vicky wrote a brilliant piece (many, I think)on the old site ChannelingReality.com & I remember a comment she made , something along the lines of “compete with the global economy?? compete with whom?? India? THEY need to compete with US” .
This stunned me Ms Ray ” This was added to the USMCA ” each country will maintain a legal framework for electronic payments consistent with UN’s model e-commerce law”
Somewhat apropo of the topic, “Network” was on TV last night. The part about the Ned Beatty’s character (Mr Beale) takes Jensen aside into the realm- and tells him:
” You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet.”
Vicky Davis
The reason I posted that bit of history on Russia is because I have spent the last month or so looking at Afghanistan, Russia and U.S. foreign policy. Why was I doing that? Because I watched a hearing in which John Sopko, SIGAR for Afghanistan testified about the status of the war in Afghanistan. His report was essentially the same as I heard the first time he testified on U.S. government spending in Afghanistan – billions stolen, can’t account for the money, etc., so I went for a dive in history.
This morning, I’m listening to another report by Sopko and it’s clear, what our military has been doing in Afghanistan is workforce development for the security sector.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?463058-1/special-inspector-general-afghanistan-reconstruction-john-sopko-discusses-security-report
Vicky
Carol,
Look at what I found: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/170678.stm
September 14, 1998
Russia’s new Prime Minister, Yevgeny Primakov, outlines his vision of a “socially oriented economy.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/170678.stm
“It must be a socially oriented economy,” Mr Primakov told NTV commercial television.
“There should be no awful discrepancy under which the majority of the people live below the poverty line. We cannot allow this. No capitalist country allows it . . . He said economic development should include the creation of jobs and the payment of wages.
The significance of that can be found in the strategic planning for the global economy (global systems) which includes workforce development.
—-
I’ve been studying the timeline since before the fall of the Berlin Wall through the Clinton Administration (focus on Bill Clinton and Strobe Talbott); the looting of Russia and the entrenchment of a global mafia, money laundering through U.S. banks (Robert Rubin and Larry Summers). In listening to hearings of the U.S. Congress concerning Russian corruption (aided and abetted by Rubin and Summers), I found out that the Russian economy collapsed in 1998 which is how I found these articles. Our economy crashed in the years 2000 btw with the dot.compost bust. In 2004, Treasury Secretary John Snow said that they took $7 trillion out of our economy.
http://www.channelingreality.com/the_coup/Crimes_Against_Reality.htm
Our government was feeding the money to the Russian mobsters who were cycling it back into the United States to crash our economy apparently to buy up U.S. businesses and export them – looting our economy too.
Carol Ray
Hi Vicky,
It has been a while since I first posted the comment above . I wish I was a writer but I was not blessed with that gift . I only do research and then try to pass it on to others . I just want Americans to be aware of what is happening behind our backs .
An organization called RIPPLE is huge into the digital currency – They have a rep on the board of the Federal Reserve Fast Track Payment Advisory Board his name is Ryan Zagone . Zagone is also a member of Better Than Cash Alliance RIPPLE also has a rep. on a IMF Advisory Board Chris Larsen.
Covid-19 is helping to push not only Stakeholder Capitalism but also I am sure you are aware the digital currency – You might find this document interesting plus Marc Carney wrote an article which was published in The Economist just recently and was picked up by ProShare –
“All this amounts to a test of stakeholder capitalism. When it’s over, companies will be judged by “what they did during the war”, how they treated their employees, suppliers and customers, by who shared and who hoarded.”
https://www.proshareng.com/news/Nigeria-Economy/The-World-After-COVID-19–Mark-Carney-on/50515?fbclid=IwAR3BZWIGqIT_UHZW8zKM8jhtQuQtMeyLOjYJJryq3qNeWJJDDyE5Zu3C5DQ
BIS document “Payment aspects of financial inclusion in the fintech era”
look at page 7 of this document – https://www.bis.org/cpmi/publ/d191.pdf
Blockchain and Banks [CEO Brad Garlinghouse ] https://youtu.be/t-BPbhQWlpw
“Look at the way technology is fundamentally changing lives and places like Kenya. Think of this. In Kenya, the phone, your smartphone, our smartphone is that way to financial inclusion in Kenya. The “movement of money cheaper” in Kenya than it is here because of this simple device. It’s more powerful in that jurisdiction than in ours because of regulation and forward-looking regulation. And instead of loading buses filled with luggage that’s filled with cash in moving money in Kenya, they’re now doing it through a fast transfer over their mobile device. They’ve moved generations ahead overnight. And in fact, in many ways, they’re leading the world in Fintech deployment. So, we’re living in a new and exciting era in financial services. It’s actually matched the best interest of consumer protection with the demands of global smartphone-led revolution that we, as consumers, are driving. Now, that’s what’s happening in the real world. ” https://youtu.be/fzcNBrgvbjA
Vicky Davis
Thank you Carol. I’ll take a look at the info you brought forward. While I’m doing that, you might want to take a look at this interesting report I found on the University of Toronto’s G7 archive. This was in the section on reports from the Finance Ministers.
http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/finance/2019-Gates%20Foundation%20DFI%20Report_ENG.pdf