US Global Economy: An End That Sneaks Noticeably
After talking with quite a few representatives of the “Western school”, I came to an interesting conclusion. It cannot be said that in the American, British and other higher educational institutions, “Kapstran”, along with their own politicaleconomic calculations, would not have studied the experience and theories of the "enemy" from the "social camp". Studied. They studied the works of Marx, the articles of Lenin and other theorists of the so-called "scientific communism." But this happened, as a rule, with the obligatory reservation that this is how not to be done. That is, people, as it were, in advance, reading these materials, were programmed to the fact that everything stated there was wrong. And this, to put it mildly, is not entirely true.
Deviating somewhat from the topic, I will say that, in fact, the educational institutions of the USSR also, in general, adhered to a similar, far from the best, practice in the study of Western models. Subsequently, including this, ultimately, in many respects had a negative impact on the development of our own economy. I personally firmly adhere to the belief that it is necessary to study and use any and anyone's experience of development or action in those areas where it has shown itself to be successful in practice, regardless of some political sympathy.
But back to our "sworn western partners." If they had studied at least the very “Capital” of Karl Marx more carefully and less biased, they would surely have paid attention to the fact that the development of capitalism in the liberal system, that is, with the so-called democratic method of government, is essentially incompatible with what is called national interest. For capitalism in free form, the main goal is only to increase capital. This is an axiom. We saw confirmation of this already during the First and Second World Wars, when individual representatives of the business elites of the warring states nevertheless carried out secret trade transactions among themselves, even contrary to the strategic interests of their own countries and peoples. In the modern world, we regularly encounter a massive transfer of production capacities to regions with lower production costs in order to increase profits, but clearly to the detriment of employment and the development of the economic potential of our own countries. And also with the conclusion, especially by large entrepreneurs, of a huge amount of capital to various "offshore zones" and other places with reduced tax and control requirements, to the detriment of the tax income of their own states and investments in their economy. All this certainly weakens the production and economic potential of donor countries, which, as a rule, are now developed powers of the Western world. It also increases their vulnerability to environmental factors.
Although this is not at all the complete prerogative of the West, it is a general trend of big business in general. Russia, through the efforts of some "especially gifted marketers" who were in power in the nineties, also went into the liberal-capitalist stream of development. And now look at the Abramovichs, Deripasok, Grefov and similar figures. These people seem to be considered great representatives of Russian business. But where is the bulk of their capital? How dependent are they on outside pressure? Are they capable, as top representatives of huge nationally significant corporations, to solve nationally significant problems if they contradict the interests of their capital? Yes, of course not! It is enough to look at the recent story with Rusal, or try to answer the question “Why are there no Sberbank branches in the Russian Crimea?” Moreover, in pursuit of superprofits, having integrated into this same “global system”, and periodically already “receiving on the head” from even more powerful external players, these citizens immediately turn to this very state for help, from which they withdraw capital and to which they underpay taxes, motivating this with the “social significance” of their enterprises. And they receive this very help, thanks to the methods described below for the influence of big capital on power. Here, in my opinion, the question already arises as to how acceptable and how beneficial is it for the Russian state to find such enterprises in private hands? But this is a slightly different topic.
But let's go further. Perhaps even more dangerous is precisely the increasing possibility of the influence of big capital on government bodies. In a world where everything is sold and everything is bought, capital has every opportunity to influence the so-called democratic institution of formation of the governing bodies of the state. Through the media, direct subsidies to various movements or organizations, political parties, etc., not to mention ordinary corruption, direct and indirect pressure is exerted on the electoral masses. And they, then, in the course of the election process, lead to power, in fact, just the people who need capital. In this way or the way of the so-called “lobbying”, which, from my point of view, is just a beautiful name for all the same corruption, big capital “pushes” already at the state level favorable decisions and laws that, again, often do not correspond to the real interests of the peoples and states in which all this is happening.
It is as a result of all this, in the Western world in general, and in the United States of America in particular and in the most significant form, today we see an extremely entertaining picture: the interests of giant corporations, which, in fact, are the pillars of the greatness of the American economy, at this stage of development are already they simply run counter to the interests of the United States itself as a state. This, apparently, is well understood by the 45th American President Donald Trump, who unexpectedly for many suddenly climbed onto the "political Olympus" of the overseas superpower not from among their local established "political elite", but from real business. He, as a clear nationalist and patriot of his country, from the very beginning of his presidency, really tries to take all possible steps to return capital and real production to the territory of the United States itself. He is trying to limit the dependence of his state on products imported from outside, and those who earn huge profits on these imports, wants to force them to share with the state the way of paying taxes and import duties. But these timid attempts to remove the state from the tenacious "tentacles of globalism", most likely, will not be able to radically influence the situation. The mutual guarantee of transnational monopolies has long and firmly linked practically all spheres of the economy, as well as the domestic and foreign policy of the United States. And this whole machine is now, in fact, working against its own legitimate president, sabotaging his activities with all its might, and trying to discredit and limit his rights as much as possible. And no matter how much Trump would like this, it will no longer be possible to revive the once-strongest national economy of his country in the world, precisely in national status.
And in Russia, too, the "first bells" of globalism are already heard - for example, the story of gas prices, which rose sharply due to the fact that Russian oil companies were simply more profitable to sell their products on the foreign market at a higher price than to provide the necessary fuel own country. What it is? And this is a direct harm to national interests from globalism. And the absence of Sberbank units in Crimea is the same. Mr. Gref is much more interested in the profits of his company's subsidiaries abroad, which may be at risk due to sanctions, than the development of financial services in his own country. Moreover, these “daughters” with “Sberbank” have only the name and the initial infusion of capital, the rest are purely foreign legal entities. That is, the state of the Russian sense from them, in fact, zero. This is all very unpleasant. But nevertheless, this is less unpleasant than when the own, in fact, national bank, which controls the issue of money in the country, and representatives of the legislative branch openly boycott the economic policy of its president. And this is precisely what is happening now in the USA, in a country with a presidential system of government, mind you. And the money is not some piastres, lira or hryvnias there, and not even respected Swiss francs, for example, it is essentially the only world currency at the moment, the blood in the body of the global economy is the American dollar.
In the very beginning of the eighties, when they decided to “untie” the dollar from the gold equivalent, this, apparently, seemed to the Americans a genius idea. After all, only they printed dollars, and their value, in fact, was supported by the economy of the rest of the world. That is, it would seem, print as much as you want, and you will be the richest in the world! In fact, this has been the case for a rather long period of time. But by the beginning of the XXI century, it turned out for the United States that this state itself had practically lost control of its own currency. Its value and volume of emissions are now determined by the stock games of huge multinational financial corporations, and an organization called the US Federal Reserve, which, despite its name, is by no means state, but is a complex symbiosis of several private banking structures. And the US Treasury, in fact, simply physically fulfills the order of the Federal Reserve to issue paper money in the volume it needs. I will not analyze the complex system of distribution of financial flows in the USA here, but the result of the functioning of this system is that today in America there are a sufficiently large number of super-rich corporations and banking houses, while the state itself has absolutely space-sized debt, the repayment of which is already even in theory it is not possible. The US state economy is a huge “soap bubble”, due to some inertia it still persists, contrary to all the common laws of capitalism and market relations, the standard of which America is allegedly a reference. And this is known to the whole world. Giant American corporations are only nominally American. This capital has long been "globalized", having lost nationality, and began to live its own life, directly according to the laws of Marx. Initially promoting the ideas of globalism, the USA had as its ultimate goal the subjugation of the entire world economic system, but ignored the basic principles of capital development. And it played a cruel joke with them. Now the American state itself, with all its power and power structures, living, in fact, on the credit money of transnational corporations and completely dependent on them, has become just a powerful tool to suppress competition around the world in the hands of all the same corporations.
Huge amounts of money, in the form of so-called securities, turn around daily on world stock exchanges. Recently, just this, and not production and real commodity circulation, has been the most powerful source of profits. The bulk of the money is no longer made from goods, and in most cases, the ultimate goal of bargaining is not some material substance, but a banal “fat”. Money makes money, it is also a carryover, that is, property, and the purpose of the transaction. Some real product is often just a fiction, a bargaining tool, but not a real goal. “Future contract” - futures for oil not yet extracted or orange juice, for which oranges have not yet grown, are already being sold hand-in-hand a nth number of times, bringing profits to their short-term owners, of course, having nothing to do with fuel, not with oranges. And nobody is, by and large, interested in if this oil is actually produced, or a platform somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico explodes from a fire, and oranges may simply not ripen due to the arrival of a cold front. It doesn’t matter, because the main margin from all this has already been received. Various shares in certain enterprises and funds wander around the world in paper form, gaining and losing price as a result of exchange speculation, and their price, therefore, is sometimes several times different from reality. This is called "capitalization." That is, the whole of today's global financial system is also a huge "soap bubble", even steeper than the US economy. But every bubble bursts sooner or later. And something tells me that this one of our contemporary will burst before my own eyes. Not that I really wanted it, of course. This whole system seems deeply immoral and unfair to me, nevertheless, it will be bad from its collapse, I think it will be practically everything living in the territories affected by this phenomenon, that is, to me too. Almost the whole world in which we live and to which we are already accustomed will collapse. And it is always difficult and dangerous.
A reasonable question arises: And who benefits from all this? After all, it would seem that if the system crashes, then it is the backbone institutions - the very financial giants that created it and manage it for their own profit - that should suffer first of all? But in fact, everything is quite simple - their benefits will not go anywhere. All these puffed stocks and worthless loan bonds that no one will ever give up, futures, etc., will disappear, world currencies will collapse, exchanges and banks will go bankrupt, governments will undoubtedly fall, and entire state entities will collapse. A huge number of "investors" will lose their paper fortunes. But for their "reclaimed" exaggerated currencies and painted "securities", these same corporations, or rather their management elite, real owners, have already bought material assets for themselves around the world: large real estate objects, land plots, mineral deposits, industrial, agricultural and transport complexes, technological patents and chains for the production of a wide variety of items, as well as all sorts of little things such as tons of rare metals and precious stones, objects of art and even weapons. So they are waiting for a general collapse, figuratively speaking, with a smile. “The king is dead! Long live the king!" And after the general collapse, everything again, apparently, will have to organizationally resume from the level of about the beginning of the twentieth century, in the form of commodity capitalism, smoothly turning into a stable paper (or already digital) channel under the control of all the same structures that they will already have in their hands even more money, more property, more power and an even larger share of planetary development resources. Voila! The only thing that can hinder the realization of this wonderful idyll of world capital (if we exclude the next global war, which could also happen on this basis) is the same theory of Marx. As a result of the collapse of the existing world order, uncontrollable chaos may arise, and someone in all of this will suddenly come up with the idea of “expropriating the expropriators”. Specifically for Russia - nothing new. It is also not without interest that the poorest and least developed countries of the world, which are still not included in the global capital system or are included only minimally, may become indirect beneficiaries of the impending general financial cataclysm. That is, they are also little dependent on it. Their way of life, in fact, will not change in any way, and perhaps some revival will arise, against the background of the collapse of the vast majority of developed states.
Can this global financial armageddon be avoided? I think that at this stage of development of globalism, it is unlikely. But you can certainly at least try to greatly mitigate its consequences specifically for our country. We have already firmly integrated into the capitalist system, but fortunately, the real estate commodity economy is still the prerogative of our state. And the international sanctions introduced against us, initially with the aim of unfair competition on the global market, oddly enough, also served us well in this, forcing us to learn to work more independently. This also applies to the production, but most importantly, the financial sector of the economy: we learn to live without credit from transnational corporations, and thereby we come out of direct dependence on them. In world history there are examples of the successful development of capitalism in line with the national idea of a particular state. This is the German Third Reich of the 30s-40s of the last century and the modern Chinese economy. An interesting model is also the projects of some countries of the "social camp" that allowed themselves to develop small private entrepreneurship, such as Hungary and socialist Yugoslavia. But this still cannot be attributed to macroeconomics. In order not to accuse me of various mortal sins, I specifically specify: I am currently considering Hitler Germany from the point of view of exclusively used economic instruments, and hardly anyone who understands this topic can doubt that they were most effective. At the same time, in the system of modern China and in the German Reich, there are absolutely identical foundations for building “economic miracles” - this is a rigid one-party, but essentially authoritarian, management system, planned economy, as well as almost complete state control over economic activity and the information environment in country. Moreover, even large private companies are subject to state regulation of their activities in the national interest. Strategically important industries and individual enterprises in them either simply belong to the state, or have its representatives in their governing bodies. This is how capitalism can be made to work for the benefit of its own people.
At the same time, no one forbids anyone to receive even superprofits and even on the international market, they are simply controlled, and in a predetermined (considerable) percentage volume, they are sent to the mainstream of the country and its economy. For example, in the development and expansion of the same own production, or in leisure programs for workers, instead of yachts, castles and foreign football clubs. The latter, by the way, is precisely the German experience from the mid 30s. Russia now, in my opinion, even under the screech, whistle and snot of liberals actively sponsored by our "sworn partners", is still timidly trying to head in that direction too. I would like to hope that this is indeed the case, because this is the most correct way to mitigate the consequences of the global financial crisis as much as possible. We really have all the strength and resources to withstand aggressive external factors. Yes, this is not the easiest way, and in the beginning you may even have to give up something. I understand that these are hackneyed phrases, and our people are already tired of these. Nevertheless, let us look at the historical examples mentioned above - these measures allowed specific states to literally “rise from their knees” and become world leaders in just one or two decades! This is already somewhat not what we were promised in 1917, then three generations asked to be patient, but in eighty years they did not reach the designated goal. This is not a communist utopia, but a very real and practically tested model. Not so completely according to Marx, but without losing sight of its basic principles. And it is quite possible to cooperate with the outside world on a bilateral basis. Without the imposed mediation of puffed exchanges, international foundations, and transnational corporations.
Here you can learn from the sad experience of the United States. I apologize in advance for such a comparison, but, in my opinion, the relationship between globalist corporations and the United States, in this case, resembles the cohabitation of the parasite and its carrier. The carrier of the parasite on itself grows, feeds, warms and protects against external threats, and the parasite, in turn, successfully developing, sucks life forces from the carrier and, in fact, slowly kills it, scattering eggs in the external environment for its further reproduction . This is so that the life cycle of the parasite is not interrupted, at the moment when its carrier dies sooner or later. And unfortunately, the larvae of this infection have already attacked our territory. But the intensive therapy undertaken in time can still prevent us from developing this slowly stealing the vital forces of the state, the worm - globalism. It is necessary to destroy the larvae at an early stage, and then it will be too late - they will suck tightly, as in America. And do not listen to sweet-voiced songs about the future global global prosperity in the soft feather bed of bloated exchange values. In Russian speaking, this is the usual “wiring”, the chance of winning here for our country is approximately equal to the chance of winning “thimbles” on the market square from experienced “scammers”. And the bait and extras, and even the first alleged winnings for the seed - everything is exactly the same, everything is in place. Only on a global scale.
- Alexey Pishenkov
- http://mrdaveyspage.com/
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