World in Collapse*

World in Collapse*


The World “Tangle” in a Glimpse


Ylli Përmeti



Abstract



While the global “multi-dimensional crisis” is getting worst, in France, “revolutionary” movement lays ahead. The end of capitalism and the comingup of the “ultra-left”, they declare, must come, with the Nouveau Parti Anti-Capitaliste (NPAC) being part of the global storm. The Trotskyist “entryism” is their “trick”. Meanwhile, Greeks, Irish, Portuguese, Italians and Germans of every age, are part of Europe’s uprisings, with Londoners, who have adopted an anti-systemic attitude, against not only of the present measures, taken by the present conservative party, but as well, against the rich, by calling it, “black bloc”. At the same time, the Middle East, is under war and revolutionary rebellion and the West is trying to extend our top-down democracies, by fighting with the army of capital, killing innocent people and violating the sovereignty of the populace, in Libya. Being in this controversial world, our historical reminiscence goes backwards and brings about the years of the French Revolution (1789-1799), which was ruled by the landed property class, big industry, and the banking class. Therefore, having prelude this period, and accustomed by these uprisings in Europe, world’s youths, are the “ring leaders” again.
As a result, the “inventor” of the European Monetary System—Britain, before the present global explosion, was trying to sort out the disaster of the economy, by praying to God for help: Tony Blaire, the new “Pope” has declared his love for God and is trying to ease the situation, by giving speeches around the world in order to persuade people, that the solution is ‘out there’…inaugurating Obama’s fatal by saying: ‘that faith should be restored to its rightful place, as the guide to our world and its future’. In addition, Blair wanted to be the President of the E.U.—without having first regulated the economy of Britain—regardless that he inserted the notion of ‘democratic socialism’ or ‘radical liberalism’ in his political “revolution”. Indeed, Blair wanted to take class out of British politics and simultaneously created the largest bubble in capitalist history and an orgy of conspicuous consumption. Opposite to him, the established critic of New York Times, Paul Krugman, continuous to sound the alarm bell that the American economy is getting in a deflationary trap and it is on the edge of a catastrophe ―and of course, no one can predict the galloping disaster of our world’s economies!
This almost “outright deflation” is heavily criticised these days by the most influential conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh: the mindset that Obama is using is “bipartisan”, he says among other things. Being in this dark light, the Secretary of Defence of U.S., Robert Gates, regarding Iran, says, that “the military option” must be kept on the table! These typical fascistic allusions “smacks of” all the time in our media! On the other hand, to strike no one can today: Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary of Britain, under Labour’s reign, tells unemployed strikers, in Britain, to go to Europe to find job!
Personal bankruptcies are another hot potato, raising the number of labours up to 50%, and the public money in Britain is rescuing the banks. In other words: ‘socialising the loss and privatising the profit’. ‘Contactless money’, is another trick of the superelite: Japan since 2007, is using electronic money —confusing and getting the economy (that is false anyway) into the abyss. Apparently, the alleged “antagonism” among leaders, in Europe, and elsewhere, is evident: Sarkozy criticizes his homologous Brown for wrong policies and the relationship between the two countries is anacronically nose-diving.
This “antagonism”, is of course, part of the game; without it—would not be “elite” gossip in the media! And as a result of this antagonism, the leader of conservatives, who recently, has been elected prime minster of Britain, David Cameron, takes the lead of his country (2010), by using the slogan of “big society”, which seems to be realised as before―that is, the big society defines the power but not the rationality!
We must recall, at this point, the Flyvbjergean axiom as regards the rationality of a government: Power [poeple’s one] defines what counts as rationality and knowledge and thereby what counts as reality; meaning that, the context of a political and economic affair defines which power would someone [the (ordinary) people] consider to be empowered; not the distance, as Cameron mentions it; for this reason, Cameron, continues to keep the same power and he does not change the applied rationality; he changes simply the slogan!
However, it is sure that the politics of 21st century will continue to change slogans not politics and rationality!
Thus, after these inauspicious controversies, based on our media—alas, global banks have not anymore money to borrow to lenders. Consequently, as stressed in our first chapter, (The Trap of the Mind) and as will be analysed in the course of this chapter, public debt is another ‘cascade’ of western countries, looming large increase of debt more than 100% of GDP, facing a greater danger of a rapidly ageing population. As a result, government revenues will be lower and expenditures higher, making consolidation even more difficult. This reality however belongs to present economics; the other, is that the ‘ageing population’, can be solved by our democracies and economics (see our proposed framework in the following sections), but governments, want to keep their status quo, under the present situation, which is a situation, of ‘outright global monopoly and chaos’.
Consequently, whenever a country confronts such problems, in order to overcome them, it must find other fronts for profits and conservation; such fronts usually are our global wars! This is why NATO’s wars carry on fighting. This is why the “New World Order ” cannot stop its demarche. This is why Obama’s political “revolution” is supporting to manipulate social media, in favour of the world’s ‘corporatizations’ and American’s hegemony, as recently revealed, through “sock puppets” so that to spread pro-American propaganda. This is why the unavoidable crisis will get worst. This is why, social ‘inequalities’ were introduced, which as publisised by the Guardian —are getting worst than ever, in Britain’s history.
But why? Is it all what it looks or is there something else that concerns the scholars of the “New Global Government”? This will be therefore our main question to attack in this chapter.
Additionally, this chapter will defend the demise of social democracies, resource wars, rainforest destruction, species extinction, global warming, and of course the cul-de sac of our global economy. This cul-de-sac can be confirmed today than ever. Therefore, at first, let us have a taste of the present situation, regardless of the above controversies: below we have presented shortly some of the latest studies and the problems that humanity or politics of universal has caused, up to now, to the biodiversity of our globe:


[H]istorically, natural loss of biodiversity occurred at far slower rates and was countered by origination of new species. Today, current extinction rates are estimated to be 100 to 1,000 times faster than those in geological times. Recent tracking of losses by the Living Planet Index (trend) and IUcN red List (rarity) offer similarly bleak pictures of the situation. A number of terrestrial, marine and freshwater species are in steady decline and the number of globally threatened species has been steadily increasing for the past ten years. Latest estimates in the red List (IUcN 2009) indicate that:


1. Nearly a quarter (22%) of the world's mammal species and a third (32%) of amphibian species are known to be globally threatened or extinct;


2. Over a third i.e. 3,481 species out of the 30,700 estimated described species are endangered;

3. 12% of the world’s bird species are under threat;

4. The highest levels of threat are found in island nations: 39-64% of mammals are threatened in Mauritius, reunion and the Seychelles and 80–90% of amphibian species are endangered or extinct in the Caribbean.

In the same study, one can find the huge destruction of the mother earth, in numbers, charters and pictures. And this work is called by the architects of the scholarship, “The Economics of Ecosystem and Biodiversity”. And this is just another voice that is sounding the alarm bell to the architects of the present economy and especially to the politicians of the global government, which are evidently, the ‘transnational elite backed by global corporations’. This attempt is just another reappraisal of the present situation in which one can find ways on how to avoid wrong decisions in policy-making.
However, if we extend our point of view, onto our globe —regarding the rise of the temperature, caused by the rise of the CO2 in the atmosphere, which is result of our uncurbed consumerist societies—we must pose a simple question: How does the 20th-century climate change compare with the climate of the past 2,000 years? It is very likely that the average rates of increase in CO2, as well as in the combined radiative forcing from CO2, CH4 and N2O concentration increases, have been at least five times faster over the period from 1960 to 1999 than over any other 40-year period during the past two millennia prior to the industrial era. Moreover, as another observer aptly puts it: it is consumerism that has flooded the atmosphere with CO2: the constant getting and spending, where $1 spent liberates roughly 1lb of carbon. We are remarking the world, and quickly we are stumbling into a new way of thinking about disaster, where neither God nor nature, but man is to blame. Since warm air holds more water vapour than cold, the atmosphere is nearly 5% moister that it was just a few decades ago. That loads the dice for great floods of the kind suddenly so common. Americans burn more carbon per capita than just about anyone; what do you say [then] to a Pakistani farmer watching the swollen Indus washes away his life’s work? (Emphasis added)
Arguably, and as a result of our ‘carbon-consumerist society’, scientists have been able to document the loss of 492 species from England, the vast majority of these being lost since 1800. The information on losses for the better studied groups reveal: 24% of butterflies, 22% of amphibians, 15% of dolphins and whales, 14% of stoneworts, 12% of terrestrial mammals and 12% of stoneflies have been lost from England. This is merely a partial mirror of the ecosystem of England; imagine other countries around the world (!); most of them have not “date” of the present situation.
On the other hand, the hottest potato of our collapse stands on energy: according to Heinberg’s study, the peak of the oil and consequently of the energy will come during the first decade of the 21st century.
The collapse therefore will occur once the whole world (if) will be incorporated into the ceaseless demand of the oil: this is so because, “the demand is in increase and the production is in decrease”, looming ‘fuel poverty’ to a dangerous increase, for which private companies, in Britain, get richer, because of getting away with murder; and of course the main reason of this, according to a recent study, is that public control over the energy companies, which have been privatised and make profit out of poor people, is so weak! Thus, world’s reliance on non-renewable or fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and natural gas remain the source of more than 80 per cent of all primary energy demand, with nuclear adding only 6 per cent. Renewables are the fuels of the future but remain dependent on subsidy and regulation. They still provide less than 2 per cent of global energy needs – a figure that will at best rise to just 7 per cent by 2035.
In the same sector of the energy, there are sure more elements to discuss on this matter: Oil Companies, such as BP et.al, after their oil rigs around the world, have caused serious disasters into our environment; but the most serious repercussion is that they do not know how to clean up their mess, when they produce disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon, which currently exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, after series of explosions of the same force of damage around the world, as in the past. Floating plastics, produced by our industries, as documented in North Atlantic Ocean, is another disaster of our planet resources, causing annihilation to our fishes and natural riches of our planet. Consequently and without any doubt, this global catastrophe could be called “multiple lose to the detriment of our Nature and personal profit”, in favour of our private multinational companies i.e. oligarchy’s capital.
For, if someone wants to extend the collapse of the world, would be of a good idea to read and to study all these studies. And this, for one simple reason: we are witnessing one of the worst collapses ever occurred in human history. The majority of these studies are very professional and detailed. But the most important point is that they all augur disasters. If, on the other hand, we want to be sure of our economies and our haystacks of capital, regardless of the above global mess, we can add the following ‘economic’ conclusions of the economist and founder of the Global Research, Michel Chossudovsky:

[T]his crisis is far more serious than the Great Depression. All major sectors of the global economy are affected. Factories are closed down. Assembly lines are at a standstill. Unemployment is rampant. Wages have collapsed. Entire populations are precipitated into abysmal poverty. Livelihoods are destroyed. Public services are disrupted or privatized. The repercussions on people’s lives in North America and around the world are dramatic.
Capitalism therefore, in the form it has been and is realised, has failed; not only economically, but eco-geologically too. And it has failed because our economy has been over-turned up-side-down. Thus, it’s not only the power of money that has over-turned our economies but as well our ‘global institutions’ which direct, plunge and seal through speculations the future of a country. They can plunge the economy of a country just because they can never measure the real outcome of an economy by standing on the front of their monitors and putting down some artificial measurements based on the dollar and by doing so, they exclude the real economy of a country, or of a community, which, as will be approached later on, can never be measured by the money a country produces. Thus, capitalism as we know it, has been sunk in its own hole, which has been driven to it, by its own nature. For, it is in its nature to fail, just because, it has been over-turned. As another scholar point out:
All the idols of capitalism over the past three decades crashed. The assumptions and presumptions, paradigm and prognosis of indefinite progress under liberal free market capitalism have been tested and have failed. We are living the end of an entire epoch: experts everywhere witness the collapse of the U.S. and world financial system, the absence of credit for trade and the lack of financing for investment. A world depression, in which upward of a quarter of the world’s labor force will be unemployed, is looming.
Sadly, as a result of the present capitalism, we are continually and rapidly losing overall biodiversity, including soil micro-organisms, plankton in the oceans, pollinators and the remaining tropical and temperate forests. This underpins productive soils, clean water, climate regulation and disease-resistance. We take these vital services for biodiversity and ecosystems for granted, treat them recklessly and don’t include them in any kind of national accounting. Finally, earth’s water, which occupy up to 72% of its surface, has been dangerously polluted by our industries and we risk as societies of being dramatically hitted by diseases and epidemies. These are, some of the major problems that humanity has caused up to now to our Earth.
However, let us have another appraisal of the situation, from another point of view; from what has been called by our architects and “professional” politicians—‘monetarism and economics’. We will confront therefore along this chapter value-rationality vs. instrumental-rationality. Thus, in the heart of this “confrontation” will be our world’s economics. For, we will analyse ―(once again), the past and present economies, and at the end, we will put in order our ‘economy’, regarding its nature and implications. So let us travel into it.

Notes:




1. The postman who wants to deliver the end of capitalism. The Independent, 04 February 2009, By John Lichfield, in Paris.
2. Black bloc: 'Only actions count now', By Stephen Moss, The Guardian, Thursday 31 March 2011. In this interview, the domonstrators have been called as usually by Britain’s government, "criminals", "hooligans" and "cowards". But the young people, according to the interview, seem to be well-informed and they know what they want, by accepting that there is a radical movement in Britain, putting up a fight, and with the symbol ‘black cloc’, they mean, their identification with the others who share the same ideas. Plus to it, during 2010, in Britain, we witnessed Universities Occupations, Strong Demonstrations and so on.
3. Revolution: Is 1848 Repeating Itself in the Arab World? PART I: The Dynamics of Global Capitalism, By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Research. In the French Revolution of 1789, the working class allied itself with big capital (big industry, the banking class, and landed property), but this would change in 1848. While big capital was fighting amongst itself, the working class was becoming an ally of the petty bourgeoisie in demanding a share in governing France and directing the course of French society. The House of Orléans was overthrown and the monarchy brought to a final end with the establishment of the Second French Republic....1848 France was ruled by the landed property class, big industry, and the banking class. It was the working class that brought about the rise of this triad (landed property, big industry, and the banking class) through the French Revolution of 1789. In turn, this triad or "big capital" would systematically disenfranchize the working class by eliminating universal suffrage....Yet, the working class did not secure their rights after 1848. They held briefly the seat of power. The new taxation system failed and the capitalist class retained its control, thereby neutralizing efforts for genuine socio-economic reform in France. This led up to the 1851 Paris coup that was to make Charles Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte the emperor of the Second French Empire. The other outcome, after the defeat of Emperor Bonaparte in the Franco-Prussian War, was the 1871 establishment of the short-lived French government known by historians as the "Paris Commune." Under the Paris Commune and its mixed socialist and anarchist government, France became history's first socialist republic, more than seventy years before the establishment of the Soviet Union. Under the Prussian occupation of France, the Paris Commune was ultimately crushed by an agreement and strategic understanding reached between the Germans and French organized capital.
4. At last, Blair is free to 'do God' – and America loves it. The Independent, 06 February 2009, By Leonard Doyle in Washington.
5. The middle class will get you, Mr Cameron. By Nick Cohen, The Observer, Sunday 15 August 2010.
6. On the Edge, By PAUL KRUGMAN, February 5, 2009, New York Times.
7. By Tim Shipman in Washington.
8. See Roger Cohen: The unthinkable option, 05 February 2009, Herald Tribune.
9. See Jane Merrick and Brian Brady, Sunday, 1 February 2009, The Independent.
10. Personal bankruptcies hit new record, By Larry Elliott, economics editor, The Guardian, February 2009.
11. Electronic Money: Contactless Payment in Japan Report Published, by Celent Tokyo, Japan, December 11, 2007.
12. Brown's VAT cut was a mistake, says Sarkozy Allegra Stratton and Ian Traynor in Munich, The Guardian, Saturday 7 February 2009.
13. In a recent penned letter or white paper, Cameron quotes: developing power to the lowest level so neighbourhoods take control of their destiny; opening up our public services, putting trust in professionals and power in the hands of the people they serve; and encouraging volunteering and social action so people contribute more to their community. So he gives an example on how he would take over power: if neighbours want to take over the running of a post office, park or playground, we will help them. If a charity or a faith group want to set up a great new school in the state sector, we’ll let them. And if someone wants to help out with children, we will sweep away the criminal record checks and health and safety laws that stop them...we are in the process of opening up billions of pounds worth of governments’ contracts so charities and social enterprises can compete for the first time! Under the title: Have no doubt, the big society is on its way, By David Cameron, The Observer, Sat 12 Feb 11. On the opposite of it, Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister, is saying for the observer: you shouldn’t trust any government, actually, including this one. You should not trust government ― full stop. The natural inclination is to hoard power and information! Under the title: David Cameron to rescue ‘big society’ with extra cash, By Toby Helm, The Guardian, Sat 12 Feb 11. But in practical level, Cameron lays ahead his ”big society” by privatising everything, so a well-equipped writer quotes:

David Cameron, penned his preview of the long –delayed white paper on public services. For the first time he explains to roll back scope of his ambition to roll back the boundaries of an overweening state. This is indeed the eureka moment of the country. Nothing like this was ever breathed before the election. Every single public service will be put out to tender. Everything. Well, not MI5 or the judiciary – but everything else, including schools and the NHS. Forget the camouflage of localism and choice: however much local people like local services that work well, they will have no choice in the matter. A private company or a very large charity – can challenge any service they would like to run and bid to take over. If Serco or Capita think they can turn a reasonable profit from cherry-picking anything the council or the government runs, they will have the right to demand it is put out to tender. If they bid below the current cost and claim that quality will not fall, it’s theirs for the asking. Not the people, not the elected representatives, nor the users of those services will be able to refuse. It will be taken out of their hands because competition law will decide. If local people want their council to hold on to much-loved service, a company can take the council to court – and almost certainly win the right to tender and win the contract. Now everything is open for business. Democracy will scarcely get a look in. People can’t choose if services are contracted out. Once contracts are signed, nothing can change. You can throw out rascally councillors or governments, but the contracts will go on regardless. Like PFIs, they will be traded as financial instruments, sliced and diced according to risk and sold on. This sets a nuclear bomb under all public services, because there can never be any going back. Cameron is taking an ideological blowtorch to anything branded “public”. All around people are starting to see the destruction of public services they had forgotten to appreciate. Libraries, Sure tarts, charities, after-school clubs, youth clubs, parks and gardens, old people’s care, hospitals, clinics, midwife visits, meals on wheels and a thousand other things once taken for granted are shrinking before their eyes. NHS turmoil is just the start of Tory ideology run wild, The Guardian, 21 Feb 2011, by Polly Toynbee.
14. The Future of Public Debt. Working Papers 300, by Stephen G Ceccheti, M S Mohanty and Fabrizion Zampolli, Monetry and Economic Department March 2010, p, 20, pdf virsion.
15. An Imperial Strategy for a New World Order: The Origins of World War III Part 1, By Andrew Gavin Marshall, Global Research, October 16, 2009. Defining a New Imperial Strategy. In 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, US-NATO foreign policy had to re-imagine its role in the world. The Cold War served as a means of justifying US imperialist expansion across the globe with the aim of “containing” the Soviet threat. NATO itself was created and existed for the sole purpose of forging an anti-Soviet alliance. With the USSR gone, NATO had no reason to exist, and the US had to find a new purpose for its imperialist strategy in the world. In 1992, the US Defense Department, under the leadership of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney [later to be George Bush Jr.'s VP], had the Pentagon's Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Paul Wolfowitz [later to be George Bush Jr.'s Deputy Secretary of Defense and President of the World Bank], write up a defense document to guide American foreign policy in the post-Cold War era, commonly referred to as the “New World Order.” The Defense Planning Guidance document was leaked in 1992, and revealed that, “In a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting phase, the Defense Department asserts that America's political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territories of the former Soviet Union,” and that, “The classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy.” Further, “the new draft sketches a world in which there is one dominant military power whose leaders ‘must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role'.” Among the necessary challenges to American supremacy, the document “postulated regional wars against Iraq and North Korea,” and identified China and Russia as its major threats. It further “suggests that the United States could also consider extending to Eastern and Central European nations security commitments similar to those extended to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Arab states along the Persian Gulf.”
16. Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media, By Nick Fielding and Ian Cobain, By The Guardian, Mar 17 2011. The US is developing is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites such as facebook and twitter by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda. A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an “online persona management service” that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world. The people who work for it have been named as “sock puppets”, contravening the foul of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, which states that “a person is guilty of forgery if he makes a false instrument, with the intention that he or another shall use it to induce somebody to accept it as genuine, and by reason of so accepting it to do or not to do some act to his own or any other person’s prejudice”. This would however be applied only then if a website or social network could be shown to have suffered “prejudice” as a result. As a result, as in other cases, of American’s propaganda, social manipulation would be efficient.
17. A broken society, yes. But broken by Thatcher, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, By The Guardian, Friday 29 January and How unequal is Britain? pdf.
18. The Economics of Ecosystem and Biodiversity. Report, December 2009, pdf.
19. Paleoclimate. Chapter 6, By different authors, p, 4, pdf.
20. Lost Life: England’s lost and threatened species, p, 5, pdf.
21. Natural disasters? By Bill McKibben, The Guardian, Sat 2 Apr. In this article, one can find a summery of world’s disasters during the year of 2010, up to this date.
22. The Party’s Over, By Richard Heinberg, reprinted in 2007, p, 134.
23. The cold claims lives while energy companies get rich, The Gurdian, Mon 27 Dec 2010. In this article, The Guardian criticises the conservative party of deregulating further the economy of Britain, via privatization and liberalization, based to a study: Fixing Fuel Poverty, made by Brenda Boardman.
24. How shale gas will transform the markets, By Nick Butler, The Finacial Times, May 8 2011. [A] survey published last month by the US Energy Information Administration, set out, for the first time, estimates of the volumes of technically recoverable shale gas in 32 countries. Shale is natural gas trapped in rock, and removed by hydraulic fracturing techniques. Once thought too costly, it has of late begun to transform the American energy scene. Production has risen 12-fold in the past decade, and it now supplies almost a quarter of US gas needs. Once a major importer, the country is today self-sufficient in gas. Some now talk of exports...Shale gas can be controversial. Carbon emissions are higher than for conventional natural gas, and several small-scale projects in Europe are held up by environmental concerns. But high energy prices and political uncertainty in the Middle East could now spur many of the world’s energy importers to exploit these new, indigenous gas supplies. What has happened in America could also happen elsewhere. Specialist US firms are looking at opportunities in China, and the development of shale gas there could pre-empt the huge imports of both oil and gas that have been widely predicted.
25. Ten Things You Need (But Don't Want) To Know About the BP Oil Spill, By Daniela Perdomo, Global Research, May 29, 2010. In this analysis, the author explains in full detail the continually disasters caused by oil companies.
26. See, Financial Meltdown on Wall Street, Excerpt from Michel Chossudovsky's Introduction. On Global Research.
27. See, James Petras, Depression: The Crisis of Capitalism.
28. Dilys Williams, The Observer, Sun 2 Jan 2011, 20 predictions for the next 25 years.
29. Ideal Theory, Real rationality: Habermas Versus Foucault and Nietzsche, By Bent Flyvbjerg, Alborg University, Denmark London School of Economics and Political Science, 10-13 April 2000.