The following article is from a new book, Flashpoint in Ukraine, edited by Stephen Lendman. It is currently available from Clarity Press as an e-book, and soon to be printed.
Finance in today’s world has become war by non-military means. Its object is the same as that of military conquest: appropriation of land and basic infrastructure, and the rents that can be extracted as tribute. In today’s world this is taken mainly in the form of debt service and privatization. That is how neoliberalism works, subduing economies by indebting their governments and using unpayably high debts as a lever to pry away the public domain at distress prices. It is what today’s New Cold War is all about. Backed by the IMF and European Central Bank (ECB) as knee-breakers in what has become in effect a financial extension of NATO, the aim is for U.S. and allied investors to appropriate the plums that kleptocrats have taken from the public domain of Russia, Ukraine and other post-Soviet economies in these countries, as well as whatever assets remain....
Michael HudsonThe past century has seen a counter-revolution against the Enlightenment, classical economics and its culmination in socialist hopes to steer industrial capitalism to evolve into democratic socialism. What is occurring today is a self-destructive financial dynamic of impoverishment, dependency and breakdown in many ways like what happened when Rome’s creditor oligarchy plunged the Empire into the Dark Age two thousand years ago. The post-feudal real estate and financial oligarchies, the landed aristocracies of Europe and the great banking families and American trust builders have made a comeback, and the New Cold War is intended to lock in their victory. Ukraine is simply the latest battlefield, and battlefields end up devastated.
The New Cold War’s Ukraine Gambit
8 comments:
it's funny, I watched some 'game of thrones' episodes yesterday on my computer.
In one episode, Tywin Lannister was described by his daughter as being "the most powerful man in the world".
in the same episode, Tywin Lannister explained to the same daughter that he was massively in debt to a bank called the 'iron bank of Braavos'.
I was like WTF, how does that make any sense.
apparently the Lannisters financed their activities by digging shiny metal (gold) out of the ground. But when the shiny metal ran out, they had to go and ask a bank in another country to lend them some shiny metal.
"like what happened when Rome’s creditor oligarchy plunged the Empire into the Dark Age two thousand years ago."
I'd like to see the evidence for this assertion...
Its like y suggests here, everyone today just is brain washed into thinking that "money has to be borrowed"... even the Hollywood script writers are certainly not immune/ out of paradigm.... and as y points out, to the point where they can no longer discern contradiction... which is the first sign of intelligence...
so these people are so screwed up they can write in one sentence, "the most powerful man blah, blah.." and then in the next sentence "buuuut, he had to borrow the money blah blah...." LOL!
Here is a contemporaneous account of affairs from the archaeology (ie EVIDENCE) albeit a few 100 years before the events Hudson ALLEGES occurred:
http://classics.mit.edu/Augustus/deeds.html
Augustus isnt "borrowing money" from f-ing ANYBODY here ....
in fact the only reason amounts of currency appear here is to quantify the measure of his accomplishments for the public purpose.... set the bar for his posterity...
So this is what the EVIDENCE reveals ie NO BORROWING in 17 AD...
that said, perhaps this strong/clear view of authority waned over the next few hundred years as "the church" started to perhaps successfully usurp this true authority of civil govt and the "metal love" started to take over within those "church" people ... THEN the majesterial "church" people started to think "I have to borrow the metals..." as they being "church" people, indeed had no true authority (not that they realized that)...
But LOGICALLY, no majesterial human in his/her right mind would transition from "no borrowing" to "borrowing" without being taken in by "metal love" FIRST... it just wouldnt happen... I say NO WAY....
FIRST would have to come the 'metal love' and THEN would come the 'borrowing'... it just couldnt happen any other way imo... why would anyone of a sound mind do that?
rsp,
Y:
Soldiers and mercs needed to be paid in shiny metal! Not so the serfs.
Err, not that the Serfs were paid, I meant to say!!!
"... apparently the Lannisters financed their activities by digging shiny metal (gold) out of the ground. But when the shiny metal ran out, they had to go and ask a bank in another country to lend them some shiny metal."
Well, that's the way it worked in the medieval period. There was no fiat money to speak of.
The author of G of T got most of his ideas from studying the "War of the Roses." The juxtaposition of "the most powerful man" and his "needing to borrow money" would not have engendered ironical comment in those times. From the monetary standpoint (and every other way) England was a vassal state and as such their kings (and wannabe kings) were vassals who had to "borrow money."
Rome controlled the "gold trade" or the exchange of gold and silver from east to west. Rome kept to itself the exclusive right to issue "gold money." This prerogative was continued by the church which controlled gold until the 1204 AD sacking of Constantinople which was orchestrated by the Knights Templar. One should keep in mind that one of the chief motivations for the crusades was the desire on the part of the "vassal states" to break the power of "Rome."
Consider the history of Philip IV of France aka Philip the Fair. He ruled France from 1285-1314. He would be very interesting to study from the monetary standpoint. He is best known to history as the man who tortured and broke up the Knights Templar, but he also is probably the first and maybe only ruler of one of the former vassal states to understand monetary sovereignty. He is known to have tried a number of "monetary experiments." All his experiments "worked." Why did they work? Philip was smart enough to know he didn't need to borrow his own money.
Meanwhile, in moldy backward England, you could find one Richard the Turd as late as the 1480's, with wounds still raw from the aforementioned War of the Roses, still wanting to go on crusade, to "break the power or Rome" or to get his hands on "more gold." Luckily, in less than 10 years America had been "discovered" which put a stop to all that foolishness. Oh, wait...
interesting comment David, thanks.
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