國家-企業複合體 對自由與生存的威脅

國家-企業複合體：對自由與生存的威脅

諾姆·喬姆斯基

https://chomsky.info/20110407-2/

2011年4月7日，多倫多大學講座文本

諾姆·喬姆斯基（Noam Chomsky，1928年12月7日出生）出生於費城，父母是阿什肯納茲猶太移民。喬姆斯基早年在紐約市的另類書店裏對無政府主義產生了興趣。

他是一位美國教授和公共知識分子，以其在語言學、政治活動和社會批評領域的工作而聞名。他有時被稱為“現代語言學之父”，[b] 喬姆斯基也是分析哲學的重要人物，也是認知科學領域的創始人之一。他是亞利桑那大學語言學桂冠教授，也是麻省理工學院（MIT）的名譽教授。在被引用次數最多的在世作家中，喬姆斯基撰寫了150多本關於語言學、戰爭和政治等主題的著作。除了語言學方麵的工作外，自 20 世紀 60 年代以來，喬姆斯基一直是美國左翼有影響力的聲音，他一貫批評美國的外交政策、當代資本主義以及企業對政治機構和媒體的影響。

以下文字記錄由伊馮娜·邦德提供

我將主要談論美國，部分原因是我更了解美國，但部分原因是美國在全球體係中具有獨特的重要性。自二戰以來，這一點尤為突出。這種獨特性的特征和程度常常不為人知，本身就值得專門講一講，但我就不贅述了。

然而，即使在相對細微的方麵，我們也經常看到這種情況。例如，幾年前美國房地產泡沫破裂，引發了一場全球經濟危機，至今全球大部分地區仍深陷其中。最糟糕的結果隻是通過一些非常緊急的措施才得以避免。

在另一個領域，幾周前，當法國和英國想要轟炸利比亞時，他們不得不求助於一個更不情願的華盛頓來承擔重任，並提供絕大部分暴力手段。美國在這一領域擁有巨大的比較優勢。此外，盡管美國——美國社會及其政治經濟——在某些方麵有所不同，但它與其他國家並無太大區別。事實上，多年來美國國內的發展往往預示著國家資本主義世界中其他工業社會即將發生的事情。

這個世界，實際上是整個世界，當然總是在變化，但也存在著重要的延續性，值得牢記。其中一個延續性是，那些控製著一個國家經濟生活的人往往也對國家政策擁有壓倒性的影響力。這應該是小學就該教的真理。它由亞當·斯密簡潔地闡述，我之前曾引用過，但這些話非常重要，值得重複一遍。他當然指的是英國，他寫道，政策的主要製定者是社會的所有者，在他那個時代是商人和製造商，他稱他們為“人類的主人”。他們確保國家政策服務於他們的利益，無論其對其他人（包括國內民眾，但主要是他所說的在國外遭受野蠻不公正待遇的受害者）的影響有多麽嚴重，而印度就是他所舉的典型例子。這發生在印度被摧毀的早期。

今天，人類的主人是跨國公司和金融機構，但這一教訓仍然適用，它有助於解釋為什麽國家-企業聯合體確實對自由，甚至生存構成威脅。如今，已有重要的闡述將亞當·斯密的真理應用於現代世界。我所知的最重要、最精妙的版本來自政治經濟學家托馬斯·弗格森，他稱之為“政治投資理論”。簡而言之，該理論將美國選舉簡單地視為私人投資者聯盟聯合起來投資以控製國家的場合。正如他所表明的，這一論點在一個多世紀以來都頗具預見性地取得了成功。

這實際上意味著選舉幾乎是花錢買來的，而買主期望獲得回報，這種情況時有發生。2008年的上一屆美國總統大選就清楚地體現了這一點。奧巴馬總統的勝利很大程度上歸功於金融機構的巨額資金湧入，尤其是在競選接近尾聲時。他們更看好奧巴馬，而不是他的對手麥凱恩，他們期望獲得回報。當然，他們也確實得到了回報。當時，美國正深陷經濟衰退，因此奧巴馬的首要任務就是挑選一個經濟團隊。這個團隊幾乎完全由那些在他接手時造成了嚴重經濟危機的人組成。他刻意回避批評他們做法的人，包括一些頗具聲望的諾貝爾獎獲得者。

事實上，商業媒體對此的報道頗具諷刺意味。彭博新聞社對奧巴馬的經濟團隊進行了調查，逐一審查了他們的記錄，並得出結論：這些人不應該加入經濟團隊來修複經濟。他們應該收到傳票，這很正確。當然，他們並沒有收到。

毫不奇怪，該團隊選擇的措施獎勵了那些罪魁禍首，他們現在比以前更富有、更有權勢，並準備引領下一場可能更為嚴重的金融危機。最近，救助計劃特別檢查員尼爾·巴洛夫斯基發表了一篇有趣的文章。他嚴厲譴責了救助計劃的執行方式。他指出，授權救助的立法法案是一筆劃算的交易。納稅人和他們不當行為的受害者（實際上是真正的犯罪）將拯救那些對危機負有責任的金融機構——受害者將通過保護房屋價值和維護房屋所有權的措施獲得一定程度的補償。

主要是一場住房危機。

交易隻完成了第一部分。金融機構因引發危機而獲得了豐厚的回報，而他們徹頭徹尾的罪行也得到了寬恕，但該計劃的其餘部分卻舉步維艱。正如巴洛夫斯基指出的那樣，我引用他的話：“止贖案件持續增加，預計在該計劃實施期間將有800萬至1300萬起申請，而最大的幾家銀行的規模比危機前擴大了20%，控製著比以往任何時候都更大的經濟份額。” 他們合理地認為，如果有必要，政府會再次出手相救。事實上，信貸機構將未來政府的市場救助計劃納入了對大型銀行的評估中。這意味著誇大市場扭曲，使它們相對於仍在苦苦掙紮的小型機構擁有不公平的優勢。

簡而言之，正如他所說，奧巴馬的計劃是對華爾街高管的饋贈，也是對其毫無防備的受害者的致命一擊。換句話說，政府聽取了政治體係中那些有發言權的人的意見，並采取了相應的行動，這完全符合史密斯的真理。

雖然這應該不足為奇，但對參議院長期投票的仔細研究表明，參議院確實對人口中收入最高的三分之一群體做出了回應。實際上，更仔細的分析會表明，這部分群體隻占收入最高的三分之一的很小一部分。相比之下，參議院的投票與中間三分之一群體的意見之間完全沒有關聯。而對於收入最低的三分之一群體，則存在關聯，而且是負相關。參議院的投票與收入最低的三分之一群體的偏好背道而馳。在國內外政策等重大問題上，長期以來，公眾輿論與公共政策之間存在著相當明顯的脫節。

有人可能會說，這些結果實際上與社會創始人的初衷並沒有太大偏差。因此，作為憲法秩序主要製定者的詹姆斯·麥迪遜向製憲會議解釋說，權力應該掌握在參議院手中。直到大約一個世紀以前，參議院才由選民直接選舉產生。在那個年代，行政部門更像是一個行政官，而不是皇帝。而眾議院，作為體製的第三部分，更貼近公眾，權力則要有限得多。事實上，參議院的設立方式就是這樣的。正如麥迪遜在製憲會議上所解釋的那樣：“參議院代表著國家的財富，代表著一群更有能力的人，他們尊重財產所有者及其權利，並且理解政府必須保護少數富人免受多數人的侵害。”

這非常準確。這也是小學就應該教的東西。

然而，我們應該記住，在某種程度上，為了給麥迪遜辯護，他的心態是前資本主義的。因此，他認為參議員應該是，用他的話說，是“一位開明的政治家和仁慈的哲學家”。參議院將是“由公民組成的精英機構，他們的智慧最能洞悉國家真正的利益，他們的愛國主義和對正義的熱愛最不可能為了一時或片麵的考慮而犧牲國家利益”。因此，他們將通過保護公眾免受民主多數派的危害，來提煉和拓展公眾的觀點。這一切頗有當年幻想中的高貴羅馬紳士風度。在他之前的亞當·斯密眼光更為敏銳。

然而，麥迪遜很快就改變了他的想法。當他看到民主實驗的早期成果時，他改變了主意。事實上，到了1792年，也就是幾年之後，他就開始痛惜所謂的“時代肆無忌憚的墮落，股票經紀人淪為政府的禁衛軍，既是政府的工具，又是政府的暴君，他們被政府的慷慨賄賂所收買，又被喧囂和聯合所震懾”，這番話對當今的政治體係及其社會經濟相關因素的描述並不失為一個準確的描述。

如今，在這個人類曆史上最富裕的國家，隻有20%的人口有資格領取食品券。如今，對大多數人來說，例如製造業工人，他們的實際失業率與大蕭條時期相當。事實上，他們的實際境況比大蕭條時期要糟糕得多，而我年紀大了，應該還記得那段時期。我的家人大多是失業的工人階級，當時的國家當然比現在貧窮得多。但在很多方麵，那是一個充滿希望的時期。人們覺得人們正在采取行動，相信情況會好轉。他們確實做到了，這要歸功於非常積極的組織工作、CIO 以及其他一些因素。然後是政府的大規模刺激計劃，首先是在戰爭期間，然後持續到戰後幾十年。

今天情況並非如此。那些正在流失的工作不太可能再回來，至少在人類主宰者目前的計劃下是如此。雖然這並非板上釘釘，但這就是他們的計劃。在民眾受苦的同時，高盛

作為當前危機的主要製造者之一，高盛集團如今比以往任何時候都更加富有，他們剛剛悄悄宣布了去年175億美元的額外薪酬，其中首席執行官勞埃德·布蘭克費恩獲得了1260萬美元，而他的基本工資則增長了兩倍多。正如巴洛夫斯基所說，他們準備再次玩同樣的遊戲。

為什麽不呢？他們可以依靠政府的保險政策，安全地進行高風險交易，賺取巨額利潤，而他們卻不考慮經濟學術語中所謂的外部性——一項交易對其他交易的影響；對他們來說，至關重要的就是所謂的係統性風險，即整個係統因其高風險且因此有利可圖的交易而崩潰的可能性。

而當係統真的崩潰時，正如預期的那樣，那也不是什麽大問題。他們可以奔向自己培育的強大保姆國家，手裏緊握著哈耶克、米爾頓·弗裏德曼和安·蘭德等人的著作，要求獲得他們應得的救助，因為他們“大到不能倒”。正如一位評論員萊利所說，“大到不能因犯下重罪而被監禁”。這是一個相當令人印象深刻的騙局。當然，這徹底違背了資本主義原則，但人類的主人相信這些原則隻適用於他人，而不適用於自己。

這種立場由來已久。如果我們想要理解我們所生活的世界的本質，理解這一點至關重要：實際上，在幕後，隱藏著一場極具啟發性的互動，這場互動發生在兩個在獨立性和經濟發展水平上截然不同的國家之間：美國和埃及。阿拉伯世界，尤其是埃及的民主起義，是真正具有曆史意義的事件。這些言論令西方勢力十分恐懼，原因很簡單。西方肯定會竭盡所能阻止阿拉伯世界實現真正的民主。

要理解其中的原因，隻需看看阿拉伯民意調查就明白了。雖然西方公眾（至少是那些關注媒體的人）並不了解，但規劃者們肯定知道這些民意。調查顯示，例如在埃及，大約90%的人口認為美國是他們麵臨的主要威脅。大約10%的人認為伊朗是一個威脅。實際上，大約80%的人認為，如果伊朗擁有核武器，該地區會更加安全。這些數字在埃及最高，但在整個阿拉伯世界也基本如此。因此，西方顯然會竭盡所能阻止這些觀點進入政策，也就是阻止任何形式的真正民主。

這些都是極其重要的事件，了解它們的發展過程至關重要。順便說一句，所有這些都有著悠久的曆史。比如，你可能已經看到，埃及的運動是由一群精通科技的年輕人領導的，他們自稱是“4月6日運動”。為什麽是“4月6日”？這指的是2008年4月6日計劃的一場重大行動。在埃及的主要工業設施之一——馬哈拉紡織廠，原本計劃舉行一場大規模罷工。有很多支持活動。但罷工被我們支持的軍事獨裁政權鎮壓了。這裏被遺忘了；誰在乎呢？但那裏並沒??有被遺忘。其他國家也是如此。

突然爆發的事件並非憑空而來。第一個事件也是如此，它甚至沒有被報道。當前的起義浪潮實際上始於非洲最後一個殖民地，阿拉伯世界兩個被外部勢力入侵、占領和定居的國家之一。那就是西撒哈拉，嚴格來說是聯合國的屬地，應該走向獨立。 1975年，摩洛哥入侵了巴勒斯坦，這是一次殘酷的入侵，和大多數入侵一樣。[他們]在那裏安置了大量摩洛哥人，當然是非法的。抗議活動也不斷發生。去年11月又發生了一次，有人試圖搭建帳篷城。摩洛哥軍隊迅速鎮壓了抗議活動。由於事關聯合國的責任，這個問題確實提交給了安理會，但法國確保不會對此事進行調查。它必須保護它的摩洛哥代理人。這是迄今為止其他被占領國家中第一個被嚴密封閉的國家。那就是巴勒斯坦。關於巴勒斯坦，有很多話要說，但我想你們大多數人都很熟悉，尤其是已故的吉姆·格拉夫在這裏所做的非常勇敢和重要的工作。

未來會發生什麽，目前尚不清楚。所有這一切仍在進行中。盡管存在內部障礙和限製，這些民眾運動取得了實質性的成功，並且前景相當光明。最近最戲劇性的時刻之一是去年 2 月 20 日，卡邁勒·阿巴斯從解放廣場發出了一條信息

在開羅對威斯康星州的工人說：“我們與你們站在一起，正如你們與我們站在一起一樣。” 阿巴斯是埃及工人多年來爭取基本權利鬥爭的領袖，而這些權利正是當今“阿拉伯之春”的幕後黑手，正如我所說，這場運動遭到了西方支持的獨裁者的殘酷鎮壓。他也是當前這場起義的領軍人物。阿巴斯向威斯康星州工人發出的團結信息，喚起了勞工運動的傳統願望——全世界勞動人民以及全體人民的團結一致。

目前，開羅和麥迪遜的軌跡正在交叉，但它們卻朝著相反的方向發展：在開羅，他們致力於爭取被獨裁政權剝奪的基本權利；在麥迪遜，他們致力於捍衛經過長期艱苦鬥爭贏得、如今正遭受嚴重攻擊的權利。這些都像是全球社會正在發生的各種趨勢的縮影，這些趨勢沿著不同的路徑發展。人類曆史上最富有、最強大的國家衰落的工業中心地帶，以及艾森豪威爾總統所說的世界上戰略意義最重大的地區——中東——正在發生的事情，必將產生深遠的影響。中東是“巨大的戰略力量源泉，或許是世界上吸引外資最豐厚的經濟獎勵”。這是美國國務院在20世紀40年代的言論。在當時他們正在組織和實施的新世界秩序中，美國打算為自己及其盟友保留這份獎勵，事實上，他們現在仍然在這樣做。

勝利者將曆史扔進垃圾桶是正常的，受害者認真對待曆史也是正常的。如果我們想要了解世界，就應該以他們為榜樣。事實上，今天並非埃及和美國第一次麵臨類似的問題並朝著相反的方向發展。 19世紀初也是如此，其原因對兩個社會都至關重要，也具有普適性，對理解富裕的第一世界與貧窮的第三世界之間鴻溝的形成至關重要，而當時的鴻溝遠沒有那麽明顯。

當時，也就是19世紀初，埃及和美國都具備快速經濟發展的條件。兩國都擁有豐富的農業，其中包括棉花，它是早期工業革命的燃料。盡管與埃及不同，美國必須通過征服、滅絕和奴役來發展棉花生產和勞動力，其後果至今仍影響深遠。埃及和美國之間有一個根本區別，那就是美國獲得了獨立，因此可以自由地忽略經濟理論的處方——這些處方與今天的幾乎相同。當時，這些處方是由當時最偉大的經濟學家亞當·斯密提出的，其措辭與今天向所謂的發展中社會宣揚的措辭類似。

因此，史密斯敦促美國殖民地堅持後來所謂的比較優勢，即生產初級產品用於出口，進口優質的英國製成品，切勿試圖壟斷關鍵商品。這在當時尤其指棉花，就像今天的石油一樣。他警告說，任何其他道路，我引用他的話，“都會阻礙而不是加速其年產量價值的進一步增長，會阻礙而不是促進其國家走向真正的富裕和偉大。”這大致就是你們今天在經濟學課程中學習的內容，以及國際貨幣基金組織和世界銀行向世界提供的建議。獲得獨立後，美國殖民地可以自由地無視健全的經濟學規律。它們可以自由地遵循英國自己獨立的國家指導發展路線，征收高額關稅以保護工業免受英國優質出口產品的衝擊，首先是紡織品，後來是鋼鐵和其他產品，以及各種其他形式的國家幹預，以加速經濟發展。

這個獨立的共和國也試圖並幾乎接近壟斷棉花——這是有充分理由的。其目的是讓所有其他國家臣服於我們，正如傑克遜主義總統在吞並德克薩斯州和墨西哥一半領土時所說的那樣。他們尤其關注英國。當時，英國是他們的大敵。這是一種威懾力量，他們認為，如果壟斷棉花，就能讓英國臣服。這非常重要。例如，這也是加拿大未被征服的原因之一。英國曾多次威懾加拿大。也許加拿大正在以其他方式被征服，但那是另一回事。但加拿大並非被軍事征服。

他們也未能征服古巴，盡管他們很想這麽做，因為英國艦隊擋住了路。他們最終在1898年以解放古巴為借口征服了古巴，但實際上卻征服了古巴。

當時的想法是，如果他們能壟斷棉花的控製權，就能克服擴張道路上的障礙。實際上，頗有意思的是，這基本上就是1990年薩達姆·侯賽因推行的政策，在當時看來荒謬至極。但如果你回顧入侵時的宣傳，你會發現借口是，他試圖壟斷石油，讓我們都臣服於他。這簡直荒唐至極。但被指控的、歸咎於薩達姆·侯賽因的罪行，實際上是導致美國經濟發展的主要因素之一。它確實發生了，並且產生了巨大的影響，這也是它被曆史遺忘的原因之一，盡管它確實載入史冊。

那是美國。那麽埃及呢？埃及無法走類似的道路，因為它被英國勢力禁止。它並非獨立國家。因此，英國帕默斯頓勳爵宣稱，“任何對埃及公平的想法都不應妨礙英國維護其經濟和政治霸權等重大而至高無上的利益。”他還表達了他對無知野蠻人穆罕默德·阿裏的仇恨，這位發展主義領袖試圖引導埃及走上獨立的道路。英國的艦隊和財政資源被用來阻止埃及尋求獨立和經濟發展。

二戰後，美國取代英國成為全球霸主，並采取了同樣的立場。美國明確表示，華盛頓不會向當時全世界都急需援助的埃及提供任何援助。除非埃及遵守我所提到的弱國標準規則，否則美國不會向埃及提供任何援助。當然，美國一直在違反這些規則，對埃及棉花征收高額關稅，並造成嚴重的美元短缺。實際上，[這]是對市場原則的通常解讀。對你來說，管教弱者、控製弱者沒問題，但我不行，拜托。我要保姆國家確保我沒事。這在我們國內也適用，高盛及其同事和政府代表對此深有體會。這些確實是現代史的主導主題。它們本質上是第一世界和第三世界區別的基礎——這種區分普遍適用——也是富裕社會內部正在發生的事情的基礎。

正如這些相當簡單的原則所預測的那樣，選舉越來越淪為公關行業操縱的一場騙局，他們試圖動員民眾投票，同時確保問題被邊緣化，原因正如我之前提到的。公眾對問題的看法與人類的主人不同，所以你想把他們放在一邊。

我應該說，雖然我說的是美國，但並非所有地方都是如此。比如說，如果你去南美洲最貧窮的國家玻利維亞，他們實際上舉行了民主選舉，而且相當了不起，尤其是在過去的十年裏。所以，在過去十年裏，最受壓迫的群體——原住民——實際上已經進入了政治舞台，表達了他們的訴求，參加了選舉，贏得了選舉，選出了他們自己的人——一個貧苦的農民，而不是耶魯大學骷髏會的成員——並且在真正的問題上贏得了選舉，這些問題包括資源控製、文化權利，以及如何在一個複雜的多民族社會中處理正義問題等嚴肅的問題。幾年後，在另一場選舉中，他們甚至表現得更好。

這就是民主。在工業化社會，你得費很大勁才能找到類似的東西。我們社會正在發生的事情完全不同。本質上操縱選舉的公關行業正在運用某些原則來破壞民主，這些原則與破壞市場的原則如出一轍。企業最不想要的就是經濟理論意義上的市場。去上一門經濟學課，他們會告訴你，市場是建立在知情的消費者做出理性選擇的基礎上的。任何看過電視廣告的人都知道這並非事實。事實上，如果我們有一個市場體係，通用汽車的廣告就隻是對明年產品特性的簡要介紹。但你看到的可不是這樣。你看到的是電影女演員、足球英雄，或者有人開車上山之類的。所有廣告都是如此。其目標是通過製造不知情的消費者做出非理性的選擇來破壞市場，而商業界為此投入了巨大的精力。

當同一個行業，公關行業，轉向破壞民主時，情況也是如此。它想要構建一種選舉，讓不知情的選民做出非理性的選擇。這很合理，而且顯而易見，你很難忽視。這也是小學就應該教的東西之一。談論如此顯而易見的事情，確實有點尷尬。

向大學聽眾發表演講。

所有這些對人類的主人來說都是第二天性。例如，奧巴馬在2008年獲勝後，正如你所知，立即獲得了廣告業頒發的2008年度最佳營銷獎。他擊敗了蘋果電腦。如果你看看商業媒體，那裏的人們談論得更公開，高管們欣喜若狂。他們說，自從裏根總統以來，他們就一直像推銷牙膏一樣推銷候選人，但2008年是他們最偉大的成就。他們說，這場選舉太偉大了，它將改變公司董事會的風格。

預計2012年大選將耗資20億美元。這筆資金將主要來自企業。因此，奧巴馬選擇商界領袖擔任高級職位也就不足為奇了。公眾非常憤怒和沮喪，但除非西方民眾能夠達到埃及人的水平，否則他們將繼續成為受害者。

在美國，共和黨早已不再以傳統政黨自居。他們深深地紮根於美國企業和超級富豪的腰包，你需要借助望遠鏡才能找到他們。民主黨人，順便說一句，他們現在已經被稱為溫和派共和黨人了，他們也並不落後。我之前提到的奧巴馬的經濟團隊選擇就是一個例子。實際上，我並沒有準確描述。他的經濟團隊中有一個例外，那就是保羅·沃爾克。他曾在羅納德·裏根政府時期擔任財政部長。但如今，政治光譜已經大幅右傾，以至於沃爾克成了最後一個呼籲某種監管的自由主義者——順便說一句，是“曾經是”（was），而不是“現在”（is）。他被趕下台，由傑弗裏·伊梅爾特接任。伊梅爾特曾是通用電氣的首席執行官。通用電氣是美國最大的公司。

如果你回顧一下當時的言論，就會發現他的特殊職責是創造就業機會。實際上，更準確的評論（同樣出自湯姆·弗格森）是，我們現在看到的是，最知名、最引人注目的金融業過度行為批評者從公眾視野中消失，取而代之的是一家嚴重依賴各種政府援助（包括外交援助）來增加對華投資和轉移就業崗位的公司的現任首席執行官。這並非關乎就業，而是關乎政治資金。白宮知道，它需要為連任競選籌集大約10億美元。

這正是評判此次任命以及奧巴馬近期其他任命的背景，商界不出所料地對此表示滿意。《倫敦金融時報》報道稱，伊梅爾特先生的任命受到了美國商會（主要商業遊說團體）的讚揚，他們表示，美國商會一直是總統最嚴厲的批評者之一，並在去年11月的選舉中資助了許多與民主黨競爭的共和黨人。但或許這一切即將結束，商業規則的最後一道障礙或許將被清除。

看看通用電氣（GE），它超過一半的員工在海外，超過一半的收入來自海外業務。而且，盡管它被視為一家製造企業，但它的大部分收入並非來自生產，而是來自金融業務。順便說一句，華爾街崩盤時，它為此獲得了巨額救助。雖然這項任命宣稱是為了增加就業，但實際上與此關係不大，更準確地說，它應該遵循所謂的“跟著錢走”。一個多世紀前，偉大的政治金融家馬克·漢納曾說過，政治中有兩件事很重要：金錢，以及第二件事我忘了。這是小學常識。

這句話在今天尤為正確，尤其是在過去三十年發生巨變的情況下。理解這一點至關重要。這些大約發生在過去30多年的發展，是在現代世界秩序發生重大變化之一之後發生的，即二戰後經濟體係，即所謂的布雷頓森林體係的瓦解。該體係是由二戰戰勝國美國和英國共同設計的。其主要設計者是英國的約翰·梅納德·凱恩斯和美國的“新政”經濟學家哈裏·德克斯特·懷特。

該體係的核心要素之一是貨幣監管。事實上，這構成了未來幾十年經濟高速增長（曆史最高水平）的基礎之一。該體係在大約40年前被瓦解。這也是導致金融投機激增和金融機構大規模擴張的一個因素。當時，它們隻是經濟的一小部分，主要從事國家資本主義製度下銀行應該做的事情，即將閑置資金（例如銀行）引導至某種生產性投資。

那隻是當時的情況。到 2007 年，也就是大蕭條之前，他們獲得了美國企業利潤的 40% 左右。他們的利潤主要來自複雜的金融操作，這些操作幾乎沒有任何社會或經濟效益。

效用，並且在許多方麵對經濟和人民有害。如果資本主義原則盛行，這些做法將會受到嚴厲限製。它們會因經濟崩潰和資金損失而受到限製。但值得慶幸的是，至少對富人來說，人們不必擔心這一點。

經濟金融化的另一個因素是生產利潤率下降，因此通過金融操縱賺錢變得更加容易，當然，這總是在保姆國家的保護下進行的。與之密切相關的發展是生產離岸外包。這是在一個精心設計的全球貿易體係下進行的，該體係旨在讓世界各地的勞動人民相互競爭，同時對財富提供極高的保護，並賦予投資者前所未有的權利。這又是對市場紀律的通常解讀：對你沒問題，但我不行，拜托。

這些發展引發了財富集中的惡性循環，隨之而來的是政治權力的集中，這再次符合斯密的格言。過去30年來，州政府製定的公司政策就是為了加速這一循環，所以正如你可能知道的，不平等現象已經飆升至美國曆史上的最高水平。但鮮為人知的是，這實際上具有誤導性。極端的不平等主要源於人口最頂層1%的巨額財富，更準確地說，是人口最頂層的0.1%。這個群體規模非常小，以至於美國人口普查沒有將其納入，因此大大低估了不平等現象。經濟學家對此進行了研究。

與此同時，大多數人的實際收入基本停滯不前。人們的工作負擔比歐洲和日本等國家要重得多；債務負擔沉重，資產價格上漲，就像上次房地產泡沫一樣。極少數的贏家主要是首席執行官、對衝基金經理之類的人。他們利用自己的政治權力來加速這一進程。例如，削減開支就是精心設計的，目的是讓超級富豪受益。回顧一下，直到1980年，直到裏根執政，美國的稅收在某種程度上具有再分配性——這是根據美國國稅局的分析——就像大多數國家一樣。他們理應如此。自那以後，除了幾次短暫的波動外，稅收實際上有所下降。如果引入其他因素，比如避稅天堂和其他逃稅手段，稅收就會向上再分配。這是經過精心設計的。

以十年前的布什減稅政策為例，它給經濟帶來了巨大的負擔。這些政策的設計非常謹慎。第一年開始時，他們隻給民眾提供少量的退稅。所以，你會收到幾百美元的郵件，覺得這筆退稅很棒。但這些政策的設計目的是，隨著時間的推移，利益會轉移到富人身上。到第十年，也就是政策到期的時候，超過一半的稅收優惠流向了最富有的1%，也就是那些重要的人。但如果這樣，它就變得幾乎看不見了。這有一個專門的術語。這叫做“日落策略”。他們確保到日落時，事情進展順利。一開始你有點誤導大眾。隻有那些身在其中的人才能預見未來的發展。

對於那些被稱為保守派的人來說，這些政策再正常不過了，他們現在想讓這些政策永久化。看看報紙頭版就知道了。他們想讓這些削減永久化，但對於就業，情況也一樣。我們之所以要給最富有的1%或其中的一小部分人提供巨額資金，讓他們隨心所欲地花錢，就是為了創造就業。實際上，英語在這方麵發生了一些有趣的變化。有一個詞已經變得很粗俗了，因為台下可能有孩子，我不能說，但我可以拚出來：P-R-O-F-I-T-S。你不能這麽說。事實上，它有自己的發音。這叫做就業，現在這幾乎成了家常便飯。

這就是問題所在。這裏也一樣。那是布什的減稅政策，但同樣的事情正在發生。就像國會的跛腳鴨會期，也就是11月大選後到下一屆國會就職前的會期。奧巴馬因其在跛腳鴨會期期間的成就、政治家風範的兩黨合作等等而備受讚譽。事實上，他的支持者也對他讚譽有加。他確實取得了一些成就。主要的成就是對超級富豪的減稅，我的意思是超級富豪。我的生活還算不錯，但我的財富低於這項減稅的門檻。這是針對超級富豪的減稅。當然，它增加了赤字，這應該是我們擔心的大問題。要做到這一點需要相當令人印象深刻的準備工作，但它確實做到了。

與此同時，聯邦雇員的稅收也增加了，但當時沒有這麽叫，因為你不是

不應該談論增稅。它被稱為凍結，我想隻有五分鍾。凍結可能隻有五秒鍾。對公共部門來說，凍結就等於增稅，所以這是偽裝成凍結的對公共部門工作人員的增稅。此外，還削減了社會保障的工資稅。社會保障是由勞動人民支付的。它不會對赤字造成任何影響——恰恰相反。勞動者支付了它，而這筆錢卻減少了，這聽起來還挺好的。人民需要錢。但這又是一個特洛伊木馬。看看它的設計方式。這又是日落策略。凍結是經過精心設計的，以便在總統大選前結束。

政界人士非常清楚，隨著大選的臨近，沒有人會說讓我們提高工資稅。所以這實際上是把它永久化了，這是一種取消社會保障資金的方式。盡管大家都在大聲疾呼，但社會保障實際上狀況良好。但如果你可以取消它的資金，它的狀況就不會那麽好了。私有化有一個標準的手法，那就是取消對你想私有化的東西的資金支持。比如撒切爾夫人想要取消對鐵路的資金支持，首先要做的就是取消資金支持，然後鐵路就無法運轉，民眾就會憤怒，要求改變。你說好吧，私有化吧，結果情況卻變得更糟。在這種情況下，政府不得不介入並拯救它。

這就是私有化的標準手法：取消資金支持，確保一切運轉不正常，民眾就會憤怒，然後你把它交給私人資本。這就是社會保障騙局。如果他們能成功取消資金支持——他們已經嚐試了幾十年，它太受歡迎了，以至於無能為力，而且效率很高，行政成本微乎其微。這與私有化的醫療保健係統完全不同。所以它很難被廢除。但如果你能取消資金支持，它或許會奏效。這就是跛腳鴨會議做出這個決定的意義所在。這很重要。首先，如果能私有化，對投資者來說將是一筆巨大的財富。社會保障體係裏有大量的資金。這些資金要麽被存放在信托基金中，要麽被投資於政府債券，最終流向勞動人民。但如果這些資金落入金融機構手中，他們就能利用這些資金中飽私囊，賺取巨額利潤。而當體係崩潰時，通常又會回到納稅人的手中，由他們來救助。

此外，社會保障確實存在缺陷。它對富人來說幾乎毫無用處。他們或許能拿到，但不會察覺。它就像山上的一根牙簽。所以誰在乎呢？但對很大一部分人來說，它是他們的生存手段。尤其是在當下。人們擁有巨額的虛假財富，他們相信這些財富都投資於房地產。這完全是一個虛假的泡沫，但他們卻深信不疑。所以，這些財富被用來借貸、教育，以及任何其他用途。這些都消失了。八萬億美元都消失了。當然，這些人將依靠對富人毫無意義的社會保障生存。

還有一個更深層次的觀點，那就是社會保障基於卡邁勒·阿巴斯所說的原則，即社會團結。社會保障基於這樣一種理念：你應該關心那些需要幫助的人的遭遇。比如，如果鎮上有個殘疾寡婦沒飯吃，你就應該關心她。這就是社會保障的意義所在。但這可不是個好主意。你應該照顧好自己，而不是關心別人。社會保障很危險。它在某種程度上破壞了人們所推崇的信條，甚至可能引發行動，從而改變世界的運作方式。所以我們不希望發生這種情況。事實上，基於同樣的原則，對公共教育進行了大規模的攻擊……而且同樣的伎倆正在被使用。削減資金，讓它無法運轉，抱怨它如何運轉不起來，甚至將其私有化，情況隻會越來越糟。但這樣一來，社會團結就被破壞了，富人反正也樂在其中。他們想要什麽就得到什麽。

所有這些都是一場令人印象深刻的階級鬥爭的一部分，這場鬥爭包含許多方麵。其中很多方麵並非顯而易見，但確實存在。例如，政府製定公司運營規則，即所謂的公司治理。在這場激烈的階級鬥爭時期製定的規則是，首席執行官可以挑選董事會來決定他們的薪酬，並製定一些隱瞞短期收益的策略，比如股票期權。你可以想象，當你自己挑選董事會時，情況會是怎樣。

人們曾努力讓這一切變得更加透明，但都被國會擊退了。放鬆管製也是如此。在新政放鬆管製的時期，沒有發生金融危機。整個體係運行平穩。自裏根以來，金融危機一直不斷發生，每次

比前一個更糟。但富人和權貴們卻因為我提到的原因而過得很好。公眾買單，富人受益。

所有這些都是國家資本主義的新階段。當管理層的目標是短期利潤時，對公司的忠誠就越來越沒有必要了，而短期利潤當然主要來自金融操縱。所以誰會在乎公司呢？如果它倒閉了，那好。我有錢。國內失業不是問題。當墨西哥、中國、越南和其他廉價且被殘酷剝削的勞動力來源地可以用作裝配廠時，就不需要國內勞動力了，而且它們就是裝配廠。主要行業越來越多地將勞動力轉移到海外，比如通用電氣，而——恐怕我不得不說這個詞；抱歉——而利潤卻回到了少數人的口袋裏。

以IBM為例。這是一個相當有趣的例子。商業媒體最近刊登了一篇關於IBM的長文，文中一針見血地指出，IBM或許在很多人眼中是一家典型的美國公司，但截至2008年底，其超過70%的員工都在美國境外。次年，IBM在繼續裁減美國員工的同時，宣布了一項計劃，為員工提供將工作地點轉移到新興市場的機會。換句話說，你有機會搬到印度，在那裏你可以享受到更低的生活水平。這是一個很好的機會，但它不僅能提高公司的效率，還能為老板們帶來財富。如果員工不接受這個如此慷慨的機會，他們還有其他選擇。他們可以加入排隊領取食品券的人群。但文章指出，IBM是一家仁慈的公司。他們主動承擔部分搬遷費用，所以他們真的是好人。

商業媒體的報道並沒有解釋為什麽IBM應該被視為典型的美國公司，但事實上，這其中有充分的理由。一是IBM的財富依賴於納稅人。正因如此，它才學會了忘掉早期援助納粹德國之類的事情。但就在最近，它學會了從穿孔卡片轉向現代計算機。例如，它就是在我工作的五角大樓資助的實驗室裏學到的。最終，在20世紀60年代初，IBM終於能夠生產自己的高速計算機，但這些計算機對企業來說過於昂貴，因此美國介入購買。一般來說，國家采購是納稅人補貼的主要手段。

許多年，實際上是幾十年後，IBM終於能夠在市場上盈利，並且能夠剝離出像微軟這樣的非常成功的企業，這些企業也從公共補貼中獲得了豐厚的收益。所以，這確實是事實：IBM是一家典型的美國公司，管理層在將員工轉移到海外時遵循著合理的經濟原則。國家會發生什麽與他們無關。值得注意的是，這其實並不新鮮。不久前，公司的長遠未來還是管理層的一個重要考慮因素。在現代國家資本主義形式下，這種情況越來越少。

頗具趣味的是，這些問題已被現代經濟學的偉大奠基人，例如亞當·斯密，預見到了。他認識到並探討了如果主人遵守健全的經濟學規則——也就是如今所謂的新自由主義——英國將會發生什麽。他警告說，如果英國製造商、商人和投資者轉向海外，他們或許會獲利，但英國將遭受損失。然而，他認為這種情況不會發生，因為主人會受到本土偏好的引導。因此，仿佛有一隻看不見的手，英國將免受經濟理性的摧殘。

這段話很難被忽視。這是《國富論》中唯一一次出現著名的“看不見的手”一詞，尤其是在批判我們所謂的新自由主義時。另一位現代經濟學的主要奠基人大衛·李嘉圖也得出了類似的結論。他希望本土偏好會導致，我現在引用他的話，“導致有產者滿足於本國的低利潤率，而不是去國外尋找更有利的就業機會，以增加他們的財富。” 他說：“我不願看到這種感覺減弱。” 拋開他們的預測不談，古典經濟學家的直覺相當準確。

我之前提到過一種眾所周知的市場無效性，即忽略外部性導致的市場無效性；外部性指的是一項交易對其他交易的影響。就金融機構而言，係統性風險中忽略的外部性是指整個係統因某筆交易失敗而崩潰的風險。你在進行交易時不會考慮到這一點。在這種情況下，納稅人可以出手相救。這樣你就可以確保那些從風險交易中獲利的人得到拯救。

但這並非總是可行，其後果可能很嚴重——事實上是極其嚴重的。

所以，如果環境被破壞，沒人會來拯救它，而“環境必須被破壞”幾乎成了當代國家資本主義製度下的製度性要求。仔細想想吧。現在的商業領袖們正在大規模地宣傳，試圖讓人們相信，人為造成的全球變暖——因為人類活動而導致的全球變暖——是一個自由主義的騙局，而且他們正在取得成功。比如在美國，現在大概有三分之二的人口都相信這一點。

那些發起這些宣傳活動的CEO們，他們理解我們所有人都理解的道理。他們明白，威脅是真實存在的，非常嚴重；它會摧毀他們擁有的一切，會毀掉他們子孫後代的生活。他們都知道這些。但作為一家公司的CEO，在這種製度性角色中，他們別無選擇。他們當然可以退出，但如果他們繼續留在那裏，就必須最大化短期收益和市場份額。實際上，這是英美法律的一項法律要求。如果他們不這樣做，他們就會被淘汰，然後其他人會接手。所以，這是一種製度屬性，而非個體屬性。它確實會引發惡性循環，甚至可能致命。

要想知道這種危險有多麽迫在眉睫，隻需看看美國新一屆國會就知道了。它是由大規模商業資助和宣傳推上台的。幾乎每個人都是氣候變化否定者，而且他們已經根據這些假設采取行動。他們一直在削減用於應對環境問題的有限開支。如果美國不采取任何重大行動，世界其他國家也不會采取任何行動。

更糟糕的是，他們中的一些人是真正的信徒。例如，其中一個環境委員會的新負責人解釋說，全球變暖不可能是個問題，因為上帝承諾諾亞不會再有洪水。這就解決了這個問題。如果這種情況發生在安道爾或某個偏遠的小國，也許我們會覺得好笑。但當它發生在世界上最富有、最強大的國家時，就不值得嘲笑了。在我們大笑之前，不妨想想，當前的經濟危機在很大程度上可以追溯到人們對有效市場假說等教條的狂熱信仰，以及諾貝爾獎得主約瑟夫·斯蒂格利茨15年前所說的“市場最了解的宗教”。這種宗教使得經濟學家和美聯儲無需注意到，當時存在著一個8萬億美元的房地產泡沫，它完全沒有經濟基本麵依據，與曆史趨勢相去甚遠，並在破裂時摧毀了經濟。我們無需關注它，因為我們有這種宗教。市場最了解，所以忘掉它吧。無論發生了什麽，這種宗教都會複活。

隻要普通民眾消極、冷漠、沉迷於消費主義，甚至仇恨弱勢群體，所有這些以及更多的事情都可能發生。隻要這種情況持續下去，當權者就可以為所欲為，而那些幸存下來的人隻能獨自麵對廢墟。

The State-Corporate Complex: A Threat to Freedom and Survival

Noam Chomsky

https://chomsky.info/20110407-2/

Text of lecture given at the The University of Toronto, April 7, 2011

(Transcript courtesy of Yvonne Bond)

Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is born to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City. 

He is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics",[b] Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American left as a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, and corporate influence on political institutions and the media.

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I’m going to talk mostly about the United States, in part because I know it better, but also in part because it its unique significance in the global system. That’s been true dramatically since the Second World War. The character and extent of this uniqueness often isn’t understood and would be easily worth a talk in itself, but I won’t go into that.

However, we constantly see that even in relatively small ways. So for example when the housing bubble in the United States burst a couple of years ago, that initiated a global economic crisis which most of the world is still mired in. The worst outcomes were just averted by quite desperate measures.

In another domain, when France and Britain wanted to bomb Libya a couple of weeks ago, they had to turn to a more reluctant Washington to do the heavy lifting and provide the vast bulk of the means of violence. The U.S. has a huge comparative advantage in that domain. Furthermore, although the United States — U.S. society and its political economy — are unusual in some respects, it’s not that different from elsewhere. And in fact developments within the United States over the years have often foreshadowed what is going to happen pretty soon in other industrial societies in the state capitalist world.

That world, in fact the whole world, is of course always changing, but there are significant continuities and they’re worth bearing in mind. One continuity is that those who control the economic life of a country also tend to have overwhelming influence over state policy. That should be a truism taught in elementary school. It was formed succinctly by Adam Smith in words that I’ve quoted before but are important enough to repeat. He, speaking of Britain of course, wrote that the principle architects of policy are the owners of the society, in his day the merchants and manufacturers, “the masters of mankind” as he called them. And they insure that state policy serves their interest, however grievous the effect on others, including the domestic population, but primarily the victims of what he called their savage injustice abroad, and India was his prime example. That was early in the days of the destruction of India.

Today the masters of mankind are multinational corporations and financial institutions, but the lesson still applies and it helps explain why the state-corporate complex is indeed a threat to freedom and in fact even survival. By now there are important elaborations of Smith’s truism applied to the modern world. The most significant and sophisticated version that I know is by political economist Thomas Ferguson, what he calls his investment theory of politics which in brief, simplified, simply views U.S. elections as occasions in which the coalitions of private investors coalesce to invest to control the state. It turns out to be a thesis of quite predictive success over more than a century as he shows.

What it means in effect is that elections are pretty much bought and that the buyers expect to be rewarded, and that happens all the time. It’s illustrated very clearly in the last U.S. Presidential election in 2008. President Obama’s victory traces largely to a huge influx of capital from the financial institutions, especially toward the end of the campaign. They preferred him to his opponent, McCain, and they expected to be rewarded. And of course they were. The country at that time was mired in a deep recession, so Obama’s first act was to select an economic team. It was drawn almost entirely from those who had caused the severe economic crisis that he inherited. He systematically avoided critics of their practices, including quite prestigious ones, Nobel laureates.

Actually the business press wrote rather ironically about this. The Bloomberg News did a review of Obama’s economic team, went through each one of them and looked at their records and concluded that these people shouldn’t be on the economic team to fix up the economy. They should be getting subpoenas, which was pretty correct. They didn’t, of course.

Well, not surprisingly the team chose measures which rewarded the major culprits who are now richer and more powerful than before, and poised to lead the way to the next and probably more severe financial crisis. There was recently an interesting article about this by the Special Inspector of the bailout programs, Neil Barofsky. He wrote a bitter condemnation of the way it was executed. He points out that the legislative act that authorized the bailout was a bargain. The financial institutions that were responsible for the crisis would be saved by the taxpayer and the victims of their misdeeds, in fact real crimes — the victims would be somewhat compensated by the measures to protect home values and preserve home ownership. It was mostly a housing crisis.

Only the first part of the bargain was kept. The financial institutions were rewarded lavishly for causing the crisis and they were forgiven for outright crimes, but the rest of the program floundered. As Barofsky points out, I’m quoting him, “Foreclosures continue to mount with eight to 13 million filings forecast over the program’s lifetime while the biggest banks are 20% larger than they were before the crisis and control a larger part of the economy than ever.” They reasonably assume that the government will rescue them again if necessary. Indeed, credit agencies incorporate future government market bailouts into their assessments of the largest banks. That means exaggerating market distortions that provide them with an unfair advantage over smaller institutions which continue to struggle.

So in short, as he puts it, Obama’s programs were a giveaway to Wall Street executives and a blow in the solar plexus to their defenseless victims. In other words, the government listened to those who have a voice in the political system and acted accordingly, all completely in accord with Smith’s truism.

While there should be no surprises here, there are careful studies of Senate votes over a long period and they show that the Senate is indeed responsive to the sector of the population [that is] the top third in income. Actually a closer analysis would show that it’s a very small fraction of that top third. In contrast there’s no correlation at all between Senate votes and opinions of the middle third. And for the bottom third there is a correlation. It’s negative. Senate votes are counter to preferences for the bottom third. And on major issues of foreign and domestic policy, there’s quite a sharp disconnect between public opinion and public policy over a long period.

One might argue that these results don’t really depart very far from the intentions of the founders of the society. So James Madison, who was the main framer of the Constitutional order, explained to the Constitutional Convention that power should remain in the hands of the Senate. The Senate was not chosen directly by voters until about a century ago. In those days the executive was pretty much an administrator, not an emperor. And the House, the third part of the system, which is closer to the public, had much more limited authority. That’s the way in fact it was set up. As Madison explained to the Constitutional Convention, “the Senate represents the wealth of the nation, the more capable set of men, men who have respect for property owners and their rights and understand that government must protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.”

That’s quite accurate. Something else that ought to be taught in elementary school.

We should bear in mind, however, kind of in Madison’s defense, that his mentality was pre-capitalist. So he assumed that a Senator would be, as he put it, “an enlightened statesman and benevolent philosopher.” The Senate would be a “chosen body of citizens whose wisdom may best discern the true interests of their country and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.” They would therefore refine and enlarge the public views by guarding the public against the mischiefs of democratic majorities. This is all rather like the noble Roman gentleman of the fantasies of the day. Adam Smith before him had a sharper eye.

Well, it didn’t take long for Madison to shift his thinking about this. As he viewed the early results of the democratic experiment, he had second thoughts. In fact by 1792, a couple of years later, by then he deplored what he called “the daring depravity of the times as the stock-jobbers become the Praetorian band of the government, at once its tool and its tyrant, bribed by its largesses and over-aweing it by clamors and combinations,” which isn’t a bad description of today’s political system and its social and economic correlates.

Today in the richest country in human history, 20% of the population qualify for food stamps. Real unemployment today is at the level of the Great Depression for much of the population, manufacturing workers for example. And in fact their actual circumstances are much worse than in the Great Depression, which I’m old enough to remember. Most of my family were unemployed working class and the country was of course far poorer than it is today. But it was a hopeful period in many ways. There was a sense that people were doing something about it and that times would get better. And indeed they did, thanks to very active organizing, CIO, other things. And then an immense government stimulus, first during the War and then continuing through the post-war decades.

That’s not true today. The jobs that are being lost are unlikely to return, at least under the current programs of the masters of mankind. Not graven in stone, but that’s their programs. While the population suffers, Goldman Sachs, which is one of the main architects of the current crisis, is now richer than ever and they have just quietly announced 17.5 billion dollars in extra compensation for last year with the CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, getting 12.6 million while his base salary more than triples. And exactly as Barofsky said, they’re poised to play the same game again.

And why not? They can rely on the government insurance policy that enables them to safely engage in risky transactions, make huge profits, and they don’t take into account what in the jargon of economics are called externalities — the effect of a transaction on others; crucially in their case what’s called systemic risk, that is, the likelihood that the whole system will collapse as a result of their risky and hence profitable transactions.

And when it does collapse, as is anticipated, that’s not a big problem. They can run to the powerful nanny state that they nurtured, clutching in their hands their copies of Hayek and Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand and so on and they can demand the bailout to which they’re entitled because they’re too big to fail as it’s put. As one commentator added, Riley, also too big to jail for quite serious crimes. It’s a pretty impressive scam. Of course it’s in radical violation of capitalist principles, but the masters of mankind believe in those principles only for others, not for themselves.

That stance has a long pedigree. That’s another matter that’s important to understand if we want to grasp the nature of the world in which we live: actually lies in the background a very revealing interaction that’s taking place between two countries that are quite different in terms of independence and economic development: the United States and Egypt. The democracy uprisings in the Arab world, particularly in Egypt, these are events of truly historic importance. And they’re very frightening to western power, for very simple reasons. The west is certainly going to do whatever it can to prevent authentic democracy in the Arab world.

To see why it’s enough to take a look at the studies of Arab public opinion, which is certainly known to planners, even though not to the western public, at least to those who keep to the media. What they show is for example in Egypt about 90% of the population think that the United States think that the United States is the main threat that they face. Maybe 10% think Iran is a threat. Actually about 80% think the region would be more secure if Iran had nuclear weapons. Those figures happen to the high in Egypt but they’re pretty much true across the Arab world, so it’s obvious that the west is going to do whatever it can to prevent those opinions from entering into policy which means to prevent any form of authentic democracy.

Well, these are extremely important events and it’s important to take a look at how they’re developing. All of these have long histories incidentally. So for example the Egyptian movement as you probably saw was led by a group of young tech-savvy people who called themselves the April 6th Movement. Why April 6th? That’s a reference to a major action that was planned on April 6, 2008. At one of the major industrial installations in Egypt, the Mahalla textile installation, there was supposed to be a big strike. There were a lot of support activities. It was crushed by the military dictatorship that we were supporting. Forgotten here; who cares? But not forgotten there. And the same is true of the other countries.

The things that have suddenly burst forth are not coming from nowhere. That’s true of the first one too, which doesn’t even get reported. The current wave of uprisings actually began in the last African colony, one of the two countries of the Arab world that was invaded, occupied, and settled by an outside power. That’s Western Sahara, technically a U.N. dependency, supposed to move on to independence. It was invaded in 1975 by Morocco, a brutal invasion like most. [They] settled a lot of the Moroccan population there, illegally of course. And there have been repeated protests. There was another one in last November, an effort to set up a tent city. Moroccan forces quickly crushed it. Since it’s a U.N. responsibility the issue did come to the Security Council, but France made sure that there would be no inquiry into what happened. It has to protect its Moroccan client. That was the first of the other occupied countries so far the lid has been on tightly. That’s Palestine. Plenty to say about that, but I think most of you are familiar with it, not least from the very courageous and important work done right here by the late Jim Graff.

Whatever is going to happen it’s not clear. All of this is still a work in progress. But despite the internal barriers and internal constraints, these popular movements have achieved substantial success and they have pretty exciting prospects. One of the most dramatic recent moments was last February 20 when Kamal Abbas sent a message from Tahrir Square in Cairo to the Wisconsin workers saying “We stand with you as you stood with us.” Abbas is a leader of the years of struggle of Egyptian workers for elementary rights that lie in the background of today’s Arab spring, as I said brutally crushed by the western-backed dictator. He’s also a leading figure in the current uprising. And Abbas’ message of solidarity to Wisconsin workers evoked the traditional aspirations of the labor movement — solidarity among working people of the world and populations generally.

Right now the trajectories in Cairo and Madison are intersecting but they’re heading in opposite directions: in Cairo towards gaining elementary rights denied by the dictatorships; in Madison towards defending rights that have been won in long and hard struggles and are now under severe attack. Each of these is kind of a microcosm of tendencies that are underway in global society following varied courses. There are sure to be far-reaching consequences of what’s taking place in the decaying industrial heartland of the richest and most powerful country in human history and in what President Eisenhower called the most strategically important area in the world, the Middle East — “a stupendous source of strategic power and probably the richest economic prize in the world in the field of foreign investment.” Those are the words of the State Department in the 1940s. That was a prize that the U.S. intended to keep for itself and its allies in the unfolding new world order of the day that they were organizing and implementing, and in fact still do.

It’s normal for the victors to consign history to the trash can and it’s normal for the victims to take it seriously. If we want to understand the world we should follow their example. Today is in fact not the first occasion when Egypt and the United States are facing similar problems and moving in opposite directions. That was also true in the early part of the 19th century in ways which are quite crucial for both societies and generalize across the world, and are crucial for understanding of the creation of the divide between the rich First World and the poor Third World, much less sharp back in those days.

At that time, early 19th century, Egypt and the United States were both well placed to undertake rapid economic development. Both of them had rich agriculture. That included cotton, which is sort of the fuel of the early industrial revolution. Although unlike Egypt, the United States had to develop cotton production and a work force by conquest, extermination, and slavery, with consequences that reverberate to the present. There was one fundamental difference between Egypt and the United States, namely the United States gained independence and it was therefore free to ignore the prescriptions of economic theory — pretty much the same ones as today. At the time they were delivered by the greatest economist of the day, Adam Smith, in terms similar to those preached to what are called developing societies today.

So Smith urged the American colonies to keep to what was later called their comparative advantage, that is, to produce primary products for export and to import superior British manufactures and certainly not to try to monopolize crucial goods. That meant particularly cotton in those days, kind of like oil today. Any other path, he warned, I’ll quote him, “would retard instead of accelerating the further increase in the value of their annual produce and would obstruct instead of promoting the progress of their country toward real wealth and greatness.” Approximately what you study in economic courses today and the advice given to the world by the IMF and the World Bank. Having gained their independence, the U.S. colonies were free to ignore the laws of sound economics. They were free to follow England’s own course of independent state-guided development with high tariffs to protect industry from superior British exports, the first textiles and later steel and others, and a wide variety of other modes of state intervention in order to accelerate economic development.

The independent republic also tried and came pretty close, to get a monopoly of cotton — for a good reason. The purpose was to place all other nations at our feet, as the Jacksonian presidents put it at the time when they were annexing Texas and half of Mexico. They were particularly concerned with England. England was the big enemy in those days. It was a deterrent and they figured if they monopolized cotton they could bring England to its feet. It’s pretty important. For example, it’s one of the reasons why Canada wasn’t conquered. The British deterred it several times. Maybe it’s being conquered in other ways, but that’s another matter. But it wasn’t militarily conquered.

They also couldn’t conquer Cuba, much as they wanted to, because the British fleet was in the way. They did finally conquer in later in the century in 1898 under the pretext of liberating it but actually conquering it. The idea was if they could monopolize control of cotton they could overcome this deterrent that was in the way of expansion. Actually it’s kind of interesting that that’s essentially the policy that was attributed to Saddam Hussein in 1990, ridiculous at that time. But if you look back at the propaganda at the time of the invasion, the pretext was, well, he’s trying to monopolize oil to bring us all to his feet. That’s totally outlandish. But what was charged, the crime attributed to Saddam Hussein, was in fact one of the main ones that led to U.S. economic development. It happened and it’s had a big effect, one of the reasons it’s out of history except that it’s in history.

That was the United States. What about Egypt? Egypt couldn’t follow a comparable course because it was barred by British power. It wasn’t independent. So the British Lord Palmerston declared, in his words, that “no ideas of fairness toward Egypt ought to stand in the way of such great and paramount interests of Britain as preserving its economic and political hegemony.” And he expressed what he called his hate for the ignorant barbarian Muhammad Ali, the developmentalist leader who was trying to direct Egypt on an independent course. Britain’s fleet and financial resources were deployed to terminate Egypt’s quest for independence and economic development.

After World War II the United States displaced Britain as global hegemon and it adopted the same position. The U.S. made it clear that Washington would provide no aid to Egypt and the whole world badly needed aid at the time. The U.S. would provide no aid to Egypt unless it adhered to the standard rules for weak, the ones I cited, which of course the U.S. continued to violate itself, imposing high tariffs to bar Egyptian cotton and causing a debilitating dollar shortage. Actually [this is] the usual interpretation of market principles. It’s fine for you, fine for disciplining the weak and controlling them, but not me, please. I want the nanny state to make sure I’m okay. That applies home too, the way Goldman Sachs and its colleagues and its representative in government understand very well. These are really leading themes of modern history. They’re essentially the basis for the First – Third World distinction — this generalizes all over — and for what’s happening internal to the rich societies as well.

As these kind of quite simple principles predict, elections are increasingly just becoming a charade run by the public relations industry which tries to mobilize populations to vote while making sure that issues are marginalized for the reason I mentioned. The public has different opinions about issues than the masters of mankind so you want to keep them aside.

I should say while I’m talking about the United States, it’s not true everywhere. If you go, say, to the poorest country in South America, Bolivia, they actually had democratic elections, pretty remarkable ones and especially in the last ten years. So in the last ten years the most bitterly repressed segment of the population, the indigenous population, have actually entered the political arena, pressed their demands, took part in elections, won the elections, elected someone from their own ranks — a poor peasant, not somebody from the Skull and Bones at Yale — and won the election on real issues, serious issues like control over resources, cultural rights, how to handle problems of justice in a complex multiethnic society. And then in another election a couple of years later they did even better.

That’s democracy. You have to look pretty hard to find anything like that in the industrial world. What’s happening in our societies is something quite different. The public relations industry, which essentially runs the elections, is applying certain principles to undermine democracy which are the same as the principles that applies to undermine markets. The last thing that business wants is markets in the sense of economic theory. Take a course in economics, they tell you a market is based on informed consumers making rational choices. Anyone who’s ever looked at a TV ad knows that’s not true. In fact if we had a market system an ad say for General Motors would be a brief statement of the characteristics of the products for next year. That’s not what you see. You see some movie actress or a football hero or somebody driving a car up a mountain or something like that. And that’s true of all advertising. The goal is to undermine markets by creating uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices and the business world spends huge efforts on that.

The same is true when the same industry, the PR industry, turns to undermining democracy. It wants to construct elections in which uninformed voters will make irrational choices. It’s pretty reasonable and it’s so evident you can hardly miss it. It’s another one of those things that ought to be taught in elementary school. It’s kind of embarrassing to talk about something so obvious to a university audience.,

All of this is second nature to the masters of mankind. So for example after his 2008 victory as perhaps you know, Obama immediately won an award from the advertising industry for the best marketing campaign of 2008. He beat out Apple Computers. And if you look at the business press, where people talk more openly, executives were euphoric. They said they’d been marketing candidates like toothpaste ever since Reagan but 2008 was the greatest achievement. They said it was so great it’s going to change the style in corporate boardrooms.

The 2012 election is now expected to cost two billion dollars. It’s going to have to be mostly corporate funding. So it’s not at all surprising that Obama is selecting business leaders for top positions. The public is quite angry and frustrated, but unless western populations can rise to the level of Egyptians they’re going to remain victims.

In the United States the Republicans long ago ceased any pretext of being a traditional political party. They are so deep in the pockets of corporate America, the super rich, you need a telescope to find them. Democrats, who incidentally by now are what used to be called moderate Republicans, they’re not too far behind. Obama’s choice of an economic team which I mentioned is an example. Actually I didn’t put in quite accurately. There was one exception in his economic team, namely Paul Volcker. He was the Secretary of Treasury under Ronald Reagan. But the spectrum has shifted so far to the right that Volcker was the last liberal calling for some kind of regulation — was, incidentally, not is. He was kicked out, replaced by Jeffrey Immelt. He was the CEO of General Electric. That’s the nation’s largest corporation.

His special responsibility, if you look back at the rhetoric, was to create jobs. Actually more accurate comment, again by Tom Ferguson, is that what we actually have here is the disappearance from the scene of the best-known and most visible critic of the excesses of the financial sector and his replacement by the sitting CEO of a company that is heavily dependent upon government aid of all sorts including diplomatic assistance to invest more in China and to shift jobs there. This is not about jobs, it’s about political money. The White House knows it will need to raise about a billion dollars for its re-election campaign.

That’s the context in which this and Obama’s other recent appointments need to be judged, and the business world not surprisingly was quite pleased. The London Financial Times reported that Mr. Immelt’s appointment was applauded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the major business lobby, which they said which they said has been among the President’s harshest critics and funded many Republicans that ran against Democrats in last November’s election. But maybe that will be over and the last barrier to business rule could be out of the way.

If you look at GE, General Electric, more than half of its work force is abroad and more than half of its revenue comes from overseas operations. Also most of its revenues come not from production though it’s regarded as a manufacturing enterprise but from financial operations, for which, incidentally, it received a hefty bailout when Wall Street tanked. While the appointment was proclaimed to be for job growth, it actually has little to do with that and more accurately it’s what’s called follow the money. More than a century ago the great political financier Mark Hanna said that two things are important in politics: money and I’ve forgotten the second one. Another thing for elementary school.

That’s far more true today especially with the radical changes of the past thirty years. They’re important to understand. These developments roughly the last 30-odd years followed one of the major changes in world order in the modern period, namely the dismantling of the post-Second World War economic system, so-called Bretton Woods system, which had been designed by the victors of the Second World War, the United States and Britain. The basic designers were John Maynard Keynes from Britain and the New Deal economist Harry Dexter White for the United States.

One central component of this system was regulation of currencies. In fact that was part of the basis for the huge economic growth for the next couple of decades, the highest in history. That was dismantled about 40 years ago. That was one factor that led to the huge explosion in the financial speculation and the vast growth of financial institutions. At that time they were small components of the economy and they were mostly doing what the banks are supposed to do in state capitalist systems, namely to direct unused funds like your bank to some kind of productive investment.

That was then. By 2007, just before the great crash, they gained about 40% of corporate profits in the U.S. Their profits come mostly from complex financial manipulations, actions that have little if any social or economic utility and are harmful to the economy and also to people in many ways. These practices would be sharply curtailed if capitalist principles were to prevail. They would be curtailed by crashes and losing your money. But thankfully there’s no fear of that, at least for the rich.

Another factor in the financialization of the economy was that the rate of profit in production was declining so it was easier to make money by financial manipulations, of course always with the protection of the nanny state. A closely related development was the offshoring of production. That’s within a global trade system that is very carefully designed to set working people in competition with one another worldwide along with a very high level of protection for wealth and unprecedented rights for investors. That’s the usual interpretation of market discipline again: fine for you, but not for me, please.

These developments set in motion a vicious cycle of concentration of wealth and with it concentration of political power, again in accordance with Smith’s maxim. For the past 30 years state corporate policy has been very precisely designed to accelerate this cycle so inequality as you probably know has soared to the highest levels in U.S. history. But less known is that this is actually misleading. The radical inequality results primarily from the extraordinary wealth of the top one percent of the population, actually more accurately the top one tenth of one percent. It’s a group so small that it’s missed by the U.S. census, which vastly underestimates inequality for this reason. It’s been studied by economists.

Meanwhile for the majority of the population real incomes have pretty much stagnated. People are getting by with heavier workloads, much more than, say, in Europe and Japan; debt, and asset inflation like the last housing bubble. The miniscule category of victors, and it is extremely small, that’s primarily CEOs, hedge fund managers and the like. And they use their political power to enhance the process. The cuts, for example, are carefully crafted to benefit the super rich. If you look back, until 1980, until Reagan, taxes in the United States were somewhat redistributive — that’s according to the analysis of the Internal Revenue Service — as in most countries. That’s what they’re supposed to be. Since then with a couple of blips, that in fact has declined, and if other factors are introduced, like tax havens and other evasion options, they redistribute upwards. That’s carefully designed.

Take the Bush tax cuts ten years ago, which are huge burden on the economy. They were designed very carefully. They started the first year with a small tax rebate to people. So you get a couple of hundred dollars in the mail and you think this is great, a tax rebate. But they were designed so over the years the benefits would shift towards the rich, and by the tenth year when they were set to expire, more than half of the tax benefits went to the top one percent, the people that count. But then it’s kind of invisible if it happens that way. There’s a name for it. It’s called the sunset technique. They make sure that by the time the sun sets, things are happening the right way. You kind of delude people at the beginning. Only those who are inside the game can see what’s planning down the road.

These are perfectly normal kind of policies for the people who are called conservatives, who now want to make it permanent. Take a look at the front page of the newspapers. They want to make these cuts permanent, but for jobs, the same as here. The reason we have to give a huge amount of money to the top one percent of the population or a fraction of that, which spends it on whatever they feel like, is for jobs. Actually there’s an interesting changes that’s taken place in the English language in this respect. There is a word which has become obscene, so since there may be children in the audience I can’t say it but I’ll spell it: P-R-O-F-I-T-S. You’re not allowed to say that. In fact it has a pronunciation. It’s called jobs, and that’s kind of by now routine.

And that’s what this is about. The same here. That was the Bush tax cuts, but the same thing is happening right at this moment. Like the lame duck session of Congress, the session after the November election before the next Congress takes office. Obama was greatly praised for his achievements during the lame duck session, a statesmanlike display of bipartisanship and so on. Praised by his own supporters, in fact. There were some achievements. The main achievement was a tax break for the super-rich, and I mean super-rich. Like I’m pretty well off, but I’m below the cutoff for that one. It was super-rich tax cut. Of course it increased the deficit, which is supposed to be the big thing we’re worried about. Carrying that off required some pretty impressive footwork but it was done.

Also at the same time there was a tax increase for federal workers, but it wasn’t called that because you’re not supposed to talk about tax increases. It was called a freeze, I think for five minutes. A freeze for maybe five seconds. A freeze for public sectors is identical to a tax increase for them, so this is a tax increase for public sector workers disguised as a freeze. There was also a payroll tax decrease for Social Security. Social Security is paid by working people. It doesn’t contribute anything to the deficit — to the contrary. The workers pay for it, and there was a decrease in that payment, which kind of sounds good. The people need the money. But again it was a Trojan horse. Take a look at the way it was designed. It was the sunset technique again. The freeze was carefully designed so that it ends right before the Presidential election.

Political figures understand perfectly well that with an election coming up, nobody’s going to say let’s raise the payroll tax. So that essentially makes it permanent, which is a way to defund Social Security. Social Security is actually in pretty good shape despite what everybody screams about. But if you can defund it, it won’t be in good shape. And there is a standard technique of privatization, namely defund what you want to privatize. Like when Thatcher wanted to defund the railroads, first thing to do is defund them, then they don’t work and people get angry and they want a change. You say okay, privatize them and then they get worse. In that case the government had to step in and rescue it.

That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital. That’s the Social Security scam. If they can succeed in defunding it — they’ve been trying for decades, it’s too popular to do much about, and very efficient incidentally, miniscule administrative costs. Nothing like the privatized health care system. So it’s kind of hard to get rid of. But if you can defund it, it might work out. That’s the point of this decision in the lame duck session. That’s kind of important. First of all, if it can be privatized it’s a huge bonanza for investors. There’s a ton of money in the Social Security system. It’s kept in a trust fund or invested in government bonds and goes back to working people. But if that can get into the hands of financial institutions, they can make a ton of money by using those funds to enrich themselves. And as usual when the system crashes, going back to the taxpayer to bail them out.

Also, Social Security really has defects. It’s almost of no use at all to wealthy people. They may get it but they’re not going to notice it. It’s a toothpick on a mountain. So who cares? But for a large part of the population it’s their means of survival. That’s particularly true right now. People had a tremendous amount of their fake wealth which they believed it in housing. It was all a fake bubble but they believed in it. So it was used borrowing, for education, for anything. That’s gone. Eight trillion dollars of it are gone. Those people are going to be surviving on Social Security that’s of no significance to the wealthy, of course.

There’s a kind of a deeper point, that Social Security is based on the principle that Kamal Abbas was talking about, namely social solidarity. Social Security is based on the idea that you’re supposed to care what happens to people who are in need. So like if there’s a disabled widow across town and she doesn’t have food to eat, you’re supposed to care about it. That’s what Social Security is about. And that’s a bad idea. You’re supposed to look after yourself, not care about other people. Social Security is dangerous. It kind of undermines preferred doctrines and can even lead to action, which could change the way the world works. So we don’t want that. In fact there’s a large scale attack on public education that’s based on the same principle, if you can privatize. . . and the same techniques are being used. Defund it so it doesn’t work, complain about how it doesn’t work, privatize it, it gets worse. But then you’ve undermined social solidarity and it’s fine for the wealthy anyway. They’ll get what they want.

All of this is part of a quite impressive campaign of class war, which has many aspects. A lot of them aren’t immediately visible but they’re there. So for example the government sets rules on how corporations are run, what’s called corporate governance. And the rules that have been set up during this passionate class war period, the rules are that CEOs can pick the boards that set their salaries and work out techniques like, say, stock options which conceal short-term gain. You can imagine how that works when you pick your own board.

There have been efforts to try to get this to be more transparent, but they were beaten back by Congress. The same is true of deregulation. During the period when New Deal deregulations were maintained there were no financial crises. The system went along smoothly. Since Reagan there have been regular financial crises, each one worse than the preceding one. But the rich and powerful make out fine for the reasons I mentioned. The public pays, the rich benefit.

All of this is kind of a new stage of state capitalism. Loyalty to firms is less and less necessary when the goal of management is short-term profits, which of course comes mostly from financial manipulations. So who cares about the firm? If it goes under, fine. I’m rich. Domestic unemployment is not a problem. There’s no need for a domestic work force when Mexico and China and Vietnam and other sources of cheap and brutally exploited labor can be used as assembly plants, and they are assembly plants. Major industries increasingly have their work forces overseas, like General Electric, while — I have to say that word, I’m afraid; sorry — while profits come home back to the pockets of a few.

Take IBM. It’s quite an interesting example. The business press recently ran a big article about them and said correctly that IBM may strike many people as the quintessential American company, but over 70% of its work force was outside of the United States at the end of 2008. And the following year, while continuing to reduce its U.S. employment, the company announced a program to offer employees the opportunity to move their jobs to emerging markets. In other words, you have the opportunity to move to India, say, where you could live at a much lower standard of living. Nice opportunity, but that increases the efficiency of the company and it provides wealth for the masters. If employees don’t take this opportunity that is so benignly offered to them, they have options. They can join the people standing in line for food stamps. But IBM’s a benevolent company, the article points out. They’re offering to foot some of the relocation costs so they’re really nice guys.

The report in the business press didn’t explain why IBM should be regarded as the quintessential American company, but there are in fact good reasons. One is that IBM relied on the taxpayer for its wealth. That’s how it learned to forget about earlier things like helping out Nazi Germany. But just in the recent period it learned to shift from punch cards to modern computers. It learned it at Pentagon-funded labs where I worked, for example. Finally in the early sixties the firm was able to produce its own fast computers but they were too expensive for businesses, so the United States stepped in to purchase them. In general a procurement by the state is a major device of taxpayer subsidy.

Many years, actually decades later, IBM was finally able to make profits in the market and it was also able to spin off wildly successful enterprises like Microsoft and others which also benefited amply from public subsidy. So indeed it’s true: it is the quintessential American company and management is following sound economic principles in shifting employment abroad. What happens to the country is not their business. It’s worth noting that this really isn’t new. Not very long ago the long-term future of the firm was an important consideration for management. Less and less so under modern forms of state capitalism.

Rather interestingly these issues were foreseen by the great founders of modern economics, Adam Smith for example. He recognized and discussed what would happen to Britain if the masters adhered to the rules of sound economics — what’s now called neoliberalism. He warned that if British manufacturers, merchants, and investors turned abroad, they might profit but England would suffer. However, he felt that this wouldn’t happen because the masters would be guided by a home bias. So as if by an invisible hand England would be spared he ravages of economic rationality.

That passage is pretty hard to miss. It’s the only occurrence of the famous phrase “invisible hand” in Wealth of Nations, namely in a critique of what we call neoliberalism. The other leading founder of modern economics, David Ricardo, he drew similar conclusions. He hoped that home bias would lead, I’m quoting him now, “would lead men of property to be satisfied with the low rate of profits in their own country rather than seek a more advantageous employment for their wealth in foreign nations.” He said “These are feelings that I would be sorry to see weakened.” Their predictions aside, the instincts of the classical economists were quite sound.

I mentioned before one well-known market inefficiency, the market inefficiency of dismissing externalities; that is, the effect of a transaction on others. In the case of financial institutions, the externality that’s dismissed in systemic risk, the risk that the whole system will crash as the result of some failed transaction. You don’t take that into account when you make a transaction. In that case the taxpayer can come to the rescue. That way you can make sure that those who profit from risky transactions will be saved.

But that’s not always an option, and the consequences can be severe — in fact awesomely severe. So nobody’s going to come to the rescue if the environment is destroyed, and that it must be destroyed is close to an institutional imperative under contemporary state capitalism. Just think it through. Business leaders right now are conducting massive propaganda campaigns to convince the population that anthropogenic global warming — global warming because of human interference — is a liberal hoax, and they’re succeeding. Like in the United States probably two-thirds of the population believes this by now.

The CEOs who are running these campaigns, they understand what all of us understand. They understand that the threat is very real, very grave; that it’ll destroy everything they own, that it’ll wreck the lives of their grandchildren. They know all of that. But then as CEOs of a corporation, in that institutional role they have no choice. They can pull out of course, but if they stay there they have to maximize short-term gain and market share. Actually that’s a legal requirement under Anglo-American law. If they don’t do it, they’ll be out and somebody else will come in who does do it. So it’s an institutional property, not an individual one. And it does set off a vicious cycle, one that could be lethal.

To see how immanent the danger is, just have a look at the new Congress in the United States, the one that was propelled into power by large scale business funding and propaganda. Almost everyone there is a climate change denier and they’ve already been acting on those assumptions. They’ve been cutting the limited expenditures there are for dealing with environmental problems. If the United States doesn’t do anything significant, the rest of the world isn’t either.

Worse than that, some of them are true believers. For example the new head of one of these committees on the environment explained that global warming can’t be a problem because God promised Noah that there wouldn’t be another flood. That takes care of that. If that was happening in Andorra or some small remote country, maybe we would laugh. But it’s not laughable when it’s happening in the richest and most powerful country in the world. Before we laugh, we might bear in mind that the current economic crisis is traceable in no small measure to the fanatic faith in such dogmas as the efficient market hypothesis and in general to what Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz 15 years ago called “the religion that markets know best.” The religion made it unnecessary for economists and the Federal Reserve to notice that there was an eight trillion dollar housing bubble that had no basis at all in economic fundamentals, that was way off historical trends, and that devastated the economy when it burst. No need to look at it because we have the religion. Markets know best, so forget it. That religion is resuscitated despite what happened.

All of this and much more can proceed as long as the general population is passive, apathetic, devoted to consumerism or maybe hatred of the vulnerable. As long as that’s true the powerful can do as they please and those who survive will be left to contemplate the ruins.