1/12/2013

IMPERIALISM 2.0. vs IMPERIALISM 1.0.

Spanish



Steve Pearl, head of the British National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (Nectu) (2009):  "Nectu worked with thousands of companies in the private sector"... "Nectu was set up by the Home Office because it was getting really pressured by big business - pharmaceuticals in particular, and the banks"..."Environmental protestors were being brought "more on the radar.""

Grover Norquist (1992) : "I don't want to abolish the government, I am content to reduce it to a size that allows us to drown it in the bathtub "John Perkins (Confessions of an Economist Sicario, 2004) : "The Corporatocracy is based on three pillars: large corporations, international banks and governments in cahoots. 

"Imperialism (definition): Submission of state power to the interests of the monopolies.

Robert Cooper, (The New Liberal Imperialism): "The pre-modern world is a world of failed states.… It is precisely because of the death of imperialism that we are seeing the emergence of the pre-modern world. Empire and imperialism are words that have become a form of abuse in the postmodern world. Today, there are no colonial powers willing to take on the job, though the opportunities, perhaps even the need for colonization, is as great as it ever was in the nineteenth century. All the conditions for imperialism are there, but both the supply and demand for imperialism have dried up. And yet the weak still need the strong and the strong still need an orderly world. A world in which the efficient and well governed export stability and liberty, and which is open for investment and growth—all of this seems eminently desirable. What is needed then is a new kind of imperialism, one acceptable to a world of human rights and cosmopolitan values"

Imperialism 1.0.


Eric Hobsawm: "The existence of a "labor aristocracy" is explained by the super- monopoly profits that allow capitalists devote a bribe to their own workers, creating a sort of alliance between workers in a particular nation and their capitalists against other countries."

In the monopoly
stage 1.0 monopolies used the strength of their parent states to expand and control their markets and secure supplies of raw materials. Capital operated  internationally but concentrated its profits nationally. It was a time when the world was divided between capitalist nations more or less fortunate and capital concentrating in a shrinking number of nations. This phenomenon, known as Imperialism, was often regarded as the last stage of capitalism (Lenin).

Nationalism and strengthening the rule of State included that part of the profits of large monopolistic corporations were passed on the taxpayers. Unions and leftist parties (
labor aristocracy) repeatedly supported their imperial colonial adventures. Cecil Rhodes acknowledged that to curb social unrest in their territory the British had to be imperialist.

Many of armed conflicts, including the two world wars,
obeyed this pattern. Monopolies needed strengthening  nationalism and the public and military structures of their states for use them against other imperialist states.

 
The dominant ideology had nothing to do with the current neoliberalism. Economic nationalism, industrialization, protectionism, economic planning, areas of influence, colonies, captive markets ...

Although the 2nd Socialist International recognized that in the age of Imperialism all wars were imperialist wars of conquest, most socialist parties ended up collaborating with their champion monopolies with various excuses. For nationalists monopolists, victory meant the expropriation and annexation. In the same way that businesses, the war would bring profits and facilitate the acumulation of capital.


The disaster and the destruction of the 2GM made ​​it clear the danger and impracticality of inter-imperialist rivalries. Soviet and central and eastern Europe Revolutions, as well as the Paris Commune, did not arise simply because of the economic crisis but the misery and confusion of war and defeat.

Monopolies, including those from the U.S., changed their strategy. Neoliberalism, although
dangerous for less dynamic monopolies, would be soon offering unprecedented opportunities for the more aggressive firms, who one after another, began to become multinationals. The mighty U.S. imperialism, althogh tending to favor USA monopolies, became the "de facto" monopolies global gendarme.

Imperialism 1.0. so, would not be the "last phase of capitalism."



Imperialism 2.0.


William I. Robinson: "Once they have been captured by transnational corporations, national states internalize the structures of global capitalism. Globalisation is embodied in local structures and processes. The disciplinary power of global capitalism shifts the political power of nation states to global capitalists represented by local groups linked to globalization."

G. M. Tamás : "The old nationalism was based on force, assimilation and growth, however  the sign of the new nationalisms ( ethnicity , tribalism , ... ) is the extreme weakness" ... "With the new nationalism, countries are reinterpreted as tribes with flags, and states was mafias with statutes".

Nafeez Ahmed: "FBI documents confirmed a strategic partnership between the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the private sector designed to produce intelligence on behalf of the corporate security community. A PCJF spokesperson remarked that the documents show "federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America."... "surveillance has systematically targeted peaceful environment activists including anti-fracking activist"... "McDonald's, Nestle and the oil major Shell, "use covert methods to gather intelligence on activist groups, counter criticism of their strategies and practices, and evade accountability."


But a new form of imperialism was redesigned according to the coordinates drowed in advance by Karl Kautsky when he predicted the coming of  "Collective Imperialism " - Imperialism acting in block in relation to the colonies. In the "Collective Imperialism" of Kautsky , the word "collective" referred to the group of nation states in relation with their colonies, and Lenin was right stating that such cooperation would not resist inter -imperialist competition (WWI)  In the current Imperialism 2.0., the "collective"  are no longer "imperialists states" but the big  international monopoly groups .

With the reintegration of the USSR and China, what remained of the old-fashioned imperialism ceased to be functional. As they were internationalized, the 
"efficient" monopolies were increasingly less interested in holding States socially and environmentally too expensive, in exchange for services that could be obtained directly or elsewhere, in better condition and almost without compensation (direct bribes ,mercenaries and international assassins, international finance, tax havens, competition  between states, ... ).

It is true that international institutions (UN, WB, IMF, WTO, EU, OECD, G7, ... ) were once controlled and manipulated in favor of the interests of the dominant powers (Washington Consensus), but currently all these institutions are working for the entire multinational guild, and have become agencies that do not hesitate to destabilize and ruin to the same national powers who once "liedered" such organisms.

The monopolistic corporations have not only taken control of international institutions, supplanting the states, but rearranged and manipulated them in order to operate better in favor of their interests and to the detriment of their theoretical states members. The latest reforms, treaties and "Constitutions" of the European Union have transformed it in a corporate agency serving the private monopolies who are acting openly and with impunity against their own state partners, imposing drastic austerity measures to weaken them, force them to privatize their services and public goods and reduce its citizens to flexible conditions for optimal exploitation to swell their profits.

 Imperialism 1.0. built infrastructure in the metropolis, but also in the colonies (White Man's Burden), since the colonies were, in a sense, an extension of the metropolis. Imperialism 1.0., as racist and exploitative as it was, was the project of a state and a government. Imperialism 2.0. do no needs to build roads or railways, simply take them.

Multinational monopolies had been released from the archaic
"imperialists"structures of domination. The "modern" structures of domination are more subtle but no less brutal. Are exerted through "globalization" through regulations and international organizations ( IMF, WB, WTO, OECD, ILO, WHO, NATO, G8, G20, ... ) , "free trade treaties", supranational organizations ( Davos, Trilateral , Bloomberg, ... ), increasingly outside the weakening channels of democratic representation.


The two secret "free trade" treaties global corporate coup


Lori Wallach : " The dirty little secret is that it is not mostly "trade" "


"TPP is being negotiated with a rigged process. Multinational corporations sit down with Government representatives. No place for labor, consumer groups, health groups, environmental defenders, human rights, civil rights collectives, democracy advocates, representatives of smaller, local, not-giant-multinational businesses, or any other “stakeholder” that could possibly oppose the corporate agenda".

The US government has sought to include tobacco in a regional free-trade pact, which would enable tobacco companies to use trade rules to compromise government anti-smoking regulations.

Tobacco companies are already suing governments that try to protect their citizens, claiming this costs them profits. Philip Morris is suing Uruguay for “excessive” regulation of tobacco, because Uruguay requires health warnings to be prominent on tobacco packaging. According to a NY Times report, “Uruguay’s gross domestic product is half the size of the company’s $66 billion in annual sales.” The company is also suing Ireland and Norway, claiming that prohibitions on store displays reduce their profits.

This way of operating outside the public and democratic institutions is evident in the secret negotiation of the Free Trade Trans-Pacific (TPP: Trans-Pacific Partnership) and Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TTIP: Transatlantic Trade and Investement Partnership) . 

During the imperialist phase 1.0., in times of economic crisis, monopolistic champions required from their states  protectionist measures to protect their captive markets. By contrast, today, the multinational conglomerates, operating on a global scale, all act in unison and in concert to reduce any kind of restriction or control by the state and its institutions. 

In the midst of a depression and with austerity policies on both sides of the Atlantic to prepare the ground, a coalition of multinational monopolies, Cargill, Dupont, Dow, FedEx, Amwey, Chrysler, Citi, Ford, GE, IBM, Intel  Johnson & Johnson, Lilly, MetLife, UPS, JP Morgan, ... , with the enthusiastic cooperation of Obama, Merkel  Barroso & Cia, are planing to create a new structure for the global system. 

 This is a true trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic corporate state coup. The TTIP and TPP, are, both individually and in combination, the biggest "trade agreements" in history. They are larger corporations (600), not states in crisis, which are requiring this "agreements", press and promote the agenda of political elites, and direct the whole process, ensuring that their interests are met.

These austere "treaties" that arise in all media as "the panacea for the crisis", give private monopolists unlimited access to markets, protect them from any competition, assure them subsidies of all kinds, facilitate them to privatize anything and everything , "deregulate" at their will, destroy the environment, facilitating the corporate plunder of resources, and ensure the highest level of social exploitation. Following the agreements, the already dilapidated state democratic mechanisms will be absolutely inoperative against the imperialism 2.0 onslaught.
 
The TPP goes far beyon the scope of tariff reduction and trade promotion (objectives achieved in previous treaties), in order to give unprecedented power to the big monopolies. Of the 26 negotiating chapters (according to leaked documents), only a few deal directly with trade. The other chapters enshrine new rights and privileges for large companies at the expense of the power of nation states to oppose it. The large corporations will dictate and direct the policies of states, from ad hoc organizational structures that facilitate the consolidation, regionally and globally their financial, economic and political power. A mechanism for resolving disputes between investors and states "that allows corporations to sue governments over " barriers to investment rights" through an international court (the World Bank, for example), with the power to impose sanctions on states that violate their verdicts. It pretend to create a parallel legal system of international courts to undermine national sovereignty, allowing conglomerates sue countries that threaten their monopoly profits (can lead to a sovereing state to trial for "anticipated loss of future profits").


These treaties have little to do with trade but with the expansion of rights and the power of multinational corporations who are taking a new cosmopolitic nature. Acting through industry associations, lobbying groups, think tanks and foundations (Atlantic Council, Brookings Institution, German Marshall Fund, Business Europe, the Business Roundtable, the European Round Table of Industrialist, ... ) , are focused on concocting secretive conspiracies consolidating its transnational economic and political power. 

Rather than promoting "free trade" the treaties are aimed at ensuring international regulations in favour of large multinational corporations over national laws. Rates quotas may raise the price of certain goods by 20% or 30% at best. By contrast, patents and copyright can raise the price of products "protected" by the law, 2000% or 20,000% above the marke price t "free"(monopoly patents granted to pharmaceuticals). 

In the case of TPP, the theoretically participants to the secret negotiations are elected representatives of the following countries: Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, USA, Australia, Peru, Vietnam, Malaysia, Mexico and Canada. In practice the negotiations are led by representatives of large multinational groups (involving 600 lobbyists). The representatives of the affected are not included  (consumers, users of libraries, students, patient groups, Internet, ... or other intellectual property "users"). 


 

Basically multinationals monopolies seek a compulsive  protection system of "their " intellectual property ( copy right, patents, ... ) in all areas and levels. The "industrial property" (patents , ... ), is one of the main entry barriers that ensures a firm the strengthening and expanding of monopoly positions  and subsequent monopoly rents, hindering or forbidding, for example, manufacturing/use of generic drugs. 

Instead of watching competition, preventing the formation of monopolies in the net, aim, however , control the Internet , forcing service providers to provide agencies under its control , data boaters, surfers criminalizing who refuse to bow to their interests. This is another channel reintroduce the failed ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) and SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) who were defeated by a massive protest campaign Internet users . The goal is to turn the entire Internet into a platform payment bounded. 

TTIP aims to dismantle environmental regulations (estriction of fracking, ... ), health (GMOs, pesticides, ... ) and social protection regulations, and above all, ensure "legality" (legal certainty) of the massive privatizations of public goods forced for the systematic impoverishment policies (austerity) in place throughout the area that will forcing states to sell  off its most prized garments at bargain prices. 

So the main objective of imperialism 2.0 is the pressure or even the destabilization of national states attempting to resist the interests of large multinational monopoly groups. It is not only ex-colonies, but any democratic state is exposed to the uncontrolled fury of this new imperialism. Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba, ..., are priorities, but any country, regardless of its geographical situation, that seeks to hinder their goals, is and will be subject to systematic attacks from several fronts (diplomatic, financial, media, ..., and not to exclude the proliferation of "humanitarian" operations supported by the "International Community"), to bring him back to the submission to capital. 

Wars increasingly "private"


 Doug Brooks: "The reality is that any peacekeeping operation of the United Nations or other existing regional agency currently requires and uses the services of the private sector (Private Military Corporations)


The "private military corporations" (PMC), are private companies that offer "military services" to anyone who want to hire them, are secretive about their activities and customer portfolios not being regulated by any international standards (violate the International Convention against the Recruitment, financing and training of mercenaries passed by the UN in 1989) 

These services include project and business protection business in unstable regions, risk assessment, training local forces, armed security in mining areas, cash transport, intelligence, local security of business or industrial facilities, security in areas war, weapons acquisition, control and recognition of staff background, armed support, air support, logistical support, maritime security, cyber security, prisons, surveillance, psychological warfare, propaganda tactics, covert operations, personal protection, peace missions and training of military and police forces in the post-war periode ... 

Their services are requested by governments, corporations, NGOs, media, and even the UN. 

Among the PMC that did business in Iraq are : MPRI, SAIC, Armor Group, Blackwater, Erinys,  Vinnell, Global Risk Strategies, TASK, Ariscan and DynCorp, Kroll Security, ....

 The "clients" of the PMC are large corporations (or the puppet state that protects them) seeking to seize natural resources get captive markets (food, infrastructure, technology, services, ... ) hoarding "reconstruction" contracts after the destruction of "terrorism  , and in general , create a framework of full colonial dependence on transnational monopoly capital. 

The increasingly arrogant monopolistic multinationals corporations, require from the states they control to engage in military interventions difficult to justify  to their citizens. One way to avoid responsibility is to hire the services of mercenaries. 

The privatization of military services means more than one variable added to the game of international and regional diplomacy and means a radical redefinition of sovereignty in the XXI century. 

Parasites of State


Multinational monopoly corporations not only replace the Estate but weaken and parasites it so to increase their dependence on them. 

Initially the rivalry between the PMCs meant lower prices for contracting states who could thus reduce their military budgets. However, according to the globalization dynamics, capital concentration rapidly advanced in the sector: MPRI and Titan were acquired by L-3 Communications, Defence Systems Limited was acquired by Armor Holdings Inc (now Armor Group); Securicor is the result of the merger between Group 4 Falk and Wackenhut Corporation, Computer Sciences Corporation recently purchased DynCorp; ... 

The industry is growing exponentially, with some annual contracts exceeding $100 billion. The companies, based in the United States and Britain, monopolize over 70% of the world market of such services. 

Most of these companies operate as "virtual companies" or "hollow" (Nike, Westinghouse, Ikea, Dell.Inc, style , ...), in which all goods and services are outsourced to suppliers, and the PMC just stay with the minimum corporate functions (planning, coordination and administration). The subcontractors are nurtured by other subcontractors so that the recruits end up being low-cost Africans, Latin Americans, from underpaid armies or paramilitary groups (El Salvador , Colombia , Chile, ...).

Once collected exorbitant monopoly or oligopoly positions, states have been trapped by a procurement contract in which they can no longer stand as public monopsonistic demandants, but as current customers paying more rents to global monopolistic or oligopolistic PMCs.

In addition, there has been a crazy brain drain of expensively (with public funds) trained officers to this thriving private sector. 

Executives at Global Option and Diligence mercenary firms, specializing in preparing the ground and protect the business of multinationals, are, in most cases, former members of the CIA, DIA, FBI, FEMA, M16, ... Middle managers come from the ranks of special Forces units of the U.S., the UK., Israel and South Africa. 

Moreover, the vast majority of these multinationals locate their headquarters in tax havens so that even a dollar or euro could reverse to the parasitized states. 


Imperialism 2.0 for discussion 


Many left-wing thinkers have failed to understand this phenomenon. They find it hard to conceive that capital can be organized on the sidelines of the national principles and that there is a de facto transfer of sovereignty from nation states to stateless organizations (including, increasingly often, agencies or 'national' bodies as the central banks or the "technocratic" governments, ... ) that operate in direct service of multinationals.  

Some recognize the universality of capital, its transnationalization, but consistently refuse to recognize that capital has escaped the confines of the nation state, that multinational monopolies have left aside their initial national basis, and that the multiple relationships and synergies among the great transnational corporations increasingly left more lax and distended their formal relations with the states that were their former base.



Playing for change