------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Aug 98 From: <name withheld by moderator> To: •••@••.••• (Richard K. Moore) I have read and thought about your posts on cj and find the basic outline to be fundamentally important as a way to interpret the events and trends as presented by the mainstream media and our other major industries. One of the things you advocate is to begin to look at the world through the strategic agenda of moneyed interests. This way of thinking has availed me of much insight and has allowed me to critique our world both for what is presented through media and other cultural authorities, and just as importantly, what is not presented. An example of how this has worked for me occurred when a friend and I where discussing how advertising and marketing practices drive consumerism. As we went on we realized how much credit cards have propped up our lifestyles. When the discussion turned to a way out, we also realized that we both knew people who have declared bankruptcy as a result of too much credit card debt. Usually these sorts of discussions end on a note of personal responsibility etc. -- which, no doubt, factors in there somehow. But, this discussion ended with a prediction based on an assumption that it is the goal of banks to give everyone a credit card and to encourage them to max it out. Given this assumption the snag for banks is that people can max out consumer debt and then declare bankruptcy, wiping the slate clean. Our prediction was that this would soon be limited or removed as an option (this occurred with student loans a while back). Well, a few months past and we had both forgotten about it, when one day I picked up a newspaper and there it was -- credit card companies have successfully lobbied to get a measure on the political agenda to severely reduce personal bankruptcies. Now I cannot claim to be the first to have predicted this, I'm sure its been thought of before. But the point is the strategic thinking you advocate worked for me in this instance. I now feel armed with bit of new understanding of how things are going. It actually seems to resemble the old turn of the century "company store" concept that kept people in huge debt preventing them from ever leaving the company. This is, now that I think of it,a very old and pervasive technique of control used in medieval serfdom, southern sharecroppers, turn of the century industrialization, modern sweatshops, the SE Asian sex trade industry, and in many others manifestations throughout time and space. Credit card companies have just found a relatively new and successful manner in which to accomplish this. I don't know the structure of ownership of banks and products but an important, mutually beneficial symbiosis has occurred regardless of formal relations where the manufacturing industry is being propped up by the consumer credit industry. This has been so successful because they use tried and true propaganda techniques, playing on people's fears and desires, connecting them, pavlovian style, to the purchase of products. Of course, the degree to which the proportion of consumer spending is based on debt creates a large scale pyramid scheme that is alarming to me at least (I have no figures on this but would welcome some). This is just one piece of the giant puzzle that seems to have been the lot of human kind for so long -- the desire to subjugate and control others for personal gain. I find it a huge problem Richard, yet must say that I am impressed with your process model of change. I have not yet thought very long about your request for comments on the model but plan to do so when I can. ---<snip - personal material>--- Thanks for your hard work on these urgent issues -- a true voice in the wilderness. x ------- Dear x, I enjoyed your report very much, and hope other cj readers will also find it useful, even inspirational. The fact is that very little is hidden from us, but we often lack the courage to interpret what we see, to apply our full knowledge and common sense, and to refuse to allow the `consensus reality' perspective to cloud our thinking. I've been talking to some others recently about this question of credit, and of debt. Your thinking dovetails with some of this discussion. Debt can be a primary thing, that is the goal of the loaner is to retrieve his capital and interest, and make a profit. But then, as you point out, debt can be a _tool, to achieve other goals. In the company town, the debt will never be retired; the company never expects a profit from that side of his books. Instead debt becomes an engine of servitude; one might say the borrower himself has been "repossessed by the bank", has become an income-producing serf for the bank (or company), rather than a repaying client. This transition from debtor to serf is a profound change of relationship, and of role. In it the debtor loses his freedom; he is no longer a voluntary participant in a transaction, but has become subject to another's control. The creditor becomes a master-of-others instead of a banker. This has clearly become the pattern with the IMF, with respect to nations. Nations generally, the US included, will _never be able to repay their external debt. Many loans now are simply to finance payments for previous loans, and nations struggle even to pay the interest which falls due each year. The recent IMF loans to Korea, for example, don't go into Korean banks, they simply transit Korea on their way into the pockets of the speculators who caused the crash. Through debt, many nations are now controlled by the IMF. The IMF does not use its power to facilitate repayment, any more than does the company-town operator. In the company town, the goal is to keep the person working in the factory, and to gain back all his wages via the debt scheme. Thus the company has zero labor costs, except for the cost of the supplies that are delivered to the store. The economy is one of slavery -- slave-owners always need to feed their slaves. With the IMF, the game is to coerce the nation into playing whatever role is deemed suitable for it under the globalization project. In the case of Rwanda, it was desired that Rwanda cease being a coffee producer, and that it become a food importer. In the process of achieving these goals, Rwanda's ability to repay debt was grossly reduced, thus giving the lie to any pretense that the IMF's goal was to facilitate repayment. In the case of Asia, one must keep in mind that there is currently a "crisis of overproduction" today in many sectors, including electronics and automobiles. That is to say, there is far more ability to produce cars than there is a market for them. In a true free market system, this would lead to price competition, the failure of inefficient producers, etc. But under the centrally managed globalization regime, which is anything but a free market system, the command decision was reached that instead of inefficient producers failing, it was preferred that Asian producers fail. Through whatever means, and many are available, the well-tested speculation-bubble scenario was encouraged, and the IMF then stepped in to execute the program. The over-prodution problem was thereby alleveated, and the IMF then presided over a garage sale of Asian assets at bargain prices to Western buyers. The default post-capitalist regime is corporate feudalism. rkm ------------------------------------------------------------------------ a political discussion forum - •••@••.••• To subscribe, send any message to •••@••.••• A public service of Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance (mailto:•••@••.••• http://cyberjournal.org) ---------------------------------------------------------- Non-commercial reposting is hereby approved, but please include the sig up through this paragraph and retain any internal credits and copyright notices. .--------------------------------------------------------- To see the index of the cj archives, send any message to: •••@••.••• To subscribe to our activists list, send any message to: •••@••.••• Help create the Movement for a Democratic Rensaissance ---------------------------------------------- crafted in Ireland by rkm ----------------------------------- A community will evolve only when the people control their means of communication. -- Frantz Fanon
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