Dear Friends,
The following article is being prepared for a progressive print magazine.
It is a completely re-designed version of an earlier essay you may have
seen. If you have the time and inclination, I invite you to critique this
material and to suggest improvements. In an article of this scope, being
limited to a few thousand words, I've undoubtedly mis-stated or
mis-emphasized many of the points. I'd appreciate suggestions, and
especially, relevant citations or cogent examples.
Those of you who disagree with the thesis are hereby challenged to tear it
apart. If you convince me I'm wrong, I'll retract the article. But if you
fail, be aware that your objections will probably serve to strengthen the
arguments.
Please do not forward this draft without permission, out of respect for the
print channel.
Yours,
Richard
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Democracy and The New World Order
Richard K. Moore
•••@••.•••
August 1995
Faced with widespread declines in the quality of life, the global breakdown
of traditional social and economic systems, chronic poverty and warfare,
and frequent examples government corruption, few would disagree that we
live in times that call for significant reforms and for a unifying vision
that can lead us to a better future. Increasingly, political parties have
merged into indistinguishable clones of one another, offering voters little
meaningful choice or effective leadership.
In desperation, more and more people are turning to simplistic
fundamentalist solutions, each of which offers "the one answer" to the
world's problems. Muslims and Christians alike turn in increasing numbers
to a primitive fundamentalist version of their faiths; thousands follow
charismatic charlatans into bizarre cults; libertarians, anarchists, and
neo-fascists adopt simplistic pseudo-philosophies, identify enemies on
which to blame their problems, and see salvation in the conversion of
everyone else to their myopic world views.
Those of us who retain a respect for democratic pluralism are dismayed by
these lemming-like rushes over cultish cliffs, seeing them not only as
divisive, but also unproductive of any real solutions to the actual
problems we all face. But there is one brand of fundamentalism, seldom
identified as such, that enjoys widespread popularity in the Western world.
It is more dangerous than the others because it is promulgated by the mass
media, by government leaders, and by self-appointed experts of all stripes.
But like all the other simplistic fundamentalist approaches, it does not
stand up to any kind of real scrutiny. I'm speaking of the "unregulated
free market", or as it has been called for more than a century,
laissez-faire economics.
The term "laissez-faire" is never used by today's proponents, because that
would invite looking at the embarrassing historical record. Instead
"market reform" is sold as if it was a bold new idea. As with all
cult-like belief systems, it comes wrapped in myths: a revisionist version
of history, caricatures of alternatives approaches, and a rose-tinted
vision of its own efficacy. Even a cursory glimpse at scenarios in which
laissez faire has actually been allowed to operate (for example, 19th
Century America and much of today's Third World) show that it offers no
easy panaceas. Far from a brave new world, it suffers from at least as
much curtailment of liberties, economic inefficiency, and corruption, as
anything we are now seeking to extricate ourselves from. It turns out not
to lead to a libertarian utopia, but instead to a managed society, with
robber-baron capitalists in charge instead of elected officials. This is
exactly as predicted by J. Stuart Mill, the original articulator of the
free-market's "invisible hand". He knew that free-market forces, if a
healthy society is to be facilitated, need to live within reasonable
bounds. _Any_ "life form", if it has _no_ bounds, is a variant of cancer,
ultimately destructive of itself and its host. We, as a global society,
are urgently in need of "remission" from this cancer we are increasingly
suffering from.
Unlike the 19th Century version of laissez faire mythology, which existed
within the framework of nation states, and advocated the free market as a
matter of national policies, we are faced today with a far more ominous
threat. Those whose self-interests are served by unrestrained "free
markets" -- the large transnational corporations -- are not satisfied with
their current successes in dominating the economies of individual nations.
Happy as they are with the record-setting profits they have gained from
their Reagan/Thatcher successes, and their domination of the Third World
(courtesy of military-dictatorship proxies), the transnationals want more,
and they want it quicker. Emboldened by their seemingly unassailable
ascendency, they are pursuing a strategy to "lock in" their dominance by a
mechanism increasingly known as the "New World Order".
The New World Order (NWO) has several dimensions: military, political,
economic, social, ideological, and propagandistic. Its ideology, as well
as its economics, is the unrestrained free market, a mythology we've
already discussed. Disastrous as this agenda is for nearly all of us, it
does indeed provide ever increasing profits to a shrinking number of highly
concentrated corporate conglomerates.
The social dimension of the NWO can be summarized as "no more
entitlements". In the First World this translates into dismantled social
programs, undermining of labor and safety laws, and disregard for the
preservation of a healthy environment. This dismantlement of traditional
institutions has been facilitated by media propaganda, and accomplished by
populist demagogs, exemplified by Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Bob
Dole, John Major, etc. The role of such demagogs is to sabotage government
from within -- assuring that it fails -- and them proclaiming deregulation
and privatization as the "only possible solutions" to the problems they
themselves have created or aggravated.
The same "solutions" are imposed on the Third World, but instead of relying
on domination of the political process in each individual nation, the
policies are imposed on each from outside, by conditions set by the
international financial community.
Which brings us to the political dimension of the New World Order. The
political regime being installed to manage the Orderly New World are
frighteningly simple: it includes no political parties, no constitution, no
declaration of human rights, no balance of powers, no redress of
grievances, and no elections (in fact no kind of popular representation).
Instead we are to be governed by faceless commissions of technocrats,
appointed (directly or indirectly) by transnational executives, and
dedicated to serving their interests. The precursor of these commissions
is the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In much of the Third World, the
IMF has more discretionary power than national governments. From its
comfortable First-World executive suites, it dictates draconian
social/economic policies which translate into increased poverty and
destitution for millions of people -- poverty and destitution which the
commissioners (and corporate executives) are never forced to see first
hand.
So successful and efficient has the IMF proved to be, as a tool of
transnational domination of the Third World, that a similar formula is now
being applied to the rest of us. The efficiency and leverage of the IMF
model stems from the fact that it avoids the necessity of dominating
political activity in individual countries, through such time-consuming
practices as bribing officials, funding political campaigns, tedious
lobbying efforts, and the like. Instead, a small commission of technocrats
simply run their spreadsheets, announce guidelines, and whole nations are
then forced to find their own way of living within the imposed constraints.
Very tidy, as far as the transnationals are concerned. Very ugly, to the
millions who are forced to somehow survive and raise their families under
these guidelines, or, increasingly, are simply left to starve. It's _not
nice_ to be redundant to the needs of the New World Order and its corporate
masters!
This nightmarish political regime is being expanded to the rest of us by
means of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Area), GATT (General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade), the WTO (World Trade Organization), and other similar
agreements and entities, some regional and some global. Unlike the IMF,
which controls via the purse strings, these so-called "trade agreements"
control via intrusion into the regulatory power of signatory states. By
exploiting the treaty mechanism, which has the force of national law, these
agreements become permanent parts of each constitutional system, making it
all but impossible for future governments to choose different regulatory
policies. Thus the transnationals are able to translate temporary
political ascendency, attained at considerable effort and expense, into a
permanent stranglehold over national sovereignties.
These agreements go far beyond the bounds of what you and I would think of
as "trade policy". But by masquerading as trade agreements, they manage to
avoid the deeper policy debates which they rightly deserve. Instead of
full scale national debates over the surrender of sovereignty, a few "trade
negotiators" from each country meet in relative secrecy and hammer out
terms of "economic reform" whose far-reaching consequences are
intentionally minimized and misrepresented. Even when a national debate
does arise, as with NAFTA in the USA, it is channeled into a discussion of
short range effects on the economy, the political implications being
carefully avoided. Thus the NWO "reform camel" sneaks its nose into the
national tent, without revealing its bulkier body. The full NWO reform
camel is bulky indeed. Not limited to imports & exports, quotas & tariffs,
it pushes its weight into labor laws, safety regulations, air quality
rules, land use practices, social programs, and so on ad infinitum. The
camel itself has no concern for the quality of life, and the rest of us are
evidently to adapt to its spartan life style.
There's one more NWO infiltration scheme which deserves special mention --
Maastricht and the European Union. Just as the IMF masquerades as a
funding source, and GATT masquerades as trade reform, so the EU masquerades
as a "more competitive Europe" -- and the deception is equally profound.
As with the trade agreements, the debate over Maastricht has been channeled
as narrowly as possible, primarily to to the question of "opening of
markets". But Europe has a highly educated public, and a strong democratic
tradition, and some of the debate has (fortunately) touched on the real
issue at stake -- surrender of national sovereignty to bureaucrats in
Brussels. Unfortunately the Euro Skeptics in the British Parliament, and
the Norwegians -- and others who are demonstrating the ability to think
ahead -- are being drowned out in the mad rush to endorse the pathetic
Maastricht formula.
The reasons for narrowing the debate over Maastricht as much as possible
are obvious: if Maastricht were evaluated for what it actually is -- the
operating framework for a United States of Europe -- it would be found
sorely wanting. It lacks firm guarantees of human rights, a well
thought-out balance of powers, a bicameral legislature, and many other
elements that are necessary to a sound democratic system. It simply
doesn't stand up at all as a serious constitution, and so the true scope of
its ultimate authority is intentionally concealed. This time the NWO camel
has found a way to sneak more than its nose into the tent of an entire
continent. And as usual, the style of the NWO camel is the same -- control
concentrated in appointed technocratic commissions whose primary goal is to
facilitate investment opportunities for the corporate sector. As part of
its deceptive propaganda campaign, necessary to be accepted into the tent,
there is currently an EU emphasis on progressive measures, such as
extending workers rights in nations below the European average -- but these
are not the inherent focus of Maastricht, and as Brussels' power becomes
more entrenched, its true colors will come increasingly to the fore. As
with all con games, the bait come first, and the hook is hidden until well
set.
In summary, the political regime of the New World Order is a world
dominated by corporate-selected technocrats, subject to no effective
democratic controls, and with the primary mission of enhancing the
profitability of corporations. This scheme is being rapidly implemented by
means of a linked set of supranational institutions, masquerading under the
mythology of economic "reform", and with the full extent of their powers
intentionally understated.
In this time of instantly available global communications, how have we
permitted ourselves to fall blindly down the slippery slope of this
well-ordered neo-feudalism?
This question brings us to the propagandistic dimension of the New World
Order. At an alarming rate, all global sources of information and
entertainment are being concentrated into a handful of media conglomerates.
Television, newspapers, magazines, and film production are being gobbled
up by a few mega corporations which have full control over their content
and distribution. These corporations decide which events are to be deemed
"news", how that "news" is to be interpreted, which story ideas will be
developed into films and TV series, which candidates are to be considered
"realistic" in elections, which legislative proposals are to be praised and
which ridiculed, and which mythologies are to be sold to global audiences.
Share: