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OPINION: End of the World as We Know It, Part One |
Teddy Herzog | 10/16/08
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Will the new economy destroy freedom, democracy and capitalism in the United States? As the federal government intervenes heavily in the financial markets and buys up financial institutions, we are witnessing a fatal collision of “free market capitalism” with “state-run corporate capitalism“.
Economic structures determine political structures. In the classic model of the United States, free market capitalism led to the freedoms of democracy. In fascist Germany of the 1930s, corporations gained control of the economy and, in exchange, supported the political dictatorship of a corporatist Germany.
In her new book, “Give Me Liberty”, Naomi Wolf offers the view that the United States is rapidly becoming a “closed society” and that our constitution is being destroyed before our eyes.
Step One: Hyping an external threat that is terrifying.
Step Two: Creating a secret prison system that is outside the rule of law where torture takes place.
Step Three: A paramilitary force not answerable to the people.
Step Four: An institutional surveillance apparatus imposed on the citizens.
Step Five: Infiltrate and harass citizen’s groups.
Step Six: Engage in arbitrary detention and release.
etc…
Do these steps describe the rise of fascist Germany in the 1930’s or changes currently occurring in the United States? Both.
 Germany in 1932 was a parliamentary democracy with political parties, newspapers and human rights organizations. In the 20th century, every rise in dictatorship has followed the same exact “blueprint” for closing down a democracy. They all follow the same ten steps according to Naomi Wolf. Think Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. Petty dictators in Latin America, Thailand, Burma have also followed the blueprint. She claims that these same ten steps are under way in the United States right now.
According to Wolf we are now in a crises because the rule of democracy is crumbling and is rapidly being replaced by the foundations for a dictatorship.
“I want to go back to what are the core principles that America is supposed to give us because we are being manipulated and brainwashed so far away from that; with fake democracy and fake patriotism.”
“A coup has taken place. And people need to know how to fight back.” (Naomi Wolf)
I have to say that I do not disagree with Naomi Wolf. The “free marketplace” and the historic structures of capitalism have now been destroyed. This process has actually been slowly accruing since the last Great Depression but has taken an accelerated pace in 2008.
The federal government’s wiretapping of US citizens is clearly a breach of traditional constitutional rights. The US president now claims the power to arrest and torture anyone he deems to be an “enemy combatant”. There are reports of a US Army Division about to be deployed from Iraq to US soil.
If the financial markets are no longer “free” then how will we the people be “free” in any meaningful sense? If fear and false “security” have replaced our constitutional rights then the US constitution is dead. Looking in the rear view mirror, our “American” way life has been left behind, dying on the side of the road.
However, concurrently, we are living in a time of tectonic social and technological upheavals never before witnessed in history. The collapse of the institutions of free market capitalism occurs precisely at a time of emergence of something new.
Steven Johnson published a book called “Emergence” right at the time September 11th, 2001 attack. The book was about the power and creative potential of urban density; of connecting people and putting them together in one place and sharing ideas together. Johnson lives in New York City in close proximity to the site of the destroyed Twin Towers.
Johnson was able to observe that in the days immediately following the Twin Towers attack, the streets were vibrantly alive with people. He reports that his neighborhood, the West Village, had never seemed more lively. Despite the enormity of the “terrorist” attack 20 blocks to the south, the City was working and vibrant. The “system” of the City was thriving.
Although cities are centralized in space, they are decentralized in function. They don’t have an executive branch upon which the entire city operations rely. Who builds a City? Who builds a neighborhood? Johnson notes that it is “everybody and nobody”. Everybody contributes a small little part. No single person is in charge.
This is increasingly what we are experiencing with the World Wide Web -- the internet. The internet is a global brain.
We are on the brink of truly global social organization, according to another author Robert Wright. Originally humans developed hunter-gatherer villages. Early agriculture led to chiefdoms of local control. With the invention of writing you started getting cities. Eventually social organization led to empires.
Robert Wright, notes that social organization can extend beyond political boundaries as in, for example, the Silk Road which connected the Chinese empire to the Roman empire. So, you had social complexity spanning an entire continent even though a single political structure did not. Today, we have nation states. This is a growth in social complexity over time.
Social organization has now reached the global level. So…how do we all get along now? Are we heading to a one-world government? Do we have any choice?
Of course, you and I resist the idea of unified, world-wide government the same way the agrarian chiefdoms resisted being merged into nation states, But the natural flow of ten thousand years of history points towards a single global economy and, therefore, a single unified political structure.
Some people will rightfully be concerned about having economic and political power of the entire planet increasingly concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. History is filled with stories about a power elite taking control over the masses. Looking into the rear view mirror of history, further concentration of political power sure seems like a bad idea.
But the future we are heading into may not actually be fully informed by the past.
Read Part Two |
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