US Supreme Court to rule on CO2 27 June 06

I believe any hope that Neo-liberal capitalism can solve the problem of climate change will prove to be utterly unfounded. To try to put this right without rectifying the clapped out global financial system is useless and environmentalists doing so will carry on coming up against a brick wall. They need to look at the way this system works and intellectually grow beyond the conditioning that economics and finance can only be understood by economists and financiers. New Para

Let me try to explain. The two main cornerstones of Western economies are usury and speculation. Usury in that almost all of the money in circulation has been electronically created by the commercial banks and is called by them “credit” and is lent to Governments and individuals for quick profit not for a particular motive of world betterment. Nothing moves when electronic money circulates when you use your debit card, direct debits, cheques etc and when Governments borrow money- all that happens is that one account’s data entry is debited (decremented) and another credited, (incremented). So this money can be created at negligible cost to the banks because it exists only as a DATA entry in our electronic bank accounts and is exchanged between them as such only. The stuff in your wallet/purse created by the Royal Mint for the Bank of England represents a tiny fraction of the ‘money’ that exists, the vast majority has originated as loans created by the commercial banks under this “fractional reserve banking system”, circulates electronically and the profit (interest) accrues to bankers not Governments. For more information on how this amazing system has evolved (which one could be forgiven for thinking has been deliberately designed with a main aim to enrich private financial elites) in the UK and many, many countries I refer you to the expert writings & books at www.jamesrobertson.com. Even pretty low corporation tax is often avoided by the use of foreign tax havens, (At least £20 Billion total in the UK per annum avoided at 2003 figures- [War on Want pamphlet]). The need for the continuing increase of the assault on the world’s resources substantially stems from the imperative of “economic growth” which is necessary to keep up with the ever spiralling overall interest payments due on the explosion of different types of loans created by commercial banks and other private interests. I read that the exponential growth in private credit has been allowed to occur with all its wanton increase in the consumption of resources and debt hardship because of outsourcing by corporations of huge amounts of skilled & unskilled jobs to developing countries with cheap labour and minimal regulations under globalisation (“corporate flight”). With the generally decreasing availability therefore of properly paid quality jobs, to make ends meet governments and individuals in richer nations have had to be allowed to borrow more and more. I recommend the reading of the website and books by the US professor of economics Ravi Batra who has a lot of hard hitting and extremely interesting things to say on this matter, www.ravibatra.com. New Para

I refer to the ‘cornerstone of Speculation’ in that National economies and their populations are utterly dependant on the $2 Trillion or so (equivalent) that changes hands electronically every DAY- untaxed- around the world on the “financial markets” in search of speculative quick profit unrelated to any exchange of real goods or services. Utterly dependant because National Governments create hardly any of the money that is in circulation at all as I have already explained and they need to compete internationally to keep on attracting this privately created & transmitted globally mobile electronic money which has become the lifeblood of all our economies. Financiers and corporations increasingly trade IN money not WITH money, since deregulation in the 1980s- eg Removal of foreign capital exchange controls (and credit controls) which happened then. Why did we multi-nationally cede so much control over our economies then to those which to many might seem like a load of locusts? Are those who inspired our national leaders to do this still in positions of influence? In this “liberalised” regime why create, innovate and trade in cumbersome goods when one can make far more far quickly and with far less risk just by moving money (data) and money instruments between computers around the world? Almost all the global financial institutions and even many corporations are at it. A “monstrous global casino” in the words of sustainable economics columnist Hazel Henderson. Any government that even publicly SPEAKS of restricting it, or taxing it, or significantly environmentally regulating the stock market listed business that it invests in, or getting off the absurd merry-go-round of competing with other nations to clamp down on corporation tax so as to attract essential employment and capital, or creating their OWN electronic money, or even threatening tax havens, faces economically disastrous capital flight to nations NOT doing so within hours on the trading computers on the stock markets and the derivatives computers of the international corporations and banks. You see how the financier oligarchy has got us all over a barrel? No Government dare even publicly consider democratically demanded change to the status quo. No corporation dare significantly reduce the current quick profit return to its international capital investors by SIGNIFICANT investment in alternative forms of energy & transportation as to do so invites a declining share price and capital flight to corporations not doing so. The intellectual economist Lyndon LaRouche in Executive Intelligence Review (see below) actually uses the term “Financier Oligarchy” referring to the way our ‘democracies’ are going under the economic & corporate globalisation I have already described. A POSSIBLE SOLUTION to re-establish control over international capital and corporations by electorates and governments is proposed by “The Simultaneous Policy” at www.simpol.org and I believe progressives might feel their strategy warrants consideration. New Para

Most mainstream media outlets are owned by stock market listed corporations. Does anyone believe such a corporation will allow SERIOUS debate in its pages or TV stations, of reform to the international financial system when it is this system that is the investment hand that feeds it, both owning the shares and placing the corporate adverts? Does anyone seriously believe that one example tabloid and TV/news station owning international corporation that currently pays no corporation tax in the UK by the use of tax havens will seriously allow such debate in its media outlets? I’m not suggesting columnists and editors are directly told what to say and what not to, but they know there are limits which they must not cross if they are to retain their jobs which are mostly in the form of shortish term renewable (or not) contract posts. And most of them seem never to have asked themselves what money really is, who creates it, who administers its circulation, who profits from it and why no Government of left OR right credentials strangely refuses to reinstate fair corporate taxation and environmental regulations ONCE IN POWER despite the obvious dire financial state of our public services, worsening annually, and the developed countries paltry aid to the developing ones whose populations are starving to death in their millions monthly for the want of the huge surplus of food per capita that exists worldwide (Some 10%- look up UN Statistics). New Para

I believe that Planet Earth’s environment is in a sad and perilous state which each day brings it nearer to the critical, and that even the most dire prophecy falls short of the calamity facing the world today, (this quote from www.share-international.org). Anyone who seriously believes that humanity can burn off gigantic amounts of carbon into the atmosphere daily over some 200 years (in the form of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels) that had been gradually accumulated beneath the earth over hundreds of MILLIONS of years, and while annually cutting down tens of millions of acres of atmosphere purifying tropical forests- all of this without incurring MAJOR upheaval and destruction to the earth’s life supporting natural climate systems- is conditioned and deluded indeed. New Para

I believe that only a total and systemic collapse of the world’s financial system will bring humanity to its senses and- (even though I know this itself would cause major trauma for a while because we have allowed stock market listed corporations to take over most food and energy production and distribution worldwide)- it is my belief and hope that this is coming to pass. (I refer again to the writings of economics professor Ravi Batra). The men of money’s selfish greed and competition is over-reaching itself at long last and the frantic efforts to prop up the system behind the scenes are at long last crumbling. “The REAL economy has fallen out from under the markets which have been artificially propped up by accounting tricks, enormous and unpayable debt loads, and mass delusion on the part of the markets and the public” (John Hoefle banking columnist, and refer also to the writings of economist’s Lyndon LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review for more information, www.larouchepub.com). The signs of the oncoming collapse are obvious for those who look beyond their own narrow interests and look below the surface at powerful people’s MOTIVES- not what they SAY but what they DO and WHY that might be- with objectivity. People who bother to READ & STUDY widely. Anyone who thinks that substantially unrestrained powerful people in today’s out of democratic control globalised capital/corporate world will not try to manipulate to retain and enhance their own selfish interests, and who denounces those who highlight this as “conspiracy theorists”, is deluded and conditioned indeed. They have just not reflected seriously on the sad condition of greed and fear of loss as well as spiritual poverty and poverty of intellect that dominates the natures of many, many of our fellow human being financier oligarchs in power. We live in a competitive economic culture which makes a VIRTUE out of greed and it’s essential we realise it, detach from it and protest against it. As a species we’ve got some major waking up to do if we are to survive.

I’m not sure how many will read Tony Harvey’s post. I guess not many. As a old leftie it made me feel quite nostalgic.

I share the view that neo-liberal capitalism is a big problem. The power that big corporations wield in a market system which is rigged in their favour is truly frightening.

However I recognise the style of writing Tony uses. If I paid a lot of attention to the current coming and goings on the far left I might be able to identify the grouplet Tony belongs to. But I don’t do this any more. I’ve more important things to do.

Wrapped up in the useful bits are an awful lot of assertions, much hectoring, many over formulaic statements, an analysis which is far too deterministic and many indications that we’d all be as well going straight down the pub now instead of getting out there and trying to get all and sundry to reduce their CO2 emissions.

Corporations need to produce profit for their shareholders. See Karl Marx and more recently Joel Bakan. But an increasingly large number of corporations are realising that in the light of AGW/CC and the end of oil they need to start considering different, sustainable, ways in which to pursue this profit. Dismissing ALL this as mere greenwashing is a mistake I believe.

I find more and more indications that capital is waking up. See the latest to cross my desk for instance, Tomorrows’s Global Company from www.tomorrowscompany.com We do need a thorough debate on how to move from BAU to something more sustainable. The means by which economies can shrink without collapse needs to be addressed. Maybe the advent of Green Left will help.

But I’m afraid Tony’s post looks more like an intervention inspired by the central committee who dictate the “line”.

Douglas Coker

One real, in which the physical limits of resource and human exploitation have been reached, or overreached and which must adjust quickly to sustainable levels, through recession, war, famine or other Malthusian event; and the second virtual. By this I refer to the growth of speculation and gambling both in terms of equities, foreign exchange, sports and casino gambling and, most recent of all, the 24/365 virtual world of second life (http://secondlife.com).

One of the most interesting facets to this readjustment process is the adaptation of many in developed countries to a better work-life balance, where the pursuit of ‘contentment, wellbeing and quality of life ’ is now becoming more important than material goods. This is already creating an artificial shift in virtual labour costs in, for example food production. By this I mean, that if a professional person used to earning £50-£80 per hour in the job for which they are trained, choses to work on their allotment to grow organic food for their family, or to do voluntary work on a community project, then what is the real cost of that fresh food, or the new community amenity? Does this action devalue the worker’s input or increase the relative value of fresh local food and community participation?

There is a great deal that is interesting in this debate that is about decoupling work and locally made goods and services from the global financial system. The New Economics foundation (www.neweconomics.org) has done quite a lot of work on barter and community currencies and Timebanks are a well established and internationally understood mechanism.

Where I agree with Tony is that the likely global economic collapse will throw the onus right back onto communities to find ways of surviving through alternative mechanisms. But we’ve been there before and we can do it again.

best wishes to all

Colin

With the intention of casting some light I’d recommend Derek Wall’s Babylon and Beyond. It is not, as the title might suggest, a load of rasta ramblings but as the sub-title has it, The Economics of Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Globalist and Radical Green Movements. Light in touch and very accessible for the general reader I found it hugely illuminating. A tad light on AGW/CC and tends to fizzle out a bit at the end but very worthwhile.

Slow Living by Wendy Parkins and Geoffrey Craig is next on the list. Wade through the cultural studies stuff and there is a very useful exposition of the origins of the slow food movement. “Eco-gastronomy” – add that to your carbon consciousness world view!!

Douglas Coker