2. A new lease on life for the unipolar world ?
The prospect of an ending of Western hegemony implies that the days of Western prosperity, by sucking the resources of “the others”, are coming to an end and this means the following :
The exorbitant privilege that comes with the US dollar being the world reserve currency
The dollar as the world reserve currency procured the US the exorbitant privilege to ‘print’ fiat currency at will while the other countries have to acquire dollars by exporting real goods. So the other countries’ have to pay for their imports, and their eventual payment of charges on dollar-debts, with the sweat of their working population. The unequal nature of the bargain appears incontestable when observing what occurs to a country borrowing in dollars.
But we have to make a little detour to understand what are these dollars that are being borrowed.
These are dollars circulating outside the US that are called Eurodollars. Here is what Investopedia writes about the history of Eurodollars :
The amounts related to the Marshall plan were nevertheless quite small when compared with 21st century operations of this nature. The total aid to Europe and Japan was roughly $182 billion and $18 billion in real 21st-century dollars adjusted for inflation. (2)“ The eurodollar market dates back to the period after World War II. Much of Europe was devastated by the war, and the United States provided funds via the Marshall Plan to rebuild the continent. This led to wide circulation of dollars overseas, and the development of a separate, less regulated market for the deposit of those funds. Unlike domestic U.S. deposits, the funds are not subject to the Federal Reserve Bank's reserve requirements. They are also not covered by FDIC insurance. This results in higher interest rates for eurodollars. “ (1)
Since then the US, over the years, has transferred larger sums to finance its military presence in bases outside of the USA and to cover the annual deficits of its balance of payment. And all these dollars continue to circulate outside of the US.
Now coming back to the unequal nature, of the access to the world reserve currency, countries cover their outflow of dollars with the proceeds of their inflows, so a problem arises when their balance of payment is negative. The US solves this problem by printing fiat dollars while the rest of the world uses its dollar reserves and if has none it purchases dollars on the currency-exchange market.“… the Eurodollar system is the biggest source of global funding… bar none. Nobody knows for sure how large it is as it’s basically a large unregulated financing system with thousands of participants globally. But we do know that the Eurodollar futures market on the CME is larger than S&P futures, larger than oil futures, larger in fact than the 10 yr bond futures. It’s estimated over 90% of international trade is financed through the Eurodollar market.” (3)
This unequal access to the world reserve currency never causes any pain to the US but it can be traumatic to other countries as we’ll see further.
The status of the US dollar, as world reserve currency, is now being contested
With the demand of a growing number of countries for payments of their exports in their own national currencies the relatively cheap prices of commodities, that Western populations had come to view as their normality, are now increasing.
But it is only when China will ask payment for its goods, in a currency other than the US dollar, that the US will finally lose its exorbitant privilege. The impact of such a decision will abruptly annihilate the buying power of the American consumer with the consequences for the US economy that everyone can imagine.
The fact is that increasing prices are already confronting Western populations with extreme material difficulties that force many into abject poverty and acceleration in price increases is going to be followed one day by social eruptions of anger against the elites of Western nations…
Western peoples’ present difficulties are the result of the chaos that has been engendered by the financialization of Western economies
The financial and monetary chaos observed in Late-Modernity was engendered by the shift, around 1970, from the paradigm of Modernity to “the gamble that is at work in the transformation of debt into capital”. As a result debts have been accumulating (4) to such heights that existing revenue streams are no longer sufficient to pay for the annual charges and this engenders financial and monetary chaos.
This also endangers the capacity of capital holders to pay the charges on the debts they contracted for the formation of their capital which is the prime source of Western national assets. Faced with such a dire perspective nor the biggest capital holders, nor their corporate and state institutional servants, will ever recognize their responsibilities. They will try whatever it takes to ensure that the music continues to play while hurling insults at their favorites scapegoats. This has traditionally taken the form of grants by central banks…
-
The fall of the West is the opportunity of the rest
In light of the outrageous Western monetary privilege the prospect of a crash of Western economies is being celebrated by the entire Global South. It represent the hope of its liberation from 500 years of genocide and of looting that opens a window of opportunity to indigenous economic development.
2.1. The totalitarian project to transform nature into capital
Seen the profound capture of Western minds, by “the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital”, or the rationality that animates its newer iteration in the form of “the gamble that is at work in the transformation of debt into capital”, Western big capital holders will resist, at any cost, the perspective of losing their capital holdings and they will try to circumvent this by all means. But among those means they will primordially focus on the suggestions of “the reason”.In other words they are going to monetize everything, that had not been monetized until now, to generate new sources of income that will pay for the charges on their debts. In the wake of the Great Recession of 2008 Western countries have initiated a brand new scheme which is so outrageous, that to avoid public opposition, Western Big capital holders and their servants feel obliged to commit their shenanigans in the greatest secrecy.
This had already been the case with their stealth imposition of the expansion of their reach to the whole world, during the nineteen-seventieths, which occasioned the financialization of capital, the social devolution of the Western middle-class, and a rush of investments in new technologies in order to being able — to manage their worldwide assets from a centralized location — to replace the working people, who they view as their class enemy, by automation, AI, and robotics.
The new scheme of Western big capital holders is nothing short of the transformation of nature into capital. Their idea is to transform the services, of ecosystems to humanity, into income streams. Such services have been estimated at world GDP multiples and Western interests believe that by grabbing their ownership the West could gain a sufficiently decisive scale advantage in annual income to prolong its hegemony for a century or more. (5)
Such a scheme is assuredly a doubling down into the rationality of capital. But its outrageousness will inevitably cause a new round of societal troubles like :
2.1.1. A shock of worldviews
The idea of owning nature is akin of grabbing the power of the god of religious believers or like taking over the earth’s 'Geo-bio-chemistry' processes of believers in science.
But how would both these groups of believers receive this idea ?
Traditionally in the worldview of both groups this idea would be a no-go. Acting the part of god is a taboo proposition in all religions and, amidst the present climate heating, rationalism will face difficulties with any further hacking of nature. But the fact is that in the real life of Modernity traditions have proven to be no longer enforceable.
The proposition, to turn the services of nature into one’s capital, is nevertheless so outrageous that, at a minimum, large sections of both groups of believers will resist the move while being accused of irrational thinking by big capital holders and the powers that be who will feel justified to use ever more totalitarian policies to impose their rational order which really means the order generated by “the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital”, its nineteen-seventieths iteration in the form of “the gamble that is at work in the transformation of debt into capital”, or its latest iteration into “the totalitarianism that is at work in the transformation of nature into capital”.2.1.2. A new round of social devolution
The social impact of transforming nature into capital will unmistakably reach an incomparable scale and depth that will leave us with the impression that past slavery was a benign nuisance after all. Nature has always been considered the natural domain of personal freedom. Eliminating the natural places of freedom will necessarily deject the individuals and provoke strong resistance movements which will be confronted with a totalitarian zeal never observed in the whole history of humanity.
Rationalism is ultimately the belief, that normality is the satisfaction of the desire to accumulate capital and richness, which gives access to more complexity. This is why the irrational is viewed as the non-interest of certain individuals for progress. And the refusal of the proposition to transform the services of nature into capital appears thus as an insult to the dualism of rationalists who have convinced themselves that this is the ultimate mechanism to attain progress and to gain material richness.
The fact is that the quest for material richness is viewed as the normality in a dualist understanding of reality.
But the certainty of rationalists inevitably results in the exclusion of their opponents. And in the context of the transformation of nature into capital the potential size of the capital formation is such that the exclusion of opponents will necessarily justify, in the minds of the rationalists, a fully fledged totalitarianism that engages in strategies of unequivocal social exclusion or elimination.
The grab of nature by capital would limit the sole natural spaces of remaining freedom to urban settings where surveillance will leave the excluded with no other alternative than to submit or to die which is the ultimate form of totalitarianism.
And if the servants of capital holders believe that building up societal cohesion, among those who do not oppose their worldview, could possibly enfold an ant or bee like society then I have some news for them. Each ant and bee fulfills unquestioningly her role in her group but this is because the vision of reality, that she shares with her fellow group members, gives meaning to her place and function in the group which is ultimately what ensures the survival of her group and the survival of the individuals.
The question that arises is the following “What is the shared vision of reality in a world of AI and robots amidst a confiscated nature ? ".
If the present state of Western societal atomization prevails I’m afraid that the individuals will fast be dejected by a reality in which they have no longer any utility. And Yuval Noah Harari’s suggestion that games and drugs will occupy peoples’ attention leaves definitely little space for awe in anything.
In this scenario the potential clients who don’t have the means to pay for services are served free of charge. But in such a case where will the income streams come from to pay for the charges on the debts that have been contracted by capital investments ?“AI is nowhere near human-like existence, but 99 percent of human qualities and abilities are simply redundant for the performance of most modern jobs. For AI to squeeze humans out of the job market it need only outperform us in the specific abilities a particular profession demands.
… In the 21st century we might witness the creation of a massive new unworking class: people devoid of any economic, political or even artistic value, who contribute nothing to the prosperity, power and glory of society. This “useless class” will not merely be unemployed — it will be unemployable.
… The coming technological bonanza will probably make it feasible to feed and support people even without any effort from their side. But what will keep them occupied and content? One answer might be drugs and computer games.
Unnecessary people might spend increasing amounts of time within 3D virtual-reality worlds that would provide them with far more excitement and emotional engagement than the drab reality outside. Yet such a development would deal a mortal blow to the liberal belief in the sacredness of human life and of human experiences. What’s so sacred about useless bums who pass their days devouring artificial experiences?” (6)
Harari’s historical model seems to be blind to the centrality of the paradigm of Modernity. But the fact is that “the reason” remains central in “the gamble of the transformation of debt in capital” as well as in “the totalitarian imposition of the transformation of nature into capital”. In all scenarios, — “the reason — “the gamble” — “the totalitarian imposition”, income streams are a core necessity for capital holders to pay the charges on their debts... and this implies that Harari’s scenario takes place in an era after Modernity when “the reason” has been replaced by another vision of life.
Unfortunately Harari remains silent about the central questions of civilizations, worldviews, paradigms and daily culture… and his scenarios are thus not fitting in societal evolution. They seem to be merely words for the sake of attracting the attention of the consumers of words.2.1.3. new round of terminal side-effects
Hacking the earth’s Geo-bio-chemistry in order to maximize returns on capital is a proposition that, if implemented, will not fail to come with many unforeseen side-effects. Furthermore, seen that science and capital are at the core of our present predicament, popular reaction will oppose capital holders and scientists in their endeavors to worsen the human predicament. This implies that if big capital holders, and their institutional servants, want to tweak the earth’s Geo-bio-chemistry they will have to do it secretly.
Life is being threatened by the accumulation of Modernity’s side-effects and this accumulation of side-effects is now converging with the state of neglect of the governance-world. As a result the world is paralyzed and capital holders and scientists will size this opportunity to justify their hacking of the earth’s Geo-bio-chemistry in secrecy.
It is most probable that the first massive tweaking will address global dimming in the hope of reflecting the heat and energy of the sun back to space (7). Anup Shah titled one of the chapters, of his book “Global dimming”, the “Impacts of global dimming: millions already killed by it?” and he goes on to mention that millions died from Famines in the Sahel in the 70s and 80s due to :
The dangers of hacking global dimming are thus not only real ; they are ginormous and threaten to impact the Geo-political balance. But now that the earth is rapidly heating outside of “the bandwidth of human livability”, in the eyes of big capital holders and state decision-makers, the urgency to do something to save the species, in an economical way, will appear rational and justify the risks. In other words rationalism, and the perspective of costs that can be factored in the calculus of capital, will suddenly render non-interference intolerable in the face of such existential risks !“...what came out of our exhaust pipes and power stations [from Europe and North America] contributed to the deaths of a million people in Africa, and afflicted 50 million more with hunger and starvation.
… Scientists said that the impact of global dimming might not be in the millions, but billions. The Asian monsoons bring rainfall to half the world’s population. If this air pollution and global dimming has a detrimental impact on the Asian monsoons some 3 billion people could be affected.”
2.2. The morphing of the paradigm of Modernity
The impetus to hack the earth’s Geo-bio-chemistry will be impressed by the size of the annual income streams from the services that ecosystems render to humanity. Over the last decade and a half a team of European researchers have been evaluating these annual income streams :
This study was published in 1997. Since then the evaluation methodologies have progressed and in 2014 the authors gave an updated estimate which concluded the following :"We have estimated the current economic value of 17 ecosystem services for 16 biomes, based on published studies and a few original calculations. For the entire biosphere, the value (most of which is outside the market) is estimated to be in the range of US$16-54 trillion per year, with an average of US$33 trillion per year. Because of the nature of the uncertainties, this must be considered a minimum estimate." (8)
So for the years 2011 the services of all ecosystems were estimated at a minimum of $125 trillion (in 2007 $US) while Statista gives the global gross domestic product (GDP) for the year 2011 at 73.6 Trillion (in 2022 $US). After adjusting these amounts with the CPI Inflation Calculator we get the following values, for the year 2011, expressed in 2022 $US :"Using the same methods as in the 1997 paper but with updated data, the estimate for the total global ecosystem services in 2011 is $125 trillion/yr (assuming updated unit values and changes to biome areas) and $145 trillion/yr (assuming only unit values changed), both in 2007 $US." (9)
- Minimum total ecosystem services = 178.6 Trillion
- Global gross domestic product (GDP) = 73.6 Trillion
- => Total ecosystems services = 2.42 times global GDP ! (annually)
The potential size of this new round of capital formation dwarfs the total wealth that has been generated over the last 50 years of debt transformation into capital. If the West were able to grab ownership of the services, that nature procures to humanity, its annual income streams would be so high that it would be able to impose a re-switching of the center of gravity of the economy-world from East-Asia back to the West !
This is what motivates today’s madness of the West in the Geo-political sphere that the rest of the world is struggling to comprehend.
The paradigm of Modernity addresses the nature of the formation of capital.
After taking into account the late Western trial to monetize the services of nature we observe that the paradigm took 3 forms along the entire 900 years of Modernity :
All kinds of factors have been converging over the last decade and today Russia, India, China and most countries of the Global South are coalescing around a common project to build a multipolar world-order in which their national sovereignty shall be respected while their opinions, in the deliberations of the institutions of this new order, will be of equal importance to those of bigger countries. Respect of one another is indeed the motto of the Global South. A change, with the practice of the past 500 years of Western hegemony, that is striking indeed.
-
A. Emergence of the paradigm
It emerged as “the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital” and gave way to an era marked by “the reason”, rationalism, and science that ran approximately from 1250 to 1970. For an exhaustive argumentation see "Modernity". -
B. Globalization called for an accelerated mode of capital formation
In the nineteen-seventieths it morphed into “the gamble that is at work in the transformation of debt into capital” that gave way to an era marked by wild financial speculations peaking with the total corruption of Western societies and the belief of the elites in their god given autocratic power to impose their scientific and technical remedies to all societies on earth and their individuals.
The “gamble to transform debt into capital” ran approximately from 1970 to 2030 and concludes in these two-thousand twentieths with a total world debt reaching some 310 to 350 Trillion US dollars while the available income streams, to pay for the charges related to these debts, are stretched to the limits and are force-capturing the financial means reserved to the operation of societal daily life...
A great clean-up is thus becoming a first order necessity for the system.
Faced with such a conundrum Western big capital holders, who have taken ownership of their national state institutions and of Western controlled International Institutions, have ostensibly chosen to suck, — the entire wealth of the populations of their countries — the fiat money printing capacity of their state, while washing away the bulk of their debts through a period of 5 to 10 years of hyper-inflation.
Inflation will freeze the charges on their debts in present dollar value while it will increase their incomes in future dollar value and the charges on their debts will thus de-facto be reduced to cents on the dollars of their future income. But this will have been realized at the cost of burning the value of the savings of retired citizens.
While hyper-inflation will burn the value of the charges on their debts the proceeds of sucking the wealth of their fellow citizens, and of their states’ fiat money printing capability, will allow them to purchase distressed assets of the Global South on the cheap. I exposed earlier how the play on interest rates and the value of the dollar trapped Southern states and their economic actors in a liquidity crisis that results in the fire sale of their assets.
The stratagems of Western big capital holders will thus most probably resolve the payment of their debt charges but their bargain-hunting of Southern distressed assets, will not be enough to counteract the capital accumulation advantage of China that, under Xi Jinping, — sustains the feasibility Russia’s rebellion against the hegemony of the West — impulses the feasibility of the economic and political awakening of the global South.
As a side-note I have to add that it is the presence of Xi Jinping as the head of the CPC that is limiting the capacity of Western big capital holders’ to swallow Southern distressed assets. It is also his leadership that is sustaining Russia and impulsing the awakening of the South. No other Chinese leader is motivated, as Xi Jinping, by socialist militancy. They have been drinking the cool aid of, — “the reason” — the rationalism of Western market economics, and had they had full control over the CPC, China would most probably not be on the side of Russia today and the Global South would still be under the yoke of the hegemon ! -
C. Trying to counter the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world with a Western “totalitarian imposition of the transformation of nature into capital”
Western big capital holders plan to beat China through a revolutionary strategy of capital formation through the monetization of the services of nature.
-
Monetization and income streams
In matter of fact the only field on this earth that capital has still not monetized systematically is nature. -
Monetizing the services of nature
Big capital holders started to plot with their servants about how to financialize nature after the Great Recession of 2008. Their argument is that, by claiming ownership of the services rendered by nature to the human species, they will generate ginormous income streams that will beat the returns gained by Chinese capital. -
Nature procures its services at a free “usage value”
Until today the services procured by nature have always been free for the usage of all living species. The air we breathe is such an example of service that living species have always been using free of charge. -
Monetizing the “usage value” of the services of nature
The plan of big capital holders is to monetize the free “usage value” of the services of nature by imposing their ownership over them which would then allow the transformation of their “usage value” in “exchange value” which would generate an income stream for their owners. One example of service whose usage value has already been monetized is water. The same goes for fossil fuels... -
The conversion of the services of nature into capital
The promoters of this scheme estimate the value, of the services of nature, at some $4,000 trillion dollars ! And they salivate at the prospect of converting these services, by any means available to them, into their capital. Looting, killing, nothing will be out of limit to satisfy their greed.
The application of the Western “totalitarian imposition of the transformation of nature into capital” is also the Western answer to the physical damages caused by the side-effects of Modernity to the human habitat. What I mean is that carbon markets will become the de-facto institutional answer.
This approach certainly maximizes the rationality of the proposed response to greenhouse emissions. But, in accord with the normality of totalitarianism, this rationality is attained at the cost of sidelining all other approaches. And the fact is that carbon markets ensure the continuity of greenhouse emissions by bribing those who do not emit !
Seen from a holistic perspective it appears that carbon markets surreptitiously procure the license to those who are responsible, for the near totality of all emissions to this very day, to continue spewing out their emissions on an equal footing with the Global South which has had no part in the total emissions attained today. A neutral observer, having traveled from far in space, would be flabbergasted by the outrageousness of the privilege that is at the root of this Western market stratagem.
Carbon markets are indeed a stratagem that denies any potential development to the global south while it gives to the North the time to transition to new carbon neutral sources of energy and the research and development of new materials and production processes. To our alien guest this Western strategy would necessarily appear as a Western trap keeping the Global South in perpetual bondage.
The paradigm of Modernity clearly morphed, in the nineteen-seventieths, out of the perceived necessity by Western big capital holders to break the limits imposed by nation-states to their generation of returns on investments.
The expansion of the domain, of Western big capital holders, to the whole world maximized their potential. But they had to circumvent the paradigm of “the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital”, which implied a round of investments that was too slow to satisfy the envisaged size of their globalization move.
Traditionally commercial or industrial surpluses had always constituted the bulk of the money that was transformed into capital. But the financial engineers judged that this was too slow to possibly attain the nascent potential emerging from the expansion of the domain of investment of Western big capital holders to the whole world. They proposed to hack the paradigm of Modernity, and of capital formation, in order to shift it to “the gamble that is at work in the transformation of debt into capital”.
The transformation of debt in capital abruptly expanded their investment capacity. And the complexities arising from maximizing the leverage of capital holders, and of their invested corporations, was then assigned to the same financial engineers who got seconded by lawyers to maintain their stratagems within the narrative of the law. That’s how boards of directors and management got cleansed from engineers, technicians, and entrepreneurs.
The system was built as a gamble assuming that the financial engineers would leverage the assets of capital holders to multiply their access to borrowed cash while leveraging the assets of their corporations to equally multiply their access to borrowed cash.
In such a system a $1 asset in the hands of a capital holder gave access to $1 borrowing. And so the capital holder could invest a total $2 in the capital of a corporation which the corporation immediately leveraged against a $2 loan. So a $1 asset in the hands of the capital holder gave rise to $4 in the hands of the corporation ! But the new paradigm inevitably increased the risks which justified the recourse to professionals who drastically rationalized the operation of corporations.
For the sake of comprehensibility I have limited my example to its minimum complexity and without regards to the reality of the debt multiplier. Suffice to say that in real life complexity arises from all directions and this explains the multiplication of risks. But at a certain threshold of risk corruption sets in. And effectively the entire system got very rapidly corrupted to the bones. But as long as the music was playing risk and corruption were not so difficult to hide. The difficulties to balance the books when the macro-economic environment deteriorated suddenly shed light to the hidden risks and the corruption got also a lot easier to unmask.
From its debut just before 1980 until today 40 and some years have passed and the least we can say is that the path of financialization, bumpy as it was, has left us with an inextricable mess. The Great Recession of 2008 got a skin treatment but its profound causes were residing in over-indebtment and risks that were hidden in over-complexity.
The causes of the recession were never addressed and the system was left to deviate ever further from the realities on the ground. That’s how the Western management, of the financial and monetary systems, veered ever more profoundly into magic thinking which expanded to Modern Monetary theory, stock market valuations, and more generally a scientism that portends the detachment from the First Principles of Life.
The West is now immobilized by the necessity to clean up this mess and before it frees itself it will remain incapacitated offering an opportunity to China, Russia, and the Global South to affirm their own path.
-
Monetization and income streams
2.3. The shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world
Stuck in over-indebtment, and in societal atomization, the West is in no position to counter China’s technological rise nor Russia’s rebellion against its imposed Geo-political unipolarity. While China’s technological rise gives it an opening Russia is poking holes in the walls of unipolarity and this is exhorting the countries of the Global South to resist the yoke of the hegemon and to join the first institutions of a new world order in the making.All kinds of factors have been converging over the last decade and today Russia, India, China and most countries of the Global South are coalescing around a common project to build a multipolar world-order in which their national sovereignty shall be respected while their opinions, in the deliberations of the institutions of this new order, will be of equal importance to those of bigger countries. Respect of one another is indeed the motto of the Global South. A change, with the practice of the past 500 years of Western hegemony, that is striking indeed.
-
2.3.1. Western mismanagement
In “1. How the West created the conditions for its downfall” I show how, for centuries, the West exacerbated the resentment of the rest of the world and how this resentment is now powering its resistance to further hegemonic tricks to divide the Global South. The most significant lesson that the Ukrainian conflict impressed on the world was the refusal by the Countries of the South to ob-temperate with Western orders to sanction Russia which led to the isolation of the West in its illusion of being the international community.
The internal structural weaknesses of the West opened a window of opportunity that the countries of the South have sized to affirm their detachment from Western hegemony and to start coalescing around projects like — the Chinese Belt and Roads — the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) — the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) — the BRICS+ — and the Plan to craft a new International reserve currency by Russia, China, and BRICS Nations.
-
2.3.1.1. The belief in its exceptionalism separates the West from “the others”
I laid out the process, that fostered the other-worldliness shaping the Western views about the Chinese and vice-versa, in “The Continuum of the societal Cultural Field”. In short different geographic factors, in East-Asia and West Asia, differentiated the transition process from tribal societies to power societies in China and in the Tri-Continental-Area :
-
In East-Asia
China unknowingly slipped into the model of power-societies in complete continuity with the tribal governance system that was centered on the (wo)men of knowledge and the belief in animism that they shared with their fellow-tribesmen. That’s how China inherited the idea of governance through knowledge while the continuity of animism formed its foundational worldview. -
In the Tri-Continental-Area (known as “Middle-east” in Europe)
The transition started with a rupture with animism some 10.000 years ago, in the TCA, which was followed by some 5 to 6,000 years of infighting over power. Chieftains tried to impose their will over assemblies of villages but constantly failed to reproduce their institutions of power over the span of generations. They were constantly losing said power. Power only started to consolidate after the men of power allied with the men of knowledge who were leading the largest groups of followers. The belief in religion glued the minds of villagers, and this allowed for the reproduction of institutions of power over the span of generations which started some 5,500 to 5,000 years ago... -
In Western-Europe
With the fall of the Western Roman Empire, by the end of the 5th century, the Eastern Roman Emperors imposed their authority over the church of Rome. During the 6th, and 7th, centuries the papacy lost all its followers in North-Africa and the central-Eastern Mediterranean. So by the end of the 6th century it started to focus its ecclesiastic efforts primarily in Western Europe.
Parts of Italy remained under the control of Constantinople so the best chances to grow a large following appeared to be in the territory controlled by the Franks in Northern France, Belgium, and the border-areas of Holland and Germany.
The Franks were tribal federations that had been fighting their path from the East to the West while eventually defeated the Roman armies. Raw violence, and the arrogance of the winner, had thus seeped in their minds while animist pragmatism remained at the core of their shared belief. Their conversion to Christianity was thus not very successful, that is, until the church advised would-be followers to enter in private conversation with the Christian god. The feeling of a shared privacy with god led to mass conversions but, over the span of centuries, such private conversations concluded also with the emergence, in the minds, of the notion of the “self” which separated the individuals from one another and grew the self ever further into individualism.
In 494 Pope Gelasius wrote a letter to Emperor Anastasius that claimed the following :
This led to the escape of the papacy from subordination to the authority of the Byzantine emperors. But this also impulsed a disposition to treat all temporal authorities as subordinates. The crowning of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III in the year 800 AD asserted the symbolism of papal primacy. Charlemagne’s rule took place within the context of a fast growing Christian following so he was using the recognition of the pope as a rallying cry to attract Christian followers, who lived within the borders of his territory, to submit to his rule. So both the pope and Charlemagne found the other useful to further their own calculations.“There are two powers, august Emperor, by which this world is chiefly ruled, namely, the sacred authority of the priests and the royal power. Of these that of the priests is the more weighty, since they have to render an account for even the kings of men in the divine judgment. You are also aware, dear son, that while you are permitted honorably to rule over human kind, yet in things divine you bow your head humbly before the leaders of the clergy and await from their hands the means of your salvation. In the reception and proper disposition of the heavenly mysteries you recognize that you should be subordinate rather than superior to the religious order, and that in these matters you depend on their judgment rather than wish to force them to follow your will. “ (10)
The crowning of Charlemagne, by Pope Leo III, asserted also the leading role of the Franks in the development of Christianity which was a religion imported from the TCA. Western Europe had been loosely integrated in the Roman empire sometime in the first century AD and this explains how it came under the influence of Eastern philosophers like Aristotle whose ‘Metaphysics’ are rooted in dualism and explain the existence of god as being the ultimate cause that stops the need to search for further causes (11).
Over time the notion, that physical violence had rendered the Franks free men, interacted with their notion of the self and with the growing individualism that their religious practice had involuntarily infused in their minds. The outcome was a form of mild exceptionalism that is relatively well conveyed in the etymology of the word “Frank” :
Dualism acted like a catalyst that initiated a mental reaction which proceeded to transform this mild exceptionalism into a hard exceptionalism. In short the adherence to Christianity conferred to the Franks and later to the other West Europeans the certainty that :“From Middle English frank, from Old French franc (“free”), in turn from the name of an early Germanic confederation, the Franks, from Proto-West Germanic *frank (“courageous, free”) and/or Proto-West Germanic *frankō (“javelin, spear”). Adjective : frank (comparative franker, superlative frankest), honest, especially in a manner that seems slightly blunt; candid; not reserved or disguised. (medicine) unmistakable, clinically obvious, self-evident (obsolete) Unbounded by restrictions, limitations, etc.; free. (obsolete) Liberal; generous; profuse. (obsolete, derogatory) Unrestrained; loose; licentious.“ (12)
- Because they are on the side of their god, who is goodness and love, they are themselves goodness and love while “the others” who appear different are thus necessarily viewed as being on the side of evil
- Being responsible followers of the word of their god they gained the mental certainty that they had to proselytize the other and if she or he refused to submit she or he had to be forced and if still refusing she or he had to be killed.
I wrote this in the past tense but the fact is that this kind of thinking arises automatically in the minds of Westerners. And I can assure you that to get rid of this automatism is no easy feat. It necessitates many journeys in the subconscious where this automatism originates. But more on that in the Volume 3 of this series that is titled “The formation of societal knowledge”.
The dualistic thinking, that I describe here, has pervaded the entirety of Western thinking. But very few seem to be aware of this. We all have observed, or have been informed about, the consequences of this Western automatism as it struck “the others” over these last 500 years… but again very few see the ugliness of these Western behaviors or have any inkling about the suffering of “the others” during these 500 years.
-
In East-Asia
-
2.3.1.2. “The gamble of the transformation of debt into capital” trapped the West in rent seeking
The relocation of industrial activities, which began in the 1970s, brought substantial cost reductions to Western big capital holders, and to their corporations, which enabled them to offer lower prices to their Western customers while dramatically increasing their returns on investment.
The competition for labor in the countries of the South, that were the beneficiaries of these transfers of activity from the North, nevertheless rapidly increased wages which swelled the ranks of the local middle classes and initiated consumerism. Living in China since the mid-eighties, I was privileged to observe firsthand how Western manufacturers had gained the decisive advantage of forcing their products on the market without having to worry about competition. And the fact is that they monetized their advantage by charging exorbitant prices to Chinese consumers. Western cars, for example, although manufactured in China, were sold to the Chinese at twice the price that a European or American buyer had to pay for the same model.
When local manufacturers appeared on the market in the late 1990s, the inferior quality of their products became the justification for the high prices of Western cars. It was only with the abrupt shift to electric vehicles, around 2020, that some Chinese manufacturers achieved the same or even a better quality than their Western counterparts. The competition then balanced in China's favor and the world suddenly woke up to the fact that China was well on its way to take over 50% of the global electric vehicle market !
The exorbitant prices of Western products were a monopolistic rent that Western big capital holders, and their corporations, extracted from China for more than two decades. And the same kind of rent extraction could be observed in all sectors. Now that China has matured into a technological and manufacturing power-house Western corporations are losing their monopolistic rent privilege and they try to preserve it by de-localizing from China to less developed countries.
The US decided, that this was not enough. It prolonged its monopolistic advantage by abusing its long arm jurisdiction. China is the largest user of semiconductors. It consumes something as 60% of the global semiconductor production and it imported those to the tune of nearly 400 Billion dollar in 2021 ! The US sanctioned Chinese foundries in the hope of prolonging its monopolistic rent far in the future.
China viewed this as a step too far in protectionism and the country decided to resolutely fight back by investing in Research and development. These efforts have resulted in the first production batches of 7nm chips, by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), in the summer of 2021. This little known fact lifted China’s technological prowess which now surpasses the foundry capability of the US and the EU ! (13)
The West has been focusing on monopolistic rent seeking from the countries of the Global South since the early days of colonialism. For example. By forcing India to sell all its raw cotton not only did Britain gain the ultimate protection, that its nascent textile industry needed to launch the industrial revolution, it also forced India to import British finished textile goods. Reading about this historical moment impresses in the mind the enormity of suffering that this most egregious rent seeking operation must have forced on Indian people.
-
2.3.1.1. The belief in its exceptionalism separates the West from “the others”
-
2.3.2. China’s inheritance advantage
The consequences of Western mismanagement began apparent right after the West started to engage with China in hopes of integrating the country into its world order and gaining its acquiescence to western hegemony.
The Chinese authorities played the game with great restraint. But then came Trump and Robert Lighthizer abused China with tariffs and neutered the World Trade Organization in the hope of a trade victory. But instead of a victory he got embroiled in an escalating trade war when he tried to subject the Chinese political decision-making process to US oversight. The first phase of the trade deal was signed in Washington by Liu He on 2020-01-15. Sometime after this signing the top Chinese leadership learned, about Lighthizer’s demands to have US observers being stationed in most departments under China’s State Council. A decision was taken to stop all talks and the trade negotiations never restarted ! But nobody talks about this in the Western media.
The contrast between systems of governance is enlightening and sheds light not only on different forms of governance but more essentially on the different conceptions about the essence of governance and its finality.
China has relied on its men of knowledge to govern its public institutions since the dawn of its power society sometimes between 5,000 and 4,000 years ago. Under the CPC dynasty the knowledge, gained through a skillful life practice of governance, is what gives access to the top echelons of the country’s governance system. And one of the imperative conditions for any candidate, to the standing Committee of the political bureau, is two terms as provincial governor or party Committee secretary.
In contrast Western democracies are governed by whomever leads the party that can assemble a majority of parliamentarians or congressmen.
China’s criteria to be elected at the top of its system of governance is competence, at navigating the societal cultural field, that is proven by a life of practice while the Western criteria is party popularity and congressional majority that give the power to decide on whatever.
On one side knowledge is at the core of the practice of governance while on the other side is power. Here follow some observations about this differentiation :
-
Knowledge => continuity / Power => rupture
Knowledge is the substance of continuity while power is the substance of rupture. What is astounding is that this very differentiation was already at the core of the difference between East and West at the time of the formation of their power societies.
The governance of China’s early-power societies was exercised by the animist (wo)men of knowledge which conferred it continuity in its transition from tribal-societies to power-societies.
In the TCA, and Western Europe, that transition was an uninterrupted fight for power that was constantly slipping away. Power stabilized after some men of power formed an alliance with some men of knowledge who had a large following. The sharing of a common belief glued the minds and instilled trust throughout the group which allowed the institutions of the men of power to reproduce over the generations.
Something of the same nature is still at work in our contemporary societies.
Presently, in Western societies, power is in trouble because societies have atomized and societal cohesion is non existent. In the process the individuals got separated from one another and also from the institutions of their societies. This contrasts with China where trust in the central authorities is very high as has been verified by multiple polls realized by Western institutions like Harvard or the Pew. -
Knowledge => pragmatism / Power => ideology
As I showed in “The continuum of the societal Cultural Field” this differentiation was already at work at the moment of the institutional reproduction of early-power societies.
The present Geo-political moment also demonstrates the accuracy of this differentiation. While China tries to solve emerging problems, through a lucid observation of the facts, the West approaches emerging problems through the lens of dualism and its derivatives. And so its exceptionalism forces the West to declare that “you are with us or you are against us”. Societal governance is thus seen through the lens of Western exceptionalism and therefore “all societies have to submit to the rules based order”... -
Knowledge => conservation / Power => progress
Chinese governance is traditionally in charge of satisfying the 2 demands of the people :
- 3.1. Security from foreign interference
- 3.2. Stability in the production of peoples’ daily lives
Families are in charge of the production of their daily lives while state governance has to procure the conditions assuring the well-being of the people. This is the Chinese societal contract and if the sovereign fails to procure these 2 demands the people have been recognized the right, since Confucius, to dismiss the sovereign and to replace him with someone else.
The Chinese contract is rooted in the conservation of a given order that procures satisfaction while progress, or the search for more complexity, is the domain of the families and the individuals while the community remains at all time watchful that the precautionary principle is being applied…
Western governance, more particularly in Modernity, centers on individual freedom which is at the root of the search for more complexity.
With High-Modernity and rationalism, sometime around 1800, Western big capital holders have pushed a societal contract that entrusted male tax payers to designate their representatives in the chambers of parliament or congress. But the system was conceived in such a way that big money would always have the capacity to influence the outcome of the designation process.
This system, called democracy, has continuously designated the political elites until this very day but it has never really satisfied Western populations who always felt that they have no say in the decision making process. That is the exceptional political system that the West today wants to impose to all countries on earth !
-
Knowledge => continuity / Power => rupture
No comments:
Post a Comment