Western decision-makers seem to be stuck, in a highly chaotic bout of delusion, absolutely impervious to the facts on the ground of our planet earth.
This is how the Global times recently summarized this Western chaotic bout of delusion :
Internally the Western capital formation of these last 50 years has consecrated "the gamble that is at work in the transformation of debt into capital". That gamble on financial rationality replaced the entrepreneurs by financiers and lawyers on the boards of directors. As a result the finality of enterprises, and even of state institutions, morphed into 'financial returns maximizing machines'."Being highly sensitive, capricious, neurotic and aggressive are all recent symptoms of American democracy. Since the US is a superpower with global influence, when its system is sick, the whole world is inflicted. ... US politics affects the interests of the whole world. People sincerely hope that the US will settle down as soon as possible, and give peace back to the world". (1)
Until the early seventies enterprises had been major stakeholders in their local communities by creating jobs and producing real goods that answered real needs. All that changed with the shift of the paradigm of Modernity from "the reason that is at work in transformation of money into capital" into "the gamble that is at work in the transformation of debt into capital" !
The financial rationality of these 'financial returns maximizing machines' eventually forced the delocalization of Western industrial production activities to Southern countries that offered very cheap labor costs and inexisting state protection policies. For two or three decades delocalization had two major advantages. It procured extremely high profits to the 'Western financial returns maximizing machines' while offering ever cheaper consumer goods to the populations.
The biggest part of the high profits of 'Western financial returns maximizing machines' accrued in the pockets of Western big capital holders while the cheaper prices of consumer goods have been hiding the impact of stagnating wages. This explains that all sectors of Western societies accepted Globalization during its first two decades of application.
The financial rationality of these 'financial returns maximizing machines' eventually forced the delocalization of Western industrial production activities to Southern countries that offered very cheap labor costs and inexisting state protection policies. For two or three decades delocalization had two major advantages. It procured extremely high profits to the 'Western financial returns maximizing machines' while offering ever cheaper consumer goods to the populations.
The biggest part of the high profits of 'Western financial returns maximizing machines' accrued in the pockets of Western big capital holders while the cheaper prices of consumer goods have been hiding the impact of stagnating wages. This explains that all sectors of Western societies accepted Globalization during its first two decades of application.
But the exclusion, since 1973 of blue and white collar, working population from their righteous share of increasing national productivity levels was bound to interrupt this acceptance one day or another. The near totality of the annual increases in productivity levels went indeed straight in the pockets of the 1% while the wages of the working population remained flat from 1973 to 2015 ! What is most stunning is how well big capital holders and their servants succeeded to hide what was really going on. The following graphs visualize this incontrovertible reality.
Graph 01
The Atlantic. 2015-02-25, by Gillian B. White.
Graph 02 :
Wall Street Wisdom, by Kirk Chisholm
Graph 03
from "World Inequality Report 2018", Written and coordinated by:
Facundo Alvaredo, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, Gabriel Zucman
So, while financial rationality was the prime cause of the de-industrialization of Western countries, by the years 2000 the shenanigans that it suggested in the minds of financiers gradually forced Western citizens to juggle trying to cover their constantly increasing expenses with their flat incomes. This last sentence summarizes the core reason for the Western disillusion with globalization that took root in the minds in the first decade of the twenty-first century. This disillusion was rapidly followed by Trump's presidency, Brexit, and more generally by the wildfire of spreading extreme-right populist nationalist movements which threaten the jobs of traditional politicians.
The rejection of globalization, and the rise of extreme-right populist nationalist movements, was merely a popular rejection of the elites that were responsible for the decisions which had led to the skewed outcome of financialization and globalization. The pauperization of the working people (the middle-class) had led to the separation of haves and haves-not which resulted in historical records of inequality. And the levels of inequality had gotten so profound that most people started to get disillusioned by the Western capitalist model of society.
The resulting Western malaise got furthermore aggravated by a societal atomization that collided frontally with internet social-media.
The reign of financial rationality was accompanied by consumerism and hyper-individualism which interacted with postmodernism to unleash a societal earthquake. All grand narratives literally melted away. Christianity and Marxism were the most important of these narratives and their disappearance left people to dabble in new narratives about bits and pieces of reality that separated them from one another. The result was an epidemic of loneliness that glued the individuals to their screens. Hyper-individualism and the separation of the individuals was a nasty brew that resulted in the rejection of anything relating to society and to the state. This is when societal atomization literally annihilated the capacity of Western nations to act as united entities which explains their utter incoherence in handling Covid-19.
This incapacity of Western nations, to act as united entities, has fatal consequences. The USA relies on its military to coerce other nations into obeying its diktats and, over the last decades, it bombed the non submitting ones back to the dark ages. This worked well as long as these were small countries but what happens if the USA were to try to bomb Russia or China ? The US military establishment has already inadvertently answered this question. They don't want to be involved in such aggressive actions and they have been resisting, a few times already, the orders of the civilian administration when they were feeling that its actions risked violent counteractions from the other side.
The military elites know better than anyone else how far societal atomization has been disintegrating the unity of its military personal. And they know apparently very well that a fight against a large economic power like China would leave the US military machine in shambles. In light of this their propaganda and psy-ops services conceived a strategy that relies entirely on the generation of chaos.
The rejection of globalization, and the rise of extreme-right populist nationalist movements, was merely a popular rejection of the elites that were responsible for the decisions which had led to the skewed outcome of financialization and globalization. The pauperization of the working people (the middle-class) had led to the separation of haves and haves-not which resulted in historical records of inequality. And the levels of inequality had gotten so profound that most people started to get disillusioned by the Western capitalist model of society.
The resulting Western malaise got furthermore aggravated by a societal atomization that collided frontally with internet social-media.
The reign of financial rationality was accompanied by consumerism and hyper-individualism which interacted with postmodernism to unleash a societal earthquake. All grand narratives literally melted away. Christianity and Marxism were the most important of these narratives and their disappearance left people to dabble in new narratives about bits and pieces of reality that separated them from one another. The result was an epidemic of loneliness that glued the individuals to their screens. Hyper-individualism and the separation of the individuals was a nasty brew that resulted in the rejection of anything relating to society and to the state. This is when societal atomization literally annihilated the capacity of Western nations to act as united entities which explains their utter incoherence in handling Covid-19.
This incapacity of Western nations, to act as united entities, has fatal consequences. The USA relies on its military to coerce other nations into obeying its diktats and, over the last decades, it bombed the non submitting ones back to the dark ages. This worked well as long as these were small countries but what happens if the USA were to try to bomb Russia or China ? The US military establishment has already inadvertently answered this question. They don't want to be involved in such aggressive actions and they have been resisting, a few times already, the orders of the civilian administration when they were feeling that its actions risked violent counteractions from the other side.
The military elites know better than anyone else how far societal atomization has been disintegrating the unity of its military personal. And they know apparently very well that a fight against a large economic power like China would leave the US military machine in shambles. In light of this their propaganda and psy-ops services conceived a strategy that relies entirely on the generation of chaos.
Chaos hides the implementation of their strategy while easing the manipulation of the minds. Since then Orwellian "doublespeak" and "doublethink" are the new rule of the media game and Western populations can no longer make the distinction between truth and fake news. Confusion reigns thus supreme and the same confusion has been spreading around the world leaving people and decision-makers to scratch their heads.
Chaos and confusion are meant to hide the execution by the biggest Western capital holders of their worldwide strategy of extraction which is presently shifting the paradigm of Modernity to its third iteration : "the Western totalitarian imposition of the transformation of nature into capital”. (2)
Those countries that fail to grasp, the profound significance of this last iteration of the paradigm of Modernity, will fail to fight back and they will inevitably be cornered into dependence. Fortunately Russia's military operation in Ukraine has awoken the Global South to the fact that fighting back against Western hegemony is a realist proposition after all.
Those countries that fail to grasp, the profound significance of this last iteration of the paradigm of Modernity, will fail to fight back and they will inevitably be cornered into dependence. Fortunately Russia's military operation in Ukraine has awoken the Global South to the fact that fighting back against Western hegemony is a realist proposition after all.
After suffering five centuries and counting of brutal Western extraction of their resources the countries of the South have always been eager to escape this Western scourge. And now that one of them, China has transformed itself in the first economic power on earth, the Russian challenge to NATO in Ukraine has invigorated their dream of beating back the Western hegemon. This explains "the sudden rise of the 87%" :
"I'm personally struck, and this since the end of February, by the historical rejection, by the whole non-Western world, of Modernity as the cultural field of the West. This indicates that we have reached a historical turning point simply because for the first time in its history Western Modernity is opposed by a front bringing together 87% of the world's population which refuses to obey the Western diktat ordering to sanction Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Thus, by a boomerang effect, the ideological totalitarianism of Western dualism is suddenly turning against itself.
... What is most extraordinary in the Ukrainian episode, of the restructuring of the world order, has been the completely unpredictable emergence of this front of refusal. Without any prior consultation the governments, representing over 87% of the world's population, suddenly refused Western orders to sanction Russia. Everyone got taken by surprise discovering such an abrupt rise in the rejection of Western Modernity.
... I therefore suggest that the time has come to start thinking seriously about the impact that the front of the 87%, which opposes the Modernity of the 13%, will inevitably have on the formation of thought in After-Modernity which will necessarily be universal because of the many side-effects of Modernity that humanity will have to face quickly there after."
I address this question at length in book 2 of the 2nd volume of my series “From modernity to After-modernity”, which is titled “Modernity 02” and in "The great Turning".
The fact that, "Without any prior consultation the governments, representing over 87% of the world's population, suddenly refused Western orders to sanction Russia", literally cornered the West. As Alastair Croocke wrote "While Europe and the United States have never been more closely aligned, the 'West' paradoxically has never been so alone".
But this alignment of the USA and the EU is coming under strain and the USA could soon find itself isolated, alone, into its corner of the earth....
In contrast to the West China has kept a reserved attitude all along. Its governance wisdom, that it inherited from over 200 generations past, has contrasted starkly with the adolescent impetuosity of the US administration.
In contrast to the West China has kept a reserved attitude all along. Its governance wisdom, that it inherited from over 200 generations past, has contrasted starkly with the adolescent impetuosity of the US administration.
Notes
1. "US dysfunctional politics makes the world sweat", Global Times, 2022-11-10.
2. The Great Turning. 2.2. The morphing of the paradigm of Modernity".
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