What is Capitalism?
BY LOISE NEVILLE
Now that America's plants and businesses are throwing thousands
of our workers out of jobs by cutting back or closing in order to move their
enterprises to cheap labor countries, Americans are becoming aware that
something's gone wrong. Those who have learned something about the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on Trade
and Tariffs (GATT) are becoming aware that international economics, a subject
generally ignored by all, can indeed affect them at home through jobs, salaries,
prices, consumer products, ecological laws, in fact at every level. To understand
these new developments it is necessary to understand the capitalist system,
how it words, what it is.
Advertised as a free enterprise profit system, capitalism is in fact a gambling
game based upon gambling on business enterprises and on the economies of
nations. It is a system based not upon goods but upon money, a new system
never tired before in all the world's history. From its fragile beginnings
in the 16th century, capitalism has now become worldwide, the biggest gambling
game the world has ever know.
These simple facts have not been told to the layman on the principle that
the less people know, the better. To most people interest in economics ends
with their paychecks. They find no need to examine the economic system which
gives them these paychecks, even when something goes wrong. How does this
gambling system operate?
Gambling on Businesses: The Stock Market
Individuals, corporations and even nations finance a business by buying
shares in it in the hope that if it thrives they will share in its profits.
If many buy into that business, it thrives. If many pull back their money
by selling their stock, it will falter; too many and the business fails.
Banks and nations are also funded in this manner. This gives power to enterprises
which they otherwise would not have. When many buy into a business the cost
of the shares goes up, when they sell, the price goes down. The aim of the
gambler is to buy these shares when the price is low and sell when the price
is high, collecting the difference in cash.
The problem with this is not only the problem inherent in all gambling but
the fact that many who buy may sell their stock simultaneously and that
some who own a large number of share may deliberately sell to bring down
the price of the stock in order to buy it again cheaply and again profit
as the price rises. This must be done with care and knowledge; otherwise,
the company will lose too much financing and become bankrupt.
The depression of the '30s is attributed to the fact that this technique,
called "selling short," was not done with care. The result: the
big market crash of 1929. Businesses failed, the banks which funded them
failed, millions of workers, jobless, were thrown out on the streets. Millions
of other lost the money they had deposited in banks. As these banks and
businesses were either international or interdependent, the depression spread
from the United Stages to the rest of the world and became a world disaster.
To everyone that is except the original perpetrators who by selling when
stock paid well became rich.
Bad gambling but it's part of the game.
Arbitrage: Gambling with the Economies of Nations Twenty-four hours a day
international banks worldwide gamble with the currencies of nations in the
same manner as gambling with business stocks, by buying a nation's money
cheaply in quantity to force the price up, selling at the higher price to
make a profit. Banks make billions of dollars daily gambling in this manner.
Just as in business, nations can be financed or their finances depleted
using this technique.
Banks excuse this practice by saying it balances currencies internationally.
But there is a deeper purpose behind arbitrage: the control of nations through
the control of their economies. During England's days of empire the Rothschild
Bank, then the Bank of England used this method to aid the empire, to punish
colonial countries which got out of line by destroying their economies.
It worked very well. In no time recalcitrants came around and agreed to
follow Britain's wishes.
There is every reason to note that this technique is still in force in the
world today. England itself was recently the victim of it. About four months
ago the financial pages announced that England was suddenly bankrupt, the
British pound almost valueless. This continued for two days while England
scrambled for loans with which to buy back at the original price its own
currency. Loans were needed as it could not use the now worthless pound
with this to do so. What preceded this event? England's split with the EEC,
the European Economic Community. What followed the destruction of the pound?
England mended its fences with the EEC.
Japan is another recent offender whose rich economy, the richest in the
world, took a sudden crash. Not a gradual slide, a sudden crash. From affluence
into poverty. What was Japan's offense? The creation with the use of its
surplus funds of ASEAN, the Association of South East Asian Nations. ASEAN
is or was an independent coalition which included the richest nations of
South East Asia plus one MIddle Eastern oil state, Brunnnei. ASEAN has its
own bank, agricultural and business directorates, even its own army and
navy. As an entity, ASEAN would severely inhibit the freedom of outside
nations to do business in that valuable area.
Predictably, Japan was suddenly broke. Arbitrage at work. As the stock market
can be manipulated in the same manner by banks and corporate holders of
large blocs of stock who can suddenly "shell short," both England
and Japan could have been given a double whammy, one against business stocks,
one against their national currencies. Very effective. It could happen to
any nation, even to us, the U.S. Banks and large corporations are now independent
of any nation, the banks "Eurobanks" international; corporations
international.
You may be surprised to learn that the financial pages recently stated "The
United States has no major banks." What about those huge banking consortiums,
Citibank, largest in the world, Bank of America, Hanover Trust, and the
other huge banks we have claimed as our own? All are now Eurobanks, unaligned
with any nation. These with the international stock market run the gambling
game we call the capitalist system.
As an economic system capitalism has proved a failure. Gambling creates
an unstable world. Our business leaders know this. For this reason are instituting
a new controlled system: centralized control of the world's economy with
business in total control of world politics. Nations are considered wild
cards in the deck, so their power will be removed either buy combining them
into large entities, such as the EEC in Europe, NAFTA in North America,
or by splitting them up into small manageable nations-the process now in
effect in the former Soviet Union.
Citizens who are economic illiterates will of course know nothing of this,
will merely roll with the punches as bit by bit the new capitalist economy
is created.
It will be good for business. The only question is will it be good for citizens?
With no real national powers to appeal to, only the corporate bodies that
profit from the system, how much power over their own lives will ordinary
people have if the fox is guarding the henhouse? That's a new gamble!
I have not dealt here with the production or distribution of wealth, but
with finance, how that wealth is used to create our economy. This in turn
creates our politics, our domestic and foreign policies. An economic system
is based upon the way that economy is financed.
References:
Robert Alieber, The International Money Game
Neil Jacoby, Corporate Power and Social Responsibility: A
Blueprint for the Future
Anthony Sampson, The Money Lenders: One World is the Creation of International
Bankers
Boardman & Tuerck, World Monetary Disorder: National
Policies vs. International Imperatives
Howard Wachtell, The Money Mandarins
Julian Weiss, The Asian Century
Ray Vicker, Those Swiss Money Men
HJseph Wechberg, The Merchant Bankers
Gertrude M. Coogan, The Money Creators
