Paul
Craig Roberts
The
question is often asked: “What can we do?” Here is a prescription for peace and
prosperity.
We
will begin with prosperity, because prosperity can contribute to peace.
Sometimes governments begin wars in order to distract from unpromising economic
prospects, and internal political stability can also be dependent on
prosperity.
The Road to Prosperity
For
the United States to return to a prosperous road, the middle class must be
restored and the ladders of upward mobility put back in place. The middle class
served domestic political stability by being a buffer between rich and poor.
Ladders of upward mobility are a relief valve that permit determined folk to
rise from poverty to success. Rising incomes throughout society provide the
consumer demand that drives an economy. This is the way the US economy worked
in the post-WWII period.
To
reestablish the middle class the offshored jobs have to be brought home,
monopolies broken up, regulation restored, and the central bank put under
accountable control or abolished.
Jobs
offshoring enriched owners and managers of capital at the expense of the middle
class. Well paid manufacturing and industrial workers lost their livelihoods as
did university graduates trained for tradable professional service jobs such as
software engineering and information technology. No comparable wages and salaries
could be found in the economy where the remaining jobs consist of domestic
service employment, such as retail clerks, hospital orderlies, waitresses and
bartenders. The current income loss is compounded by the loss of medical
benefits and private pensions that supplemented Social Security retirement.
Thus, jobs offshoring reduced both current and future consumer income.
America’s
middle class jobs can be brought home by changing the way corporations are
taxed. Corporate income could be taxed on the basis of whether corporations add
value to their product sold in US markets domestically or offshore. Domestic
production would have a lower tax rate. Offshored production would be taxed at
a higher rate. The tax rate could be set to cancel out the cost savings of
producing offshore.
Under
long-term attack by free market economists, the Sherman Antitrust Act has
become a dead-letter law. Free market economists argue that markets are
self-correcting and that anti-monopoly legislation is unnecessary and serves
mainly to protect inefficiency. A large array of traditionally small business
activities have been monopolized by franchises and “big box” stores. Family
owned auto parts stores, hardware stores, restaurants, men’s clothing stores,
and dress shops, have been crowded out. Walmart’s destructive impact on Main
Street businesses is legendary. National corporations have pushed local
businesses into the trash bin.
Monopoly
has more than economic effect. When six mega-media companies have control of 90
percent of the American media, a dispersed and independent press no longer
exists. Yet, democracy itself relies on media helping to hold government to
account. The purpose of the First Amendment is to control the government, but
today media serves as a propaganda ministry for government.
Americans
received better and less expensive communication services when AT&T was a
regulated monopoly. Free trade in communications has resulted in the creation
of many unregulated local monopolies with poor service and high charges.
AT&T’s stability made the stock a “blue-chip” ideal for “widow and orphan”
trust funds, pensions, and wealth preservation. No such risk free stock exists
today.
Monopoly
was given a huge boost by financial deregulation. Federal Reserve chairman Alan
Greenspan’s claim that “markets are self-regulating” and that government
regulation is harmful was blown to pieces by the financial crisis of 2007-2008.
Deregulation not only allowed banks to escape from prudent behavior but also
allowed such concentration that America now has “banks too big to fail.” One of
capitalism’s virtues and justifications is that inefficient enterprises fail
and go out of business. Instead, we have banks that must be kept afloat with
public or Federal Reserve subsidies. Clearly, one result of financial
deregulation has been to protect the large banks from the operation of
capitalism. The irony that freeing banks from regulation resulted in the
destruction of capitalism is lost on free market economists.
The
cost of the Federal Reserve’s support for the banks too big to fail with zero
and negative real interest rates has been devastating for savers and retirees.
Americans have received no interest on their savings for seven years. To make
ends meet, they have had to consume their savings. Moreover, the Federal
Reserve’s policy has artificially driven up the stock market with the liquidity
that the Federal Reserve has created and also caused a similar bubble in the
bond market. The high prices of bonds are inconsistent with the buildup in debt
and the money printed in order to keep the debt afloat. The dollar’s value
itself depends on quantitative easing in Japan and the EU.
In
order to restore financial stability, an obvious precondition for prosperity,
the large banks must be broken up and the distinction between investment and
commercial banks restored.
Since
the Clinton regime, the majority of the Treasury secretaries have been top
executives of the troubled large banks, and they have used their public
position to benefit their banks and not the US economy. Additionally,
executives of the large banks comprise the board of the New York Fed, the
principal operating arm of the Federal Reserve. Consequently, a few large banks
control US financial policy. This conspiracy must be broken up and the Federal
Reserve made accountable or abolished.
This
requires getting money out of politics. The ability of a few powerful private
interest groups to control election outcomes with their campaign contributions
is anathema to democracy. A year ago the Republican Supreme Court ruled that
the rich have a constitutional right to purchase the government with political
campaign contributions in order to serve their selfish interests.
These
are the same Republican justices who apparently see no constitutional right to
habeas corpus and, thus, have not prohibited indefinite detention of US
citizens. These are the same Republican justices who apparently see no
constitutional prohibition against self-incrimination and, thus, have tolerated
torture. These are the same Republican justices who have abandoned due process
and permit the US government to assassinate US citizens.
To
remove the control of money over political life would likely require a
revolution. Unless prosperity is to be only for the One Percent, the Supreme Court’s
assault on democracy must be overturned.
The Road to Peace is Difficult
To
regain peace is even more difficult than to regain prosperity. As prosperity
can be a precondition for peace, peace requires both changes in the economy and
in foreign policy.
To
regain peace is especially challenging, not because Americans are threatened by
Muslim terrorists, domestic extremists, and Russians. These “threats” are
hoaxes orchestrated in behalf of special interests. “Security threats” provide
more profit and more power for the military/security complex.
The
fabricated “war on terror” has been underway for 14 years and has succeeded in
creating even more “terror” that must be combated with enormous expenditures of
money. Apparently, Republicans intend that monies paid in Social Security and
Medicare payroll taxes be redirected to the military/security complex.
The
promised three-week “cakewalk” in Iraq has become a 14 year defeat with the
radical Islamic State controlling half of Iraq and Syria. Islamist resistance
to Western domination has spread into Africa and Yemen, and Saudi Arabia,
Jordan, and the oil emirates are ripe fruit ready to fall.
Having
let the genie out of the bottle in the Middle East, Washington has turned to
conflict with Russia and by extension to China. This is a big bite for a
government that has not been able to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan after 14
years.
Russia
is not a country accustomed to defeat. Moreover, Russia has massive nuclear
forces and massive territory into which to absorb any US/NATO invasion. Picking
a fight with a well-armed country with by far the largest land mass of any
country shows a lack of elementary strategic sense. But
that is what Washington is doing.
Washington
is picking a fight with Russia, because Washington is committed to the
neoconservative doctrine that History has chosen Washington to exercise
hegemony over the world. The US is the “exceptional and indispensable” country,
the Uni-power chosen to impose Washington’s will on the world.
This
ideology governs US foreign policy and requires war in its defense. In the
1990s Paul Wolfowitz enshrined the Wolfowitz Doctrine into US military and
foreign policy. In its most bold form, the Doctrine states:
“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new
rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that
poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is
a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and
requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region
whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate
global power.”
As
a former member of the original Cold War Committee on the Present Danger, I can
explain what these words mean. The “threat posed formerly by the Soviet Union”
was the ability of the Soviet Union to block unilateral US action in some parts
of the world. The Soviet Union was a constraint on US unilateral action, not
everywhere but in some places. This constraint on Washington’s will is regarded
as a threat.
A
“hostile power” is a country with an independent foreign policy, such as the
BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) have proclaimed. Iran,
Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Argentina, Cuba, and North Korea have also
proclaimed an independent foreign policy.
This
is too much independence for Washington to stomach. As Russian President
Vladimir Putin recently stated, “Washington doesn’t want partners. Washington
wants vassals.”
The
Wolfowitz doctrine requires Washington to dispense with governments that do not
acquiesce to Washington’s will. It is a “first objective.”
The
collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in Boris Yeltsin becoming president of a
dismembered Russia. Yeltsin was a compliant US puppet. Washington became
accustomed to its new vassal and absorbed itself in its Middle Eastern wars,
expecting Vladimir Putin to continue Russia’s vassalage.
However
at the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy, Putin said: “I consider that
the unipolar model is not only unacceptable but also impossible in today’s
world.”
Putin
went on to say: “We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic
principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter
of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state’s legal system. One state and,
of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national
borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and
educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is
happy about this?”
When
Putin issued this fundamental challenge to US Uni-power, Washington was
preoccupied with its lack of success with its invasions of Afghanistan and
Iraq. Mission was not accomplished.
By
2014 it had entered the thick skulls of our rulers in Washington that while
Washington was blowing up weddings, funerals, village elders, and children’s
soccer games in the Middle East, Russia had achieved independence from
Washington’s control and presented itself as a formidable challenge to
Washington’s Uni-power. Putin and Russia have had enough of Washington’s
arrogance.
The
unmistakable rise of Russia refocused Washington from the Middle East to
Russia’s vulnerabilities. Ukraine, long a constituent part of Russia and
subsequently the Soviet Union, was split off from Russia in the wake of the
Soviet collapse by Washington’s maneuvering. In 2004 Washington had tried to
capture Ukraine in the Orange Revolution, which failed to deliver Ukraine into
Washington’s hands. Consequently, according to Assistant Secretary of State
Victoria Nuland, Washington spent $5 billion over the following decade
developing NGOs that could be called into the streets of Kiev and in developing
political leaders who represented Washington’s interests.
Washington
launched its coup in February 2014 with orchestrated “demonstrations” that with
the addition of violence resulted in the overthrow and flight of the elected
democratic government of Victor Yanukovych. In other words, Washington
destroyed democracy in a new country with a coup before democracy could take
root.
Ukrainian
democracy meant nothing to Washington intent on seizing Ukraine in order to
present Russia with a security problem and also to justify sanctions against
“Russian aggression” in order to break up Russia’s growing economic and
political relationships with Europe.
Having
launched on this reckless and irresponsible attack on a nuclear power, can
Washington eat crow and back off? Would the neoconservative-controlled mass
media permit that? The Russian government, backed 89% by the Russian people,
have made it clear that Russia rejects vassalage status as the price of being
part of the West. The implication of the Wolfowitz Doctrine is that Russia must
be destroyed.
This
implies our own destruction.
What
can be done to restore peace? Obviously, the EU must abandon NATO and declare
that Washington is a greater threat than Russia. Without NATO Washington has no
cover for its aggression and no military bases with which to surround Russia.
It
is Washington, not Russia, that has an ideology of “uber alles.” Obama endorsed
the neoconservative claim that “America is the exceptional country.” Putin has
made no such claim for Russia. Putin’s response to Obama’s claim is that “God
created us equal.”
In
order to restore peace, the neoconservatives must be removed from foreign
policy positions in the government and media. This means that Victoria Nuland
must be removed as Assistant Secretary of State, that Susan Rice must be
removed as National Security Adviser, that Samantha Power must be removed as US
UN ambassador.
The
warmonger neoconservatives must be removed from Fox ‘News,’ CNN, the New York
Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, and in their places
independent voices must replace propagandists for war.
Clearly,
none of this is going to happen, but it must if we are to escape armageddon.
The
prescription for peace and prosperity is sound. The question is: Can we
implement it?
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