Multipolar World Means More Freedom

PART 2 of Threats to Freedom Series: Mechanization makes it more profitable for world's future oligarchs to switch from competing by force and financial exploitation of the third world to competing in industrial output and welfare provision



 
Recently, the global international situation changed from one of feudalism (with each feudal lord constantly trying to slaughter the other with full use of the vassal states and being polite and collegial in peacetime) to one of libertarianism. The former vassal states/serfs are now "free" to work for former masters who now style themselves as capitalists. Every small country in the world is "free" to dress how they like and do what they want with their body as long as they work for United States or European Union sponsored financial institutions.

Those countries that really want to make autonomous economic decisions are threatened by force, internationally ridiculed, or badly beaten up. We can see how ridiculous the situation would be if 200+ "sovereign" countries were actual people living in one neighborhood block. United States would just be the muscular mob boss loan shark with a crew of yes men. They would makes rounds down the street, slap people around, or drag them by the collar. Germany, England, and Japan would be the former mobsters who put away the guns (for the most part) and now try to be the corner store owners and minor loan sharks. They pay a bit of protection money to United States and tacitly support it to preserve the global system that benefits them. France and Russia (also former mobsters who got beaten up rather badly) are the ones who want America to weaken so there can be collective bullying of the world. They try to make conspiracies with Germany to that end since collective bullying and loan sharking would give them a larger share of the cut. India, China, and Brazil are too well armed to be bullied anymore and are just trying to stay out of business on the street for now. Everybody else is at the mercy of the colorful characters above for their wealth (if they don't want to lay there dying in the streets).

It's an intolerable situation internationally and intolerable domestically. Blatant use of force will have to come to an end since racketeering is inefficient and will exhaust society that practices it through logistical overextension. That has been the case for centuries and is especially true if the racketeer does not lead in making useful products. Recent American slide into a new economic depression has accelerated the process of multipolar world's reemergence. Rise of new global powers ( European Union, China) and perseverance of old regional powers (Russia, Turkey, Brazil, Iran, India, Japan), is raising macro level competition to new levels. The oligarchs ( that exercise control over most governments on the planet) cannot compete anymore by using force since it is now economically, physiologically, and politically suicidal. As such, interstate competition has to take the form of constantly raising the quality of life for citizens living inside. As much as it pains them, oligarchal elites can no longer throw the poor armed with bayonets at each other to gain greater market share.

The modern form of post-violence competition is also burning itself out. It has so far involved:

1) Overworking citizens by ideologically promoting economic libertarianism domestically, to other great powers, and within the post-colonial space. This increasingly resulted in wealthier workers growing poorer while competing with even poorer foreign workers for an increasingly shrinking and depreciating currency pie

2) Turning small nations into indentured servants (they way American former slave masters did to freed blacks in 1870s) by force. As discussed in part 1, the international community now respects states as independent autonomous decision makers. Of course that is only on paper since United States has used mass violence and coercion during the transition of countries from colonial slavery to post-colonial dollar dominated indentured servitude. Western powers are also freed from the expense of protecting their former subjects.

3) International financial manipulation of currencies, investments, and capital flows through IMF, WTO, World Bank. This allowed Western elites and their third world elite allies in creating wealth outflows from the third world and giving regional conspirators a share of the cut

older unipolar world concept: click to enlarge

The first method of competition in terms of reduction of state power by oligarchs ( to promote economic libertarianism and profitable indentured servitude within the general population) is also overextending itself. Many oligarchs have found out (like their ancestors in the late 19th century) that if you don't provide health care and other infrastructure for your indentured servants, the rich of other countries cut into your profits with time. Many of the American rich have recently seen their worker related health care costs rise dramatically and so decided to pass on the costs to the government. Obama even admitted publicly that health reform is needed because the American worker is becoming too expensive for domestic employers. Indentured servants ( who are overburdened by costs of living and whose incomes are reduced by competition and outsourcing), are bad for domestic consumer market and bad for foreign investment. A paradox is created in which economic libertarianism cuts costs in terms of paying people less but increases costs of privately provided infrastructure. Even if private sector mimics some third world countries in not providing any infrastructure or welfare, it finds that domestic consumer market is hurt and violent insurgency looms on the horizon. Libertarian economics also reduces tax revenue to support the military as a second type of competition.

Blatant use of military force was the cheapest path of least resistance to be used short term. The French, German, American, and British oligarchs in the 1970s and 1980s could care less that the new violent indirect loan shark method of exploitation is unsustainable. They had a wonderful pretext in the form of Soviet power to defend their financial interests. They has the cover of the constant cold war emergency to look the other way when America frequently engaged in international violence. Now that the cold war is over with nothing to replace it with, there is no justification for enormous military apparatus to shake down poor nations for money and resources. Military action, besides being unpredictably draining as Iraq has shown, also results in increasingly earlier blowback from various populations. This type of competition was the most effectively and widely used by United States and we have seen how it rotted and impoverished the general society. Japanese, Dutch, and German oligarchs now smirk at the price and inefficiency of huge conventional war machine over the cheaper way of worker training and healthcare provisions. They are able to keep their white collar workers productive and obedient tax payers and supporters of the status quo.

International financial structures such as the IMF provide a forum and platform for the world's rich on how to peacefully exploit the entire planet. These structures had a competitive function against communist backed international structures (such as Comecon) for courting third world power elites. Now Chinese and Russians want inside the exclusive Anglo-American/Western European dominated financial cartel and it is beginning to lose some of its purpose.

Since these methods are burning themselves out, we will see new forms of international competition rise. We will increasing see attempts by powerful interests to use government power to create a German style welfare state. Only such attempts stand to preserve as much capitalism as possible in the face of two immediate threats. The first is competition from foreign rich who are better able to exploit third world resources/the poor while remaining domestically productive with exports (such as the Chinese). The second bigger threat to international capitalist business as usual is the rapidly increasing mechanization.

Efficiency of assembly lines and technological production has multiplied many fold since the times of Henry Ford in the 1920s. From a purely non-ideological scientific perspective (in terms of resources, rates of production, energy expenditure, etc), the world is more than capable of providing a basic annual income to 9-10 billion people along with minimum level of schooling, shelter, food, pharmaceuticals, clothing, and basic technological gadgets. This has been true for some time now. Industrial machine production has become so efficient that even in 1960s Milton Friedman talked of minimum basic wage and scientists warned the president of rising mass unemployment becoming socially destabilizing and impoverishing in the future. The truth that nobody talks about is that a large bulk of humanity is no longer needed as workers. Mechanization (which accelerated its already breakneck pace with the computer revolution in the 1980s) is making far more first world workers obsolete than outsourcing. It is absolutely ridiculous for capitalist ideologues to suggest that by the middle of 21st century, most or even a third of 9 billion people will all work in advanced hypertechnological white collar jobs.

Nobody believes it.

Here's the scenario that economic libertarian internationalists actually describe for the future in hopeful optimistic terms. They want the world united under direction of a few financial institutions so capital can flow unhindered to smoothly create the flat world that Thomas Friedman talked about. Exponentially accelerating technological growth ensures that only a few million oligarchs need to employ a few dozen million super skilled white collar technocrats to oversee production and distribution. Then of course you need whatever corporate local branch staff not already replaced by robotics. The globalization proponents actually suggest that a planetary system (that doesn't need vast majority of people to work for it) will be able to constantly sell advanced products to most of the world's population at a profit!

Say it takes for example, an outrageous number of 10% of world's population to man the factories making the nanotechnology suits and flying cars and robotic assistants. Say it also takes 10% to fill the white collar positions of the planetary corporate structures to distribute and promote the goods. 80% of people not working are supposed to to buy the products and thus provide profit and wages to the 20%! Don't laugh. The fantasy being seriously promoted by many internationalist globalists. Most people are supposed to be each others bartenders, barbers, and juggler type entertainers. Yes, even with advanced college degrees. It is so logistically irrational that the world's people will reject the idea before the real starvation, violence, and hyper poverty begin. Global unification under such a corporate system is far more structurally and practically ludicrous than any socialist design envisioned in the 20th century.

Many of the world's political and corporate elites understand this and know that transition to post scarcity systems must begin at the top while they are still in control. That entails politically defeating internationalist free market oligarchs and using the government to provide vast safety nets for the armies of the unemployed throughout the Western world. That also entails pushing the government to take managerial control of strategic sectors of the economy such as car/ship/airplane production facilities as well as the land with natural resources. Agricultural land will also be taken (most likely utilizing the health pretext of making food products safer for consumption).

Of course the process in United States will rip its social and political fabric apart and it is likely the process will first be started and finished in Germany-France-Russia-China-Japan block. Once United States follows (hopefully without civil war or other violence), most societies on earth will become advanced welfare states that technology necessitates. Free market hold outs in South America will join once they see United States blatantly copying Russia in strategic asset seizure. Many countries will flip to this model not because they can now do so without facing American violence (or investment ruin) but because the former capitalist superpower now pushes the opposite. Following the transition by most leading countries, the increasing % of society that is unemployed due to mechanization will be able to receive a minimum income and goods stipend.

Such a transition is the only one that would allow most of the oligarchs to continue making a lot of money (and avoid violence and government seizure without compensation). Thus it will be done.

This is what was meant in 1950s science fiction predictions about people in the year 2000 working 1-3 hours a day or a couple days a week. Mechanization and gains in efficiency cut out most people from being needed for work. As such, the global unification will be taken by rich welfare states that keep the factories running by providing a minimum of material goods to themselves and all the peoples of the world. Of course natural resources are needed for that. We see how China rapidly acquired 60% of Africa commodity exports while becoming the factory of the world. Perhaps "free market with Chinese characteristics" is not a euphemism for them selling out but a long term strategy to become the backbone of a new world order. Only European Union has the assets to become a partner in such a system and European oligarchs will push it to do so. Then world's governments will trade natural resources in exchange for goods that are distributed to people for free. Anything less than that (such as violent preservation of the current free market/finance architecture) means mass suffering and turmoil the likes of which we haven't seen in over 50 years.

Lets make a full circle to why a multipolar world with EU (including Russia), China, and U.S. balancing each other creates more freedom. Since the only logical logistical system is a post-scarcity stipend for most people, the key aspect of autonomy is satisfied. When individual human beings are guaranteed a food/shelter/resource stipend, they can demand greater subnational sovereign rights from international bodies and their own governments. The national governments will devolve power to people below and to international/regional structures(that supervise resource/goods trade) above. Global authorities such as departments within the newly empowered UN and International Court of Justice can finally begin to fulfill their functions and charters.

Today's competition between regional powers involves exploitation and violence. Tomorrow's competition stands to take the form in which regional powers compete to produce the most quality goods to be distributed for free. It's very easy to come up with incentives for a few million meritocratically chosen technocrats needed to operate the systems. Neither currency nor overlapping service industry capitalism need to disappear to supplement 21st century solution to a looming crisis. World's resources will flow to those states that make the best use of them. The talented technocrats will still find a society that has the best assembly lines and resource management and get paid handsomely for their services. The rest will take a small step towards the universal goal of greater sovereignty and self mastery.

Both John Ensign and Mark Sanford Humiliated Within 10 Days is Suspicious

Infidelity scandals have proven remarkably effective against politicians from Spitzer to Craig to Edwards. Ensign and Sanford falling in same week due to electronic surveillance is very suspicious considering strategic political benefits of their removal




On June 17th, Senator John Ensign, GOP's fourth most powerful member, stepped down from Republican Policy Committee after publicly admitting to an affair. His lover's husband apparently sent a letter (text here ) to Fox News mentioning solid evidence of infidelity such as " facts, a paper trail, phone records and personal witnesses to testify to its truth". Just a week later, Mark Sanford, a very ideologically independent and popular republican governor from South Carolina, publicly admitted to an affair. Apparently South Carolina's largest newspaper, The State, somehow acquired records of Sanford's email communication with his lover in Argentina.

Two powerful regional and genuinely popular Republican politicians, each with potential power to challenge Obama in 2012 (and frustrate the president's policies throughout his term), both had their public personas ruined within the same week because of electronic surveillance. Both decided to preemptively step forward with admissions rather than undergo the evidence circulating even more widely in the media.

They also shared very similar records of fighting on behalf of private oligarchs against oligarchs who wanted to expand the use of state structures as their tools. For example, senator Ensign opposed the auto bailout and restructuring and fought against the new powerful eminent domain powers granted to the government by Kelo vs. New London Supreme Court case (to take from one private entity and give to another). He was given high ranks for his efforts by the anti-government corporate propaganda tank Citizens Against 
Government Waste.

Mark Sanford is one of the rare fiscally libertarian-esque ideologues (in the mold of Ron Paul) who often went not only against the national GOP but the state's GOP as well. He was prone to theatrical antics to prove his point like bringing live pigs to state senate to protest his party's spending bills. More relevantly, he recently was the first to make a show of not taking federal bailout funds for his state (taking them later after the grand standing).

Sanford was the chairman of the Republican Governors Association. As such, he was well positioned (besides being already ideologically/psychologically predisposed) to help fellow regional executives craft common modes of functioning to resist the federal government. His theatrics and unpredictability stood to give endless headaches for the federal political center during its efforts to manage the continuing depression. Considering that other powerful governors (like Rick Perry) were also engaged in grandstanding about reaffirming state autonomy, an ideologue as the governors' leader was a huge risk.

This article is not necessarily suggesting that the federal government was involved in surveillance and then strategic exposure of damaging evidence to eliminate political rivals. However, considering the stature and background of the fallen politicians, the federal government stood the most to benefit from their removal and it is very suspicious. We've already seen the executive go after enemies under Richard Nixon and George Bush (Eliot Spitzer as investigator against Wall Street corruption seems to be the most stark example). The shoe is on the foot as Obama inherited Bush's tools.

In the last few years, the executive acquired sufficient new legal rights and technological abilities to strategically be able to blackmail and damage not only private citizens but fellow government officials as well. The surveillance is not going away under the Obama administration. It is being significantly expanded with the president creating a new cyber security office within the white house last month. The first director of this new center (designed to better coordinate all intelligence departments) actually resigned in protest after just a month of working there. He cited as his reason that the notoriously untransparent NSA is taking de facto control over the new center as well as taking a large chunk of funding from the civilian department of Homeland Security.

Russel Tice, a former NSA employee, recently revealed how department of Homeland Security and the department of defense jointly managed domestic spying operations on political opponents. If his story is true, it means the military and the civilian government were actively collaborating on American soil on behalf of the federal government. If his story is not true (considering he was fired from the NSA and might have a grudge) then the recent developments point to such collaboration beginning out in the open.

The new cyber security office in the white house points to growing power of department of defense under Robert Gates. Robert Gates now has increasing structural ability to acquire and manipulate domestic information formerly under the civilian management of Department of Homeland Security and policing structures like the FBI. The military now has publically visible and accepted foot in the door towards overseeing civilian information networks if it wants to. It is very possible that the publically stated concerns of increasing cyber attacks from China and Russia are the real cause of this development (Gates wrote his Georgetown PhD thesis on Soviet government's view on evolution of Chinese society). At the same time, military getting involved in civilian affairs rather than the other way around is disturbing news since that usually occurs in societies that are facing looming failure. It would be ironic (with recent events in Iran as background) if United States was moving away from decentralized ideological oligarchy towards more pragmatic centralized oligarchy backed by intelligence and military departments.

Scandals of infidelity have proven to be remarkably effective against politicians of all stripes but particularly more so against religious conservatives. It seems in a country that sees divorce rate of over 50%, people have an especially emotional knee jerk reaction to cheating done by powerful individuals. Stories of sexual infidelity have taken out more numbers of politicians in recent years that we can readily remember. The most mainstream and powerful populist for the poor, John Edwards, is but one national example.

Once again, it is possible some of the politicians fell due to private investigators or even intraparty sabotage. It is fun to joke about all Republicans being repressed perverts and hypocrites but after a while coincidences and amusing schadenfreude stories loose their luster and become rather unnerving. We'll see if anything embarrassing continues to happen to strategically key conservatives in the months to come.

France's Sarkozy is in the Same Political Situation as George Bush

Considering the atypical polarization of French politics since the last election, Sarkozy's road to being elected again is the same as the one George Bush took. Mobilizing conservatives and defending an abstract French way of life



Jean-Marie Le Pen is very old. How old you say? He is older than even John McCain and might not live to see the next election to make opinions about it. Le Pen's participation during the 2007 French elections allowed Sarkozy to capitalize in the second round on some anti-immigrant National Front single issue voters. It wasn't the deciding factor in his victory but gave a taste of a demographic that can be courted in the future. Sarkozy realizes that he won due to greater infighting within the center left opposition and his Rudy Giuliani-esque law and order posturing. He knows the center left will reorganize a bit further to the right to undermine his support in the center and make a sustained coordinated effort to dislodge him in 2012. Five year terms allow plenty of space and breathing room to lick the wounds and make new alliances.

French center-left has more than enough tools and time to capitalize on the economic downturn, prevent Sarkozy's various short and long term economic stimulus measures from being successful, and exploit the potential rift between Paris and the new American administration (with Obama trying to make inroads with Muslims, Sarkozy finds himself in a difficult position). Sarkozy sees that the only way to solve the issue of illegal residents is to socially integrate them by legalizing their status. That of course would add to the numerical strength of voting blocks for candidates like Royale. The process of recognition and proper assimilation itself is political suicide for coalition building with conservative factions in society. Since the political hyperpolarization of 2007 election, it is very difficult for the president to peal away those who voted for Royale from the center-left. People's hatred of him is not waning.

As such, Sarkozy's only real options are:

1) to move further to the socially conservative right by getting the disgruntled La Pen voters to the polls in larger numbers than in 2007

2) to tap into the potential conservative factions of those who don't vote (even for Le Pen) because they know their guy wont win. This can even include those in France who still engage in Christian mythology but never bothered to really participate in the strictly secular French politics

3) to split the youth vote by polarizing the youth along nationalist militarist lines and using his own youthful energies to that end

4) utilizing increased support of the wealthy for media manipulation and social relations cover to achieve the above 3.

Sounds familiar? Yes. The president of France is George Bush in 2002. The economic crisis and gains by nationalist anti-immigrant parties in European Parliament allows Sarkozy a cover of international fiscal emergency and worry to mobilize new supporters. This would include the elderly and disgruntled underemployed young whites and involve constant play on their insecurities and passions. Such a road to 2012 reelections would have to be walked right away to build cultural momentum through media repetition.

The statement concerning Burqas not being welcome in France appears to be the first salvo in that direction. Since Obama criticized France in his Cairo speech by making a point to describe how America does not push secularism on its Muslims, Sarkozy can now begin to move away from public perception that he is more pro-American candidate than Royale by distancing himself from Washington's policies. Surrounding European countries are too preoccupied (with making their annual GDP reversals smaller than projected) to expand too much energy on lifting an eyebrow towards harder nationalist secularist tone coming from Paris. Sarkozy might not have EU's rotating presidency anymore but 2009 allows his country to be in the driver's seat of EU policy more than ever. Germany's focus on the upcoming elections takes Berlin out of the international picture briefly. Angela Merkel will not side her center-right Christian Democrats with Muslim immigrants abroad as she runs for re-election amidst a deep recession.

We can expect President's Union for a Popular Movement to gradually increase the use of social wedge issues like the Burqa ban and even a possible outreach to France's remaining Christian communities. He has already shown a willingness to appeal to militarists by advocating a stronger EU defense force and intervening to broker peace between Russia and Georgia last summer. As former minister of the interior and manager of police structures, Sarkozy is comfortable with rigid hierarchical organizations as well as interdepartmental cooperation between such structures. He really is well positioned to pick up the torch of the war on terror by stressing continental security and defense.

Using Turkey and Iran as geopolitical threats to European way of life plays well to demographics in key EU member states. Unlike Bush, Sarkozy has more skill and intelligence to create a domestic impression that he is a popular, competent, and moderate internationally. Currently, Paris is capitalizing on Washington's strategic public non-commitment to ongoing protests in Iran. Sarkozy's statement on defending women from disrespect (by not welcoming the fundamentalist Muslim requirement of a face cover) comes at a strategically appropriate time. The issue of speaking out against fundamentalist modes of life is bound to grow with the background of Iranian unrest and generate even more debate than before. The elevation of dialogue itself allows the president to show both the leftist anti-American youth and the anti-immigrant conservatives that he is serious about defending the French way of life autonomously.

The wild card is the international crisis itself and the depths to which United States' retracting economic bubble will pull Western Europe after it. As things stand now, continuous recession without further deterioration allows Sarkozy to claim he stabilized the country, to increase scapegoating, and to try to get re-elected on notion that you can't change horses in midstream when restructuring the economy. Conditions paralleling America's current slide into a deep depression are historically unpredictable however.

Ahmadinejad is Very Capable of Suppressing Protests in Iran

The students in Iran aren't up against a foreign backed puppet, a decadent old monarch, or an impudent oligarch. They are up against a former elite special forces leader who specialized in divide and conquer tactics, intelligence, and asymmetric warfare.


The students in Iran aren't up against a foreign backed puppet, a decadent old monarch, or an impudent oligarch. They are up against a former elite special forces leader who specialized in divide and conquer tactics, intelligence, and asymmetric warfare. Ahmadinejad was one of the founders and high ranking organizers of the cream of the crop of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the Quds force. The Revolutionary Guards are the private army of the Iranian ruling party with their own navy, special forces, intelligence, and militias. The IRG is a separate loyal army that competes with the regular army for resources and gets privileged access when it comes to training, talent acquisition, and funding. This competition is analogous to how Waffen SS in Nazi Germany was the vanguard of National Socialism, competed with the regular army, and often got preferential treatment when it came to talent, recruitment, cutting edge technology, and political influence.

Although IRG has a public ideology for recruitment purposes, its main task ( of keeping the ruling party in power ) forces it into very pragmatic decision making. The Quds force is IRG's CIA/special forces equivalent and like all special/intelligence services worldwide, is completely pragmatic when it comes to alliances with ideological enemies to achieve is goals. The Quds force is not above funding itself with drug money, bribes, and covert business dealings. IRG also employs thousands of ideological youngsters in a civilian militia (Basij) through using the clergy's infrastructure.

Lets make a semi-humorous analogy of what Iranian students are up against using American Republican party in 2004 as an example. Imagine if in 2004, the Republican party had a well funded army to "preserve the Reagan Revolution." This Reagan Revolution Guards had its own bases and access to tanks, factories, aircraft, and almost as many soldiers as the regular American military. The best of the Reagan guards were in elite Freedom Corps that combined CIA, FBI, NSA, homeland security, and Green Berets. Imagine if the Reagan Guards also employed an enormous civilian militia consisting of young Baptist zealots who were called say, College Republicans. Imagine if College Republicans were given legal power to assist the police, the Reagan Guard military, and did the bidding of the top GOP chairman. Imagine if GOP also consisted of a tight alliance of oligarchs and the clergy ( ha ha ). Imagine if like ROTC, College Republicans had local headquarters in every college and sent geeky religious goons to break up drinking parties, harass couples, beat up homosexuals, organize pro-regime rallies, disrupt opposition gatherings, and had the power to call in for police reinforcement whenever they felt like it. Finally, imagine that it financially paid to be a part of the College Republicans and the Reagan Guards since the GOP party oligarchs controlled the major industries of the country and only shared the profits with supporters through job perks and higher salaries. 2004 comes along and GOP mullahs only allow George Bush and John McCain to run. They then blatantly manipulate the elections with state controlled media to swing the elections towards Bush and use College Republicans and the police to make sure there isn't any unrest.

Makes one's blood boil doesn't it? In most of the world, including United States, there are always more uneducated poor religious people than bourgeois liberals and secular intellectuals. In Iran, the uneducated and the poor have been effectively manipulated by the wealthy clergy for close to thirty years.

The IRG are there to pacify the urban areas (where the intellectuals and middle class are dominant) and to counterbalance the underfunded non-ideological military. The students are substantially split between themselves along class and education lines through the Basij student union. Ahmadinejad knows that pacification of youth is key in a country where the average age is very low compared to aging European countries. Just like Putin promoted youth organization NASHI in Russia, Ahmadinejad made sure to promote Basij as a loyal student body. How reliable they are is yet to be seen.

NASHI is organized primarily around nationalism and job perks just like Hitler youth was. Basij is also organized around nationalism and job perks but also has the religious fundamentalist element. Considering that neither NASHI, college republicans, or Hitler youth have any monopoly on nationalism, that might be the weakest bond within Basij. In terms of job perks, the current regime has not made much effort to diversify from oil and unlike Russia they don't have too many other commodities to withstand the severe recent drop in oil prices. Job perks as an incentive may increasing lay in the promise of a liberal reformist movement. That leaves fundamentalist Islam as key glue to motivate the Basij youth. As most people know the trademark of the deeply religious youths is geekyness, unsexy clumsy prudishness, and often sadistic authoritarian unpleasantness of the uneducated. Iranian youths like youths anywhere are not immune to ridicule, fashion, trend following, internet, and the appeal of a sexier more liberated society. It is not known how long Basij can exert energies against the pro Mousavi protests taking this into account.

That really leaves the job of suppression and the last line of defense in the hands of the special forces, intelligence, and IRG themselves. Ahmadinejad is relatively young, cunning, and energetic. As a pragmatic former intelligence officer, he has sharp strategic neural capacity to do problem solving. He might not be Putin level or George Bush Sr. level intellect, but the growing role of the position of the Iranian president in recent years (who isn't supposed to be in control of foreign policy), shows that Ahmadinejad is very capable at building alliances and increasing personal power. As such, it's very possible that he'll be able to find enough allies to create a believable impression that the protests are dying out, do mass swarm arrests in smaller cities to scare the key opposition leaders in Tehran, and string the world along until the bulk of the students are demoralized and dispersed. It remains to be seen whether Khomeni and Ahmadinejad have enough access to economic resources to create such a coalition.

China Mercantilism and New Global Economic Order

China is successfully getting the world embedded in mercantilist system of development by being such a large player with a strategic long term vision. This allows Western world to economically outmaneuver China instead of being sidelined by it.



Modern communication technology has allowed China to achieve a centralized bureaucracy that has a smaller chance of becoming overextended and too top heavy. The danger of parts of central government melting into regional structures with rebellious consequences is diminishing every year. The risk is not totally gone however if rapid economic growth bumps into serious stagnation and even GDP reversal. As of today, China has the creaky uneven centralization of 18th century France and is gleefully engaged in large scale mercantilist practices.

Chinese society is not yet fully urbanized and consolidated. Beijing cannot yet engage in cutting edge mercantilist practices as done by Japan and Singapore. Chinese political center only recently overcame last remnants of feudalism, warlordism, and peripheral regional integration. Having dealt with that, China is pursuing the same economic path that allowed Kaiser's Germany to rapidly grow by taking advantage of British post-mercantilist free trade period. It is very historically appropriate. There is no need for Beijing to emulate Spanish, British, or French mercantilist experiences.

For a nation of 5 year plans, it makes sense to try to skip developmental steps and leap from present macroeconomics of Kaiser's Germany to those of Japan. Today, China has done rapid neomercantilist development by the book:

1) Government imposed positive trade balance through protectionism and currency control (yuan pegged to the dollar)

2) Self sufficiency in agriculture and manufacturing of basic to advanced goods

3) Acquisition of large amounts of money and gold (around a trillion dollars worth as of 2009). Controls to prevent wealth from flowing out of the country through protectionist restrictions on imports

4) Large scale mining and infrastructural projects to increase use of domestic resources and terrain. Hamilton and Quinsy Adams would be proud of what Beijing's coastal elite have achieved in the last 20 years. China has also secured 60% of Africa's resource exports and are structurally integrating Central Asia and Siberian Russia into their resource feeding network.

5) Keeping the overall population's wages low to increase country's overall manufacturing exports. That is easily accomplished by underdevelopment of Western provinces like Tibet. One child policy is more imposed on the wealthier Mandarin ruling coalition than the periphery ethnic groups. Uneven implementation of one child policy keeps periphery ethnic groups more fertile and poorer. Coastal urban ruling peoples spend more energies on advanced wealth generating employment rather than saving to augment multiple children.

6) Keeping of imports limited to natural resources and large scale buy outs of foreign expert talent in anything from engineering, electronics, economics, and hard sciences

Current opinion and international action has just been reactive so far. Some are mainly focused on China's attempts to prevent rapid devaluing of the bought dollars (before all of them are eventually used on natural resources anyway) through creation of an international reserve currency.

Some focus on how the international recession, can be used by China, to move from less advanced manufacturing to price competing with Germans and Japanese when it comes to advanced electronics and electric cars.

Many are focused on new Chinese confidence of proactively criticizing existing international economic system and offering transformative multilateral steps such as gradual multilaterial global involvement in the IMF.

Very little attention has been paid to the implications of the world being pulled into a mercantilist arrangement. China is becoming more predictable and thus out-maneuverable. Originally, Britain became economically successful because it added free trade theory onto mercantilist practice earlier than Spain or France. It stayed one step ahead of the competition. However, the new economic hybrid has created oligarchic capitalist interests who then used liberal theory to reduce state's involvement in the economy. Wealthy exporting interests (who controlled the house of commons and people's opinion through printed media) used appeals to individual freedom to dismantle the mercantilist/free trade hybrid that made Britain powerful and wealthy to begin with. Britain coasted along but economically declined as hybrid societies were able to build up new waves of industrial assets through neomercantilist practices (Germany/ United States). As Britain declined in industrial might, it focused on its core strength of money management and that lead to the torch being passed down to Wall Street in the 20th century. The great competing banking hubs of Europe (Paris, Berlin, Moscow) were looted in the wars/revolutions. We now see what happens when banking and finance is the core strength and emphasis of the economy.

China is now in the process of moving to the final stage of manufacturing asset concentration through focus on development of advanced products like cars and computers. Rapid economic assimilation of Taiwan and Hong Kong will aid in that process. Western investment in Taiwan created a base for high technology and competitive know how. Many Taiwanese oligarchs have already basically integrated their companies with mainland ones. Ideologically, Taiwan's Kuomintang political center, can now smoothly cooperate with Chinese authorities. People forget how important socialism was in Chiang Kai Chek's original nationalist ideology.

Very soon, China will begin manufacture of high technology goods to compete with Germany and Japan for markets in Russia, Europe, and North America (as well as lower end cheap electric cars sold to developing nations). They will be forced to utilize existing free trade international system (perhaps stabilized by IMF's Special Drawing Rights currency basket) to push these products abroad.

How would Chinese like to see the world once their products flow onto middle class Western markets? They would like to see no protectionism from Europe, Russia, Japan, or North America. They would like to see rule of law and capitalist adherence from everybody in the world. They'd be fine with North America and Europe reduced to South American-esque resource providers and vacation destinations. We can see that if China takes on Japanese level importance in high technology exports, they'll be able to then finally consolidate nationally and relax the amount of force needed to keep social stability.

In a few decades, the communist leadership in Beijing will then be able to claim that not only did they bring the nation out of poverty but they:

1) beat Westerners at their own game like Japan did (but without a period of war over resources)
2) created real feeling of nationalism, inter-ethnic peace, and modern nation state like Chiang Kai Chek wanted
3) avoided Soviet Union's mistakes when undergoing Perestroika while properly utilizing communist fruits of mass literacy and emphasis on science/engineering
4) took the torch from United States as the Global role model when it comes to free trade, peaceful co-existence, lack of harmful interference in other societies' business, isolationism, respect for borders of small states, and business cooperation
5) built more for the developing world than the financially oriented English speakers by swapping resources for real engineering construction projects
6) helped create a stabilizing one world currency for more even international development

Such claims will allow Communist party to win election after election for a number of decades even if they allow political pluralism. Many Asian states continued to have one party rule for decades even after democratizing. Cultural collectivism and emphasis on agreement allows power elites to work smoothly together. Taking into account Britain's experience, China can easily continue to pragmatically evolve, build a financial center through Hong Kong, bring new resources (such as Helium 3 from space exploration), and guide humanity by being its center of progress.

History has shown that leading global elites will not allow such unimpeded ascendancy. Cutting off resources and containment is too blatantly hostile. Japan and Imperial Germany have demonstrated that. Advanced hybrid of mercantilism and free trade (from a society strong enough economically and technologically) will be the only way to counterbalance Chinese ascendancy. Only European Union with English and Russian speaking allies has what it takes to effectively compete and prevent formation of a long term hegemon that is culturally and psychologically uncomfortable for Westerners.

Earlier in the article it was mentioned how Chinese bureaucracy has a small chance of being destabilized again. There is precedent for this happening at numerous times in China's history with horrible civil wars and revolts from poorer less developed periphery. China's gini index (that shows country's income inequality between the rich and the poor) demonstrates that China is even more economically unequal than United States. Today, Beijing's authoritarian rule keeps the lid on trouble from elites from either the oligarch coastal factions, rural/regional factions, and urban West emulating liberals.

European Union's job to deal with the near future involves:

1) Being proactive rather than reactive to Chinese, American, or Russian moves

2) Acquiring valuable allies to augment influence. That means working first with Russia to kick American/British influence out of central Europe and then with England to diminish American influence inside NATO. NATO can then be ended/transmogrified and America approached as an equal power to work with.

3) Being pragmatic and not looking at human rights when acquiring resources from other nations. Europe still has time to lock onto substantial amounts of resource exports from the third world, especially Africa. It can join Russia in developing the Arctic energy reserves and help Russia outbid Chinese resource extraction/exploration companies in Central Asia.

4) Consolidate EU structures such as the European Parliament so more coherent action can be undertaken with more popular trans European legitimacy.

5) Use advanced collective protectionist methods to keep an edge in high technology products to stay a step ahead of China. Contribute even more constructively to global currency formation through IMF where Westerners still dominate.

6) Work with United States and England to manage the geopolitical, social, and economic decline of United States peacefully and productively. Invite young American professionals to European Union to displace social pressures from relying on less assimilative Muslim immigrants. Become the stable adult co-equal mediator between Russia and United States so the two former superpowers can productively contribute and provide nuclear protection. Open borders to young educated Westerners from around the world to counterbalance aging of Europe.

7) Develop strong ties to regional powers like Japan and India to counterbalance Chinese cultural influence. To do that, rapidly expand economic cooperation with them in the sphere of building climate change infrastructure, energy, military, and space

8) Comprehensively educate the public on climate change and loss of technological edge to China in non-confrontational terms. Take the lead in recognizing petty-infighting (like Poland's mistrust of Russian cooperation in Europe) and offer tangible economic and developmental incentives to major actors to overcome them.

Brussels has enough time and communication technology to still effectively consolidate before China does. It will require the same long term vision, developmental eye, and good historical sense as the one possessed by their Chinese politburo counterparts. Europe is more economically egalitarian than China. It has more power elites with a global reach and cutting edge professionals. It must find a way to be protected by Russo-American nuclear umbrella (without being controlled by them) so not too much money is spent on integrated European defense. Together, Western peoples of the world got close to a billion people and have as much of a shot as Chinese (less than half the Chinese speak the ruling dialect of Mandarin). Western civilization has the qualitative expertise to provide solid competition that will benefit all of humanity.