Economic wars kill too

international | imperialism / war | opinion / analysis Tuesday March 18, 2008 18:20 by Manuel Baptista - Luta Social (personal capacity) iniciativalutasocial at gmail dot com

Urgent and profound change is needed in global affairs

When we see alarming news about the worldwide fall in the markets, about massive injection of money by the central banks to save the crumbling banks (including the option of nationalisation bankruptcy-threatened banks), we may believe that this shock-wave mainly affects speculators, big businesses and banks. [ Português]

Economic wars kill too

In fact, when we see alarming news about the worldwide fall in the markets, about massive injection of money by the central banks to save the crumbling banks (including the option of nationalisation bankruptcy-threatened banks), we may believe that this shock-wave mainly affects speculators, big businesses and banks.

Nevertheless, they are only affected by the reduction in their business - their property is not affected. It's because they deal with other people's money! And these "other" people are small investors, many of whom are retired workers, and it is they who have to endure the billion-dollar losses.

The markets are reacting to the approaching loss of hegemony of the dollar and to the downfall of the greatest economic power, which is in a state of stagflation, with a consequent irreversible loss of finanancial power. As a corollary, this loss also means a loss of political and military loss.

The price of the most stragegic raw material - oil - reflects this disaffection with the "greenback", with crude oil reaching new record prices.

The prices of food staples, like cereals, are also rising noticeably, in anticipation of higher oil prices and as a result of pressure to convert certain crops - such as maize - from use as human food to bio-fuel production.

All this shows we are entering an era of great uncertainity at world level, enhanced by the inheritance left by the Bush Administration, with a deepening of current conflicts and the creation of new ones. One only has to think of Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, Kosovo-Serbia, etc, etc.

In all these processes, the "West" has lost any trace of shame and has transformed itself into a submissive servant of US imperialism, thereby creating greater nationalism in countries like Russia.

The era of nationalisms has not come to an end; we are, rather, witnessing a Pandora's box of historical hatreds being opened by the so-called neo-liberal globalization, to "justify" Washington's hegemony and NATO's role as world police.

The need for an urgent and profound change in global affairs - in other words, a social revolution - is being increassingly felt. But the path to this stage is still unclear.

One certainty is that peace is essential if we are to develop an alternative. There will be no progress through wars, be they localized or global. Recent history has demonstrated well enough that the people and all anti-authoritarian elements can only lose with the militarization of social conflicts.

Only the hegemonic powers with their brute force have won with it, the same old powers of the States and Capital.

Manuel Baptista