by Jerry Harris
.Saudi Arabia blackmails the UK
Just how far has the British empire fallen? The great colonizers are now cowered by threats from Saudi Arabia fearing the loss of jobs and defense contracts. It appears that the UK defense giant BAE set-up a multi-million dollar slush fund for Saudi princes in order to obtain multi-billion dollar defense contracts. When the Serious Fraud Office threatened an investigation the Saudis hit back threatening to cancel a $79 billion deal for Typhoon fighter jets and move work to France. Prime Minister Tony Blair stepped in and told Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, to drop the case. As Blair stated: “Had we allowed things to go forward, we would have done immense damage to the true interests of this country, leaving aside the fact that we would have lost thousands of highly skilled jobs and very, very important business for British industry.†(more...)Author Archive
GLOBAL NOTES # 12
by Jerry Harris
.Saudi Arabia blackmails the UK
Just how far has the British empire fallen? The great colonizers are now cowered by threats from Saudi Arabia fearing the loss of jobs and defense contracts. It appears that the UK defense giant BAE set-up a multi-million dollar slush fund for Saudi princes in order to obtain multi-billion dollar defense contracts. When the Serious Fraud Office threatened an investigation the Saudis hit back threatening to cancel a $79 billion deal for Typhoon fighter jets and move work to France. Prime Minister Tony Blair stepped in and told Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, to drop the case. As Blair stated: “Had we allowed things to go forward, we would have done immense damage to the true interests of this country, leaving aside the fact that we would have lost thousands of highly skilled jobs and very, very important business for British industry.†(more...)GLOBAL NOTES #11
by Jerry Harris
. Transnational capitalists own half the world
The richest two percent of the world’s adults own 50 percent of the world’s assets. If the world’s wealth was evenly distributed each person would have $20,500 of assets. Instead the poorest half of the population holds only one percent of wealth. This year the 170,000 employees of the big five US investment banks (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns) pocketed $36 billion in bonuses. Their overall compensation of about $60 billion was equivalent to Vietnam’s gross domestic product. Marc Faber, author of “Gloom Doom & Boom†notes; “Something is a bit bizarre in the world. The liquidity of the global middle class is not there but the liquidity of Goldman Sachs partners is soaring.†(more...)Global Notes #10
. Teachers buy ports
The Ontario Teacher’s Pension Fund bought four container terminals for $2.4B from Hong Kong’s Orient Overseas International. Two ports are in New York/New Jersey and the other two in Vancouver. The Pension fund specializes in infrastructure assets.
. China: the rich get richer the poor get poorer
The real income of China’s poorest ten percent fell by 2.4 percent in the last two years. Incomes increased for the other 90 percent, but China, which had relatively even income distribution in 1980 is now less equal (more...)GLOBAL NOTES #9
by Jerry Harris
. Bill Gates wants Bolivia on-line
Gates wrote Bolivia’s socialist president, Evo Morales, offering Microsoft’s help “in the goal of providing all of Bolivia’s people access†to the internet. Gates added, “I am excited to know that our campaign is contributing to your government’s plan†to promote education and economic improvements. Microsoft has just launched a new Word program in Quechua, one of the major languages spoken in Bolivia.
(Financial Times, 11/21/06, Gates seeks common ground with Morales)
. GM crops on over one billion acres
Genetically modified crops are growing at 10 percent a year. Over the past ten years GM crops have been (more...)GLOBAL NOTES #8
by Jerry Harris, SolidarityEconomy.net
. Media competition from al-Jazeera
Al-Jazeera will start broadcasting in English having concluded a string of 87 cable and satellite distribution deals. Al Jazeera has been actively recruiting Arab journalists laid-off by the BBC and says its aim is to provide global news from a developing world perspective without “western-centric†baggage. Beaming out of Qatar, the world’s richest nation in per capita terms.
. Foreign Banks in China
There have been a lot of foreign banks eager to enter China. But even with 70 foreign banks from 20 countries setting up 238 operating branches they still account for only 0.55 percent of China’s local-currency loans.
(FT, 11/16/06, p. 1. “China paves way for foreign banks to offer more services.†Mure Dickie and Sundeep Tucker. (more...)Global Notes #7: Book Review of ‘The Political Economy of US Militarism’ by Ismael Hossein-zadeh
by Jerry Harris, SolidarityEconomy.net
Hossein-zadeh has written an essential book on US imperialism and the influence of the military/industrial complex. His effort produces two unique insights on the economic importance of military funding and divisions within the US ruling class over the strategic direction of imperialism.
On political economy Hossein-zadeh argues against the common view that the war in Iraq is mainly about oil. Instead his focus is on the economic base of the military/industrial complex itself and the need for profits via government funding. The author points to the continual pressure of the market and the need for greater accumulation as the basis for the development of militarism in US society. As he states; “The combination of private ownership and the market-driven character of the United States’ arms industries has drastically modified the conventional relationship between war and the means of warfare: it is now often the supply or profit imperatives of weapons production that drive the demand for arms, hence the need for war.†(p. 200) (more...)Global Notes #6
. What They Say
Gary Samore, director of studies at the influential Council on Foreign Relations says; “You could have Superman become the US ambassador to Baghdad now and he couldn’t fix the problems or put the pieces together again.†George W. Bush is looking a lot like Humpty Dumpty these days.
Going back into the files I came across an editorial by William Jones, former US ambassador to Haiti under Carter. Jones’ hatred and fear of Aristide and the attempt to help the poor just oozes from his writing. Says Jones, “The misguided threats of the present administration to redistribute wealth must stop. A legal code favoring capital investment should be drawn up as soon as possible by trained professionals, not by politicians… The old Marxist notions of class warfare and hostility to business – still popular in Haiti – have no place in the modern world. Foreign investment must be encouraged…Haitian political and economic leaders must accept it is in (more...)Global Notes #5
. Middle East investments soar
Flooded with money from soaring oil prices there has been an explosion of investment banks, private equity funds and venture capital coming out of the Middle East. But unlike the 1970s and 1990s when both governments and investors relied on international banks to handle their wealth local transnational capitalists are now guiding their own funds. That means petrodollars aren't being recycled through New York and London but through such firms as Dubai's Istithmar and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Funds are expect to hit $10B by 2007. David Jackson, chief executive officer at Istithmar says, "In 2003, people hardly understood what private equity and alternative investments really were; now every other day we get wind of another fund." Says another banker, "In the past, they would just give the money and put it in the US. Now they want to do their own deals…" (more...)
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Flooded with money from soaring oil prices there has been an explosion of investment banks, private equity funds and venture capital coming out of the Middle East. But unlike the 1970s and 1990s when both governments and investors relied on international banks to handle their wealth local transnational capitalists are now guiding their own funds. That means petrodollars aren't being recycled through New York and London but through such firms as Dubai's Istithmar and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Funds are expect to hit $10B by 2007. David Jackson, chief executive officer at Istithmar says, "In 2003, people hardly understood what private equity and alternative investments really were; now every other day we get wind of another fund." Says another banker, "In the past, they would just give the money and put it in the US. Now they want to do their own deals…" (more...)Global Notes #4
. Financial Times concedes world to China and India
“Over the next 30 years, China and India will grow to dominate the world economy. They will give birth to great industrial companies that own plants all around the world. National pride may suffer a little but economic nationalism and imperialism have had their day and that can only be a good thing.†Wow, UK globalists really need to talk to George W. and clue him into the future. What brought the former colonialists of England to accept their national decline; Tata of India is buying Corus, or what is the entire steel industry of the UK and the Netherlands. As the Financial Times points out, the historic tables have turned, not only has the British East India Company disappeared but “the current wave of globalisation, in contrast to that of the 19th century, is led by the developing as much as the developed world.†Moreover, no one in the UK, not politicians nor workers, raised an alarm. Transnational capital has truly become global. (FT, 10/21/06 Empire strikes back as Tata bids for Corus, p. 6) (more...)
GLOBAL NOTES #3
.What They Say...
Globalists have been fighting against the increase in bilateral trade deals since the failure of the Doha round of the WTO. They much prefer multilateral deals that lay the foundation for globalized business. Says Michael Treschow, chairman of Ericsson, “We make source components from dozens of countries. What good is a deal with India if India does not have the same kind of deal with China? It just cuts across the supply chain. It is not countries that do business with countries but companies that do business with companies.†Goodbye to commerce nationalism, for transnational capitalists it just gets in-the-way of business. (more...)
Global Notes #2
.China, the US and Goldman Sachs
Hank Paulson’s appointment to be secretary of the Treasury is a major concession by the Bush White House to the globalist fraction of the US ruling class. Weakened by the debacle in Iraq, Bush needs to shore up support in elite circles. The President’s nationalists and unilateralist policies have been a blow to the transnational capitalists whose ideas and wishes dominated during the first Bush and Clinton administrations. The Treasury was a symbol of globalist hegemony run by Wall Street stars Robert Ruben and Lawrence Summers. Those were the days when Washington’s strategy focused on the IMF, WTO and World Bank rather than Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
As former head of Goldman Sachs, Paulson comes from the world’s biggest investment bank, and many say the most (more...)Global Notes #1
.High Road Takes a Hit An internal United Nations study uncovers that corporations reporting on their environmental impact and labor practices remains a “niche practice†with a “very limited†role in promoting sustainable development. It predicts that by 2020 only 11 percent of transnationals will provide social and environmental data. (more...)This is the first of Jerry Harris' new "Global Notes" column, providing readers with a review of recent globalization-related news and analysis. The column will appear exclusively on SolidarityEconomy.net [eds.]
To Be Or Not To Be: The Nation Centric World Order Under Globalization
The major dialectic in the present period is the contradiction between the nation/state system and the transnational world order. This conflict between nationalism and globalization contains the main economic, political and social divisions in today’s world. It is manifested in both internal class conflicts and as a struggle between classes. Underneath this dialectic there are further contradictions within nationalism and within globalization. But to interpret the deep structural moment of today one must grasp the central transformation around which all else revolves, the universalization of capitalism to a globalized system of accumulation based on a revolutionary transformation of the means of production.
Most schools of thought, whether Marxists or mainstream, still define the international system as one centered around nation/state competition based on the struggle for supremacy among (more...)Resource Wars
Two forms of accumulation characterize the current world capitalism system; the old nation-centric Fordist model, and the emerging transnational system of production. This is a historically determined and dialectical process filled with tension and politically represented by different hegemonic blocs. (see Harris, “Science & Society,†Vol. 67, #1).
In brief, the nation-centric system is characterized by: guarding home markets for national capital, export competition, bi-lateral trade agreements, state-directed and protected economic development, expanding the national job base while incorporating large sections of the working class into a social contract, and using the state to advance the position of national monopolies while securing their access to international resources and markets.
The transnational mode of accumulation is characterized by: cross border mergers and acquisitions, FDI, rapid speculative cross border flows of capital, global production chains, foreign affiliates, outsourcing labor, global best practices, multilateral trade agreements, a common global regulatory structure for finance, trade and investment, and use of the state to rearrange national structures to serve global practices.
(more...)SolidarityEconomy.net Exclusive: An Interview with Waldent Bello on Globalization
JH: One of the debates on globalization is whether or not it’s a new era of capitalism. One argument is that digital technology has revolutionizing the means of production creating important changes throughout the system. Historically globalization has become to information capitalism what imperialism was to industrial capitalism. Others say that nothing has essentially changed. That to emphasize the newer aspects blinds us to the principals necessary to understand world capitalism. How do you see this debate?
WB: I think what characterizes the period of globalization is that national economies are being disarticulated by the processes of global capital and rearticulated mainly as production sites and financial nexus (more...)[SolidarityEconomy.net is proudly powered by WordPress.]
