08-16-2009, 10:09 PM
FORGING A “NEW WORLD ORDER” UNDER A ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT
GLOBAL POWER AND GLOBAL GOVERNMENT
Andrew Gavin Marshall
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14712
Globalization and the New World Order
The 1990s saw the emergence of what was called the New World Order. This was a term that emerged in the early 1990s to describe a more unipolar world, addressing the collapse of the Soviet Union and the newfound role of the United States as the sole and unchallenged global power. The New World Order was meant to represent a new phase in the global political economy in which world authority rested in one place, and for the time, that place was to be the United States.
This era saw the continual expansion and formation of regional blocs, with the formation of the European Union, the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the creation of the WTO. The World Trade Organization was officially formed in 1995, as the successor to the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was formed in 1944 at the Bretton-Woods Conference. The WTO manages the international liberal trading order.
The first Director-General of the WTO was Peter D. Sutherland, who was previously the director general of GATT, former Attorney General of Ireland, and currently is Chairman of British Petroleum and Goldman Sachs International, as well as being special representative of the United Nations secretary-general for migrations. He is also a member of the board of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum, goodwill ambassador to the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, is a member of the Bilderberg Group, and is European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, and he was presented with the Robert Schuman Medal for his work on European Integration and the David Rockefeller Award of the Trilateral Commission.[1] Clearly, the WTO was an organ of the western banking elite to be used as a tool in expanding and institutionalizing their control over world trade.
The European Superstate
In 1992, the Maastricht Treaty was signed, which officially formed the European Union in 1993. In 1994, the European Monetary Institute (EMI) was formed, with the European Central Bank (ECB) being formed in 1998, and the single European currency, the Euro, debuting in 1999. In 2004, the European Constitution was to be signed by all 25-member states of the EU, which was a treaty to establish a constitution for the entire European Union.
The Constitution was a move towards creating a European superstate, creating an EU foreign minister, and with it, coordinated foreign policy, with the EU taking over the seat of Britain on the UN Security Council, representing all EU member states, forcing the nations to “actively and unreservedly” follow an EU foreign policy; set out the framework to create an EU defence policy, as an appendage to or separate from NATO; the creation of a European Justice system, with the EU defining “minimum standards in defining offences and setting sentences,” and creates common asylum and immigration policy; and it would also hand over to the EU the power to “ensure co-ordination of economic and employment policies”; and EU law would supercede all law of the member states, thus making the member nations relative to mere provinces within a centralized federal government system.[2]
Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, had stated that he feared that the concept of a stronger and more centralized European Union, as “the developments in the E.U. are really dangerous with regard to moving out of a free society and moving more and more toward masterminding control and regulation,” and that, “We [the Czech Republic] spent a half-century under communist eyes. We are more sensitive than some other West Europeans. We feel things, we see things, we touch things that we don't like. For us, the European Union reminds us of COMECON [Moscow's organization for economic control of the Soviet bloc].” He elaborated saying that the similarity with COMECON is not ideologically based, but in its structure, “The decisions are made not in your own country. For us who lived through the communist era, this is an issue.”[3]
The Constitution was largely written up by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, former President of the French Republic from 1974 to 1981. Giscard d’Estaing also happens to be a member of the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, and is also a close friend of Henry Kissinger, having co-authored papers with him. In 2005, French and Dutch voters answered the referendums in their countries, in which they rejected the EU Constitution, which required total unanimity in order to pass.
In 2007, a move was undertaken to introduce what was called the Lisbon Treaty, to be approved by all member-states. Giscard d’Estaing wrote an article for the Independent in which he stated that, “The difference between the original Constitution and the present Lisbon Treaty is one of approach, rather than content.” He described the process of creating the Lisbon Treaty: “It was the legal experts for the European Council who were charged with drafting the new text. They have not made any new suggestions. They have taken the original draft constitution, blown it apart into separate elements, and have then attached them, one by one, to existing treaties. The Treaty of Lisbon is thus a catalogue of amendments. It is unpenetrable for the public.” The main difference was that the word “constitution” was removed and banished from the text.[4]
The Telegraph reported that though the Treaty dropped the word “constitution,” it remained the same in “giving the EU the trappings of a global power and cutting national sovereignty.” It contained plans to create an EU President, who “will serve a two and half year term but unlike democratic heads of state he or she will be chosen by Europe's leaders not by voters” and “will take over key international negotiations from national heads of government.” The Constitution’s “Foreign Minister” becomes the “High Representative,” who “will run a powerful EU diplomatic service and will be more important on the global and European stage than national foreign ministers.” It sets out to create an “Interior Ministry” which will “centralise databases holding fingerprints and DNA,” and “make EU legislation on new police and surveillance powers.” The ability for EU nations to use vetoes will end, and the Treaty “includes a clause hardwiring an EU "legal personality" and ascendancy over national courts.”[5]
One country in Europe has it written into its constitution that it requires a referendum on treaties, and that country is Ireland. In June of 2008, the Irish went to vote on the Treaty of Lisbon, after weeks and months of being badgered by EU politicians and Eurocrats explaining that the Irish “owe” Europe a “Yes” vote because of the benefits the EU had bestowed upon Ireland. History will show, however, that the Irish don’t take kindly to being bossed around and patronized, so when they went to the polls, “No” was on their lips and on their ballots. The Irish thus rejected the Lisbon Treaty.
North American Integration
The Canada-US Free Trade Agreement of 1989, was signed by President George HW Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. The FTA had devastating consequences for the people of Canada and the United States, while enriching the corporate and political elite. For example, GDP growth decreased, unemployment increased the most since the Great Depression,[6] and meanwhile, Brian Mulroney entered the corporate world, of which he now sits as a board member of Barrick Gold Corporation, as well as sitting on the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations,[7] of which David Rockefeller remains on as Honorary Chairman.
In 1990, the private sector lobbying groups and think tanks began the promotion of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to expand the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement to include Mexico. NAFTA was signed by then Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, US President George H.W. Bush and Mexican President Carlos Salinas, in 1993, and went into effect in 1994. It was negotiated during a time in which Mexico was undergoing liberal economic reforms, so NAFTA had the effect of cementing those reforms in an “economic constitution for North America.”[8]
David Rockefeller played a role in the push for NAFTA. In 1965, he had founded the Council for Latin America (CLA), which, as he wrote in a 1966 article in Foreign Affairs, was to mobilize private enterprise throughout the hemisphere “to stimulate and support economic integration.” The CLA, David wrote, “provides an effective channel of cooperation between businessmen in the United States and their counterparts in the countries to the south. It also offers a means of continuing communication and consultation with the White House, the State Department and other agencies of our government.”[9]
The CLA later changed its name to the Council of the Americas (CoA) and maintains a very close relationship with the Americas Society, founded at the same time as the CLA, of which David Rockefeller remains to this day as Chairman of both organizations. As David wrote in his autobiography, Memoirs, in the lead up to NAFTA, the Council of the Americas sponsored a Forum of the Americas, which was attended by President George H.W. Bush, which resulted in the call for a “Western Hemisphere free trade area.”[10]
In 1993, David Rockefeller wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal, in the run up to NAFTA, in which he advocated for the signing of NAFTA as essential, describing it as a vital step on the road to fulfilling his life long work, and that, “Everything is in place -- after 500 years -- to build a true "new world" in the Western Hemisphere,” and further, that “I truly don't think that "criminal" would be too strong a word to describe an action on our part, such as rejecting Nafta, that would so seriously jeopardize all the good that has been done -- and remains to be done.”[11]
In 1994, Mexico entered into a financial crisis, often referred to as the Mexican peso crisis. The 1980s debt crisis, instigated by the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes on international loans, caused Mexico to default on its loans. The IMF had to enter the scene with its newly created Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) and reform Mexico’s economy along neoliberal economic policies.
In the late 1980s, “the United States accounted for 73 percent of Mexico’s foreign trade,”[12] and when NAFTA came into effect in 1994, it “immediately opened US and Canadian markets to 84 percent of Mexican exports.”[13] Mexico even became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The peso crisis, which began at the end of 1994, with the ascension of Mexican President Zedillo, went into 1995, and the US organized a bailout worth $52 billion.[14] The bailout did not help the Mexican economy, as it was simply funneled into paying back loans to banks, primarily American banks, and the “crisis in 1995 was declared [by the IMF to be] over as soon as the banks and international lenders started to get repaid; but five years after the crisis, workers were just getting back to where they were beforehand.”[15]
In 2002, Robert Pastor, Director of the Center for North American Studies at the American University in Washington, D.C., prepared a report that he presented to the Trilateral Commission meeting of that same year. The report, A North American Community: A Modest Proposal to the Trilateral Commission, advocated a continuation of the policy of “deep integration” in North America, recommending, “a continental plan for infrastructure and transportation, a plan for harmonizing regulatory policies, a customs union, [and] a common currency.”[16] The report advocated the formation of a North American Community and Pastor wrote that, “a majority of the public in all three countries is prepared to join a larger North American country.”[17]
In 2003, prior to Paul Martin becoming Prime Minister of Canada, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), formerly the BCNI, published on their website, a press release in which they, “urged Paul Martin to take the lead in forging a new vision for North America.” Thomas d’Aquino, CEO of the Council, “urged that Mr. Martin champion the idea of a yearly summit of the leaders of Canada, Mexico and the United States in order to give common economic, social and security issues the priority they deserve in a continental, hemispheric and global context.” Among the signatories to this statement were all the Vice Chairmen of the CCCE, including David Emerson, who would go on to join Martin’s Cabinet.[18]
The CCCE then launched the North American Security and Prosperity Initiative, advocating “redefining borders, maximizing regulatory efficiencies, negotiation of a comprehensive resource security pact, reinvigorating the North American defence alliance, and creating a new institutional framework.”[19]
The Independent Task Force on the Future of North America was then launched in 2005, composed of an alliance and joint project between the CCCE in Canada, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in the United States, and the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations in Mexico. A press release was given on March 14, 2005, in which it said, “The chairs and vice-chairs of the Independent Task Force on the Future of North America today issued a statement calling for a North American economic and security community by 2010.”[20]
On March 23, 2005, a mere nine days following the Task Force press release, the leaders of Canada, the US, and Mexico, (Paul Martin, George W. Bush, and Vicente Fox, respectively), announced “the establishment of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,” which constituted a course of “action into a North American framework to confront security and economic challenges.”[21]
Within two months, the Independent Task Force on the Future of North America released their final report, Building a North American Community, proposing the continuation of “deep integration” into the formation of a North American Community, that “applauds the announced ‘Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,’ but proposes a more ambitious vision of a new community by 2010 and specific recommendations on how to achieve it.”[22]
At the 2006 meeting of the SPP, the creation of a new group was announced, called the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC), made up of corporate leaders from all three countries who produce an annual report and advise the three governments on how to implement the SPP process of “deep integration”. The Secretariat in Canada is the CCCE, and the Secretariat of the group in the US is made up of the US Chamber of Commerce and the Council of the Americas.[23] The Council of the Americas was founded by David Rockefeller, of which he is still Honourary Chairman, and other board members include individuals from J.P. Morgan, Merck, McDonald’s, Ford, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, General Electric, Chevron, Shell, IBM, ConocoPhillips, Citigroup, Microsoft, Pfizer, Wal-Mart, Exxon, General Motors, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse and the US Department of Treasury.[24]
The process of integration is still underway, and the formation of a North American Community is not far off, only to be followed by a North American Union, modeled on the structure of the European Union, with talk of a North American currency being formed in the future,[25] which was even proposed by Canada’s former Governor of the Bank of Canada.[26]
The New World Order in Theory
In a 1997 article of Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, Anne-Marie Slaughter discussed the theoretical foundations of the New World Order. Building on George HW Bush’s proclamation of a New World Order in 1991, Slaughter wrote that many saw this as “the promise of 1945 fulfilled, a world in which international institutions, led by the United Nations, guaranteed international peace and security with the active support of the world's major powers.” However, this concept, she explained, was largely infeasible, as “It requires a centralized rule-making authority, a hierarchy of institutions, and universal membership.” Instead, she explains the emergence of what she called a “new medievalism” as opposed to liberal internationalism. “Where liberal internationalists see a need for international rules and institutions to solve states' problems, the new medievalists proclaim the end of the nation-state,” where “The result is not world government, but global governance. If government denotes the formal exercise of power by established institutions, governance denotes cooperative problem- solving by a changing and often uncertain cast.”[27]
However, Slaughter challenges the assumptions of both the liberal internationalists and the new medievalists, and states that, “The state is not disappearing, it is disaggregating into its separate, functionally distinct parts. These parts—courts, regulatory agencies, executives, and even legislatures—are networking with their counterparts abroad, creating a dense web of relations that constitutes a new, transgovernmental order,” and that, “transgovernmentalism is rapidly becoming the most widespread and effective mode of international governance.”[28] Slaughter was Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University from 2002-2009, is currently Director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State, and has previously served on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Reconstructing Class Structure Under a World Government
Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, a former executive with Goldman Sachs, stated in his speech at the International Economic Forum of the Americas, that, “Globalized product, capital, and labour markets lie at the heart of the New World Order to which we should aspire. However, the next wave of globalization needs to be more firmly grounded and its participants more responsible,” and that, “Within our economies, major stock adjustments in inventories, labour, and capital will be required.” It is worth quoting him at length in saying:
Although global demand and trade levels appear to be approaching bottom, and inventory and labour adjustments have already been substantial, there is still more to come. Unemployment will likely rise further across the G-7, with the sharpest increases still to come in those economies with the least-flexible labour markets. Uncertainty over the employment outlook will weigh on consumption in most major economies for some time. The capital stock adjustment process will take longer, and global investment growth is likely to remain negative well into 2010. This will serve as a significant drag on global growth and can be expected to reduce potential growth in most major economies.[29] [Emphasis added]
In terms of labour adjustments within the New World Order, there are some important and vital factors to take into account. Primary among these concerns is the notion of transnational classes. Capitalism largely functions through class divides, with the ruling class owning the means of production, which, as a class, is subject to its own hierarchy over which those that control and issue currencies preside.
In Western, industrialized nations, there has been a large middle class which thrives on consumption, enriching the upper class bourgeoisie, while the lower class, (or proletariat in Marxist terms), consists of the labour class. In non-western, industrialized nations, generally referred to as the “Third World”, “developing world” or the “Global South” (consisting of Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia), there is a greater divide in terms in class lines, where there is a ruling class, and a labour class, largely remaining vacant of a vast, educated middle class. Class structures vary from country to country and region to region.
However, in the past several decades, the reality of class structures has been undergoing drastic changes, and with this, the structure of labour has changed. In the past few decades, a concurrent class restructuring has been taking place, in which the middle classes of the world descend into debt bondage while the upper classes of the world have began a process of transnationalizing. What we have witnessed and are witnessing with recent events, is the transnationalization of class structures, and with that, labour forces.
Social Constructivism
A fascinating theoretical school of thought within the field of Global Political Economy is that of Social Constructivism. Social Constructivists argue that, “The social and political world, including the world of international relations, is not a physical entity or material object that is outside human consciousness. Consequently, the study of international relations must focus on the ideas and beliefs that inform the actors on the international scene as well as the shared understandings between them.” Expanding upon this idea:
The international system is not something ‘out there’ like the solar system. It does not exist on its own. It exists only as an intersubjective awareness among people; in that sense the system is constituted by ideas, not by material forces. It is a human invention or creation not of a physical or material kind but of a purely intellectual and ideational kind. It is a set of ideas, a body of thought, a system of norms, which has been arranged by certain people at a particular time and place.
Examples of socially constructed structures within the global political economy are national borders, as they have no physical line, but are rather formed by a shared understanding between various actors as to where the border is. The nation itself is a social construct, as it has no physical, over-arching form, but is made up of a litany of shared values, ideas, concepts, institutions, beliefs and symbols. Thus, “If the thoughts and ideas that enter into the existence of international relations change, then the system itself will change as well, because the system consists in thoughts and ideas. That is the insight behind the oft-repeated phrase by constructivist Alexander Wendt: ‘anarchy is what states make of it’.”[30]
Class Structure and Social Constructivism
William I. Robinson and Jerry Harris write in Science & Society Journal, that, “One process central to capitalist globalization is transnational class formation, which has proceeded in step with the internationalization of capital and the global integration of national productive structures. Given the transnational integration of national economies, the mobility of capital and the global fragmentation and decentralization of accumulation circuits, class formation is progressively less tied to territoriality.”[31] They argued that a Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC) has emerged, “and that this TCC is a global ruling class. It is a ruling class because it controls the levers of an emergent transnational state apparatus and of global decision making.”[32] This class has no borders, and is composed of the technocratic, media, corporate, banking, social and political elite of the world.
As Jackson and Sorenson point out in relation to social constructivist theory, “If ‘anarchy is what states make of it’ there is nothing inevitable or unchangeable about world politics,” and that, “The existing system is a creation of states and if states change their conceptions of who they are, what their interests are, what they want, etc. then the situation will change accordingly.” As an example, they stated that states could decide “to reduce their sovereignty or even to give up their sovereignty. If that happened there would no longer be an international anarchy as we know it. Instead, there would be a brave new, non-anarchical world – perhaps one in which states were subordinate to a world government.”[33]
As Robinson and Harris explain in their essay, with the rise of the Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC), there is also a rise in the apparatus of a Transnational State (TNS), which is “an emerging network that comprises transformed and externally integrated national states, together with the supranational economic and political forums; it has not yet acquired any centralized institutional form.”[34] Among the economic apparatus of the TNS we see the IMF, World Bank, WTO and regional banks. On the political side we see the Group of 7, Group of 22, United Nations, OECD, and the European Union. This was further accelerated with the Trilateral Commission, “which brought together transnationalized fractions of the business, political, and intellectual elite in North America, Europe, and Japan.” Further, the World Economic Forum has made up an important part of this class, and, I might add, the Bilderberg Group. Robinson and Harris point out that, “Studies on building a global economy and transnational management structures flowed out of think tanks, university centers, and policy planning institutes in core countries.”[35]
The TNS apparatus has been a vital principle of organization and socialization for the transnational class, “as have world class universities, transnationally oriented think tanks, the leading bourgeois foundations, such as Harvard’s School of International Business, the Ford [and Rockefeller] and the Carnegie Foundations, [and] policy planning groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations.” These “elite planning groups are important forums for integrating class groups, developing new initiatives, collective strategies, policies and projects of class rule, and forging consensus and a political culture around these projects.”[36]
Robinson and Harris identify the World Economic Forum as “the most comprehensive transnational planning body of the TCC and the quintessential example of a truly global network binding together the TCC in a transnational civil society.”[37] I would take issue with this, and instead propose the Bilderberg Group, of which they make no mention in their article, as THE quintessential transnational planning body of the TCC, as it is composed of the elite of the elite, totally removed from public scrutiny, and acts as “a secretive global think-tank” of the world’s 130 most powerful individuals.[38]
Many Bilderberg critics will claim that the group acts as a “secret world government” or as the organization “that makes all the key decisions for the world.” However, this is not the case. Bilderberg is simply the most influential planning body, sitting atop a grand hierarchy of various planning bodies and institutions, and is itself a key part of the apparatus of the formation of a Transnational State, but is not, in and of itself, a “world government.” It is a global think tank, which holds the concept of a “world government” in high regard and often works to achieve these ends, but it should not be confused with being the end it seeks.
The economic crisis is perhaps the greatest “opportunity” ever given to the TCC in re-shaping the world order according to their designs, ideals and goals. Through destruction, comes creation; and for these high-placed individuals within the TCC, destruction is itself a form of creation.
In terms of reshaping labour and class structures, the economic crisis provides the ground on which a new global class structure will be built. A major problem for the Transnational Capitalist Class and the formation of a Transnational State, or world government, is the lack of continuity in class structures and labour markets throughout the world. A transnational ruling class, or “Superclass” as David Rothkopf referred to it in his book of the same name (and is, himself, a member of the Superclass), has emerged. It has no borders, yet has built a general continuity and consensus of goals among its members, albeit there are differences and conflicts within the class, but they are based upon the means of achieving the stated ends, rather than on the ends itself. There is not dissent within the ruling class on the aims of achieving a world governing body; the dissent is in how to achieve this, and in terms of what kind of structure, theoretical and philosophical leanings, and political orientation such a government would have.
To achieve these ends, however, all classes must be transnationalized, not simply the ruling class. The ruling class is the first class to be transnationalized, because transnationalization was the goal of the ruling classes based in the powerful Western European nations, (and later in the United States), that started the process of transnationalization or internationalization. Now that there is an established “Superclass” of a transnational composition, the other classes must follow suit. The middle class is targeted for elimination in this sense, because most of the world has no middle class, and to fully integrate and internationalize a middle class, this would require industrialization and development in places such as Africa, and certain places in Asia and Latin America, and would represent a massive threat to the Superclass, as it would be a valve through which much of their wealth and power would escape them. Their goal is not to lose their wealth and power to a transnational middle class, but rather to extinguish the notion of a middle class, and transnationalize a lower, uneducated, labour oriented class, through which they will secure ultimate wealth and power.
The economic crisis serves these ends, as whatever remaining wealth the middle class holds is in the process of being eliminated, and as the crisis progresses, or rather, regresses, and accelerates, the middle classes of the world will suffer, while a great percentage of lower classes of the world, poverty-stricken even prior to the crisis, will suffer the greatest, most probably leading to a massive reduction in population levels, particularly in the “developed” or “Third World” states.
Many would take issue with such a thesis as being an objective of the Transnational Capitalist Class, as capitalism needs a large population, specifically a middle class population, in order to have a market of consumers for their products. Though this is true with how we presently understand the capitalist system and structure, we must also take note that capitalism, itself, is always changing and redefining itself. Through a social constructivist perspective, which I would argue, is very apt in this analysis, such a notion is not inconceivable, as if the capitalist class were to redefine capitalism itself, capitalism itself would change.
It must be addressed that there would be a great many individuals within the TCC or Superclass (Rothkopf estimates the number at 6,000 individuals within the ruling class), who would take issue with eliminating their base for profit making, however, as a total restructuring of the capitalist system and global political economy as a whole is undertaken, the TCC itself is not immune to such drastic and rapid changes itself. In fact, it would be unimaginable to think that it would remain as it currently is.
Rothkopf explains that with 6,000 members of the Superclass, that equals roughly one member of the superclass for every 1 million people in the world. As the composition, class structures, and numbers of the world population drastically alter over the next years and decades, so too will the superclass itself. It too, will be subject to a “cleansing” so to speak, in which the big players will collapse and consolidate many of the smaller players.
The Monetary Structure of a Global Government
A Global Currency
Following the April 2009 G20 Summit, leaders issued a communiqué which set the groundwork for the creation of a global currency to replace the US dollar as the world reserve currency. The communiqué stated that, “We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity.” SDRs, or Special Drawing Rights, are “a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund.” As the Telegraph reported, “the G20 leaders have activated the IMF's power to create money and begin global "quantitative easing". In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body. Conspiracy theorists will love it.”[39]
In 1988, the Economist featured an article called “Get Ready for the Phoenix,” which said, “THIRTY years from now, Americans, Japanese, Europeans, and people in many other rich countries and some relatively poor ones will probably be paying for their shopping with the same currency. Prices will be quoted not in dollars, yen or D-marks but in, let's say, the phoenix. The phoenix will be favoured by companies and shoppers because it will be more convenient than today's national currencies, which by then will seem a quaint cause of much disruption to economic life in the late twentieth century.” The article, written in the wake of the 1987 stock market crash, stated that, “Several more big exchange-rate upsets, a few more stockmarket crashes and probably a slump or two will be needed before politicians are willing to face squarely up to that choice. This points to a muddled sequence of emergency followed by patch-up followed by emergency, stretching out far beyond 2018-except for two things. As time passes, the damage caused by currency instability is gradually going to mount; and the very trends that will make it mount are making the utopia of monetary union feasible.”[emphasis added][40]
Paul Volcker, former Governor of the Federal Reserve System, said in 2000, that, “If we are to have a truly global economy, a single world currency makes sense,” and a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank reaffirmed Volcker’s comment, stating that, “we might one day have a single world currency. Maybe European integration, in the same way as any other regional integration, could be seen as a step towards the ideal situation of a fully integrated world. If and when this world will see the light of day is impossible to say. However, what I can say is that this vision seems as impossible now to most of us as a European monetary union seemed 50 years ago, when the process of European integration started.”[41]
A Central Bank of the World
Jeffrey Garten has written several articles calling for the creation of a global central bank, or a “global fed.” Garten was former Dean of the Yale School of Management, former Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade in the Clinton administration, previously served on the White House Council on International Economic Policy under the Nixon administration and on the policy planning staffs of Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Cyrus Vance of the Ford and Carter administrations, former Managing Director at Lehman Brothers, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
In 1998, he wrote an article for the New York Times stating that the world “needs a global central bank,” and that, “An independent central bank with responsibility for maintaining global financial stability is the only way out. No one else can do what is needed: inject more money into the system to spur growth, reduce the sky-high debts of emerging markets, and oversee the operations of shaky financial institutions. A global central bank could provide more money to the world economy when it is rapidly losing steam.”[42]
Following the outbreak of the current financial crisis, Garten wrote an article for the Financial Times in which he called for the “establishment of a Global Monetary Authority to oversee markets that have become borderless.”[43] In October of 2008, he wrote an article for Newsweek stating that, “leaders should begin laying the groundwork for establishing a global central bank.” He explained that, “There was a time when the U.S. Federal Reserve played this role [as governing financial authority of the world], as the prime financial institution of the world's most powerful economy, overseeing the one global currency. But with the growth of capital markets, the rise of currencies like the euro and the emergence of powerful players such as China, the shift of wealth to Asia and the Persian Gulf and, of course, the deep-seated problems in the American economy itself, the Fed no longer has the capability to lead single-handedly.”[44]
Regionalism
Building upon the model of the European Union, the world is being divided into large continental regional blocs, with regional monetary systems and governments. This will make up the managed blocs of a global government, and mark a significant process in the “hard road to world order,” as Richard N. Gardner called it, in which national sovereignty is eroded piece by piece. Regionalism marks the current phase of the move to the formation of a global government. Friedrich List critiqued liberal cosmopolitanism, stating that economic integration had never preceded political integration, however the elites have and are successfully challenging this notion. In the New World Order, economic integration is preceding political integration into a world governance structure.
The European Union began as a series of free trade agreements, became a monetary union, and is in the process of being formed into a single continental superstate. North American integration began with a series of free trade agreements, defense and security agreements, and is in the process of moving towards monetary and bureaucratic integration into a North American Community. A Union and North American superstate are not far in the distance. A North American currency is openly discussed and proposed by leading think tanks, billionaire investors, as well as the Governor of the Bank of Canada. The likely name of such a currency is the Amero.[45]
Meanwhile, globally, markets are heavily integrating. In 2007, it was reported that the European Union and the United States were beginning the process of transatlantic economic integration.[46] In 2008, it was announced that, “Canadian and European officials say they plan to begin negotiating a massive agreement to integrate Canada’s economy with the 27 nations of the European Union,” under “deep economic integration negotiations,” and “The proposed pact would far exceed the scope of older agreements such as NAFTA.”[47] This, essentially, is a means of integrating with the North American Community before the Community is officially formed; an act of pre-emptive integration.
In 2007, the Council on Foreign Relations journal, Foreign Affairs, ran an article titled, “The End of National Currency.” Discussing the volatility of national currencies, the article stated that, “The right course is not to return to a mythical past of monetary sovereignty, with governments controlling local interest and exchange rates in blissful ignorance of the rest of the world. Governments must let go of the fatal notion that nationhood requires them to make and control the money used in their territory. National currencies and global markets simply do not mix; together they make a deadly brew of currency crises and geopolitical tension and create ready pretexts for damaging protectionism. In order to globalize safely, countries should abandon monetary nationalism and abolish unwanted currencies, the source of much of today's instability.”
Further, “Monetary nationalism is simply incompatible with globalization. It has always been, even if this has only become apparent since the 1970s, when all the world's governments rendered their currencies intrinsically worthless.” The author states that, “Since economic development outside the process of globalization is no longer possible, countries should abandon monetary nationalism. Governments should replace national currencies with the dollar or the euro or, in the case of Asia, collaborate to produce a new multinational currency over a comparably large and economically diversified area.”[48]
In 2008, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) was formed, “a regional body aimed at boosting economic and political integration in the region,”[49] which will “seek a common currency as part of the region's integration efforts,” as well as a common central bank.[50]
The Gulf Cooperation Council, a regional bloc of Arab Middle Eastern governments, is pursuing economic integration in the form of a common central bank and a common currency.[51] Similarly, there has been much discussion of an Asian Monetary Union and East Asian economic integration, specifically being touted as a solution to the prevention of future economic crises in East Asia like that which hit it in 1997.[52] Integration would be modeled upon the East Asian regional block of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), and in 2008, “ASEAN bank deputy governors and financial deputy ministers have met in Vietnam's central Da Nang city, discussing issues on the financial and monetary integration and cooperation in the region.”[53] Further, Africa is being organized as a regional bloc under the African Union, and is also pursuing regional economic integration, and has even set the agenda for the creation of a continental African central bank and the formation of a single African currency.[54]
In 2006, the Bank for International Settlements “suggested ditching many national currencies in favour of a small number of formal currency blocks based on the dollar, euro and renminbi or yen.”[55]
GLOBAL POWER AND GLOBAL GOVERNMENT
Andrew Gavin Marshall
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14712
Globalization and the New World Order
The 1990s saw the emergence of what was called the New World Order. This was a term that emerged in the early 1990s to describe a more unipolar world, addressing the collapse of the Soviet Union and the newfound role of the United States as the sole and unchallenged global power. The New World Order was meant to represent a new phase in the global political economy in which world authority rested in one place, and for the time, that place was to be the United States.
This era saw the continual expansion and formation of regional blocs, with the formation of the European Union, the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the creation of the WTO. The World Trade Organization was officially formed in 1995, as the successor to the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was formed in 1944 at the Bretton-Woods Conference. The WTO manages the international liberal trading order.
The first Director-General of the WTO was Peter D. Sutherland, who was previously the director general of GATT, former Attorney General of Ireland, and currently is Chairman of British Petroleum and Goldman Sachs International, as well as being special representative of the United Nations secretary-general for migrations. He is also a member of the board of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum, goodwill ambassador to the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, is a member of the Bilderberg Group, and is European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, and he was presented with the Robert Schuman Medal for his work on European Integration and the David Rockefeller Award of the Trilateral Commission.[1] Clearly, the WTO was an organ of the western banking elite to be used as a tool in expanding and institutionalizing their control over world trade.
The European Superstate
In 1992, the Maastricht Treaty was signed, which officially formed the European Union in 1993. In 1994, the European Monetary Institute (EMI) was formed, with the European Central Bank (ECB) being formed in 1998, and the single European currency, the Euro, debuting in 1999. In 2004, the European Constitution was to be signed by all 25-member states of the EU, which was a treaty to establish a constitution for the entire European Union.
The Constitution was a move towards creating a European superstate, creating an EU foreign minister, and with it, coordinated foreign policy, with the EU taking over the seat of Britain on the UN Security Council, representing all EU member states, forcing the nations to “actively and unreservedly” follow an EU foreign policy; set out the framework to create an EU defence policy, as an appendage to or separate from NATO; the creation of a European Justice system, with the EU defining “minimum standards in defining offences and setting sentences,” and creates common asylum and immigration policy; and it would also hand over to the EU the power to “ensure co-ordination of economic and employment policies”; and EU law would supercede all law of the member states, thus making the member nations relative to mere provinces within a centralized federal government system.[2]
Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, had stated that he feared that the concept of a stronger and more centralized European Union, as “the developments in the E.U. are really dangerous with regard to moving out of a free society and moving more and more toward masterminding control and regulation,” and that, “We [the Czech Republic] spent a half-century under communist eyes. We are more sensitive than some other West Europeans. We feel things, we see things, we touch things that we don't like. For us, the European Union reminds us of COMECON [Moscow's organization for economic control of the Soviet bloc].” He elaborated saying that the similarity with COMECON is not ideologically based, but in its structure, “The decisions are made not in your own country. For us who lived through the communist era, this is an issue.”[3]
The Constitution was largely written up by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, former President of the French Republic from 1974 to 1981. Giscard d’Estaing also happens to be a member of the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, and is also a close friend of Henry Kissinger, having co-authored papers with him. In 2005, French and Dutch voters answered the referendums in their countries, in which they rejected the EU Constitution, which required total unanimity in order to pass.
In 2007, a move was undertaken to introduce what was called the Lisbon Treaty, to be approved by all member-states. Giscard d’Estaing wrote an article for the Independent in which he stated that, “The difference between the original Constitution and the present Lisbon Treaty is one of approach, rather than content.” He described the process of creating the Lisbon Treaty: “It was the legal experts for the European Council who were charged with drafting the new text. They have not made any new suggestions. They have taken the original draft constitution, blown it apart into separate elements, and have then attached them, one by one, to existing treaties. The Treaty of Lisbon is thus a catalogue of amendments. It is unpenetrable for the public.” The main difference was that the word “constitution” was removed and banished from the text.[4]
The Telegraph reported that though the Treaty dropped the word “constitution,” it remained the same in “giving the EU the trappings of a global power and cutting national sovereignty.” It contained plans to create an EU President, who “will serve a two and half year term but unlike democratic heads of state he or she will be chosen by Europe's leaders not by voters” and “will take over key international negotiations from national heads of government.” The Constitution’s “Foreign Minister” becomes the “High Representative,” who “will run a powerful EU diplomatic service and will be more important on the global and European stage than national foreign ministers.” It sets out to create an “Interior Ministry” which will “centralise databases holding fingerprints and DNA,” and “make EU legislation on new police and surveillance powers.” The ability for EU nations to use vetoes will end, and the Treaty “includes a clause hardwiring an EU "legal personality" and ascendancy over national courts.”[5]
One country in Europe has it written into its constitution that it requires a referendum on treaties, and that country is Ireland. In June of 2008, the Irish went to vote on the Treaty of Lisbon, after weeks and months of being badgered by EU politicians and Eurocrats explaining that the Irish “owe” Europe a “Yes” vote because of the benefits the EU had bestowed upon Ireland. History will show, however, that the Irish don’t take kindly to being bossed around and patronized, so when they went to the polls, “No” was on their lips and on their ballots. The Irish thus rejected the Lisbon Treaty.
North American Integration
The Canada-US Free Trade Agreement of 1989, was signed by President George HW Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. The FTA had devastating consequences for the people of Canada and the United States, while enriching the corporate and political elite. For example, GDP growth decreased, unemployment increased the most since the Great Depression,[6] and meanwhile, Brian Mulroney entered the corporate world, of which he now sits as a board member of Barrick Gold Corporation, as well as sitting on the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations,[7] of which David Rockefeller remains on as Honorary Chairman.
In 1990, the private sector lobbying groups and think tanks began the promotion of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to expand the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement to include Mexico. NAFTA was signed by then Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, US President George H.W. Bush and Mexican President Carlos Salinas, in 1993, and went into effect in 1994. It was negotiated during a time in which Mexico was undergoing liberal economic reforms, so NAFTA had the effect of cementing those reforms in an “economic constitution for North America.”[8]
David Rockefeller played a role in the push for NAFTA. In 1965, he had founded the Council for Latin America (CLA), which, as he wrote in a 1966 article in Foreign Affairs, was to mobilize private enterprise throughout the hemisphere “to stimulate and support economic integration.” The CLA, David wrote, “provides an effective channel of cooperation between businessmen in the United States and their counterparts in the countries to the south. It also offers a means of continuing communication and consultation with the White House, the State Department and other agencies of our government.”[9]
The CLA later changed its name to the Council of the Americas (CoA) and maintains a very close relationship with the Americas Society, founded at the same time as the CLA, of which David Rockefeller remains to this day as Chairman of both organizations. As David wrote in his autobiography, Memoirs, in the lead up to NAFTA, the Council of the Americas sponsored a Forum of the Americas, which was attended by President George H.W. Bush, which resulted in the call for a “Western Hemisphere free trade area.”[10]
In 1993, David Rockefeller wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal, in the run up to NAFTA, in which he advocated for the signing of NAFTA as essential, describing it as a vital step on the road to fulfilling his life long work, and that, “Everything is in place -- after 500 years -- to build a true "new world" in the Western Hemisphere,” and further, that “I truly don't think that "criminal" would be too strong a word to describe an action on our part, such as rejecting Nafta, that would so seriously jeopardize all the good that has been done -- and remains to be done.”[11]
In 1994, Mexico entered into a financial crisis, often referred to as the Mexican peso crisis. The 1980s debt crisis, instigated by the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes on international loans, caused Mexico to default on its loans. The IMF had to enter the scene with its newly created Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) and reform Mexico’s economy along neoliberal economic policies.
In the late 1980s, “the United States accounted for 73 percent of Mexico’s foreign trade,”[12] and when NAFTA came into effect in 1994, it “immediately opened US and Canadian markets to 84 percent of Mexican exports.”[13] Mexico even became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The peso crisis, which began at the end of 1994, with the ascension of Mexican President Zedillo, went into 1995, and the US organized a bailout worth $52 billion.[14] The bailout did not help the Mexican economy, as it was simply funneled into paying back loans to banks, primarily American banks, and the “crisis in 1995 was declared [by the IMF to be] over as soon as the banks and international lenders started to get repaid; but five years after the crisis, workers were just getting back to where they were beforehand.”[15]
In 2002, Robert Pastor, Director of the Center for North American Studies at the American University in Washington, D.C., prepared a report that he presented to the Trilateral Commission meeting of that same year. The report, A North American Community: A Modest Proposal to the Trilateral Commission, advocated a continuation of the policy of “deep integration” in North America, recommending, “a continental plan for infrastructure and transportation, a plan for harmonizing regulatory policies, a customs union, [and] a common currency.”[16] The report advocated the formation of a North American Community and Pastor wrote that, “a majority of the public in all three countries is prepared to join a larger North American country.”[17]
In 2003, prior to Paul Martin becoming Prime Minister of Canada, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), formerly the BCNI, published on their website, a press release in which they, “urged Paul Martin to take the lead in forging a new vision for North America.” Thomas d’Aquino, CEO of the Council, “urged that Mr. Martin champion the idea of a yearly summit of the leaders of Canada, Mexico and the United States in order to give common economic, social and security issues the priority they deserve in a continental, hemispheric and global context.” Among the signatories to this statement were all the Vice Chairmen of the CCCE, including David Emerson, who would go on to join Martin’s Cabinet.[18]
The CCCE then launched the North American Security and Prosperity Initiative, advocating “redefining borders, maximizing regulatory efficiencies, negotiation of a comprehensive resource security pact, reinvigorating the North American defence alliance, and creating a new institutional framework.”[19]
The Independent Task Force on the Future of North America was then launched in 2005, composed of an alliance and joint project between the CCCE in Canada, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in the United States, and the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations in Mexico. A press release was given on March 14, 2005, in which it said, “The chairs and vice-chairs of the Independent Task Force on the Future of North America today issued a statement calling for a North American economic and security community by 2010.”[20]
On March 23, 2005, a mere nine days following the Task Force press release, the leaders of Canada, the US, and Mexico, (Paul Martin, George W. Bush, and Vicente Fox, respectively), announced “the establishment of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,” which constituted a course of “action into a North American framework to confront security and economic challenges.”[21]
Within two months, the Independent Task Force on the Future of North America released their final report, Building a North American Community, proposing the continuation of “deep integration” into the formation of a North American Community, that “applauds the announced ‘Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,’ but proposes a more ambitious vision of a new community by 2010 and specific recommendations on how to achieve it.”[22]
At the 2006 meeting of the SPP, the creation of a new group was announced, called the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC), made up of corporate leaders from all three countries who produce an annual report and advise the three governments on how to implement the SPP process of “deep integration”. The Secretariat in Canada is the CCCE, and the Secretariat of the group in the US is made up of the US Chamber of Commerce and the Council of the Americas.[23] The Council of the Americas was founded by David Rockefeller, of which he is still Honourary Chairman, and other board members include individuals from J.P. Morgan, Merck, McDonald’s, Ford, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, General Electric, Chevron, Shell, IBM, ConocoPhillips, Citigroup, Microsoft, Pfizer, Wal-Mart, Exxon, General Motors, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse and the US Department of Treasury.[24]
The process of integration is still underway, and the formation of a North American Community is not far off, only to be followed by a North American Union, modeled on the structure of the European Union, with talk of a North American currency being formed in the future,[25] which was even proposed by Canada’s former Governor of the Bank of Canada.[26]
The New World Order in Theory
In a 1997 article of Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, Anne-Marie Slaughter discussed the theoretical foundations of the New World Order. Building on George HW Bush’s proclamation of a New World Order in 1991, Slaughter wrote that many saw this as “the promise of 1945 fulfilled, a world in which international institutions, led by the United Nations, guaranteed international peace and security with the active support of the world's major powers.” However, this concept, she explained, was largely infeasible, as “It requires a centralized rule-making authority, a hierarchy of institutions, and universal membership.” Instead, she explains the emergence of what she called a “new medievalism” as opposed to liberal internationalism. “Where liberal internationalists see a need for international rules and institutions to solve states' problems, the new medievalists proclaim the end of the nation-state,” where “The result is not world government, but global governance. If government denotes the formal exercise of power by established institutions, governance denotes cooperative problem- solving by a changing and often uncertain cast.”[27]
However, Slaughter challenges the assumptions of both the liberal internationalists and the new medievalists, and states that, “The state is not disappearing, it is disaggregating into its separate, functionally distinct parts. These parts—courts, regulatory agencies, executives, and even legislatures—are networking with their counterparts abroad, creating a dense web of relations that constitutes a new, transgovernmental order,” and that, “transgovernmentalism is rapidly becoming the most widespread and effective mode of international governance.”[28] Slaughter was Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University from 2002-2009, is currently Director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State, and has previously served on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Reconstructing Class Structure Under a World Government
Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, a former executive with Goldman Sachs, stated in his speech at the International Economic Forum of the Americas, that, “Globalized product, capital, and labour markets lie at the heart of the New World Order to which we should aspire. However, the next wave of globalization needs to be more firmly grounded and its participants more responsible,” and that, “Within our economies, major stock adjustments in inventories, labour, and capital will be required.” It is worth quoting him at length in saying:
Although global demand and trade levels appear to be approaching bottom, and inventory and labour adjustments have already been substantial, there is still more to come. Unemployment will likely rise further across the G-7, with the sharpest increases still to come in those economies with the least-flexible labour markets. Uncertainty over the employment outlook will weigh on consumption in most major economies for some time. The capital stock adjustment process will take longer, and global investment growth is likely to remain negative well into 2010. This will serve as a significant drag on global growth and can be expected to reduce potential growth in most major economies.[29] [Emphasis added]
In terms of labour adjustments within the New World Order, there are some important and vital factors to take into account. Primary among these concerns is the notion of transnational classes. Capitalism largely functions through class divides, with the ruling class owning the means of production, which, as a class, is subject to its own hierarchy over which those that control and issue currencies preside.
In Western, industrialized nations, there has been a large middle class which thrives on consumption, enriching the upper class bourgeoisie, while the lower class, (or proletariat in Marxist terms), consists of the labour class. In non-western, industrialized nations, generally referred to as the “Third World”, “developing world” or the “Global South” (consisting of Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia), there is a greater divide in terms in class lines, where there is a ruling class, and a labour class, largely remaining vacant of a vast, educated middle class. Class structures vary from country to country and region to region.
However, in the past several decades, the reality of class structures has been undergoing drastic changes, and with this, the structure of labour has changed. In the past few decades, a concurrent class restructuring has been taking place, in which the middle classes of the world descend into debt bondage while the upper classes of the world have began a process of transnationalizing. What we have witnessed and are witnessing with recent events, is the transnationalization of class structures, and with that, labour forces.
Social Constructivism
A fascinating theoretical school of thought within the field of Global Political Economy is that of Social Constructivism. Social Constructivists argue that, “The social and political world, including the world of international relations, is not a physical entity or material object that is outside human consciousness. Consequently, the study of international relations must focus on the ideas and beliefs that inform the actors on the international scene as well as the shared understandings between them.” Expanding upon this idea:
The international system is not something ‘out there’ like the solar system. It does not exist on its own. It exists only as an intersubjective awareness among people; in that sense the system is constituted by ideas, not by material forces. It is a human invention or creation not of a physical or material kind but of a purely intellectual and ideational kind. It is a set of ideas, a body of thought, a system of norms, which has been arranged by certain people at a particular time and place.
Examples of socially constructed structures within the global political economy are national borders, as they have no physical line, but are rather formed by a shared understanding between various actors as to where the border is. The nation itself is a social construct, as it has no physical, over-arching form, but is made up of a litany of shared values, ideas, concepts, institutions, beliefs and symbols. Thus, “If the thoughts and ideas that enter into the existence of international relations change, then the system itself will change as well, because the system consists in thoughts and ideas. That is the insight behind the oft-repeated phrase by constructivist Alexander Wendt: ‘anarchy is what states make of it’.”[30]
Class Structure and Social Constructivism
William I. Robinson and Jerry Harris write in Science & Society Journal, that, “One process central to capitalist globalization is transnational class formation, which has proceeded in step with the internationalization of capital and the global integration of national productive structures. Given the transnational integration of national economies, the mobility of capital and the global fragmentation and decentralization of accumulation circuits, class formation is progressively less tied to territoriality.”[31] They argued that a Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC) has emerged, “and that this TCC is a global ruling class. It is a ruling class because it controls the levers of an emergent transnational state apparatus and of global decision making.”[32] This class has no borders, and is composed of the technocratic, media, corporate, banking, social and political elite of the world.
As Jackson and Sorenson point out in relation to social constructivist theory, “If ‘anarchy is what states make of it’ there is nothing inevitable or unchangeable about world politics,” and that, “The existing system is a creation of states and if states change their conceptions of who they are, what their interests are, what they want, etc. then the situation will change accordingly.” As an example, they stated that states could decide “to reduce their sovereignty or even to give up their sovereignty. If that happened there would no longer be an international anarchy as we know it. Instead, there would be a brave new, non-anarchical world – perhaps one in which states were subordinate to a world government.”[33]
As Robinson and Harris explain in their essay, with the rise of the Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC), there is also a rise in the apparatus of a Transnational State (TNS), which is “an emerging network that comprises transformed and externally integrated national states, together with the supranational economic and political forums; it has not yet acquired any centralized institutional form.”[34] Among the economic apparatus of the TNS we see the IMF, World Bank, WTO and regional banks. On the political side we see the Group of 7, Group of 22, United Nations, OECD, and the European Union. This was further accelerated with the Trilateral Commission, “which brought together transnationalized fractions of the business, political, and intellectual elite in North America, Europe, and Japan.” Further, the World Economic Forum has made up an important part of this class, and, I might add, the Bilderberg Group. Robinson and Harris point out that, “Studies on building a global economy and transnational management structures flowed out of think tanks, university centers, and policy planning institutes in core countries.”[35]
The TNS apparatus has been a vital principle of organization and socialization for the transnational class, “as have world class universities, transnationally oriented think tanks, the leading bourgeois foundations, such as Harvard’s School of International Business, the Ford [and Rockefeller] and the Carnegie Foundations, [and] policy planning groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations.” These “elite planning groups are important forums for integrating class groups, developing new initiatives, collective strategies, policies and projects of class rule, and forging consensus and a political culture around these projects.”[36]
Robinson and Harris identify the World Economic Forum as “the most comprehensive transnational planning body of the TCC and the quintessential example of a truly global network binding together the TCC in a transnational civil society.”[37] I would take issue with this, and instead propose the Bilderberg Group, of which they make no mention in their article, as THE quintessential transnational planning body of the TCC, as it is composed of the elite of the elite, totally removed from public scrutiny, and acts as “a secretive global think-tank” of the world’s 130 most powerful individuals.[38]
Many Bilderberg critics will claim that the group acts as a “secret world government” or as the organization “that makes all the key decisions for the world.” However, this is not the case. Bilderberg is simply the most influential planning body, sitting atop a grand hierarchy of various planning bodies and institutions, and is itself a key part of the apparatus of the formation of a Transnational State, but is not, in and of itself, a “world government.” It is a global think tank, which holds the concept of a “world government” in high regard and often works to achieve these ends, but it should not be confused with being the end it seeks.
The economic crisis is perhaps the greatest “opportunity” ever given to the TCC in re-shaping the world order according to their designs, ideals and goals. Through destruction, comes creation; and for these high-placed individuals within the TCC, destruction is itself a form of creation.
In terms of reshaping labour and class structures, the economic crisis provides the ground on which a new global class structure will be built. A major problem for the Transnational Capitalist Class and the formation of a Transnational State, or world government, is the lack of continuity in class structures and labour markets throughout the world. A transnational ruling class, or “Superclass” as David Rothkopf referred to it in his book of the same name (and is, himself, a member of the Superclass), has emerged. It has no borders, yet has built a general continuity and consensus of goals among its members, albeit there are differences and conflicts within the class, but they are based upon the means of achieving the stated ends, rather than on the ends itself. There is not dissent within the ruling class on the aims of achieving a world governing body; the dissent is in how to achieve this, and in terms of what kind of structure, theoretical and philosophical leanings, and political orientation such a government would have.
To achieve these ends, however, all classes must be transnationalized, not simply the ruling class. The ruling class is the first class to be transnationalized, because transnationalization was the goal of the ruling classes based in the powerful Western European nations, (and later in the United States), that started the process of transnationalization or internationalization. Now that there is an established “Superclass” of a transnational composition, the other classes must follow suit. The middle class is targeted for elimination in this sense, because most of the world has no middle class, and to fully integrate and internationalize a middle class, this would require industrialization and development in places such as Africa, and certain places in Asia and Latin America, and would represent a massive threat to the Superclass, as it would be a valve through which much of their wealth and power would escape them. Their goal is not to lose their wealth and power to a transnational middle class, but rather to extinguish the notion of a middle class, and transnationalize a lower, uneducated, labour oriented class, through which they will secure ultimate wealth and power.
The economic crisis serves these ends, as whatever remaining wealth the middle class holds is in the process of being eliminated, and as the crisis progresses, or rather, regresses, and accelerates, the middle classes of the world will suffer, while a great percentage of lower classes of the world, poverty-stricken even prior to the crisis, will suffer the greatest, most probably leading to a massive reduction in population levels, particularly in the “developed” or “Third World” states.
Many would take issue with such a thesis as being an objective of the Transnational Capitalist Class, as capitalism needs a large population, specifically a middle class population, in order to have a market of consumers for their products. Though this is true with how we presently understand the capitalist system and structure, we must also take note that capitalism, itself, is always changing and redefining itself. Through a social constructivist perspective, which I would argue, is very apt in this analysis, such a notion is not inconceivable, as if the capitalist class were to redefine capitalism itself, capitalism itself would change.
It must be addressed that there would be a great many individuals within the TCC or Superclass (Rothkopf estimates the number at 6,000 individuals within the ruling class), who would take issue with eliminating their base for profit making, however, as a total restructuring of the capitalist system and global political economy as a whole is undertaken, the TCC itself is not immune to such drastic and rapid changes itself. In fact, it would be unimaginable to think that it would remain as it currently is.
Rothkopf explains that with 6,000 members of the Superclass, that equals roughly one member of the superclass for every 1 million people in the world. As the composition, class structures, and numbers of the world population drastically alter over the next years and decades, so too will the superclass itself. It too, will be subject to a “cleansing” so to speak, in which the big players will collapse and consolidate many of the smaller players.
The Monetary Structure of a Global Government
A Global Currency
Following the April 2009 G20 Summit, leaders issued a communiqué which set the groundwork for the creation of a global currency to replace the US dollar as the world reserve currency. The communiqué stated that, “We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity.” SDRs, or Special Drawing Rights, are “a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund.” As the Telegraph reported, “the G20 leaders have activated the IMF's power to create money and begin global "quantitative easing". In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body. Conspiracy theorists will love it.”[39]
In 1988, the Economist featured an article called “Get Ready for the Phoenix,” which said, “THIRTY years from now, Americans, Japanese, Europeans, and people in many other rich countries and some relatively poor ones will probably be paying for their shopping with the same currency. Prices will be quoted not in dollars, yen or D-marks but in, let's say, the phoenix. The phoenix will be favoured by companies and shoppers because it will be more convenient than today's national currencies, which by then will seem a quaint cause of much disruption to economic life in the late twentieth century.” The article, written in the wake of the 1987 stock market crash, stated that, “Several more big exchange-rate upsets, a few more stockmarket crashes and probably a slump or two will be needed before politicians are willing to face squarely up to that choice. This points to a muddled sequence of emergency followed by patch-up followed by emergency, stretching out far beyond 2018-except for two things. As time passes, the damage caused by currency instability is gradually going to mount; and the very trends that will make it mount are making the utopia of monetary union feasible.”[emphasis added][40]
Paul Volcker, former Governor of the Federal Reserve System, said in 2000, that, “If we are to have a truly global economy, a single world currency makes sense,” and a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank reaffirmed Volcker’s comment, stating that, “we might one day have a single world currency. Maybe European integration, in the same way as any other regional integration, could be seen as a step towards the ideal situation of a fully integrated world. If and when this world will see the light of day is impossible to say. However, what I can say is that this vision seems as impossible now to most of us as a European monetary union seemed 50 years ago, when the process of European integration started.”[41]
A Central Bank of the World
Jeffrey Garten has written several articles calling for the creation of a global central bank, or a “global fed.” Garten was former Dean of the Yale School of Management, former Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade in the Clinton administration, previously served on the White House Council on International Economic Policy under the Nixon administration and on the policy planning staffs of Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Cyrus Vance of the Ford and Carter administrations, former Managing Director at Lehman Brothers, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
In 1998, he wrote an article for the New York Times stating that the world “needs a global central bank,” and that, “An independent central bank with responsibility for maintaining global financial stability is the only way out. No one else can do what is needed: inject more money into the system to spur growth, reduce the sky-high debts of emerging markets, and oversee the operations of shaky financial institutions. A global central bank could provide more money to the world economy when it is rapidly losing steam.”[42]
Following the outbreak of the current financial crisis, Garten wrote an article for the Financial Times in which he called for the “establishment of a Global Monetary Authority to oversee markets that have become borderless.”[43] In October of 2008, he wrote an article for Newsweek stating that, “leaders should begin laying the groundwork for establishing a global central bank.” He explained that, “There was a time when the U.S. Federal Reserve played this role [as governing financial authority of the world], as the prime financial institution of the world's most powerful economy, overseeing the one global currency. But with the growth of capital markets, the rise of currencies like the euro and the emergence of powerful players such as China, the shift of wealth to Asia and the Persian Gulf and, of course, the deep-seated problems in the American economy itself, the Fed no longer has the capability to lead single-handedly.”[44]
Regionalism
Building upon the model of the European Union, the world is being divided into large continental regional blocs, with regional monetary systems and governments. This will make up the managed blocs of a global government, and mark a significant process in the “hard road to world order,” as Richard N. Gardner called it, in which national sovereignty is eroded piece by piece. Regionalism marks the current phase of the move to the formation of a global government. Friedrich List critiqued liberal cosmopolitanism, stating that economic integration had never preceded political integration, however the elites have and are successfully challenging this notion. In the New World Order, economic integration is preceding political integration into a world governance structure.
The European Union began as a series of free trade agreements, became a monetary union, and is in the process of being formed into a single continental superstate. North American integration began with a series of free trade agreements, defense and security agreements, and is in the process of moving towards monetary and bureaucratic integration into a North American Community. A Union and North American superstate are not far in the distance. A North American currency is openly discussed and proposed by leading think tanks, billionaire investors, as well as the Governor of the Bank of Canada. The likely name of such a currency is the Amero.[45]
Meanwhile, globally, markets are heavily integrating. In 2007, it was reported that the European Union and the United States were beginning the process of transatlantic economic integration.[46] In 2008, it was announced that, “Canadian and European officials say they plan to begin negotiating a massive agreement to integrate Canada’s economy with the 27 nations of the European Union,” under “deep economic integration negotiations,” and “The proposed pact would far exceed the scope of older agreements such as NAFTA.”[47] This, essentially, is a means of integrating with the North American Community before the Community is officially formed; an act of pre-emptive integration.
In 2007, the Council on Foreign Relations journal, Foreign Affairs, ran an article titled, “The End of National Currency.” Discussing the volatility of national currencies, the article stated that, “The right course is not to return to a mythical past of monetary sovereignty, with governments controlling local interest and exchange rates in blissful ignorance of the rest of the world. Governments must let go of the fatal notion that nationhood requires them to make and control the money used in their territory. National currencies and global markets simply do not mix; together they make a deadly brew of currency crises and geopolitical tension and create ready pretexts for damaging protectionism. In order to globalize safely, countries should abandon monetary nationalism and abolish unwanted currencies, the source of much of today's instability.”
Further, “Monetary nationalism is simply incompatible with globalization. It has always been, even if this has only become apparent since the 1970s, when all the world's governments rendered their currencies intrinsically worthless.” The author states that, “Since economic development outside the process of globalization is no longer possible, countries should abandon monetary nationalism. Governments should replace national currencies with the dollar or the euro or, in the case of Asia, collaborate to produce a new multinational currency over a comparably large and economically diversified area.”[48]
In 2008, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) was formed, “a regional body aimed at boosting economic and political integration in the region,”[49] which will “seek a common currency as part of the region's integration efforts,” as well as a common central bank.[50]
The Gulf Cooperation Council, a regional bloc of Arab Middle Eastern governments, is pursuing economic integration in the form of a common central bank and a common currency.[51] Similarly, there has been much discussion of an Asian Monetary Union and East Asian economic integration, specifically being touted as a solution to the prevention of future economic crises in East Asia like that which hit it in 1997.[52] Integration would be modeled upon the East Asian regional block of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), and in 2008, “ASEAN bank deputy governors and financial deputy ministers have met in Vietnam's central Da Nang city, discussing issues on the financial and monetary integration and cooperation in the region.”[53] Further, Africa is being organized as a regional bloc under the African Union, and is also pursuing regional economic integration, and has even set the agenda for the creation of a continental African central bank and the formation of a single African currency.[54]
In 2006, the Bank for International Settlements “suggested ditching many national currencies in favour of a small number of formal currency blocks based on the dollar, euro and renminbi or yen.”[55]