This documentary shows how international Bankers and Corporations are conducting a world wide exploitation system.
Ecrire un commentaire - Voir les 0 commentaires - Recommander
The sugar coated bullets of the "free market" are killing our children. The act to kill is unpremeditated. It is instrumented in a detached fashion through computer program trading on the New York and Chicago mercantile exchanges, where the global prices of rice, wheat and corn are decided upon.
Poverty is not solely the result of policy failures at a national level. People in different countries are being impoverished simultaneously as a result of a global market mechanism. A small number of financial institutions and global corporations have the ability to determine, through market manipulation, the standard of living of millions of people around the World.
We are at the crossroads of the most serious economic and social crisis in modern history. The process of global impoverishment unleashed at the outset of the 1980s debt crisis has reached a major turning point, leading to the simultaneous outbreak of famines in all major regions of the developing World.
There are many complex features underlying the global economic crisis pertaining to financial markets, the decline in production, the collapse of State institutions and the rapid development
of a profit-driven war economy. What is rarely mentioned in this analysis, is how this global economic restructuring forcibly impinges on three fundamental necessities of life: food, water
and fuel.
The provision of food, water and fuel is a precondition of civilized society: they are necessary factors for the survival of the human
species. In recent years, the prices of these three variables has increased dramatically at the global level, with devastating economic and social consequences.
These three essential goods or commodities, which in a real sense determine the reproduction of economic and social life on planet
earth, are under the control of a small number of global corporations and financial institutions.
Both the State as well as the gamut of international organizations --often referred to as the "international community"-- serve the
unfettered interests of global capitalism. The main intergovernmental bodies including the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions and the World Trade Organizations (WTO) have
endorsed the New World Order on behalf of their corporate sponsors. Governments in both developed and developing countries have abandoned their historical role of regulating key
economic variables as well as ensuring a minimum livelihood for their people.
Protest movements directed against the hikes in the prices of food and gasoline have erupted simultaneously in different regions of the
World. The conditions are particularly critical in Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala, India, Bangladesh. Spiraling food and fuel prices in Somalia have precipitated the entire country into a
situation of mass starvation, coupled with severe water shortages. A similar and equally serious situation prevails in Ethiopia.
Other countries affected by spiraling food prices include Indonesia, the Philippines, Liberia, Egypt, Sudan, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Kenya,
Eritrea, a long list of impoverished countries..., not to mention those under foreign military occupation including Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.

Famine in Ethiopia, June 2008

Deregulation
The provision of food, water and fuel are no longer the object of governmental or intergovernmental regulation or intervention, with a
view to alleviating poverty or averting the outbreak of famines.
The fate of millions of human beings is managed behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms as part of a profit driven
agenda.
And because these powerful economic actors operate through a seemingly neutral and "invisible" market mechanism, the devastating social
impacts of engineered hikes in the prices of food, fuel and water are casually dismissed as the result of supply and demand considerations.
Nature of the Global Economic and Social Crisis
Largely obfuscated by official and media reports, both the " food crisis" and the " oil crisis" are the result of the speculative
manipulation of market values by powerful economic actors.
We are not dealing with distinct and separate food, fuel and water "crises" but with a global process of economic and social
restructuring.
The dramatic price hikes of these three essential commodities is not haphazard. All three variables, including the prices of basic food
staples, water for production and consumption and fuel are the object of a process of deliberate and simultaneous market manipulation.
At the heart of the food crisis is the rising price of food staples coupled with a dramatic increase in the price of fuel.
Concurrently, the price of water which is an essential input into agricultural and industrial production, social infrastructure, public
sanitation and household consumption has increased abruptly as a result of a Worldwide movement to privatize water resources.
We are dealing with a major economic and social upheaval, an unprecedented global crisis, characterized by the triangular
relationship between water, food and fuel: three fundamental variables, which together affect the very means of human survival.
In very concrete terms, these price hikes impoverish and destroy peoples lives. Moreover, the Worldwide collapse in living standards is
occurring at a time of war. It is intimately related to the military agenda. The war in the Middle East bears a direct relationship to the control over oil and water reserves.
While water is not at present an internationally trade commodity in the same way as oil and food staples, it is also the object of market
manipulation through the privatization of water.
The economic and financial actors operating behind closed doors, are:
- the major Wall Street banks and financial houses, including the institutional speculators which play a direct role in commodity markets including the oil and food markets
-The Anglo-American oil giants, including British Petroleum (BP), ExxonMobil, Chevron-Texaco, Royal Dutch Shell
-The biotech-agribusiness conglomerates, which own the intellectual property rights on seeds and farm inputs. The biotech companies are also major actors on the NY and Chicago mercantile exchanges.
-The water giants including Suez, Veolia and Bechtel-United Utilities, involved in the extensive privatization of the World's water resources.
-The Anglo-American military-industrial complex which includes the big five US defense contractors (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grunman, Boeing and General Dynamics) in alliance with British Aerospace Systems Corporation (BAES) constitutes a powerful overlapping force, closely aligned with Wall Street, the oil giants and the agribusiness-biotech conglomerates.
The Oil Price Bubble
The movement in global prices on the New York and Chicago mercantile exchanges bears no relationship to the costs of producing oil. The spiraling price of crude oil is not the result of a shortage of oil. It is estimated that the cost of a barrel of oil in the Middle East does not exceed 15 dollars. The costs of a barrel of oil extracted from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, is of the order of $30 (Antoine Ayoub, Radio Canada, May 2008)
The price of crude oil is currently in excess of $120 a barrel. This market price is largely the result of the speculative
onslaught.

Source: NYMEX
Fuel enters into the production of virtually all areas of manufacturing, agriculture and the services economy. The hikes in fuel prices have contributed, in all major regions of the World, to precipitating tens of thousands of small and medium sized businesses into bankruptcy as well as undermining and potentially paralyzing the channels of domestic and international trade.
The increased cost of gasoline at the retail level is leading to the demise of local level economies, increased industrial concentration and a massive centralization of economic power in the hands of a small number of global corporations. In turn, the hikes in fuel backlash on the urban transit system, schools and hospitals, the trucking industry, intercontinental shipping, airline transportation, tourism, recreation and most public services.
Inflation
The rise in fuel prices unleashes a broader inflationary process which results in a compression of real purchasing power and a consequent
Worldwide decline in consumer demand. All major sectors of society, including the middle classes in the developed countries are affected.
These price movements are dictated by the commodity markets. They are the result of speculative trade in index funds, futures and options
on major commodity markets including the London ICE, the New York and Chicago mercantile exchanges.
The dramatic price hikes are not the result of a shortage of fuel, food or water.
This upheaval in the global economy is deliberate. The State's economic and financial policies are controlled by private corporate interests. Speculative trade is not the object of regulatory policies. The economic depression contributes to wealth formation, to enhancing the power of a handful of global corporations
According to William Engdahl;
"... At least 60% of the 128 per barrel price of crude oil comes from unregulated futures speculation by hedge funds, banks and financial groups using the London ICE Futures and New York NYMEX futures exchanges and uncontrolled inter-bank or Over-The-Counter trading to avoid scrutiny. US margin rules of the government's Commodity Futures Trading Commission allow speculators to buy a crude oil futures contract on the Nymex, by having to pay only 6% of the value of the contract. At today's price of $128 per barrel, that means a futures trader only has to put up about $8 for every barrel. He borrows the other $120. This extreme 'leverage' of 16 to 1 helps drive prices to wildly unrealistic levels and offset bank losses in sub-prime and other disasters at the expense of the overall population." (See More on the real reason behind high oil prices, Global Research, May 2008)
Among the main players in the speculative market for crude oil are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, British Petroleum (BP), the French
banking conglomerate Société Générale, Bank of America, the largest Bank in the US, and Switzerland's Mercuria. (See Miguel Angel Blanco, La Clave, Madrid, June 2008)
British Petroleum controls the London based International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), which is one of the world's largest energy futures and options exchanges. Among IPE's major
shareholders are Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
According to Der Spiegel, Morgan Stanley is one of the main institutional actors in the London based speculative oil market (IPE). According to Le Monde, France's
Société Générale together with Bank of America and Deutsche Bank have been involved in spreading rumors with a view to pushing up the price of crude oil. (See Miguel Angel
Blanco, La Clave, Madrid, June 2008)
Spiraling Food Prices
The global food crisis, characterized by major hikes in the prices of basic food staples, has spearheaded millions of people around the
World into starvation and chronic deprivation.
According to the FAO, the price of grain staples has increased by 88% since March 2007. The price of wheat has increased by 181% over a three year period. The price of rice has increased by 50% over the last three months (See Ian Angus, Food Crisis: "The greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model", Global Research, April 2008):
The price of rice has tripled over a five year period, from approximately 600$ a ton in 2003 to more than 1800$ a ton in May 2008. (see
chart below)
"The most popular grade of Thailand rice sold for $198 a ton, five years ago and $323 a ton a year ago. In April 2008, the price hit $1,000. Increases are even greater on local markets
— in Haiti, the market price of a 50 kilo bag of rice doubled in one week at the end
of March 2008. These increases are catastrophic for the 2.6 billion people around the world who live on less than US$2 a day and spend 60% to 80% of their incomes on food. Hundreds of
millions cannot afford to eat" (Ibid)
The main actors in the grain market are Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). These two corporate giants control a large share of the global grain market. They are also involved
in speculative transactions in futures and options on the NYMEX and the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). In the US, "the world's largest grower of GM crops, Cargill, ADM and
competitor Zen Noh between them control 81 per cent of all maize exports and 65 per cent of all soyabean exports." ( Greg Muttitt, Control Freaks, Cargill and ADM, The Ecologist, March, 2001)
RICE

WHEAT

CORN

Source: Chicago Board of Trade
Background of Agricultural Reform
Since the early 1980s coinciding with the onslaught of the debt crisis, the gamut of neoliberal macroeconomic policy reforms have largely contributed to undermining local agriculture.
Over the last 25 years, food farming in developing countries has been destabilized and destroyed by the imposition of IMF-World Bank reforms.
Commodity dumping of grain surpluses from the US, Canada and the European Union has led to the demise of food self-sufficiency and the
destruction of the local peasant economy. In turn, this process has resulted in multibillion dollar profits for Western agribusiness, resulting from import contracts by developing countries,
which are no longer able to produce their own food.
These preexisting historical conditions of mass poverty have been exacerbated and aggravated by the recent surge in grain prices, which have led in some cases to the doubling of the retail price of food staples.
The price hikes has also been exacerbated by the use of corn to produce ethanol. In 2007, global production of corn was of the order of
12.32 billion bushels of which 3.2 billion were used for ethanol production. Almost 40 percent of corn production in the US will be channeled towards ethanol
Genetically Modified Seeds
Coinciding with the establishment the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, another important historical change has occurred in the
structure of global agriculture.
Under the articles of agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO)), the food giants have been granted unrestricted freedom to enter
the seeds' markets of developing countries.
The acquisition of exclusive "intellectual property rights" over plant varieties by international agro-industrial interests, also favors the destruction of bio-diversity.
Acting on behalf of a handful of biotech conglomerates GMO seeds have been imposed on farmers, often in the context of "food aid
programs". In Ethiopia, for instance, kits of GMO seeds were handed out to impoverished farmers with a view to rehabilitating agricultural production in the wake of a major
drought.
The GMO seeds were planted, yielding a harvest. But then the farmer came to realize that the GMO seeds could not be replanted without
paying royalties to Monsanto, Arch Daniel Midland et al.
Then, the farmers discovered that the seeds would harvest only if they used the farm inputs including the fertilizer, insecticide and
herbicide, produced and distributed by the biotech agribusiness companies. Entire peasant economies were locked into the grip of the agribusiness conglomerates.
The main biotech giants in GMO include Monsanto, Syngenta, Aventis, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Cargill and Arch Daniel Midland.
Breaking The Agricultural Cycle
With the widespread adoption of GMO seeds, a major transition has occurred in the structure and history of settled agriculture since its inception 10,000 years ago.
The reproduction of seeds at the village level in local nurseries has been disrupted by the use of genetically modified seeds. The agricultural cycle, which enables farmers to store
their organic seeds and plant them to reap the next harvest has been broken. This destructive pattern – invariably resulting in famine – is replicated in country after country leading to the
Worldwide demise of the peasant economy.
The FAO- World Bank Consensus
At the June 2008 FAO Rome Summit on the food crisis, politicians and economic analysts alike embraced the free market consensus: the outbreak of famines was presented as a result of the usual supply, demand and climatic considerations, beyond the control of policy-makers. "The solution": channel emergency relief to affected areas under the auspices of the World Food Program (WFP). Do not intervene with the interplay of market forces.
Ironically, these " expert opinions" are refuted by the data on global grain production: the FAO forecasts for world cereal production
point to a record output in 2008.
Contradicting their own textbook explanations, World prices are, according to the World Bank, expected to remain high, despite the
forcasted increased supply of food staples.
State regulation of the prices of food staples and gasoline is not considered an option in the corridors of the FAO and the World Bank.
And of course that is what is taught in the economics departments of America's most prestigious universities.
Meanwhile, local level farmgate prices barely cover production costs, spearheading the peasant economy into bankruptcy.
The Privatization of Water
According to UN sources, which vastly underestimate the seriousness of the water crisis, one billion people worldwide (15% of the World
population) have no access to clean water "and 6,000 children die every day because of infections linked to unclean water" (BBC News,
24 March 2004)
A handful of global corporations including Suez, Veolia, Bechtel-United Utilities, Thames Water and Germany's RWE-AG are acquiring control and ownership over public water utilities and waste management. Suez and Veolia hold about 70 percent of the privatized water systems Worldwide.
The privatization of water under World Bank auspices feeds on the collapse of the system of public distribution of safe tap drinking water: "The World Bank serves the interests of water companies both through its regular loan programs to governments, which often come with conditions that explicitly require the privatization of water provision..." (Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke, Water Privatization: The World Bank's Latest Market Fantasy, Polaris Institute, Ottawa, 2004)
"The modus operandi [in India] is clear -- neglect development of water resources [under World Bank budget austerity measures], claim a "resource crunch" and allow existing systems to deteriorate." (Ann Ninan, Private Water, Public Misery, India Resource Center April 16, 2003)
Meanwhile, the markets for bottled water have been appropriated by a handful of corporations including Coca-Cola, Danone, Nestlé and PepsiCo. These companies not only work hand in glove with the water utility companies, they are linked up to the agribusiness-biotech companies involved in the food industry. Tap water is purchased by Coca-Cola from a municipal water facility and then resold on a retail basis. It is estimated that in the US, 40 percent of bottled water is tap water. (See, Jared Blumenfeld, Susan Leal The real cost of bottled water, San Francisco Chronicle, February 18, 2007)
In India, Coca-Cola has contributed to the depletion of ground water to the detriment of local communities:
"Communities across India living around Coca-Cola's bottling plants are experiencing severe water shortages, directly as a result of Coca-Cola's massive extraction of water from the common groundwater resource. The wells have run dry and the hand water pumps do not work any more. Studies, including one by the Central Ground Water Board in India, have confirmed the significant depletion of the water table.
When the water is extracted from the common groundwater resource by digging deeper, the water smells and tastes strange. Coca-Cola has been indiscriminately discharging its waste water into the fields around its plant and sometimes into rivers, including the Ganges, in the area. The result has been that the groundwater has been polluted as well as the soil. Public health authorities have posted signs around wells and hand pumps advising the community that the water is unfit for human consumption...
Tests conducted by a variety of agencies, including the government of India, confirmed that Coca-Cola products contained high levels of pesticides, and as a result, the Parliament of India has banned the sale of Coca-Cola in its cafeteria. However, Coca-Cola not only continues to sell drinks laced with poisons in India (that could never be sold in the US and EU), it is also introducing new products in the Indian market. And as if selling drinks with DDT and other pesticides to Indians was not enough, one of Coca-Cola's latest bottling facilities to open in India, in Ballia, is located in an area with a severe contamination of arsenic in its groundwater.(India Resource Center, Coca-Cola Crisis in India, undated)
In developing countries, the hikes in fuel prices have increased the costs of boiling tap water by households, which in turn favors the privatization of water resources.
In the more advanced phase of water privatization, the actual ownership of lakes and rivers by private corporations is contemplated. Mesopotamia was not only invaded for its extensive oil resources, the Valley of the two rivers (Tigris and Euphrates) has extensive water reserves.
Concluding Remarks
We are dealing with a complex and centralized constellation of economic power in which the instruments of market
manipulation have a direct bearing on the lives of millions of people.
The prices of food, water, fuel are determined at the global level, beyond the reach of national government policy. The price hikes
of these three essential commodities constitute an instrument of "economic warfare", carried out through the "free market" on the futures and options exchanges.
These hikes in the prices of food, water and fuel are contributing in a very real sense to "eliminating the poor" through "starvation
deaths". The sugar coated bullets of the "free market" kill our children. The act to kill is instrumented in a detached fashion through computer program trading on the commodity exchanges,
where the global prices of rice, wheat and corn are decided upon.
'The Commission on Population Growth and the American Future'
But we are not dealing solely with market concepts. The outbreak of famines in different parts of the World, resulting from spiraling food
and fuel prices have broad strategic and geopolitical implications.
President Richard Nixon at the outset of his term in office in 1969 asserted "his belief that overpopulation gravely threatens world peace and stability." Henry Kissinger, who at the
time was Nixon's National Security adviser, directed various agencies of government to jointly undertake “a study of the impact of world population growth on U.S. security and overseas
interests.”
In March 1970, the U.S. Congress set up a Commission on Population Growth and the American Future. (See Center for
Research on Population and Security). The Commission was no ordinary Task Force. It integrated representatives from USAID, the State Department and the Department of Agriculture with CIA
and Pentagon officials. Its objective was not to assist developing countries but rather to curb World population with a view to serving US strategic and national security interests. The
Commission also viewed population control as a means to ensuring a stable and secure environment for US investors as well as gaining control over developing countries' mineral and
petroleum resources.
This Commission completed its work in December 1974 and circulated a classified document entitled National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests" to "designated Secretaries and Agency heads for their review and comments." In November 1975, the report and its recommendations were endorsed by President Gerald Ford.
Kissinger had indeed intimated in the context of the National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSSM 200) that the recurrence of famines, disease and war could constitute a de facto instrument of population control.
Although the NSSM 200 report did not assign, for obvious reasons, an explicit policy role to famine formation, it nonetheless intimated that the occurrence of famines could, under certain circumstances, provide a de facto solution to overpopulation:
"Accordingly, those countries where large-scale hunger and malnutrition are already present face the bleak prospect of little, if any, improvement in the food intake in the years ahead barring a major foreign financial food aid program, more rapid expansion of domestic food production, reduced population growth or some combination of all three. Worse yet, a series of crop disasters could transform some of them into classic Malthusian cases with famines involving millions of people.
While foreign assistance probably will continue to be forthcoming to meet short-term emergency situations like the threat of mass starvation, it is more questionable whether aid donor countries will be prepared to provide the sort of massive food aid called for by the import projections on a long-term continuing basis.
Reduced population growth rates clearly could bring significant relief over the longer term.....
In the extreme cases where population pressures lead to endemic famine, food riots, and breakdown of social order, those conditions are scarcely conducive to systematic exploration for mineral deposits or the long-term investments required for their exploitation. Short of famine, unless some minimum of popular aspirations for material improvement can be satisfied, and unless the terms of access and exploitation persuade governments and peoples that this aspect of the international economic order has "something in it for them," concessions to foreign companies are likely to be expropriated or subjected to arbitrary intervention. Whether through government action, labor conflicts, sabotage, or civil disturbance, the smooth flow of needed materials will be jeopardized. Although population pressure is obviously not the only factor involved, these types of frustrations are much less likely under conditions of slow or zero population growth."
(1974 National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests". (emphasis added)
The report concludes with a couple of key questions pertaining to the role of food as "an instrument of national power", which could be
used in the pursuit of US strategic interests.
In the words of Henry Kissinger: "Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people."
ANNEX
Corporate Actors highlighted in this article (among many other important corporate actors)
Speculative Trade in Crude Oil:
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, British Petroleum (BP), Deutsche Bank, Société Générale, Bank of America, Switzerland's Mercuria.
Water Privatization
Water Infrastructure: Suez, Veolia, Bechtel-United Utilities, Thames Water and Germany's RWE-AG
Retail Distribution of Drinking Water: Coca-Cola, Danone, Nestlé and PepsiCo
Food Prices and Genetically Modified Seeds
Monsanto, Syngenta, Aventis, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Cargill, Arch Daniel Midland.
Military Industrial Complex
Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grunman, Boeing, General Dynamics, British Aerospace Systems Corporation (BAES)
The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order
by Michel Chossudovsky
In this new and expanded edition of Chossudovsky’s international best-seller, the author outlines the contours of a New World Order which feeds on human poverty and the destruction of the environment, generates social apartheid, encourages racism and ethnic strife and undermines the rights of women. The result as his detailed examples from all parts of the world show so convincingly, is a globalization of poverty.
This book is a skilful combination of lucid explanation and cogently argued critique of the fundamental directions in which our world is moving financially and economically.
In this new enlarged edition –which includes ten new chapters and a new introduction-- the author reviews the causes and consequences of famine in Sub-Saharan Africa, the dramatic meltdown of financial markets, the demise of State social programs and the devastation resulting from corporate downsizing and trade liberalisation.
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Published in 11 languages. More than 100,000 copies sold Worldwide.
Source: arayeradji.canalblog.com
C’est l’enseignement à tirer d’un sondage conduit en Europe, en Asie et aux Etats-Unis par l’institut Harris et commandité par le Financial Times de Londres.
Dans un commentaire, publié lundi dernier, des résultats du sondage, le Financial Times écrivait : « Les inégalités de revenus se sont révélées comme des questions politiques hautement polémiques dans de nombreux pays au moment où la dernière vague de mondialisation a engendré une « superclasse » de riches. »
Le sondage FT/ Harris a montré que, de par l’Europe, une écrasante majorité de personnes pensent que le gouffre social existant entre l’élite financière et le reste de la population est devenu beaucoup trop important. Par exemple, en Espagne 76 pour cent des sondés déclarent que les inégalités sociales sont devenues trop importantes, tandis qu’en Allemagne, ce chiffre s’élève à 87 pour cent.
En ce qui concerne la Chine, qui est devenue le centre industriel à bas salaire du monde, assujettissant des millions de travailleurs à l’exploitation tout en produisant une nouvelle classe de milliardaires et de multi millionnaires, 80 pour cent des sondés déclarent que les inégalités sont trop grandes.
Aux Etats-Unis, le pays le plus socialement inégalitaire des pays capitalistes avancés, 78 pour cent des sondés pensent que le fossé s’est trop creusé.
Une importante majorité des habitants dans les huit pays où le sondage a été conduit, déclarent croire que le gouffre social ne fera que s’amplifier dans les cinq années à venir, tandis qu’une majorité également importante soutient l’idée d’augmenter les impôts pour les riches tout en les diminuant pour les pauvres.
Dans une situation où l’aggravation de la crise secoue les Etats-Unis et le système financier mondial, de larges bouleversements économiques ont rendu l’amassement de fortunes indécentes par une minuscule élite financière encore plus insupportable pour un nombre très important de personnes confrontées à une baisse de leur niveau de vie, à la perte de leur emploi et dans de larges régions du globe à une montée de la famine.
Selon la FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization, organisation pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture), les prix des denrées alimentaires ont augmenté de 45 pour cent dans le monde au cours des neuf derniers mois et le prix des produits de base a augmenté encore plus – le blé a augmenté de 130 pour cent et le riz a augmenté de 74 pour cent au cours des douze derniers mois. Deux milliards et demi de personnes – soit 40 pour cent de la population mondiale – vivent avec moins de 2 dollars par jour et sont confrontés, de par l’augmentation faramineuse du prix des denrées alimentaires, au spectre imminent de la famine.
Dans un communiqué publié la semaine dernière, le directeur général de la FAO, Jacques Diouf, a présenté « le problème de la spéculation financière » comme étant la cause majeure de cette catastrophe imminente. Et il affirmait que « les fonds d’investissement spéculent sur les marchés à venir et contribuent à l’augmentation du prix des marchandises, y compris des denrées alimentaires. »
La décision du Financial Times, journal qui fait autorité à la Cité de Londres, de commanditer ce sondage traduit bien la montée du malaise au sein des cercles dirigeants de la planète qui craignent que la menace d’une intensification sans précédent de la polarisation sociale, associée à une crise économique, puissent déclencher une résurgence aiguë de la lutte des classes.
Ainsi, à Bruxelles, au cours de la semaine dernière, lors de la rencontre des 27 ministres des Finances de l’Union européenne, la montée en flèche des salaires des cadres supérieurs des sociétés a été présentée comme « un scandale » et comme un « fléau social. »
Jean Claude Juncker, actuel Président de l’Eurogroupe a fait le commentaire suivant : « Les abus des capitaines d’industrie auxquels nous avons assisté dans plusieurs pays de la zone euro sont proprement scandaleux et nous ne cessons de nous demander comment on peut agir dans le domaine de l’éthique professionnelle et dans le domaine des taxations afin de combattre ces excès. »
Récemment, un scandale public a éclaté quand un PDG néerlandais a encaissé 124 millions de dollars de primes et de stock options. Si l’on se base sur les critères américains, cette enveloppe n’a rien d’extraordinaire, mais les primes moyennes, aux Pays-Bas, représentent à peine le quart de ce qu’elles sont aux Etats-Unis.
Juncker, qui est à la fois premier ministre et le ministre des Finances du Luxembourg, a affirmé que la Commission européenne allait exiger des pays membres qu’ils fassent un rapport sur ce « qu’ils comptent mettre en place pour lutter contre ce fléau social. » Plusieurs gouvernements européens ont ébauché une législation qui taxerait lourdement les primes exorbitantes pour les cadres.
Junker a mis en évidence la crainte réelle de la bourgeoisie européenne quand il a prévenu que les travailleurs de base « ne comprendront pas si nous leur demandons de modérer leurs revendications salariales sans dire en même temps que nous n’acceptons plus une situation où certains directeurs perçoivent des salaires de PDG – tout en bénéficiant de parachutes dorés – qui n’ont rien à voir avec leur réelle performance. »
Autrement dit, une situation où les richesses s’accumulent ostensiblement en haut de l’échelle sociale, alors que l’on demande aux plus défavorisés de se serrer la ceinture, peut mettre le feu aux poudres et déclencher une révolte sociale.
Dans le même ordre d’idée, la semaine dernière, le Financial Times a publié un article de mise en garde de David Rothkopf, auteur de Superclass : The Global Power Elite and the World They are Marking (La superclasse: la puissante élite mondiale et le monde qu’elle façonne) et ancien sous-secrétaire adjoint au Commerce international au sein de l’administration Clinton.
Rothkopf écrit : « La crise du crédit amplifie la réaction brutale naissante contre les abus des grandes entreprises. Les élites se font des milliards sur les marchés, que ceux-ci soient à la hausse ou à la baisse, avec le soutien du gouvernement alors que monsieur Tout-le-monde perd sa maison et se retrouve à la rue. Il y a 30 ans, les dirigeants des multinationales gagnaient 35 fois plus qu’un employé moyen, maintenant ils gagnent plus de 350 fois plus. La crise a mis en évidence les iniquités indécentes dans ce domaine. – les 1100 personnes les plus riches du monde ont presque deux fois plus de biens que l’ensemble des 2,5 milliards de personnes les plus pauvres. »
Rothkopf conclut son article par une mise en garde : l’oligarchie financière doit sauver sa peau en réfrénant ses excès. « En reconnaissant qu’il y a un intérêt général auquel elle doit répondre, la superclasse financière peut échapper au sort des élites du passé, » écrit-il. « Pour réussir à le faire, elle doit éviter de donner ses explications arrogantes, du type "c’est le marché qui décide" pour expliquer les inégalités qu’elle a contribué à favoriser. »
Cet avertissement sur le danger de connaître le « sort des élites du passé » est indubitablement très sérieux surtout dans les pages du principal journal financier britannique. A qui donc pense l’auteur de cet article : A l’aristocratie française ? A la dynastie russe des Romanov ? Visiblement, on prend très au sérieux, au sein des classes dirigeantes, la menace que le ressentiment massif suscité par les inégalités est en train de créer les conditions pour des soulèvements sociaux, voire même la révolution.
Le conseil de Rothkopf adressé aux élites dirigeantes de répondre à « l’intérêt général » et d’être moins arrogantes ne parviendra pas à résoudre le problème qui est fondamentalement enraciné, non pas dans l’avidité et l’arrogance évidentes de ceux qui tirent profit de différentes formes de spéculation financière qui menacent de provoquer une famine dans de nombreuses régions du monde, mais bien plutôt dans le fonctionnement même du capitalisme.
C’est Karl Marx qui, il y a plus de 140 ans, a développé la théorie de « l’accroissement de la pauvreté » afin d’expliquer cette caractéristique inhérente à la production capitaliste.
Karl Marx a écrit : « Accumulation de richesses à un pôle, c’est égale accumulation de pauvreté, de souffrance, d’ignorance, d’abrutissement, de dégradation morale, d’esclavage au pôle opposé, du côté de la classe qui produit le capital même. » [1]
Aucun élément de l’analyse marxiste du capitalisme n’a été sujet à des critiques plus fournies et plus soutenues de la part des défenseurs de l’économie de marché que cette théorie. Ils argumentent que l’expansion du capitalisme et l’accumulation des richesses conduisent inexorablement à l’augmentation du niveau de vie de la masse des travailleurs.
La fausseté de cet argument et l’exactitude de l’analyse de Karl Marx sont une nouvelle fois confirmées, non seulement dans le discours froid des statistiques, mais également dans les luttes toujours plus explosives des masses confrontées à l’impossibilité d’obtenir les moyens de survie basiques qui leur sont refusés du fait d’un système de production basé sur le profit individuel.
[1] Karl Marx, Capital 1, chapitre 25, section 4.
http://www.wsws.org/francais/News/2008/mai08/ineg-m30.shtml
(Article original anglais paru le 20 mai 2008)
Pierre Rimbert
Une croissance à faire rêver les gouvernements : 8,3 %. Le chiffre mesure l’augmentation du nombre de millionnaires en dollars au cours de l’année 2006. Les milliardaires ne sont pas en reste : le magazine Forbes en recensait 209 en 1998 ; il en compte 1 125 dix ans plus tard. Plus nombreux et plus fortunés, les très riches peinent à se distinguer malgré leurs dépenses extravagantes. Hier, ils vivaient cachés ; aujourd’hui, ils se montrent à la « une » des magazines. Assez pour faire rêver, pas trop pour éviter des réactions du bon peuple.
Illustration grinçante de la thèse selon laquelle la mondialisation ne profite pas qu’aux Occidentaux, le club des grandes fortunes accueille de nouvelles têtes. Triomphe de la « diversité » : quatre des huit personnalités les plus riches de la planète sont indiennes ; et des nababs russes, turcs, polonais et brésiliens font encorbellement à un palmarès toujours dominé par les Américains. Suivant l’évolution du capitalisme, les « barons voleurs » de la finance, des médias, de l’immobilier et des nouvelles technologies ont supplanté les rois du pétrole et les capitaines d’industrie. Même les monarques du Golfe entreprennent une reconversion dans l’économie des loisirs.
Si l’internationalisation des échanges renforce le pouvoir de l’élite mondialisée, l’arbre de la « superclasse » dissimule le buisson des nantis qui prospèrent à l’ombre des nations. Et qui, dans chaque pays, cumulent hauts revenus, patrimoine, diplômes prestigieux et relations sociales : les vieilles oligarchies s’accommodent fort bien des nouvelles.
Lorsqu’il évoque le sort du riche en 1848, Adophe Thiers s’attendrit : « Il n’a pas froid, il n’a pas faim, c’est vrai. Il est repu, soit. Mais voyez son front soucieux. » Tout l’accable, en effet : la fortune, il faut l’entretenir, l’accroître et la transmettre. Elle se reproduit dans les grandes écoles, où les « sang bleu » présélectionnés tissent leur toile de relations utiles et marquent un destin souvent tracé d’avance au poinçon du mérite scolaire.
Elle croît grâce à l’Etat, quand la puissance publique solde ses avoirs au privé, déréglemente la finance et se laisse bousculer par les baronnies capitalistes qu’elle a contribué à engendrer. Elle prospère enfin quand droite et gauche s’accordent pour laisser aux forces du marché le soin d’organiser la répartition des richesses. Dans nombre de pays occidentaux, la part des salaires dans le produit national s’est effondrée depuis la fin des années 1970. Simultanément, la tranche supérieure d’imposition sur les revenus était divisée par deux, parfois par trois.
Pour que le « bouclier fiscal » remplace sans anicroche la protection sociale au rang des priorités gouvernementales, il aura fallu le succès d’un travail de sape intellectuelle visant à justifier l’envers des grandes fortunes : les inégalités.
Ils édifient des musées, signent des chèques aux artistes maudits, vaccinent les enfants africains, secourent la veuve et câlinent l’orphelin : qui douterait de l’utilité sociale des riches ? La pichenette philanthropique n’est pas de trop pour légitimer leur mainmise sur les affaires du monde. Et justifier un rapport de forces qui, depuis trois décennies, penche toujours plus lourdement en faveur des détenteurs du capital.
Ce sont eux qui imposent bas salaires et chômage, générateurs de mal-vivre et de division des populations entre elles. Ce sont eux qui décident d’investir ici, de restructurer là, de spéculer sur le prix du blé quand la Bourse rapporte moins – sans trop se soucier des salariés et des ventres creux. Ce sont eux qui accaparent les centres-villes dont ils chassent les habitants non solvables. Ce sont eux qui promeuvent un mode de consommation préjudiciable à l’environnement. Sans parler de leur intervention dans les affaires publiques, singulièrement lors des campagnes électorales.
Quand les populations résistent, les gouvernements sont contraints de limiter ces appétits. Des lois peuvent plafonner le financement privé des forces politiques, interdire la sélection des candidats par l’épaisseur du compte en banque. Mais la bataille est incessante : dès qu’ils en ont l’occasion, les riches reprennent le pouvoir qu’ils ont dû concéder.
Cours vidéo d’Attac France sur la crise financière. Par Gérard
Dumenil
Crise financière et capitalisme néolibéral 1/3 - 10 mn - 23 avr. 2008
Attac France - france.attac.org/
Part I
CINEMA/Films documentaires
Le monde selon monsanto/arte (film
entier + débat)
Supermarket Secrets - Dispatches
(100')
La
Grande Conspiration/the Great Conspiracy (VOSTF)
911
Mysteries - VOSTF Sous-titré français
Michael Moore - Sicko (Film,
2h)
La bataille de tchernobyl (film, 95
mn)
Jean rouch: les maitres fous (film en
trois parties)
L'Eugénisme: de Darwin aux Nazis, en
passant par les USA(52')
Jenin jenin, film de/by mohamed bakri
(53') vof- en
subtitles
"the war on democracy", a film by
john pilger (videos)
Afrique 50, rare film
anti-colonialiste d'époque par rené vautier
Yougoslavie, une guerre évitable (film,
59')
Earthlings - terriens (1h 30, vo, sous-titres
français)
"état de guerre" (film, 1h
30)
Fox news, la manipulation des masses par les medias (Outfoxed
VF)
The corporation-film featuring
chomsky and
more...(3h)
Loose Change en français
(documentaire sur 911, Planète)
"from freedom to fascism"- film by
aaron russo
(video)
Terrorstorm deluxe high quality (alex
jones)
" we feed the world" ("le marché de la faim") (film,
95mn)
Animal farm (georges orwell) - film,
1h28
Vers la 3e guerre mondiale ? "état de
guerre" (film, 1h 30)
Terrorstorm deluxe high quality by alex jones
(video)
Documentaires en Français
L'eau pompée de coca-cola en inde
(vidéo, 13')
La bataille de tchernobyl (film, 95
mn)
Agent orange, la guerre sans fin
(documentaire)
Guerre de l'eau en palestine (vidéos)
Edward w. Said (+ video, 1h 48')