EC&MOS.ppt 001

File Name:

State of World . ppt

Was Previously part of MGTSOCF.ppt

Based on EC&MOS.ppt

Version 10 April 2010

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The State of the Planet: Ecology

andWorld Management

Having looked at the educational system I will now discuss some other

reasons why it is vital to: Better understand and map the networks

of social forces which so much determine our behaviour.

Design more effective arrangements to manage our society in the long term public interest.

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Having looked at the educational system I will now discuss some other Reasons why it is vital to

Better understand and map the networks of social forces which so much determine our behaviour.

Design more effective arrangements to manage our society in the long term public interest.

EC&MOS.ppt 185

SOCIO-CYBERNETICS

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AUTOPOIETIC

EC&MOS.ppt 189

Imminent Disasters: Overview

Collapse of Biosphere(Due to CO2, CFCs, destruction of rain forests)

Collapse of Food Base(Due to population explosion; destruction of soils, seas, atmosphere)

Note problem of “overshoot”

Collapse of World Order(Due to treatment of Third World)

Collapse of Financial System(Due to the fact that prices no longer mean anything, usurous lending of

non-money, inequity in incomes, and irresponsibility of bankers)

Collapse of everything(Due to nuclear winter)

Biosphere

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EC&MOS.ppt 191

Virtually all graphs of the consumption of resources, the destruction of life, and the destruction of the soils, the seas, and the atmosphere, show similar exponential increases, mostly growing much faster than the “population explosion”.

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A comprehensive index:

Ecological Footprintdeveloped by

Bill Rees

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Holland imports all the fodder which can be produced in a land area five times its size just to feed its cattle.

Overall it imports all the agricultural produce from a land area 17 times its size.

Similar findings apply to the US

But this is not the end of the story.

Because it then has to dispose of its pollutants and the products of production:

• It relies on the rain forests to re-cycle its gas emissions.

• It relies on the seas to recycle its sewage and vast amounts of dumped waste.

• It dumps the products of its nuclear energy programme in 3rd world countries.

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By bringing together data like these, Bill Rees and others concerned with ecological footprints have shown that:

For everyone in the world to live as we live, it would be necessary to have

five back-up planets engaged in nothing but agriculture to both provide the direct agricultural

products that would be needed and rectify the continuous destruction we wreak on the soils, the seas, and the

atmosphere.

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Population

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It took slightly more than 200 years – from 1600 to 1804 – for world population to double from 0.25 to 0.50 billion.

But then less than 125 years – to 1927 – for it to double again – this time to 1 billion.

But then less than 50 years – to 1974 – for it to double again – to 2 billion.

And then less than 30 years – to 2005 – for it to double again ..to 4 billion.

Even if the acceleration in the rate of increase declines, how can we possibly expect the planet to support the further 4 billion people who will be added over the next 50 years? (Actually, half of them are already here with world population standing at 6 billion.)

Even if the birth rate falls the population will increase as a result of increasing longevity.

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Sustainability Stocktaking Our Way Of Life: General

The West: Consumes more than three quarters of all the world's

metals and energy. Causes the bulk of the pollution of the soils, seas, and

atmosphere. It accounts for: Two thirds of all the greenhouse gases Three quarters of the sulphur and nitrogen oxides that

cause acid rain 90% of the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that destroy

the ozone layer.Since the Second World War, the population of the US alone has consumed as many minerals as everyone who lived on the entire planet in all previous generations

./cont.

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Sustainability Stocktaking Our Way Of Life: General (Cont.)

Car manufacture and use are major contributors to this.

Yet only 8% of the population of the world have cars.

Technological developments might reduce some of the problems, but no technological developments could reduce social consequences: isolation in communities, injury and death on the roads etc..

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Note that our oil dependency problem is not limited to energy.

Oil provides the basis for the fertilisers and pesticides that lie behind the “green revolution” that feeds us. (And modern agriculture also consumes huge amounts of energy via packaging, transportation, and marketing.)

But the range of products that depend on oil is huge.

Plastics do not merely show up in plastic bottles, polythene bags and packaging. Most of the threads and films of which modern fabrics are composed consist of them. Furniture, building materials, pipes, tyres, cars, and planes are largely composed of them. They provide the basis on which computer circuits are printed, and the boxes in which they are installed. They insulate electrical cables. They form the basis of explosives. And so on ad infinitum.

So Figure 2 shows what is likely to happen if we continue to consume increasing quantities of the planet’s natural resources.

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A collapse of our food supply is inevitable.

When this is combined with the effects of the population explosion and “rising expectations”, mass starvation will follow.

Even now, 40 million die from hunger and hunger-related diseases each year – equivalent to 300 jumbo jets crashing without survivors every day.

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In all probability, the collapse of trade as we know it – and therefore our current economic system – will precede mass starvation.

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Nations will fight, are fighting, to secure supplies of diminishing resources.

Starvation, absence of trade, and control of population movements will lead to increasing terrorism by both governments themselves and other “terrorist” organisations.

Available knowledge of viruses diseases and recombinant DNA – a product capable of permanently destroying the operation of cells at the most basic level – will be deployed by both groups.

Armaments manufacturers will continue, in one way or another, selling to both groups – but more biological weapons will become more generally available.

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One possible, indeed likely, scenario arising from these conflicts would be a nuclear winter

Figure 3 shows what happens if the resource

shortage is avoided.

Here the only change from Figure 2 is in the rate of usage of natural resources after 1970.

In Figure 3, resources are used after 1970 at a rate 75 per cent less than assumed in Figure 2.

In other words, the standard of living is sustained with a lower drain on the expendable and irreplaceable resources.

But the picture is even less attractive!

By not running out of resources, population and capital investment are able to rise until a pollution crisis is created. 

Pollution then acts directly to reduce birth rate, increase death rate, and depress food production. 

Population, which, according to this simple model peaks at the year 2030, has thus fallen to one-sixth of its peak within 20 years. 

This would be a world-wide catastrophe on a scale never before experienced.

EC&MOS.ppt 192

The problems are inter-related.

There is no point in tackling them singly: global warming is associated with greenhouse gasses which are associated with the consumption of fossil fuels … but the production of the machinery that creates them results in untold contamination of the waterways and the seas.

We are set on target for a disaster of immense proportions ... especially if one considers the nuclear radiation - nuclear winter - that will be unleashed as we fight over scarce resources.

EC&MOS.ppt 195

For everyone alive today to live as we do in the West five backup planets engaged in nothing but agriculture would be required.

THERE IS THEREFORE NO WAY IN WHICH “THE AMERICAN DREAM” CAN BE REALISED IN OTHER COUNTRIES (SUCH AS CHINA) THAT ARE TRYING TO EMBRACE IT WITHOUT DESTROYING THE PLANET.

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THE FINANCIAL SITUATION

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There is money worth 80 times total annual world production circulating round the globe, supposedly to control 1/80th of itself.

How does this come about? Creation of money.

Show videolink: video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279

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“Saving the Banks”

Injection of 11 trillion US dollars.

Some Notes

1. The money was created out of thin air by the banks themselves.2. It was then "lent" to governments at a variable rate of interest which, although currently low, is bound to be increased.3. The governments then used it to "rescue" the banks ... ie they paid it back.4. The banks then invested it ... ie they lent it to others at interest ... or paid it out as profits.5. The banks or their shareholders are then using it to buy the assets (eg health services; transport infrastructure; privatised management of local authorities themselves) which governments and local authorities are being forced to sell to repay the "loans" and the interest thereon.6. Taxpayers are being forced to hand over more of their income or, better, sell assets to pay the taxes, to enable governments to "repay" the loan (of fictional money).

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And that is only the tail end of this mind-blowing trick.

Because the "financial crisis" was orchestrated in the first place to create the illusion that there was an imminent likelihood of a melt down in the financial system.

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This orchestration of crises to secure panic intervention follows procedures explicitly formulated by Milton Friedman to bring about the privatisation of everything and the ownership of the world by those who own the Federal Reserve Bank.

While these procedures are legitimised by references to freedom, the “free market”, “development”, and efficiency they are, in fact, designed to do exactly the opposite:

The objective is to create a world owned and managed by the few.

The first steps toward creating the present “crisis” (AKA

“Management Step”) were taken by President Nixon.

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1. Unilateral US withdrawal from the Bretton Woods Agreement.

a. Removal of all links between US dollar and gold or coin, both internationally and internally. Paper money must be accepted as settlement of debts.

b. Explicit statement that US would not honour international debts.

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2. Decrease in fraction of private lending that banks must hold as assets from 11% to 2.5% This led the banks to put pressure on their

staff to lend this extra money.

Bank staff responded by generating lists of securities which customers could claim to possess and getting their customers to testify that they possessed them.

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Note the uselessness of “democracy” in this context.

The US congress rejected, by an overwhelming majority, the proposal that the Government should go into debt (ie borrow the money) “needed” to “rescue” the banks.

But the leaders of the two main political parties got together and agreed to do it anyway.

Clearly new arrangements are required to run society in the long term public interest

Now look at “Third World Debt”

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There is, in reality, no “Third World Debt”: No money has been transferred or diverted from any other actual or potential productive activity.

The “debt” is entirely fictional, based on money that has been created out of thin air.

Thus the true rate of interest is infinite.

The “debt” is a fiction – a myth.

But it is a very convenient fiction because it offers a

legitimisation for subjugation and

exploitation.

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Nor is that the end of the story.

Money “lent” to Third World is sucked back with enormous “interest” plus matching capital (to confirm genuine interest!) to purchase consultancies and goods – mainly armaments from the West.

The net flow to the West amounts to $40 billion a year.

As a result of IMF policies, “Third world” countries are required to run down their public services, sell their nationalised industries, and to export at below cost. The ownership of Third World assets flows to West.

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As a result of World Bank and IMF policies, Third World countries are routinely forced to:

. Sell their nationalised industries and other national assets.

. Give loans to the TNCs who purchase them (in the hope of retaining jobs).

. Subsidise TNCs' exports.

. Move out of manufacturing into the export of basic agricultural and mineral commodities.

. Sell these commodities in a buyers market in competition with other countries who have been forced into the same position.

. Cut wages and welfare.

. Eliminate subsidies which benefit the poor. /cont.

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Third World countries are routinely forced to (Cont.):

. Cut back on the public service needed to manage and oversee their economies.

. Cut back on the regulatory framework which plays such an important part in promoting the well-being of the West.

As if this were not enough, these countries are:• not allowed to purchase the licences and the equipment required to process their agricultural and mineral commodities, and• confronted by all manner of tariff barriers, quotas, “voluntary” agreements, and non-tariff barriers involving irrelevant specifications (which only Western products can meet) when they seek to enter Western markets.

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To add insult to injury, Western manufacturers:

(a) Dump their manufactured products - and especially drugs and pesticides banned in the West in these countries at below cost, thus further forestalling the growth of local industry.

(b) Ship components (often only nominally) around the world so that profits are, through the mechanism of transfer pricing, only made in tax havens.

(c) Rely on these Third World countries, for a small fee, to dispose of millions of tons of highly poisonous nuclear and chemical waste from pharmaceuticals and other industry.

(d) Have exported their labour-intensive, dirty, and most polluting industries to the Third World

.

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These processes increase the disparity between the average incomes of those living in rich and poor countries and between rich and poor within countries.

It follows that the trajectory upon which international "development" has been propelled is now more than a cause for alarm: It can only lead to conflict, terrorism, and genocide.

The Marxist class struggle has, in effect, been internationalised.

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23 individuals (not companies)

own 41% of the world’s capital.

There is far more concentration of wealth than Marx ever realized could

be the case.

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WTO “Agreements”Require governments to:

• Reduce “barriers to free trade” (ie remove environmental and community protection legislation.

• Privatise all government services, including education and health care to the maximum extent possible.

(continued on next OHD)

WTO Agreements require governments to: (contd)

• Make it illegal to say anything which would damage the long term profitability of a private company.

• Make it Illegal to market e.g. seeds whose genetic codes have not been registered. (n.b. prevents farmers adapting plants to ecological niches).

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The EU “Treaty”

Agreement to do these things, as well as undertake a range of military and other activities, is now built into the European “Treaty” previously lmpwm as its draft “constitution”.

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But, having noted these extraordinary things about money supply, “GDP”, and the role of world management directly through the monetary system and international law making to cement and enforce those arrangements ..

… we may now note that quality of life depends hardly at all on the kind of things money can buy – and the financial, marketing, and management arrangements which go with them.

Indeed, these arrangements tend to destroy the capacity of societies to live in an ecologically sustainable way.

EC&MOS.ppt 203

Marks and others have combined Rees’s “Ecological Footprint” indices with indices of Life Expectancy and

Life Satisfaction indices (derived from surveys of personal happiness).

The resulting “(Un)Happy Planet (HPI) Indices” are available for 178

countries.

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Countries of the World in rank HPI order - 1

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Countries of the World in rank HPI order - 2

Rank Country Life Sat

Life Exp

EF HPI

Reasonable ideal 8.2 82.0 1.5 83.5 141 Mozambique 5.4 41.9 0.7 33.0

142 Cameroon 5.1 45.8 0.9 32.8

143 Djibouti 4.8 52.8 1.3 32.7

144 Ethiopia 4.7 47.6 0.7 32.5

145 Bulgaria 4.3 72.2 2.7 31.6

146 Nigeria 5.5 43.4 1.2 31.1

147 Moldova 3.5 67.7 1.2 31.1

148 Burkina Faso 4.7 47.5 1.1 30.1

149 Lithuania 4.7 72.3 3.9 29.3

150 United States of America 7.4 77.4 9.5 28.8

151 Cote d'Ivoire 4.5 45.9 0.9 28.8

152 Rwanda 4.4 43.9 0.7 28.3

153 Sierra Leone 5.0 40.8 0.9 28.2

154 United Arab Emirates 7.4 78.0 9.9 28.2

155 Angola 4.8 40.8 0.8 27.9

156 South Africa 5.7 48.4 2.8 27.8

157 Sudan 3.6 56.4 1.0 27.7

158 Uganda 4.7 47.3 1.5 27.7

159 Kuwait 7.2 76.9 9.5 27.7

160 Latvia 4.7 71.6 4.4 27.3

161 Niger 4.5 44.4 1.1 26.8

162 Malawi 4.6 39.7 0.7 26.7

163 Zambia 4.9 37.5 0.8 25.9

164 Central African Republic 4.9 39.3 1.1 25.9

165 Belarus 4.0 68.1 3.2 25.8

166 Qatar 7.0 72.8 9.5 25.5

167 Botswana 5.4 36.3 1.3 25.4

168 Chad 4.5 43.6 1.3 25.4

169 Turkmenistan 4.0 62.4 3.1 24.0

170 Equatorial Guinea 5.2 43.3 2.5 23.8

171 Lesotho 4.3 36.3 0.6 23.1

172 Russia 4.3 65.3 4.4 22.8

173 Estonia 5.1 71.3 6.9 22.7

173 Ukraine 3.6 66.1 3.3 22.2

175 Congo, Dem. Rep. of the 3.3 43.1 0.7 20.7

Rank Country Life Sat

Life Exp EF HPI

Reasonable ideal 8.2 82.0 1.5 83.5 176 Burundi 3.0 43.6 0.7 19.0

177 Swaziland 4.2 32.5 1.1 18.4

178 Zimbabwe 3.3 36.9 1.0 16.6

Rank Country Life Sat

Life Exp

EF HPI

Reasonable ideal 8.2 82.0 1.5 83.5 106 Gabon 6.2 54.5 1.7 40.5

107 Libya 5.7 73.6 3.1 40.3

108 United Kingdom 7.1 78.4 5.4 40.3

109 Laos 5.4 54.7 1.0 40.3

110 Benin 5.4 54.0 1.0 40.1

111 Canada 7.6 80.0 6.4 39.8

112 Pakistan 4.3 63.0 0.7 39.4

113 Ireland 7.6 77.7 6.2 39.4

114 Poland 5.9 74.3 3.6 39.3

115 Norway 7.4 79.4 6.2 39.2

116 Macedonia 4.9 73.8 2.3 39.1

117 Israel 6.7 79.7 5.3 39.1

118 Namibia 6.5 48.3 1.6 38.4

119 Sweden 7.7 80.2 7.0 38.2

120 Romania 5.2 71.3 2.7 37.7

121 Hungary 5.7 72.7 3.5 37.6

122 Guinea 5.1 53.7 1.0 37.4

123 Finland 7.7 78.5 7.0 37.4

124 Mauritania 5.3 52.7 1.1 37.3

125 Kazakhstan 5.8 63.2 2.8 36.9

126 Togo 4.9 54.3 0.9 36.9

127 Kenya 5.6 47.2 0.9 36.7

128 Czech Republic 6.4 75.6 5.0 36.6

129 France 6.6 79.5 5.8 36.4

130 Armenia 3.7 71.5 1.0 36.1

131 Singapore 6.9 78.7 6.2 36.1

132 Slovakia 5.4 74.0 3.6 35.8

133 Greece 6.3 78.3 5.4 35.7

134 Tanzania 5.5 46.0 0.9 35.1

135 Guinea-Bissau 5.4 44.7 0.7 35.1

136 Portugal 6.1 77.2 5.2 34.8

137 Eritrea 4.4 53.8 0.7 34.5

138 Bahrain 7.2 74.3 6.6 34.4

139 Australia 7.3 80.3 7.7 34.1

140 Mali 5.3 47.9 1.1 33.7

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• As anticipated, the USA emerges as the most destructive, and almost the least efficient, nation on earth … coming in at 150th place. Although, in overall terms, Russia, Estonia, and the Ukraine come well behind (because of their low quality of life scores) their ecological footprints are very much less.

• The UK (like Germany and most other Westernised countries) has a per capita ecological footprint of half that of the US.

• A number of countries (all those at the top of the table), including most central American countries, manage to deliver relatively long, high-quality, lives in an almost sustainable way.

• Most African countries do very poorly, having both short life expectancies and low quality of life.

EC&MOS.ppt 206

Necessary (and Urgent) Reforms

Dramatically Reduce Energy Consumption.

(Get rid of Motor Cars, Centralised Production, Most Trade,

Central Heating, Air Conditioning, Energy-Intensive Agriculture. i.e. Re-design Cities and Way of Life).

Halt Consumption of Non-Renewable Resources.Reduce Production of Waste.Dismantle "Defence" Industry.Dismantle Nuclear Plants.Abolish Banking, Financial Insurance, Pension

Companies.Disband Centralised Manufacturing, Marketing and

Distribution.Stop the Sorcerer's Apprentice.

EC&MOS.ppt 207

Necessary (andUrgent) Reforms (Cont.)

Radically Reform Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing.

Introduce Social-Science Based Quality of Life Indicators in Place of GNP.

Introduce Information-Based “Pricing“ Based on Human and Natural Resource Consumption.

Introduce Community Support Networks in Place of Drugs-Based Health Care, Insurance and

Pensions.

Introduce Information-Based Skills Exchanges in Place Market Transactions.

Introduce Information-Based Management of World Economic Processes.

EC&MOS.ppt 208

Let us be clear

It follows from what we have seen that radical transformation in our way of life is inevitable.

We are currently set on a disaster course which is becoming exponentially worse.

The only option we have is whether we will act in time to get control of the situation or whether we will wait to be pushed around - and probably eliminated as a species - by forces beyond our control.

. 209

SOME NOTES1. The differences between the way we live now and the way we need

to live if we are to survive as a species are as great as those between hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies.

2. (Although the evidence has not yet been summarised) there is every reason to believe that, by living in a sustainable way, we can achieve a higher quality of life, because our materialistic way of life, based on the conduct of useless "work", does not in fact deliver a high quality of life. Among other things, we need a new definition of, and indices of, Wealth.

3. The changes that are required are pervasive. There are so many of them that they could not possibly be centrally decreed.

4 The problems are interlinked and cannot be tackled independently. The effects of well-intentioned changes introduced independently will be negated by the reactions of the rest of the system.

5. No one knows (or can know) what our new society should look like or what needs to be done to get there. \cont.

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SOME NOTES (Cont.)6. The quest for a solution via ever-larger central governments (e.g.

EC, UN) on the grounds that only they can introduce the system-wide changes that are required is entirely misguided (a) because they are part of the system and act to perpetuate it (the most destructive acts are invariably government initiated), and (b) because they are authoritarian structures, not part of a de-centralised, organic, experimentation, learning, and management system with many feedback loops.

7. What is needed is a new societal learning and management system which experiments, monitors, learns, and reacts without anyone within if having to know anything very much.

This is precisely what Smith and Hayek sought to provide through the market mechanism. The problem is that this mechanism simply does not work.

8. Very little attention has been paid to the question of how to think about, and intervene in, society-wide systems processes so that it becomes possible to "think globally, act locally".

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But, actually, the changes that are required are fairly widely recognised.

40% of the populations of Great Britain, Norway, and Austria endorse the values shown on the next two slides.

The problem is, again, therefore to enact widely shared public views.

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THE NEW VALUES: 1•Exchange Based on Personal Relationships

(Instead of Commercial Transactions).

•Ownwork (Communework) in Place of Organisationally Organised Work.

•Decentralised Production.

•Community Support Networks in Place of: (a) Drugs-Based Health Care (b) Insurance.

•Reduced Transportation of: (a) Goods (b) People.

•Emphasis on Quality of Life Rather Than GNP.\cont.

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THE NEW VALUES: 2•Fair Trade with Third World.

•Recycling.

•Conservation of Both Non-renewable and Renewable Energy, Minerals, and Food.

•Dismantle Defence Industry.

•Stem Destruction of Rain Forests.

•Pollution Control.

•Development and Utilisation of All the Human

Resources that are available.

•Equitable Distribution of Incomes.

•Stem Destruction of Soils, Seas, and Atmosphere: Sustainable Agriculture, Fishing, and Forestry.

Michael Moore’s film “Fahrenheit 9/11” makes a number of well known, but commonly overlooked, problems with current forms of public management very clear:

1. Conventional forms of “democracy” do not result in rejection of thugs and psychopaths.

2. Conventional forms of “democracy” (opposition parties etc.) do not lead to the exposure of lies and double-talk, let alone to the production of viable alternatives.

3. The media cannot be relied upon to question lies and publicise counter information.

4. Corporate interests – linked to making money from the manufacture of the maximum amount of maximally useless work – overwhelmingly determine Government policy.

5. Elected leaders are utterly indifferent to human suffering (one million dead in Iraq) and thus unlikely to be swayed by “moral” arguments. 215

EC&MOS.ppt 216

More generally, neither

common sense

nor

overwhelming public support / public opinion

are sufficient to produce

the desired changes.

It is comforting to believe that the destructive “developments” we have reviewed have come about “accidentally” .. as unanticipated outcomes of practices which in the past worked at least reasonably well in the past.

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But that is not the case!

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We find ourselves back with our earlier observation that we

live in a managed world but with the management being

performed by a largely invisible group of international bankers

and capitalists.

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The urgency of developing alternative forms of public

management to manage the world in the long term public interest could not be more

apparent.

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The information I am about to introduce is, in a sense, even

more disturbing than that previously reviewed.

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But I want to emphasise from the start that there is more than one level of explanation for the phenomena we are discussing.

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At one level the explanation is in terms of human

conspirators.

And that is the level at which we need to look at things to

see what is going on.

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The other level is at the level of social forces … ie in the way we looked at the educational

system.

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My claim is that it is only at this level that we will find a way

forward.

Unfortunately, along the way, we will stumble across evidence that this is going to be even more difficult than we might

have thought.

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So let us have a look at what has been going on.

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Much of what I will be saying is drawn from the work of

Naomi Klein

published in

The Shock Doctrine.

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We have seen that many of the structures that are justified as promoting “development” and “efficiency” have been forced

upon an unwilling world by those who control the Central Reserve Bank, the International Monetary

Fund, and the World Trade Organisation.

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They have also been enshrined in stone in the so-

called “European Constitution”.

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Very many people are well aware that these arrangements do not serve the public interest.

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But just how seriously they run counter to the public interest …

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And just how far those who are promoting them will go to get

their way …

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… is much less well known.

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In her book A Fate Worse than Debt, Susan George showed that, in country after country, the effect of IMF “structural adjustment” programmes was to force countries to lose control over their own futures, to externalise the ownership of enterprises, to stifle education and the development of health care, to inhibit the development of infrastructure, and to increase the division between the rich and the poor.

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Naoimi Klein gives much more graphic detail about how this is engineered and the effects achieved.

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Fundamental and recurring themes include: The staffing of national Departments of Economics and finance by graduates of the “Chicago school” of “economics”. The creation of crises which will legitimise the introduction of draconian infringements of civil liberties, control of the media, the censorship and manipulation of information, and removal of all semblance of democracy. Systematic utilisation on all non-engineered, eg naturally occurring (eg earthquake), crises to the same end. The use of police and army to enforce harsh legislation, curtailment of freedom of speech, imprisonment and torture of dissenters. Manipulation of economic indices.

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Her examples include Chile, Brazil, and Argentina, but other books have traced the consequences of the “economic hitmen” as they moved from country to country.

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But one of the most striking is South Africa.

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While public attention focussed on such things as the differential representation of different minorities in Parliament, committees dealing with “technical” issues such as the wording of the constitution, the control of the Central Bank , and the terms of trade agreed to things like signing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (precursor to the WTO).

The latter included, among other things, a ban on “subsidising” crucial development activities in South Africa, guaranteed interest payments on the international “debts” incurred by the previous government, and conformity to the terms of a new structural adjustment programme

The new constitution guaranteed extension of rights to ownership of land and assets … even though these had been stolen by theft and trickery from native owners.

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The result was that when “The People’s Parliament” came to “power” it had virtually no freedom to do any of the things that had been promised in the “Freedom Charter”.

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None of the promised nationalisation of key industries and services was possible– on the contrary they were committed to privatise those that were already nationalised. There could be no protection to facilitate the emergence of enterprises that were under-developed in South Africa.No legislation to protect the environment could be introduced without the agreement of all other signatories to GATT and GATS to do the same.No barriers could be introduced to deter imports dumped at below cost or subsidised by e.g., the EU.Instead of a Central Bank able to support the activities of government, they found that it was to be run as an autonomous enterprise with its independence enshrined in the very constitution ... and run by the very same people it had always been run by.

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As to public discussion of ways of actually achieving the aims of the Freedom Charter, the mere mention of any such thing was greeted by the threat or actuality of capital flight and devaluation of the currency.It should be noted that capital flight does not simply stem from the actions of the “big boys” who, in reality, own most of the national assets, but from the actions of millions of people who have been induced to invest what amount to pittances – often in attempts to secure their “savings” and find ways of paying off their debts.

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The result of all this is that, in the 13 years after Mandela left prison, the average life expectancy for South Africans dropped by 13 years. Since the ANC came to “power”, the number of people living on less than $1 a day has doubled – from 2 to 4 million. Far from spreading the ownership of land, close to 1 million people have been evicted from their farms. As of 2007, more than a quarter of South Africans were living in shantytown shacks.

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How much not in the public interest:

Ethiopia, South Africa, USA

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Strategy developed by

Milton Friedman

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Machiavellian

Presented to the public as one thing - the opposite of what it was.

Presented as a route to freedom, choice, control of one’s life and destiny; a route to the efficient use of resources,

a means of enhancing quality of life: security, health, happiness.

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Friedmanite, “neo-classical” economics did not spread because of its academic merit.

Instead it was imposed on the most influential (“Ivy League”) universities by those who owned them .. Ie the very people who own the Federal Reserve Bank

Even less did it recommend itself to the to-be-exploited countries.

Instead “Chicago School” economists were introduced into the universities and government

structure as a result of pressure from the US government with aid of CIA

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If “advocacy” through diplomatic channels or clandestine intervention by the CIA diid not/does not work, the next step is to create or capitalise upon a financial crisis and then offer a “rescue” “loan” with a view to trapping the country into committing to a “structural adjustment programme”.

If that still does not work the next step is to deepen the crisis and use it to introduce “emergency powers” to create a police state with total control over the media, diffusion of information and freedom of speech accompanied, of course by, interrogation, and terror.

If these things still do not work, the final step is to send in the US military to “restore order” and “protect US interests”

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It must be reiterated that this is not a strategy developed by the “Defence Department “ of the US Government, but a strategy explicity formulated, promoted, and taught by the “academic” economist Milton Friedman.

(Among other things, Friedman specifically recommended it to Mrs. Thatcher … who was one of his great admirers and promoters.)

More importantly, it was a strategy taught to the hundreds of “Chicago School” “economists” who were infiltrated into influential positions in universities and government Departments of Finance and Economics in countries around the world.

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It was/is not merely a strategy formulated by some dissident academic …

Klein has documented that it was the actual sequence of events followed in country after

country…

And not merely in country after country but now in both naturally occurring crises and disasters

and engineered crises … such as in New Orleans in the US and now in Haiti.

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How are we to understand these developments?

Given that most people are horrified to learn of these developments, explanations simply in terms of personal ethics and “evil human

nature” seem inadequate.

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While “explanations” in terms of psychological dispositions, such as the tendency to laud strong leaders and economic greed clearly play a role,

we will return now to the (more neutral) task of trying to understand the social forces that have deflected the educational system from its goals and, using our emergent understanding of socio-cybernetics, trying to design a more appropriate management system for that domain of activities.

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There are, in fact, two linked levels of application of socio cybernetics here:

1.To understand, map, measure and harness the social forces involved.

2.To design a guidance system – a socio-cybernetic system – which will operate without central control.

We shall see the first is more difficult – even depressingly more difficult that we might have thought – so we will need to return to it more than once it as a topic in its own right.