The New Green Paradigm

"Don't forget, these men cleared billions of dollars in bonuses by fudging financial statements while packaging trillions of dollars of fraudulent loans into securities. This was money taken from shareholders who were lied to, and investors who bought these toxic securities."--Mike Stathis, Managing Principal of Apex Venture Advisors

Although they've been doing their damnedest to maintain their power the Western global elite, by which I mean the Anglo/American power-brokers, may have finally bitten off more than even they can devour.

First, a little background: At the turn of the 20th century a number of influential persons were interested in bringing the establishments of the United States and Great Britain closer together. Consequently, a new, elitist society was formed with branches in London and New York which became known as the Pilgrims Society. Robber barons, archdeacons and bankers, they would gather from time to time in the rarefied confines of luxury hotels like the Victoria, the Savoy and the Waldorf Astoria.

The Pilgrims network

The all too familiar names represent a who's who on society pages. Astor, Duke, Mellon, Stillman, Aldrich, DuPont, Meyer, Vanderbilt, Belmont, Gould, Morgan, Warburg, Baker,Peabody,Carnegie, Harriman, Whitney, Lamont, Dodge, Lodge, Rockefeller, Drexel, Loeb and Schiff feature prominently among them. Only time will tell whether they are capable of restraining (or retraining) their rapaciousness or are prepared to perish along with their dream of 20% returns gifted by the fairy dust of unfettered markets and centralized capitalism.

Contrary to their gilded imaginations, neoliberalism, by undermining the autonomy of nation states has unleashed a monster too large to be managed and too wild to be tamed. Either it will be destroyed or it will destroy our present financial system. The chance of the first actually occurring seems only slightly more likely than achieving world peace-- yet even the most servile Wall Street bankers admit in their sanguine moments that only the products of worthwhile labor rather than anymore financial "wizardry" can stop the bleeding and rescue the system. Laissez-faire is fresh out of magic bubbles.

If Obama is serious about saving the day he needs to puncture the hot-air balloon blown up by the Reagan myth (and expanded if somewhat reluctantly, by President Clinton) that the capital markets, unlike governments, are both efficient and self-regulating.

As Michael Meeropol attempted to warn us back in 2001 in his book, Surrender: How the Clinton Administration Completed the Reagan Revolution: "In reality, the consensus between the two parties on the superiority of American government and the beneficence of capitalism rules any challenge to the status quo politically out of bounds (even the candidacy of longtime policy activist Ralph Nader was seen as beyond the pale). The Republican and Democratic conventions were long commercials for American capitalism and imperialism paid for by American corporations.

"American prosperity from the New Economy was continuously celebrated throughout the campaign. The dark side to the recovery that threatens its long-term viability has been less noted: record trade deficits creating the largest debtor nation in history, crushing corporate and individual debt levels, an enormous speculative financial bubble (seen vividly in the astonishing drop of the NASDAQ), and shocking income inequality that has continued to worsen."

It is disappointing that after having found the courage to anger his fellow Democrats by declaring that the Clinton administration had not altered Reagan's neoliberal trajectory Obama has resorted to using the same tired lot who cling to their discredited belief that economies can be successfuly managed through 'trickle-down' monetary policy in place of trade adjustments, long-term planning and capital regulation.

Any history student can tell you that it was not until the 19th century's "revolutionary middle class" took charge of government that societies began to see a more equitable distribution of wealth. Before then, countries had a small but almost omnipotent wealthy class, a tiny and largely impotent mercantile class in the middle, and at bottom, an enormous pool of terrified workers barely surviving as peons and serfs.

Only the rise of liberal democracies as the mercantilists forged alliances with skilled labor allowed the new bourgeousie to wrest power from the leisure elite. Thanks to the Reagan/Thatcher counter-revolution that vibrant middle class is on the verge of extinction. For the great masses of humanity not already trapped in abject poverty, any chance of retaining a reasonably healthy standard of living will depend on their willingness to assert their rights and take action. Unfortunately, to manage the imbalances of an inequitable global economy while trying to sustain and support our increasingly ravaged ecosystem demands finding the collective will to cut and replace some of our largest but largely stagnating industries.

The challenge will not been taken up by our green-eyed Pilgrims or their lackeys in the corporate press, that ball is in labor's court. Will we, the threatened "workers", have the courage to strike boldly-- not for the same old wage/benefit paradigm, but for truly radical solutions? Unlike the leisure elite we rely on value rather than profit. That requires putting modesty ahead of excess and resisting the Gilded Age's lure of endless returns and mindless profligacy.