← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Walter Yannis
Thread ID: 14569 | Posts: 7 | Started: 2004-07-26
2004-07-26 08:37 | User Profile
Corporate power is the driving force behind US foreign policy - and the slaughter in Iraq
JK Galbraith Thursday July 15, 2004 [URL=http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1261593,00.html]The Guardian [/URL]
At the end of the second world war, I was the director for overall effects of the United States strategic bombing survey - Usbus, as it was known. I led a large professional economic staff in assessment of the industrial and military effects of the bombing of Germany. The strategic bombing of German industry, transportation and cities, was gravely disappointing. Attacks on factories that made such seemingly crucial components as ball bearings, and even attacks on aircraft plants, were sadly useless. With plant and machinery relocation and more determined management, fighter aircraft production actually increased in early 1944 after major bombing. In the cities, the random cruelty and death inflicted from the sky had no appreciable effect on war production or the war.
These findings were vigorously resisted by the Allied armed services - especially, needless to say, the air command, even though they were the work of the most capable scholars and were supported by German industry officials and impeccable German statistics, as well as by the director of German arms production, Albert Speer. All our conclusions were cast aside. The air command's public and academic allies united to arrest my appointment to a Harvard professorship and succeeded in doing so for a year.
Nor is this all. The greatest military misadventure in American history until Iraq was the war in Vietnam. When I was sent there on a fact-finding mission in the early 60s, I had a full view of the military dominance of foreign policy, a dominance that has now extended to the replacement of the presumed civilian authority. In India, where I was ambassador, in Washington, where I had access to President Kennedy, and in Saigon, I developed a strongly negative view of the conflict. Later, I encouraged the anti-war campaign of Eugene McCarthy in 1968. His candidacy was first announced in our house in Cambridge.
At this time the military establishment in Washington was in support of the war. Indeed, it was taken for granted that both the armed services and the weapons industries should accept and endorse hostilities - Dwight Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex".
In 2003, close to half the total US government discretionary expenditure was used for military purposes. A large part was for weapons procurement or development. Nuclear-powered submarines run to billions of dollars, individual planes to tens of millions each.
Such expenditure is not the result of detached analysis. From the relevant industrial firms come proposed designs for new weapons, and to them are awarded production and profit. In an impressive flow of influence and command, the weapons industry accords valued employment, management pay and profit in its political constituency, and indirectly it is a treasured source of political funds. The gratitude and the promise of political help go to Washington and to the defence budget. And to foreign policy or, as in Vietnam and Iraq, to war. That the private sector moves to a dominant public-sector role is apparent.
None will doubt that the modern corporation is a dominant force in the present-day economy. Once in the US there were capitalists. Steel by Carnegie, oil by Rockefeller, tobacco by Duke, railroads variously and often incompetently controlled by the moneyed few. In its market position and political influence, modern corporate management, unlike the capitalist, has public acceptance. A dominant role in the military establishment, in public finance and the environment is assumed. Other public authority is also taken for granted. Adverse social flaws and their effect do, however, require attention.
[B]One, as just observed, is the way the corporate power has shaped the public purpose to its own needs. It ordains that social success is more automobiles, more television sets, a greater volume of all other consumer goods - and more lethal weaponry. Negative social effects - pollution, destruction of the landscape, the unprotected health of the citizenry, the threat of military action and death - do not count as such. [/B]
The corporate appropriation of public initiative and authority is unpleasantly visible in its effect on the environment, and dangerous as regards military and foreign policy. Wars are a major threat to civilised existence, and a corporate commitment to weapons procurement and use nurtures this threat. It accords legitimacy, and even heroic virtue, to devastation and death.
[B]Power in the modern great corporation belongs to the management. The board of directors is an amiable entity, meeting with self-approval but fully subordinate to the real power of the managers. The relationship resembles that of an honorary degree recipient to a member of a university faculty. [/B]
The myths of investor authority, the ritual meetings of directors and the annual stockholder meeting persist, but no mentally viable observer of the modern corporation can escape the reality. Corporate power lies with management - a bureaucracy in control of its task and its compensation. Rewards can verge on larceny. On frequent recent occasions, it has been referred to as the corporate scandal.
As the corporate interest moves to power in what was the public sector, it serves the corporate interest. It is most clearly evident in the largest such movement, that of nominally private firms into the defence establishment. From this comes a primary influence on the military budget, on foreign policy, military commitment and, ultimately, military action. War. Although this is a normal and expected use of money and its power, the full effect is disguised by almost all conventional expression.
Given its authority in the modern corporation it was natural that management would extend its role to politics and to government. Once there was the public reach of capitalism; now it is that of corporate management. In the US, corporate managers are in close alliance with the president, the vice-president and the secretary of defence. Major corporate figures are also in senior positions elsewhere in the federal government; one came from the bankrupt and thieving Enron to preside over the army.
Defence and weapons development are motivating forces in foreign policy. For some years, there has also been recognised corporate control of the Treasury. And of environmental policy.
We cherish the progress in civilisation since biblical times and long before. But there is a needed and, indeed, accepted qualification. The US and Britain are in the bitter aftermath of a war in Iraq. We are accepting programmed death for the young and random slaughter for men and women of all ages. So it was in the first and second world wars, and is still so in Iraq. Civilised life, as it is called, is a great white tower celebrating human achievements, but at the top there is permanently a large black cloud. Human progress dominated by unimaginable cruelty and death.
Civilisation has made great strides over the centuries in science, healthcare, the arts and most, if not all, economic well-being. But it has also given a privileged position to the development of weapons and the threat and reality of war. Mass slaughter has become the ultimate civilised achievement.
The facts of war are inescapable - death and random cruelty, suspension of civilised values, a disordered aftermath. Thus the human condition and prospect as now supremely evident. The economic and social problems here described can, with thought and action, be addressed. So they have already been. War remains the decisive human failure.
[I]This is an edited extract from The Economics of Innocent Fraud: Truth for Our Time, by JK Galbraith, published by Allen Lane. To order a copy for ã8 (RRP ã10) plus p&p, call the Guardian Book Service on 0870 836 0875 [/I]
2004-07-26 08:43 | User Profile
Our current situation is but one step removed from that of the Soviet Union.
Enormous assets are controlled by a tiny class of entrenched bureaucratic managers, and this gives them power to influence state policies.
Galbraith leaves out the obvious - the Tribe is vastly overrepresented in this tiny class of corporate bureaucrats, and so powerful corporate influence is channeled toward ends that strengthen Israel and weaken gentiles.
As Stalin's famous slogan put it, "The Cadres Determine Everything!"
Still, it's a forthright statement of the problem.
The cancer is the corporate organizational form itself. It must be banned altogether - or at least greatly curtailed in its application.
All legal entities that currently provide limited liability must be reorganized as general partnerships, sole proprietorships, or production co-ops. A generous time should be granted to affect the reorganization. This will remove the terrible distortions in the free market that artificial, state-sponsored limited liability provides, and will deal a terrible blow against our Tribal corporate overlords, while protecting the legitimate property interests of stockholders.
Walter
2004-07-27 17:38 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Corporate power is the driving force behind US foreign policy - and the slaughter in Iraq
JK Galbraith Thursday July 15, 2004 [URL=http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1261593,00.html]The Guardian [/URL]
At the end of the second world war, [I][COLOR=Red]I was the director for overall effects of the United States strategic bombing survey - Usbus, as it was known. I led a large professional economic staff in assessment of the industrial and military effects of the bombing of Germany. The strategic bombing of German industry, transportation and cities, was gravely disappointing. Attacks on factories that made such seemingly crucial components as ball bearings, and even attacks on aircraft plants, were sadly useless. [/COLOR] [/I] With plant and machinery relocation and more determined management, fighter aircraft production actually increased in early 1944 after major bombing. In the cities, the random cruelty and death inflicted from the sky had no appreciable effect on war production or the war.
These findings were vigorously resisted by the Allied armed services - especially, needless to say, the air command, even though they were the work of the most capable scholars and were supported by German industry officials and impeccable German statistics, as well as by the director of German arms production, Albert Speer. All our conclusions were cast aside. The air command's public and academic allies united to arrest my appointment to a Harvard professorship and succeeded in doing so for a year. [/QUOTE]Having a fool such as Galbraith comment on war is akin to having lectures on whoring techniques from Mother Theresa.
From my notes:
QUOTE on effectiveness of allied bombing. Commenting on a book smuggled into his cell, Albert Speer judged the semiofficial history, [I]The Army Air Forces in World War II[/I] by Craven and Gates with collaboration by George Ball, to have missed the decisive point. It placed undue emphasis on war production lost by Germany. The losses were not so serious although in 1943 Speer estimated losses in production of 10,000 heavy guns of more than 7.5 centimeters caliber and approximately 6000 medium-heavy and heavy tanks.
The real importance of the air war was opening a second front long before American and British forces invaded Europe. The unpredictability of the attacks made the front gigantic. Defense against air attacks demanded production of thousands of anti-aircraft guns and storage of massive quantities of ammunition over all areas of Germany. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were inactive, often for months at a time.
Speer deemed this the greatest lost battle on the German side. Losses from the retreats in Russia and from the surrender at Stalingrad were "considerably" less. The 20,000 anti-aircraft guns could have been deployed far more effectively on the eastern front as anti-tank guns. In Germany they only provided a fireworks display for the civilian populace as the shells reached the bombers at high altitude too slowly to be effective.[/QUOTE]I opt for Speer's analysis over that mendacious fool.
2004-07-27 18:28 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Our current situation is but one step removed from that of the Soviet Union.
Enormous assets are controlled by a tiny class of entrenched bureaucratic managers, and this gives them power to influence state policies.
Galbraith leaves out the obvious - the Tribe is vastly overrepresented in this tiny class of corporate bureaucrats, and so powerful corporate influence is channeled toward ends that strengthen Israel and weaken gentiles.
As Stalin's famous slogan put it, "The Cadres Determine Everything!"
Still, it's a forthright statement of the problem.
The cancer is the corporate organizational form itself. It must be banned altogether - or at least greatly curtailed in its application.
All legal entities that currently provide limited liability must be reorganized as general partnerships, sole proprietorships, or production co-ops. A generous time should be granted to affect the reorganization. This will remove the terrible distortions in the free market that artificial, state-sponsored limited liability provides, and will deal a terrible blow against our Tribal corporate overlords, while protecting the legitimate property interests of stockholders.
Walter[/QUOTE]
You got that right Walter,,,,,, the reason the Jews formed the Communist party was not in order for everyone to have the same but to be able to get all the money in one place and that way control Russia.
As you can see they failed in Russia but succeeded in Amerika, anyone can control you only if you allowed them that power and it looks to me that our government has given the Jews all the power that they need in order to do so in the land of the "free".
2004-07-30 18:53 | User Profile
Lack Of Reason, Lack Of Interest
By Tom Fenton ANTIBES, France, July 19, 2004
In a new study of media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a group of American college students was asked, "Who is occupying the occupied territories, and what nationality are the settlers?ââ¬Â Fairly simple questions, but only 29 percent knew the correct answers. The Israelis are both the occupiers and the settlers.
Some thought the Palestinians occupy the occupied territories, but the Israelis are the settlers. Others thought the Israelis occupy the occupied territories, but the Palestinians are the settlers. A smaller number thought the Palestinians were both the settlers and the occupiers. The rest simply could not answer.
The study points out that the Americans questioned were journalism and media students and some had even done projects on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. So their answers clearly overstated the publicââ¬â¢s level of knowledge about the Middle East.
2004-07-31 22:55 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis] All legal entities that currently provide limited liability must be reorganized as general partnerships, sole proprietorships, or production co-ops. A generous time should be granted to affect the reorganization. This will remove the terrible distortions in the free market that artificial, state-sponsored limited liability provides, and will deal a terrible blow against our Tribal corporate overlords, while protecting the legitimate property interests of stockholders. [/QUOTE]
Walter:
Are there any mainline distributists who take on this question? I have not seen it addressed by Belloc, Chesterton, Penty etc. It has occurred to me but I would like some references on the issue. Thanks.
2004-08-02 13:09 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Buster]Walter:
Are there any mainline distributists who take on this question? I have not seen it addressed by Belloc, Chesterton, Penty etc. It has occurred to me but I would like some references on the issue. Thanks.[/QUOTE]
It seems to be a general opinion among Distributists, but as far as I know neither Chesterton nor Belloc ever took it on.
I just read a book called "When Corporations Rule the World" by David Korten. Available on Amazon. This book comes at the issue of corporate power from the political left - it's a Naderite tract, really. Korten discusses how the incorporation statues came about, and how this organizational form is ultimately all about concentrating economic power such that the stakeholders can EXTERNALIZE costs. I could have kissed him for saying that. Most of what the corporate libertarians call "economies of scale" is in fact the ability to externalize social costs, thus privatizing social capital. He has a chapter in there called "the Betrayal of Adam Smith" which is right on the money. I totally buy that analysis, and it's a conclusion I arrived at coming from the FAR OPPOSITE of the policitcal spectrum. Korten doesn't actually take the step in calling for the mass reorganization of corporations, but he does recommend intermediate remedies, like a right of first refusal for workers and local communities to buy out at fair market value companies that are outsourcing or relocating or doing massive layoffs. Good idea, actually. That would protect the stockholders in their legitimate interests while recognizing the "externalization of costs" problem, while at the same time offering a free market remedy. Korten is all about free markets, by the way. Good book. The problem is that he's a Pagan (we must fing our ecological niche in "the living cosmos"), which leads him astray into an extreme form of environmentalism, IMHO, but I digress.
Korten also wrote a sequel to this book called "The Post Corporate World" I think. I'm travelling the next week, and I left it at home. Haven't read it yet, but I was given to understand that after the events of the last several years he concludes that we simply can't afford to keep the corporation.
I highly recommend these books. I think that we have a lot in common with the leftist anti-globalist types, and that if we could just get them to see some of their inconsistencies (he's obviously anit-racist but believes in "bio-diversity" for all other organisms) then we might have something to work with.
As I said, I'm on the road, so this might get spotty the next couple weeks.
Regards,
Walter