How Long, O Lord, How Long?

I'm in a prognosticating mood. Unfortunately, the future looks kind of bleak to me. Here's what I mean.

I've been reading lately about how the IMF and World Bank have been used by orthodox neo-liberal economists (primarily American) to plunder almost every country under the sun. Good reads in this regard are John Perkins's Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: The Shocking Story of How America Really Took Over the World (2004), David Harvey's A Brief History of Neo-Liberalism (2007), and Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2008). There are, of course, others - particularly for those of you with a background in economics and political theory. My choices are the soft-core dumb-public versions.

I guess before I get on to the predicting, I need to do a little explaining. Hopefully not too much. Neo-liberalism is a crazy mythology / ideology that if all constraints are removed from the market - everything from trade unions, taxes, tariffs, any and all laws regarding economic functions, all trading regulations, all currency controls, any and all public services (because they are government interference) - if all that stuff is done away with completely, the result will be the greatest possible good for the greatest number of people. "The Invisible Hand" of the market is, in this mythology, a kind and benevolent deity who wants the best for everyone. It's absolute bullshit and if you read the statements of the chief protagonists they sound crazier than the most far-out ravings of Marxist ideologues. But some very important individuals seem to believe this shit. And a many more important people have become extremely rich by the actions of the true believers (and those they can con, threaten, or beat into accepting their doctrine).

The IMF has been restructuring countries all over the world for almost 40 years. I've used that term before but never explained it. In case you've never heard it, restructuring is the term of choice for the process of privatizing everything a country owns and selling it off (they have to sell because they need money or they wouldn't be dealing with the IMF at all). It also means destroying any laws protecting labour (because organized labour is an impediment to the free action of the market) and removing governmental support for all social services (which should be provided privately and for profit). What this means is the IMF is holding a garage sale and it's your society out there on the card table.

The Americans have controlled the IMF almost since the beginning because, although it was supposed to be one country = one vote like the UN, it changed almost immediately to one dollar = one vote. And the US has more money than anyone else. In this case, to be clear, it is a combination of the American government and American investment banks and other financial institutions.

So if the US economy isn't doing well on its own, one sure fire way to pump up the numbers is to find a country with a lot of national resources, crack it open via IMF restructuring and buy everything at fire sale prices. This is all possible because the IMF answers to those with the deepest pockets.

And it makes me ask two questions. First, people wonder why much of the world hates Americans? That's a rhetorical question. Obviously, the average American has about as much to do with the fuck-uppery of the IMF as the average Iraqi has to do with Al Qaeda and they were just fine, right? By the way, "weapons of mass destruction" and "axis of evil" are American code for "oil" and "oil" but I trust you already figured that out.

Second question; what happens when America is no longer the richest country? Many people might think it would be difficult to IMFuck the good old US of A because it is already a neo-liberal paradise, right? Google "america subsidy" and you'll find out. The farmers are getting a shitload of cash that must appall all true neo-liberals. Although it isn't very popular now in some circles, the public subsidy for health care would have to go (including Medicare and Medicade). Social security would be gone, as would almost every form of pension. And there is the small matter of America's unbelievably enormous corporate welfare system. And the $1 trillion + that went to the banks. That is definitely anti-competitive.

How will you feel when you can't afford to send your kids to a University owned by a Chinese multi-national because the German multi-national that fired you from your job (at the US Postal Service) and there is no more social safety net. You better pray you don't wind up in a prison owned by an Russian oligarch because everyone knows those aren't pretty.

I'm not so pessimistic as to think that will probably happen. But I do think it's a possibility. On the plus side, by the time the US gets rolled by the IMF you'll probably be unemployed and living in what the UN describes as "desperate poverty" already. Think about that for awhile; poverty wasn't negative enough, they had to find a whole other way to classify a good portion of the planet's population who were living in conditions that made "poverty" seem inadequate as a description. I think the technical definition is less than $1 US per day.

So, this future hellscape is inevitable right? I try hard not to think so. And the way to make it impossible is 1) always remember there are some things that shouldn't be for sale, and 2) make loud noises (the cruder the better) when anyone who actually believes everything should be for sale tries to say so.

One way or the other - I guess technically that should be two ways or the other because there are three ways I can see this going down. There's the future hellscape where Trillionaires rule like gods and make the rest of us fight in gladiatorial combat for their entertainment. There's the violent revolution where we fight (not as gladiators) until this shit gets decided. And then there's my preferred option, where we as a species come to realize that when we degrade each other through grinding poverty, we degrade ourselves as well. That the measure of humanity really is the state of the worst off among us and we do best what we do together. The point is things are going to change and, while I fear they might get worse, when I look at the world I wonder if it hasn't already got bad enough for us to learn some sense and start making things better. That's why this post is titled, "How Long, O Lord, How Long".