Winter winds: What do they bring?
By Peter Ewart
Thursday, January 04, 2007 03:45 AM
The winds this winter have been unsettling, even eerie. Sometimes they blow high in the trees, and other times they batter against the walls and rattle the windows. Snowdrifts pile up against doors and trees are uprooted. Power outages plunge our homes and towns into what seems to be an unnatural darkness. Years ago, we would welcome these winds as they often were chinooks bringing a respite of warm Pacific air to our frigid Northern winter. But today, we sit in our living rooms or lie awake on our beds in the night and wonder if somehow the human race has finally done it to the environment, and these winds are just a harbinger of more dramatic and catastrophic changes that could threaten life as we know it on this planet.
But other more ominous winds are lurking today in the political and economic sphere that have greater power than any hurricane or typhoon. For the latter half of the Twentieth Century, two great countries, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., ruled the world. Bristling with weapons of mass destruction, they were caught in a stalemate, a sort of menacing dance with each other that created a strange kind of equilibrium. The clouds of war were always there, dark and threatening on the horizon. But there was also an order, albeit an unjust one for many, that resulted in an uneasy calm in international affairs. East was East and West was West, and two arrogant kings stood astride the oceans.
All of this changed at the end of the 1980’s when the Soviet Union collapsed from within, and the world moved from the long “freeze” of the cold war into black, uncharted waters beset by unknown winds and currents that had built up over many years under the rule of the two superpowers.
Many thought that this brave new world would be “uni-polar,” with just one big power ruling – the one that was still standing – the United States of America. But history has its own cunning. The disequilibrium that set in with the fall of the Soviet Union has intensified in the world with disorder and change spreading like dandelion seeds on a summer breeze. The U.S. itself, like the Soviet Union before it, is now facing the prospect of being toppled from its position as superpower and policeman of the world.
Everywhere the U.S. is beset with difficulties. In what many call the worst foreign policy disaster in its history, the U.S. is bogged down in the swamp of an unwinnable, deeply unpopular war in the Middle East. On a world scale, American influence is waning, both economically and politically, and its reputation is in shambles. Its former backyard – Latin America – which it once ruled with an iron hand in the twentieth century, now rises up in unprecedented defiance, as witnessed by the rise of Chavez in Venezuela and anti-globalization movements in Bolivia, Equador, Argentina and other Latin American countries.
Asia is rising. Indeed, analysts expect Toyota to surpass GM next year as the number one automaker in the world. While manufacturing plants close in Ohio and California, the foundations of new ones are laid in Shanghai and New Delhi by workers earning a few pennies an hour. Like pirates, U.S. multinational companies sail on to greater treasures across the oceans. Dazed American communities remain behind, struggling to pick up the pieces of de-industrialization, grasping at call centers and casinos for economic salvation.
The consumer society, perfected and then exported abroad by the U.S., has reached its logical conclusion. Just about every family has a VCR and a car, and endless trinkets and gizmos from Walmart (all made in China). But most are in mortgage or credit card debt up to their ears, with many, hopelessly so. Just recently, credit card companies in the U.S. pushed through legislation (supported by both Republicans and Democrats) that stop individuals from discharging their credit card debt by declaring personal bankruptcy. Moneylenders have a keen smell for ill economic winds. Thus some people will end up paying off their credit card debts for the rest of their life, and even – if the moneylenders have their way – into the afterlife.
The U.S. now has an unprecedented $8 trillion public debt, which is expected to reach $10 trillion in two years by the time George W. Bush leaves office. The American dollar is significantly overpriced, being propped up by the Japanese, Chinese and others so that Americans can continue to buy their products.
For over twenty years, the U.S. has been the biggest promoter of globalization, privatization, and other aspects of neo-liberalism. But in that time, the U.S. has seen the fruits of its globalization, becoming the biggest debtor country in the world and amassing the largest trade deficit. History can be unmerciful in its irony. It is said that, several centuries ago, the first person imprisoned in France’s notorious jail, the Bastille, was the architect who designed it. A similar fate could await the U.S. with its globalization strategy.
How long will the world act as a workhorse for the U.S., while Americans drink Starbucks, shop at the Mall and gamble on the stock market? The world is full of second rate powers that were once dominant ones. Greece, Rome, Spain, Turkey, the list goes on and on. When the Twentieth Century started, Britain and France were leading industrial and military powers. Today, they are secondary powers. Will the U.S. be far behind?
If the American empire does seriously contract, then expect more political chaos as the burden of this contraction is shifted onto the backs of the American people. Also expect that Canada will have an even tougher time dealing with the U.S. as the Americans pass on their economic difficulties to their trading partners.
One of the benefits of globalization, its supporters say, is that it links everyone in the world together for mutual benefit. But is all that linkage a good thing? Several centuries ago during the slave trade, slaves on ships used to be tied together on long anchor chains. If there was a threat of being intercepted by ships from anti-slavery governments, the shipowners would simply throw the heavy anchor overboard dragging all the slaves with it. Given the trade linkages, a similar thing could happen to whole sectors of industry, as well as countries in the world economy (as happened to Argentina recently).
For much of the Twentieth Century, the elites who have run Canada have based their economic policy on export, especially to the United States, and handing over control of our industries and resources to foreign multinationals. This has created severe distortions and weaknesses in the Canadian economy. In the years ahead, this whole strategy could come unhinged. Then we will have to get back to what some feel we should have done in the first place: building local, regional, provincial and national economies that are more well-rounded and self-reliant, have substantial secondary and tertiary industries, and can sustain themselves.
Yes, a new equilibrium will establish itself in the world sooner or later. But, unfortunately, in the meantime, the winter winds could blow hard and bitter.
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Posted by: Chadermando on January 4 2007 9:22 AM
This slaughter of men, women and children has been casually described as "Collateral Damage" when done to the unfortunate victims, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it is still going on today.
As well, this military adventurism has led to a pitting of Christianity against Islam, West against East and a fomenting and breeding of global deadly extremism.
The worst may yet come if the conflicts are spread wider, intentionally.
The winds of change are blowing hard, indeed. They mayb take a very long time to calm down.