Is America Ready for Revolution? | 127 comments (127 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Bear in mind that under the theory of ... (4.00 / 7)

... revolution that she is discussing, its not "hope for change" that is the pre-condition ... it is commonly felt and urgent need for change that is seen to be frustrated.

And while the US is not in that position now, in the terms of Sara's essay, as the financial melt-down proceeds ... and especially if Europe and China reach a joint accommodation on how they are going to decouple from the US financial system as it melts down ... and then when the first serious impacts of Peak Oil strike the US economy over the decade ahead, it could easily be.

The core question is whether there is any signs that get down to regular working stiffs, abused veterans, etc. that the corporatist state presently running things is willing to sacrifice anything at all to contribute to addressing the problems.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Sat Feb 23rd, 2008 at 02:49:09 PM EST

Re: Bear in mind that under the theory of ... (4.00 / 2)

BruceMcF:

and especially if Europe and China reach a joint accommodation on how they are going to decouple from the US financial system as it melts down ...

any signs of this happening?

"It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Sun Feb 24th, 2008 at 09:25:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]

I don't know ... (4.00 / 6)

... I have a diary where I ask the Europeans here whether there are.

The Chinese are certainly prepared to be able to move if they feel they should ... a little while back they replaced their dollar peg with a hidden basket peg (that is, the Singapore model), and that gives them flexibility to slide over to the Euro without requiring any single big dramatic move to unsettle financial markets.

Basically, a hidden basket peg is where you peg your currency to a basket of foreign reserve currencies, and do not announce the composition of the basket, the peg, or changes in either. You can change either the composition of the basket or the peg, and in the noise of the fluctuation of the currencies in the basket against each other, its difficult to work out with any precision where the precise peg stands.

If the Chinese were going to make such a move, they certainly would not tip their hand. So if indications appear, it will be on the European side.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Sun Feb 24th, 2008 at 02:24:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: I don't know ... (none / 1)

No sign of this happening at all. The 0.1% in Europe and the 0.1% in the US are on the same page, and that won't change any time soon - if ever.

China isn't being taken seriously as an economic superpower yet. This seems ridiculous, but until it starts throwing up a rentier class that the CIA/Wall St mob can respect, it'll continue to be seen as a country full of unusually competent peasants who - in economic terms - are useful idiots.

Since the Euro elites take their cue from the mob, they're not going to start looking East until long after it's clear that the US is underwater.

Likewise for Russia. Some of dem Russkies may be rich and ruthless, but compared to the professionals they're still rather nouveau and have yet to prove themselves.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Thu Feb 28th, 2008 at 10:44:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: I don't know ... (none / 0)

...it'll continue to be seen as a country full of unusually competent peasants who - in economic terms - are useful idiots.

And unfortuntately it will be accurately seen as such.

There is a common mistake people make in thinking that China has integrated itself into the world economy for reasons of the national interest, instead of in the interests of the ruling class in amassing greater wealth.

The whole plan is for China to play second fiddle to the US and for some Chinese people to make a buck out of that. They don't mind being 'useful idiots' as long as there is a buck in it. They will actually be appalled as the US tanks and they have to adjust. And a great many of them will probably not make the imaginative or visionary leap that is required. The US being top dog is what they know. They didn't want it another way, and many will not even be able to conceive of it being another way, even as the whole arrangement falls down around them.

by wing26 on Fri Feb 29th, 2008 at 04:42:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Yes, but as my students told me ... (none / 1)

... when they say in Shanghai, "You are one in a thousand", it means there are a million more out there to replace you.

The Chinese political elite has as one of its priorities to generate enough jobs to avoid political crisis, and if a discounted exchange rate policy against the US$ generates the net capital account inflows to the US that allows the US to continue generating the net current account outflows that provide an external market with actual profit margins that helps keep so many businesses afloat ... well, that's a good thing.

However, they also believe in covering their bases, which would seem to be what they did when "under pressure from the US" they moved to the Singapore model of hidden basket peg.

If China ditches the US$ it will not be as a neo-con fantasy geo-political power play, it will be because they think that mine is tapped out of new export jobs, and are changing their primary focus to a new external market.

Under the Chinese economic system, they've got to keep playing that general game until they've ridden out the demographic bulge, or else face a very high risk of losing power. And under the iron law of oligarchy, as a first priority, a long-entrenched oligarchy will do what it believes to be necessary to hold onto power.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Fri Feb 29th, 2008 at 12:07:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Yes, but as my students told me ... (none / 0)

I sometimes think that the US and its allies have an overblown view of how important the Chinese government considers them ... it isn't all about you.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Feb 29th, 2008 at 12:11:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Of course not ... (none / 0)

... but when its about China and anybody else, that is not newsworthy for the US Mess Media ...

... after all, how would a yank who had not found an escape hatch from the US Media Bubble ever know that the US was not the be-all and end-all of Chinese foreign policy?

When would someone who thinks that CNN or MSNBC gives the "in depth" news coverage that the networks don't have time for ever hear of the effort of China to build a trade framework for China, South Korea, Japan and ASEAN, or the ongoing "industrial diplomacy" efforts of China to secure natural resource exploitation rights in Africa through easy credit terms to buy city buses or finance road construction?

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Fri Feb 29th, 2008 at 03:38:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Of course not ... (4.00 / 3)

It's not just the 'US' media bubble though, it's a very much more general Anglosphere bubble, pretty much worldwide. I get entirely and completely US-centric 'world' news where I live ... the HKSAR, technically part of the PRC. I have even read stories about the Chinese nuclear 'threat' to the US, written from an entirely pro-US point of view - in Hong Kong's major English-language daily! The place might as well still be run by the UK in terms of its 'balance'.

And Colman, actually, I do think it is very much about the US ... again, the world's current elites - not just in China but in places like Germany and Japan - grew up in a US-centric world and they don't have the balls to think of the world being any other way. A frequent complaint on ET is about the distorted worldview of places like the FT and so on. Unfortunately that distorted worldview seems to exist even in Paris, Berlin, and, yes, Beijing as well.

by wing26 on Sat Mar 1st, 2008 at 03:42:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Of course not ... (none / 1)

Colman needs to write his diary about the world elite...

We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Mar 1st, 2008 at 04:56:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Well Yes and No ... (none / 0)

... Yes there is the bias ... but after living a decade in Australia watching SBS World News and listening to the ABC, and then coming back to the US ... here in the US there is a categorical increased in the opacity of the walls of the bubble.

Lord, the best broadcast coverage I ever came across about the new richest man in the world, the Mexican telecom tycoon, was an ABC Radio National show that I listened to by podcast while cycling to work one day. And that's Mexico!

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Sat Mar 1st, 2008 at 10:00:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Well Yes and No ... (none / 0)

I tend to view media as a global system with the center in the US. It is not uniform, for example we have national medias in Europe (national in reporting, not ownership). But when they look at the world, they are mostly looking through the american eyes. As I use to point out, I know more about what is happening in the US then in Denmark.

I suspect that the national medias do spill over a bit, and that might especially be the case if your area lacks a strong national media. But mostly it is the international US-centric media that dominates the world.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Sat Mar 1st, 2008 at 06:54:04 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Well Yes and No ... (none / 0)

The difference is, outside the US media bubble we get a US-centric view of the world. Inside the US media bubble, we get very little view of the world at all.

There's very little need to distort the view that Americans get of the outside world through our media, because we get so very view of the outside world.

In Oz, I could, of course, check in with what was happening according to the US Mess Media by watching any of the commercial networks news broadcasts (those that were not "current affairs" infotainment) ... but I had the option of watching news on SBS and the ABC, either of which was more journalism in an hour than I can get in 24 hours on any US based broadcast network or narrowcast news channel.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Sat Mar 1st, 2008 at 08:18:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Yes, but as my students told me ... (none / 1)

The Chinese political elite has as one of its priorities to generate enough jobs to avoid political crisis, and if a discounted exchange rate policy against the US$ generates the net capital account inflows to the US that allows the US to continue generating the net current account outflows that provide an external market with actual profit margins that helps keep so many businesses afloat ... well, that's a good thing.

All of which, I submit, would have been entirely uneccessary had China remained on its original Maoist path.

Deng, and all that came after him - that is, the China you see now - was not inevitable, it was a choice. And it was a choice made by only a few people, and only in their interests.

If the Chinese elite were truly interested in avoiding political crisis, they would never have embarked on this course in the first place.

Although you are generally correct about the difficulty of revolution, let us hope you are wrong in this case (China), and that the people responsible get it in the neck (literally), like they deserve, without being able to bugger off to Hong Kong or New York or wherever (like they did the last time around).

by wing26 on Sat Mar 1st, 2008 at 03:34:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Except it was the Maoist path on ... (none / 1)

... population policy ... that is, people are wealth, to encourage a population explosion ... that is responsible for the urgency of the political problem now. And if China had not engineered a boost in agricultural output, the Maoist path would have turned quite ugly for the ruling oligarchy.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Sat Mar 1st, 2008 at 10:06:47 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Except it was the Maoist path on ... (none / 0)

Though the on child policy started in '79, I thought it was a continuation of existing policies. Do you have some links to the previous population policy?

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Sat Mar 1st, 2008 at 07:03:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]

China is doing an end run around ... (none / 0)

... in Africa.

Well, Sino-Japan, actually. My wife tells me of the Chinese in the DRC building highways, while the Japanese are "helpfully" dredging the big hydro dam, and in the process helping themselves to the highest grade of the sand from the dredge.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Fri Feb 29th, 2008 at 11:57:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Is America Ready for Revolution? | 127 comments (127 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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