Saturday, July 31, 2010

The End of the Free Market July 31st 2010

A few months ago now I watched Jon Stewart interview Ian Bremmer in regard to his new book "The End of the Free Market". My wife bought this book for me as I was interested in it but then decided to hold it from me until my birthday a month or two later. By then I was on to other things. However, I found it again recently when I had to drop my Lexus off to have a smog check for licensing. I was so intensely interested that I began to write notes in the first chapter. Here are some of the quotes that I found fascinating. It reminded me of reading "Megatrends" and "Megatrends 2000" during the 80s in its prescient and almost prophetic nature of the demise of nation states and of the "U.S.  version of the free market.

I will be quoting from Chapter one "The Rise of a New System". The frontspiece of this chapter was probably written about 20 years ago when the Cold War and the Soviet Union Collapsed:

"What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." ---Francis Fukuyama, "The End of History" end quote.

However, now 20 years later or so we are witnessing what appears to be the death or at least the morphing of the U.S free market economy that has mostly prevailed worldwide during this time into something else. And we are witnessing not the direct death of the nation states but of states becoming more inconsequential in nature regarding the financial workings of the world. One of the driving factors is the internet which has taken the wind of the laws of democratic states by relatively effortlessly moving money and ideas over almost every border on earth, which although it has literally made most of earth a "Flat Earth" as far as opportunity goes has also incredibly weakened the actual powers of all nation states and given power to such non-democratically elected bodies such as: The United Nations, the European Union, International Criminal Court, International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. Begin quote: "All these organizations that are not states, not sovereign, and not directly accountable to local votes." end quote (anywhere)

Regarding the end of the growing of worldwide democracies and their present state on earth we turn to:
Begin quote on bottom of page 9 "In 2008, the non-profit organization Freedom House rated 121 of the world's 193 countries as "electoral democracies",  but only 90 of them as 'free' countries. In the same year, the Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU) Democracy Indiex classified just 30 of 167 countries as "full democracies", 50 as "flawed democracies", and 87 (accounting for about half the world's population) as either "hybrid democracies" or "authoritarian" states. In fact, the EIU warned in its 2008 report that, "following a decades-long global trend in democratisation, the spread of democracy has come to a halt." end quote bottom of page 9.

So, as we can see from this research and statisical analysis democracy may not be in retreat but it is at best in "stalemate" with other governmental systems and philosophies worldwide.

In the next research into this subject we will deal with globalization. The idea that struck me from all this was depending upon your point of view: "Globalization is either killing the nation state worldwide or has already killed the nation state in comparison to what the nation state was and represented through World War I and II to the Earth's people's.

begin quote near top of page 10: "The third obituary was for the nation-state, which a 1993 United Nations Human Development Report described as 'too small for the big things and too big for the small things" and author Kenichi Ohmae dismissed in 1995 as a 'nostalgic fiction'. To understand why some believed that nation-states were headed for history's junkyard, it helps to define the word "Globalization". It's essentially a catchall term for all the various processes by which ideas, information, people, money, goods, and services cross international borders at unprecedented speed. Together, these processes have created a much more integrated global economy through trade, foreign direct investment, large-scale capital flows, the construction of global supply chains, innovation in communications technologies, and mass migration." end quote.

So, globalization while increasing financial profitability for many many people worldwide also tends to decrease the inherent power of every nation state. So, the vote worldwide tends now to be economic completely rather than by voting at the ballot box. In other words where you spend your money and on what will decide what nations and companies rise or fall worldwide. And if you are a member of one influence group or another and as a group decide who to economically support or boycott, your group will often decide whether individuals in a certain area, place or country have some place to work or not. It was always this way to a certain degree. It has become moreso a hundredfold or more now during globalization.

quote on Globalization: Begin quote. "Globalization, like capitalism, is powered by the individual impulses of billions of people. It is not the result of someone's economic reform plan, and it can't be reversed by decree." end quote from bottom middle of page 10.

Begin quote end of page 10, "All that movement across borders will eventually strip nation-states of their power, because governments will never be able to manage the international commercial, political, social and environmental challenges that globalization creates. Even the governments of the world's most reclusive states can't lock their citizens away forever. If cell phones from China are now flowing into North Korea, what hope does any despot have of ever again fully insulating his people from the world or from one another?" end quote top of page 11.

However, even though the internet is one of the engines of globalization the following quote addresses one of the major problems for democracy being faced now in many countries: begin quote.
"In Iran in 2009, Facebook, Twitter, and text messaging helped shape our opinions of the Islamic Republic's politics--but they did not change the outcome of it's presidential election. For the moment at least, authoritarian governments have proven up to the challenge of restricting online speech. Furthermore, new communications technologies are not inherently pro-democracy. end quote-------
begin quote: "Unless there is widespread, public demand for democracy, these new tools will simply be used for other purposes."

And here we are left once again regarding the stalemate of democracy worldwide. The old belief that everyone would rush to get on the democracy bandwagon is actually in reality tempered by the general need for order worldwide. Generally people would rather have something they can count on rather than nothing at all. Though the idea of democracy is wonderful if you don't have enough food to eat to survive it may be the last thing you think of in a dream before you starve to death somewhere alone on earth. So, food and shelter must come before the benefits of democracy have any real meaning to most people on earth. Otherwise, it is only dog eat dog for survival. Democracy needs real opportunity to flourish for people to want it. Without real opportunity it might only be a pipe dream for most of the real world.

So, in this real world of diminishing resources of food and oil and clean water we may see democracy have to modify itself in some ways to stay relevant in a harsher crueler world we seem to be entering into.

If you are interested in exploring these ideas which are  presently morphing the world as we know it please read  "The End of the Free Market" and see if you agree with any of his premises or not.

I found by what I have read so far that it explains better than any book I have read or concept that has been explained to me more about what is actually happening worldwide at this time.

So, maybe the real problems our nation and the world is having is that most people don't understand enough implications of the real changes going on. It would be like being on a raft and wondering what was wrong as we bumped over rocks not realizing that we actually were going over a waterfall that we couldn't see because it was night time without a moon. If people don't understand what is happening they can't solve the problem or they will just ask the wrong questions to create a solution that can  help anyone.

Know the truth and the truth will set you free.

Here is another article Ian Bremmer wrote May 14th called:


Ian Bremmer

Ian Bremmer

Posted: May 14, 2010 09:47 AM

'The End Of The Free Market': Why America Must Defend The Free Market Economy



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-bremmer/the-end-of-the-free-marke_b_576214.html

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