In These New Times

Cailean Bochanan

25th September, 2008

Two clear policy lines are emerging in response to the terminal crisis of Anglo-American finance. Both are mad. That’s why it’s a terminal crisis.

The first of these is about “restoring confidence”, ensuring that certain, at least , of the major banks don’t go under. The vehicle for this happy resolution , as far as the market leaders is concerned, is, of course, public money which is automatically placed at their disposal. There is talk of this as some kind of nationalisation, and it does certainly involve  financial institutions and the state getting in bed together. But it is the precise nature of their intimacy that is in question. Without labouring the metaphor, nationalisation means the state taking control of private institutions: here, the private institutions take control of the state, the ultimate asset on account of its tax -raising powers. Certain organisations, in reward for having, supposedly, survived the rigours of competition as well as their privileged political connections are forming a cartel based on their presumed right to feed indefinately on public funds.  In exchange for taking control of all our wealth our new feudal overlords agree to accept full immunity for past crimes.This is certainly a neat arrangement and tied in with the phoney war on terror, the supression of all disent and a permanent military stand-off with Russia offers us all the prospect of being  proles in a real life Orwellian experiment.

But , as in the best of plans, there is a catch. The above plan would certainly sink the pound and the dollar and therefore destroy the basis of the empire’s privileged trading relationship with the rest of the world. The end of the £/$ is the end of the empire(one of the reasons why we call for the abolition of the £). That’s why another policy, associated most clearly in Britain with the head of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, has appeared in opposition  to the above. The goal here would be, presumably to stabilise the pound at all costs. Unfortunately, those costs would amount to an economic meltdown as home owners, businesses, banks were put to the sword in defence of “sound finance”

So we are faced with the last phase of the conflict between the little Englanders and the imperialists or globalists, the option of a controlled return to the dark ages or a virtually instantaneous economic cataclysm.

There are no easy solutions for Britain or the USA but there is a third, pragmatic way which we at inthesenewtimes proudly put ourselves at the head of. I call it the multipolar solution. It’s premise is the abandonment of a hostile and imperial foreign policy and the making of friends rather than enemies. This begins with good neighbourlyness: becoming good Europeans and establishing positive rapport with our regional partners. It means approaching Europe in a constructive rather than a destructive spirit. As the pound collapses as it must continue to do we should try and negotiate favourable terms of entry to the Euro: it is a lifeline to us.

 Beyond Europe we need to seek the best possible relations with the world’s nations especially those with which we seem intent on creating conflict: Russia, China, Zimbabwe, Sudan, to name but a few. And of course we must wind up our military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and do our utmost to undo the trouble we have created throughout the Middle East. The “war on terror” is already dead except in the minds of a few Securitate- type dead-enders, imperial nostalgics and in the “langue de bois” of mainstream media and party apparatchiks but, none the less, an official declaration followed by the release of all the innocent Muslims in British prisons would be a welcome gesture of goodwill.  After all, this catastrophic final drive for hegemony, the “war of civilizations” began with  9/11 and it is only appropriate that it should end with its exposure as the fraud it was.

There is no doubt that the worlds new emerging powers would look favourably on such a policy shift and Ahmadinejad dropped a clear hint to that effect at the UN. After all, it would mean that we would be off their backs, no longer continually campaigning to destabilise them internally and threatening them externally. It would give them the freedom to grow without the pressure of empire impinging on them. It would preclude the necessity for endless investment in defence. It would enhance the freedom of their political institutions.

Ultimately, it is in no one’s interest that the USA and the UK become failed states run by insane nuclear warlords.

We could therefore hope for international cooperation and, subject to these conditions, internal investment to help us integrate  into the global economy, as a sovereign country amongst others, for purposes of mutual benefit and development. This would certainly involve the creation of a new currency system

Whatever happens we face hard times ahead, but by putting multipolarity before a desperate and doomed bid for hegemony, by declaring the end of empire we regain international respectability and embark on the long hard road to reconstruction.