I recorded this interview with Trun left Media last week, before Sunak hit.
I hope it is of interest.
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Richard
Great clip.
All I would say is that globalisation failed for me when jobs began to be exported abroad. It was always just a means by which Western capitalists could increase their profit margins by using cheaper labour and supply chains.
The market’s lack of concern for any issues of morality (look how China and Russia have benefited with their dodgy human rights records) has just blown back on us recently but it was very questionable in the first place because it was at odds, out of sync with and not aligned with the historic geo-political relations between the West and East.
Globalisation helped us to confuse capitalism with democracy and modernity when in fact the nations remains fundamentally hard wired to as they were at the end of WWII.
Part of the blow back is now a reemergence of isolationism/nationalism as a reaction to the developmental power given to the likes of China and Russia just when we need to be genuinely cooperative.
As I said, I think globalisation failed a long those lines many moons ago.
BTW, I like your current photograph – especially the ‘WTF’ no nonsense expression on your face.
Thanks
My son’s photography….
This may seem tangential to the main point, that globalisation has indeed (in the West) failed, but I baulk at the sideswipes at China.
As even the US dominated World Trade Bank …
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience
… acknowledges, China has – in a single generation! – lifted close to 800 million people out of extreme poverty. It seems to me that a big part of that remarkable feat flows from the very thing rentier capitalism bewails: Capital subordinate to State, when in the West the reverse is true.
I can’t speak for human rights in China since corporate media are systemically debarred – not just by oligarchic ownership but by advertising and donor dependency – from prioritising the serving of truth over that of power on issues critical to monopoly finance capital. So I remain sceptical of such as the narratives on Uighurs when (a) they so clearly suit Washington (hence Wall Street) led Western agendas and (b) the concern over human rights is so remarkably selective!
No issue is more critical to that Washington agenda than seeing off the challenge to dollar hegemony of China rising. And no human right is more fundamental than the right to eat.
I give cautious welcome to Belt & Road as a form of globalisation that just might have the wherewithal to deliver the global south from five centuries of impoverishment.
I think you are too optimistic, maybe by far
Have you noted Hong Kong?
PSR,
your first paragraph has been true of the Western/European elites ever since they used superior weaponry to first enslave then massacre ‘other’ peoples and steal vast amounts of their lands across the planet. They also employed brainwashing and propaganda masquerading as history lessons so well that the majority of working class peoples across Europe actually ‘believe’ that ‘their’ empires were the best thing to happen to those ‘third world’ peoples.
So, for me, that was when globalisation began. Laissez faire remember that from school? In the UK it was and is an essential part of UK life. In other European countries it has largely disappeared. You mentioned WW11, this like all other wars had sod all to do with democracy or freedom it was an economic war about who controlled resources. If it had been a war about the above then immediately Austria and Germany were defeated a few battle hardened divisions of the Western allies would have entered Spain, wiped out the Fascists and restored the democratically elected Republican government but this government was mainly made up of Communists,Socialists and Anarchists – the devil incarnate to America’s elite. Just the other day I read that after the war 4 of Germany’s regions had police chiefs who were ex Gestapo – why weren’t they executed at the end of the war?
Simple, America’s elite didn’t give a damn about what had happened in Europe, they were only concerned with COMMUNISM which they had a paranoid fear of. The fact that Stalin like Lenin (who created the secret police) had spent a lot of energy on rounding up and killing all real Communists was lost on them. So much so that when the Soviet Union collapsed many of those ‘communist’ leaders became capitalists over night who looted their countries resources.
Globalisation is failing, is this accidental or like the International Ponzi scheme ‘nearly’ collapsing in 2008/9 was it part of a mindset or plan? Either way the overwhelming total of resources is now controlled by 1% of the world’s population who have a small percentage of this population who act only in their interests – police and armed forces, irrespective of race or colour. Is there really a West v East problem or is this just a charade created to fool the proles. Looking at the Ukraine situation and a reported 80% approval rating for Putin by ordinary Russians I see just how accurate Orwell was in 1984.
Surely globalisation was and is against the best interests of not only Western populations but Eastern ones as well. Consumer addiction is now a worldwide health problem and those who actually have control are very happy with this reality.
King Crimson – the song – Epitaph says it all really and that was 1969!
Thanks Richard. This is such an informative interview. I wish some of the themes discussed could be understood, let alone taken up, by opposition parties. Your ideas on issuing bonds on green issues made complete sense. Building the necessary narrative is clearly the stumbling block. This was a worthwhile contribution.
Thanks
Yes.
Thank you Richard. Your video clip was at a level I could understand and it re-enforced what I have read in your very helpful blogs, particularly the part regarding national savings (not debt!). I was glad that you included suggestions about what we could do moving forward, sounds very sensible, I hope that your message gets through.