Debt, dominance and stability

The United States finds itself constrained by debt and losing leverage on the world stage. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, concedes this "sends a message of weakness internationally."

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, believes this is bad for America and bad for the world. According to Haass, the diminution of US dominance over the world system will herald "an era of international relations in which things get a lot messier."

Clearly, Clinton and Haass subscribe to the establishment consensus, that the United States has been a benign hegemon, indefatigably "promoting prosperity and stability around the world", by being able to "lead and act in the ways it has ... since World War II."

These "ways" include flagrant disregard and explicit contempt for international law, unprovoked aggression and war crimes, covert and overt interventions abroad, massive corporate fraud and a host of horrendous atrocities around the world.

If there were any truth to the claims made by the Anglo-American establishment and their Western vassals, promoting and endorsing US dominance of the world system, would there be any need for multi-trillion dollar war spending? Would there be millions starving in Africa while millions suffer obesity in the West?

Has fifty years of western military intervention around the world made the place safer or more stable, is there any evidence that the trillions spent on war have served to enhance security and prosperity for more than a super-rich clique?

It requires a peculiar US-centric perspective on the world and blind faith in the efficacy of force to believe that US dominance of the world system is good for America and good for the world.

A more balanced and realistic view of the world permits the possibility that US interventionist policies and disregard for international norms actually provoke hostility, promote conflict, undermine the rule of law and foster global instability.

The United States' fiscal deficit is not its only deficit - of equal significance is its deficit in trust and credibility. The decline in the value of the US dollar is concomitant with a decrease in the standing of the US on the world stage. As the US is progressively reduced in wealth and standing, it will be subjected to ever-greater pressure to conform to international norms.

The loss of American "exceptionalism" will curb the United States' predilection for unilateral intervention in other nations' affairs. Fiscal constraints will be compounded by political and military constraints. Unsustainable war spending will have its day of reckoning.

The dissolution or fragmentation of the unipolar world system will hasten the "emergence of a polycentric international system", a more equitable and representative balance of powers on the world stage. This might seem like a frightening prospect for the failing superpower, but for the rest of the world, it offers promising possibilities.

The trend is well illustrated in this analysis by Kaushik Deka,
Towards a new world order ...

The global economic downturn has severely hurt the American economy. This, together with the military reverses in Iraq and Afghanistan, show America’s dwindling authority in controlling the once US-dominated world order. The biggest casualty, however, has been America’s image of invincibility. China, in contrast, has shown remarkable resilience economically, increasing its global influence tremendously. This has raised legitimate questions about who is going to lead the globalisation process in future and how will it affect the shaping of the global order.

The United States always justified its primary position in the globalisation process due to its strong economy and armed superiority. Now, employing the same logic, the Chinese have started staking their claim for a greater leadership role in global financial institutions. The recent G20 summit in Seoul, besides showcasing growing Chinese strength, proves that the US and its allies are capable of neither unilaterally deciding the outcome of any major global summit nor imposing their interests on other state actors.

Further, many of America’s former allies are being seen as supporting the Chinese stand on several financial issues. This is indeed a silent but defining shift in the global order. Global capitalism, therefore, is no longer being led by the Unites States alone; rather, it is equally being taken forward by emerging economies like China and India.

Honesty, credibility and legitimacy

People don't trust the government. A recent study by the Pew Research Center found a "perfect storm" of popular discontent associated with distrust of government.

Western governments have lost respect and credibility, in no small part due to the secrecy and deceit with which they conduct their affairs these days.

Many people are waking up to the fact that their governments lie, habitually ... that democracy as we know it is a sham, a charade.

The influence of corporate power, private wealth and the war industry is blatant, potent and uncompromising.

People are beginning to realize their public rights have been usurped by private interests and there's nothing they can do about it, because the government is beholden to a powerful, unaccountable few.

Government is rotten at the core and people are starting to see this.

Western governments defy international law with impunity.

They preach, hypocritically, lofty ideals of freedom and democracy, while cynically dismantling longstanding principles of common law and recklessly eviscerating civil liberties.

Our governments have fabricated evidence to mislead us into war, they've handed billions of public money to super rich private bankers. They recruit terrorists, abet terrorist organizations and fund false flag terror attacks against their own citizens.

It is no wonder people are feeling disgusted with their governments.

Dictatorships rule by force, western governments rule by farce.

Political theorists suggest the legitimacy of democratic government is derived from popular assent, which is empowered and conveyed through suffrage and demonstrated periodically by popular vote.

But the choices available to voters are exceedingly limited and determined by secretive and unaccountable processes. Real power in western democracies resides with those who determine the choices available to voters, not the voters themselves.

By controlling preselection and the provision of funds, vested interests control the democratic processes that supposedly endow the people with sovereignty and self-determination.

By ensuring that only those who share the interests and concerns of an influential few are ever elected to parliament, the ruling elite protect and preserve the status quo.

Politicians strut about, pretending to love babies and hate terrorists. They practice their performance in public like pop stars or prancing ponies, preened and pimped to private wealth behind closed doors.

Safely cocooned in a haze of myopic, self-congratulatory complacency, they drift, oblivious to the tide of rising anger that threatens to maroon them all, high on a rocky shore, somewhere unforgiving.

Suckered by concensus reality

Consensus reality is a reality based not upon direct experience or evidence, but upon what is popularly believed to be true. In other words, consensus reality is a collective fantasy.

An example of consensus reality is the popular belief that Islamic extremists were responsible for the crime of 9/11, despite an overwhelming preponderance of evidence to prove otherwise.

Another example of consensus reality is the popular belief that governments are essentially honest, law abiding organizations, despite an overwhelming preponderance of evidence to prove otherwise.

At the root of consensus reality is the herd-like mentality of the public mind. Humans are inherently social creatures and hence they naturally tend toward behaviours that conform with what they perceive to be socially acceptable norms. This makes humans particularly susceptible to influence by societal pressure, whether in the form of peer group pressure, regulation by authorities or manipulation by public relations and propaganda.

Let's consider some historical examples of consensus reality. There was the belief that the earth lay at the center of the universe. that the sun and the planets and the stars revolved around the earth. There was the belief (still held by a few) that God created the earth in seven days, 4000 years before Christ. The ancients attributed many natural phenomena to super natural entities or gods.

In more recent history there's been the consensus reality of the colonialists, that indigenous peoples were savages to be hunted down and slaughtered or sold into slavery, and the consensus reality of the Nazis, that Jews and Communists and the Roma were subhuman and needed to be exterminated for the national good.

Many people like to imagine that modernity has delivered us from such fanciful notions, that science and technology have revealed the true nature of the universe and our place in it. Demonstrably, however, this is not the case. Humans are still primarily driven by needs and desires that arise from deep within the human psyche, from a place where logic and reason are absent, a place that decides according to the psychological needs of the individual, not the objective reality of the external world.

For this reason, many people make the most important decisions of their lives based on how they feel and not what they think. Few people spend a great deal of time considering the factors that determine who they marry, or what career path they choose, or how many children they have or where they decide to live. Very often these decisions are made without much forethought and in accord with the nature of the contingency as it arises.

It is not surprising, therefore, that when it comes to matters of great importance and complexity, many people decide upon an opinion determined by others who appear to be authoritative and informed. This relieves the individual from the responsibility of discovering for themselves, the truth of the matter. There is some comfort in the belief that your opinion is shared by the majority - you have a stake in the consensus reality.

This position is particularly resistant to evidence since it takes as its premise for certainty, the superior knowledge of an authoritative entity, such as the government, experts, a guru or religious doctrine. The individual who holds the beliefs so acquired has no need or desire to look at evidence, since he or she can assume that the authorities have already looked at all the evidence.