Economic Dependence and the Power Elite by Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal

Economic Dependence and the Power Elite
by Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal

May 1st, International Workers' Day, commemorates the historic struggle of working people throughout the world. It is presumably commemorated to acknowledge the intrinsic worth of the labour market in the development of the economy. However, the real cause of poverty, the real cause of the rich becoming richer, and the poor becoming poorer, is manipulatively glossed over, as workers remain preoccupied in fighting for higher wages and better working conditions.

World consumption has expanded at an unprecedented pace over the 20th century, with private and public consumption expenditures reaching $24 trillion in 1998, twice the level of 1975 and six times that of 1950. " Globally, the 20% of the world's people in the highest-income countries account for 86% of total private consumption expenditures - the poorest consume 20%. More specifically the richest fifth in the world:

Consume 45% of all meat and fish, the poorest fifth 5%.

Consume 58% of total energy, the poorest fifth less than 4%.

Have 74% of all telephone lines, the poorest fifth 1.5%.

Consume 84% of all paper, the poorest fifth 1.1%.

Own 87% of the world's vehicle fleet, the poorest fifth less than 1%.

United Nations Development Programme UNDP Report –1998

The want to consume is but a natural instinct. People need to consume to survive. However, consumption has evolved from a ‘survival need’ to a gleeful passion of amassing, indulging and consuming. America, with 5% of the world’s population collectively consumes one third of the earth’s resources and produces half of all the worlds’ non-organic waste. The average North American consumes five times more than a Mexican does, ten times more than Chinese, and thirty times more than a person in India. Over consumption is a malaise that reflects a culture that is so empty and hollow that it needs to be stuffed to feel full.

This hog like culture is fuelled by seductive advertising that entices the consumer into believing that true fulfillment and happiness is only be achieved by hoarding, consuming, and amassing. “ The goal of the advertisers was to aggressively shape consumer desires and create value in commodities by imbuing them with the power to transform the consumer into a more desirable person… In 1880 only $30 million was invested in advertising in the United States; by 1910 new businesses, such as oil, food, electricity and rubber were spending $600 million, or 4 percent of the national income on advertising. Today that figure has climbed to $120 billion in the United States and to over $250 billion worldwide.” (Richard Robbins – Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism)

The Fashion Industry is yet another appendage used to foist this culture on people. The feverish pursuit of fashion stirs up desires and anxieties in people to possess the ‘new’, and the ‘ultimate’, it pressures people into buying not out of need but for style! Not out of necessity, but out of a desire to conform to what is socially acceptable and fashionable.

The increase in consumerism has naturally led to the concentration of economic resources in large corporations and governments. The monopoly of natural resources now shapes the political agenda’s of the first world. Wealthy countries exploit their power to spin the agenda of big business through the World Trade Organization (WTO) which has become a world government, run by the rich for the rich. For instance, the US initially saw the Taliban regime as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean. Until now, Russia has controlled the oil and gas reserves of Central Asia. The Bush government wanted to change all that, but, confronted with Taliban's refusal to accept US conditions, "this rationale of energy security” changed into a military one.

“Since 11 September, the “war on terrorism” has provided a pretext for the rich countries, led by the United States, to further their dominance over world affairs. By spreading “fear and respect”, as a Washington Post reporter put it, America intends to see off challenges to its uncertain ability to control and manage the “global economy”, the euphemism for the progressive seizure of markets and resources by the G8 rich nations. This, not the hunt for a man in a cave in Afghanistan, is the aim behind US Vice-President Dick Cheney’s threats to “40 to 50 countries.” It has little to do with terrorism and much to do with maintaining the divisions that underpin “globalisation.” Today international trade is worth more than £11.5bn a day. A tiny fraction of this, 0.4 per cent, is shared with the poorest countries. American and G8 capital controls 70 per cent of world markets, and because of the rules demanding the end of tariff barriers and subsidies in poor countries while ignoring protectionism in the west, the poor countries lose £1.3bn a day in trade.” (John Pilger)

For the capitalistic mode of production to exist, the tie between producers and the means of production must be cut; peasants must lose control of their land, artisans control of their tools. These people once denied access to the means of production must negotiate with those who control the means of production for permission to use the land and tools and receive a wage in return. Those who control the means of production also control the goods that are produced, and so those who labor to produce them must buy them back from those with the means of production. Thus the severing of the persons from the means of production turns them not only into laborers, but into consumers of the product of their labor as well." Richard Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism

Economic dependence has become the political tool to bludgeon entire countries into submission. .” "The Power of financial capitalism had [a] far reaching plan, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalistic fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences.” (Carrol Quigley)

The energies and resources of the Labour market reminds focussed on peripheral economic issues to such an extent that the real issues that perpetuate control and subjugation are hardly ever addressed. The war on terrorism is really a war for the control of natural resources and the control of the global economy. Despite the fact that Muslims constitute twenty percent of the total world population, and own the most strategic parts of the globe in terms of location and mineral wealth, the Muslim world howls impoverished and impotent trying to appease their masters at the cost of political subjugation and economic bankruptcy.

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