It is often said that if some tuning goes wrong on Wall Street, the world goes mad. Today, Wall Street, the symbol of capitalism and the headquarters of big corporates, is under siege.
It all started with a little group of protesters in New York, marching against the powerful financial headquarters “Wall street”. Now it has spread in all the big capital cities and gaining momentum.
The protest is, this time, not waged by alter-mondialistes i.e. those against globalisation but by the victims of a system where big corporates dictate government and perpetuate social inequalities. It is not a communist of leftist propaganda, nor is it a form of East-West jihad. It is simply an expression of disgust by all those who are fed up with a system where big businesses are involved in a circle of greed. A system where they are allowed to pull the entire money blanket on themselves leaving nothing to the rest. A system which impoverishes 99% of the population and makes the 1% richer every day.
Sydney organiser Mark Goudkamp told the Martin Place rally: “The planet can't continue to go on with this unsustainable level of inequality. There needs to be a fundamental overhaul of how our economy works; we need to challenge those who are the most powerful who control the global economy and have an enormous influence on elected politicians.”
The AVAAZ.org wrote: “These national threads are connected by a global narrative of determination to end the collusion of corrupt elites and politicians -- who have in many countries helped cause a damaging financial crisis and now want working families to pay the bill. The mass movement that is responding can not only ensure that the burden of recession doesn't fall on the most vulnerable, it can also help right the balance of power between democracy and corruption.”
The above statements encapsulate the reason of the manifestations in all parts of the world.
When Karl Marx predicted that the capitalist system will rule the world, he was far from knowing that globalisation and rapid technology would help to reinforce his predictions. Marx and Engels’ socialist ideology has failed with the collapse of the USSR. The Free Market economic model of Abel Smith and Liberalism ideology propagated and implemented by the West proved too strong. Even China today is embracing Free Market economy, allowing foreign investments and entry of Multinationals on the mainland. It is as well investing heavily overseas taking advantage of the integrated global economy.
However, China has kept a system of Government where it still has control over the economy and the corporates’ activities. This dual system, criticised by the west, is working for China. It has defied and resisted the temptation of embracing the total laissez faire system of lean government, leaving all to the market, but rather adopted the interventionist approach.
The GFC of 2009 was the result of free market collapse and where the most liberal country, the USA turned out to be the most interventionist government, injecting trillions of dollars in the economy and bailed out the collapsed banks. An unprecedented intervention …Du jamais vu.!!!
The other countries of the West, UK, France and Australia followed suit. While most of them went into recession, some have still not recovered. On the oether hand during the GFC, the Chinese economy remained defiant, strong and continued to grow.
By bailing out the collapsed financial institutions the USA government used taxpayers’ money to pay corrupt, inefficient or greedy CEOs (the golden parachutes) big money. Remember the AIG case? Most people opined that they should have been thrown in prison for their responsibility in the global recession. Many people suffered, lost their houses and their jobs and many still bearing the costs.
The US economy is now in big deficit because of sovereign debt and the money of poor Americans have still not been refunded by the financial Institutions and they do not care less. The looming crisis in the Eurozone is another example of financial mismanagement. European banks are being downgraded by the rating agencies. If the crisis persist we might be facing GFC mark II.
The GFC does not seem to have served as a lesson for big business to rationalise or stop their greed. They are still as aggressive in their marketing. Their modus operandi has not changed. The CEOs are still being paid well and above what they deserve. The profits are still distributed to only a few. There is still no social corporate responsibility and very little money is allocated to social projects.
Civilising the global capital is still a far cry and the need to manifest and expose mismanagement, corporate greed, collusion and corruption and concentration of capital is today a justification more than ever.