Dear Colleagues,
Last year, an organization called BRIC was formed which is a group combining Brazil, Russia, India, and China in an arrangement for consultation and development in a cooperative way amongst themselves and vis-à-vis developing countries since they are the most developed (other than the Western world). It is an expression of the development of a bi-polar economic world that is characteristic of 21st century changes in economic relations and a challenge to Western domination, in particular the USA.
Only last week, Obama was in India. Why? To our dismay, he was representing US finance capital. Our foreign policy is being run by the Pentagon also under the aegis of financial capital (they are the ones that have gotten the world into an economic mess). His mission is obviously to induce India to work with the USA rather than with BRIC. This means finance capital investments and a strongly capitalist development of India with this foreign capital. Perhaps, some objective is to build India more rapidly than China as a competitor. This possibility is like blowing in the wind. Simply, if India goes along with US finance capital, it will still be on the basis of individual capital investments in particular industries rather than a planned national development of India’s total economy for the benefit of its own people. China, on the other hand, will continue its economic development on the basis of national planning within which each individual industrial enterprise must fit its program into the national objectives for which they set goals every five years. In fact, China now, being the second most productive nation in the world, is expected to reach the production level of the USA variably within fifteen to thirty years. Even that is not the achievement that China will be building simply because, were they to seek the national level of the USA (the number one), they will not be able to develop a standard of living for the country as a whole anywhere near what we have achieved (but is being diminished) since they have a population four times the USA.
We are witnessing capitalist gasps within a changing world in which developing countries are moving forward, freeing themselves from the privatization mania of US finance capital. We now see many of the developing countries moving into new social forms.
The big danger is that US foreign policy is turning towards military alliances aimed at China. We have seen some evidences of it. Not only is the military threat developing but also the economic currency war is being pushed by the USA with little support even from other capitalist countries. The big danger in the world today is the US creating a military situation with China. Note that, from the Chinese, there has not been a single move or a single threat in response to the pressures from the USA that have been accelerating in the last few months. The IMF turned down the US proposal on currency reform. G20 refused to discuss it, and capitalist countries opposed it. In the meantime, over the past few weeks, a new development has taken place emanating from China, highly peaceful from a monetary point of view. They are developing a gold market, which has no doubt an objective of creating international currency valuation on gold as the basic valuation. Someone will say this is dangerous because gold is overvalued. So what? That is not new. It will fluctuate, but it is solid and has international value where currencies must be keyed to it, and it can act as a stabilizing factor in trade and international investment on a peaceful basis. I am introducing two articles from the latest edition of the Beijing Review. These two articles deal with the practical partnerships that China has been developing with ASEAN countries and the region. It is beneficial to all and certainly an example of peaceful cooperation and development. While I am not sending anything on China’s relation with Africa at this time (which I will in the future), its involvement in Africa will turn it to industrialized modernization for the people of that continent and completely free it from the harness and reverberations of colonialism. Also, note the independent economic development of Latin American countries – independent of US finance capital domination. The world is moving on two axes, and we should, in our own country, start fighting for change, prevent the impoverishment of the working people in this country, demand stopping the wars, use the money to build up industry, help them create jobs, and invest in high tech, These are the only ways they will turn around this particular economic crisis, which will develop into a deep depression if they do not do it.
We had better start shouting.
Sincerely,
Sidney Gluck
