Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site inmet.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!cca!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: capitalism vs. democracy??? Message-ID: <28200410@inmet.UUCP> Date: Wed, 18-Dec-85 00:51:00 EST Article-I.D.: inmet.28200410 Posted: Wed Dec 18 00:51:00 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 20-Dec-85 21:51:18 EST References: <286@frog.UUCP> Lines: 103 Nf-ID: #R:frog:-28600:inmet:28200410:000:5119 Nf-From: inmet!nrh Dec 18 00:51:00 1985 >/* Written 12:19 pm Dec 16, 1985 by lkk@teddy in inmet:net.politics.t */ >In article <28200382@inmet.UUCP> nrh@inmet.UUCP writes: >> >>>/* Written 12:59 pm Dec 10, 1985 by lkk@teddy in inmet:net.politics.t */ >>>In article <267@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >>>> >>>>I don't think so. Large private corporations, which are basically >>>>anti-democratic institutions, wield a lot of power in the US. >>>... >>> >>>With such economic significance, these corporations become >>>quasi-nations unto themselves in the world of international finance. >> >>What does this mean? Does it mean that you believe only nations >>should be above a certain size? If so, on what basis do you make >>the case? > >I was not making any prescription for change, simply pointing out the fact >that there is little democracy (self-determination) in the world, in part due >to the economic hegemony of the first-world over the third. I hope you aren't equating democracy with self-determination: consensus, yes, but democracy no. >>>When approaches the Chairman of Chase >>>Manhattan Bank for a loan, it is the banker who has the upper hand. >> >>Larry, I don't think you understand what's going on here. The statement >>is trivially true (whenever I offer you a deal, I have the "upper hand" >>because you may refuse it or not, but I can't (having already offered it)). > >Except for the fact the the third world needs the money a lot more than >the banks need to lend it to them. Then ask yourself, why should a bank lend to third world countries? (Actually, I'll bet a lot of bankers are asking themselves this question). They do it because they stand to gain something, and they're not so moral that they'll charge lower interest rates than they can get. Whether those rates are regulated or not, I don't know (I suspect they are, if only indirectly, by the danger of banking regulation in the US, and the degree of IMF/World Bank support of usurious rates), but given that all US banks share the market under the same regulations, there has been competition for sovereign debt. Given this situation, if the banks wanted to make the loan less than the Third World types wanted to take it, the banks would raise the interest rates, or (if high rates were forbidden) they'd refuse to make the loan UNLESS they saw that as the most profitable way to invest that money. Or do you think that they loan money to rather than to Argentina for the fun and glamor of it? >>>Thus, David Rockefeller has the ability to drastically affect the >>>fortunes of millions of people the world over. Was he elected by >>>them? No. >> >>Nope. The person who sought out David Rockefeller was not some random >>swine who was appointed by the gods to be able to assume a debt in the >>name of the country, but the head of some government or other. >> >>Such governments typically claim to be democracies, and if they act >>anti-democratically by selling their economic future to David >>Rockefeller (who is, by the way, not the only bidder) then it is >>the governments you should criticize, not the moneylenders. > >Just like, "well you're starving, and I own all the food in town, but >you certainly have the right not to deal with me." No, Larry. David Rockefeller doesn't own all the "food", or money. Not even the US banking community owns all the money (remember, there's always the Soviet Union (dangerous as that it) the Swiss and Cayman Island banks, and so forth. The situation YOU describe is much more like a statist society (they generally find they have to partially decontrol agriculture in fairly short order, but don't do it enough) where the government controls all the food (and water, and air). Let's be clear what we're talking about though -- we're talking about money for industrial development, not food. Industrial development is nice, but it's not as if it MUST be powered from outside, or by positive government action. Indeed, I'll bet all the government of, say, Ethiopia, would have to do is get out of the way. This is difficult NOW because the banks have done some pretty stupid things -- they've overextended themselves, and begun to make loans just so the bad debts don't appear on their balance sheets. Folks, can you say "impending bubble-burst"? >Freedom entails >(among other things) control over your own destiny. If you are >constrained by lack of resources just to stay alive, any other >"freedom" is irrelevant. A familiar, if almost inapplicable (in this case) argument. The degree to which those loans are squandered on useless, cosmetic, and counter-productive projects is appalling. This is not to say that loans should never be made (they should be, when all parties freely agree), but merely that corrupting a bunch more officials in Nigeria, or building the world's longest power line in Zaire (to a region that has a fair amount of hydroelectric potential) doesn't keep anyone from dying. Indeed, wasteful but politically popular use of those funds no doubt accounts for a fair amount of misery in the Third world.