(Published in GralsWelt 84/2014, page 44)
In August 2013 a strange report went through the media: An elite student was doing his internship at a major bank. Due to total overwork, the 22-year-old young man collapsed one day, unexpectedly exhausted, and passed away. The incident gives rise to some thought about the current formation of a new elite, in common with the old elites, and their human failure.
For many centuries individuals, smaller groups, cities, states, and great powers fought for property and power with martial violence. Extortion, robbery, murder and direct or indirect slavery were until the 20th century - and in some places still are today [1] - self-evident, albeit mostly unacknowledged, means of gaining or securing reputation, influence, power and wealth.
After all, after the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) war was considered "Continuing politics by other means".
The original text of the often imprecise quotation reads:
"The political intention is the end, the war is the means, and the means can never be thought of without an end"[2].
Accordingly, in the millennia that we know from written records, it was primarily violent people who determined the course of history. Myths and legends glorify particularly successful, highly trained lone fighters: the chariot fighters of the Iliad, Celtic, Greek, Roman, Germanic heroes or the knights of the Middle Ages.
Then not a few, individual, particularly capable warriors could decide battles. The decisive factor was highly armed, disciplined, extremely resilient troops such as the phalanx of the Spartans, the Roman legions, the federal halberd-bearers or the armies of Frederick the Great and Napoleon. Now generals were admired who could train their troops perfectly and lead them to victory. Sometimes a successful general also took control of the state.
The elite of the nation were the fighters: soldiers, officers, generals. In internal crises, the armed forces usually tipped the scales and thus determined politics. Even in the Second German Empire, officers were considered the first class.
Warfare by other means
After the Second World War, the unheard-of destructive potential of nuclear weapons made further wars between great powers as good as impossible. But today there are “asymmetrical wars”: uprisings, civil wars, partisans, terrorists, acts of sabotage, pirates, etc. against which classic military tactics find it very difficult.
Today rivalries are predominantly fought in the field of business. No longer by soldiers with rifles and cannons, but by large corporations, secret services, banks, rating agencies, stock market speculators. This happens with state support or at least state tolerance.
Modern" weapons (some of which are already old) are used: Triggering internal conflicts or revolutions, stock market speculation, dumping prices, embargoes, blackmail, misinformation, hostile takeovers and financial products, as well as trade barriers, corruption, loans, monopolies, espionage, currency manipulation, economic blockades, tariffs and more.
These financial or economic weapons have a counterproductive or even destructive effect. They promote neither agricultural nor industrial production nor world trade. They do not make a positive contribution to economic development, but they do create turbulence that can trigger crises and ruin weaker states. If these resources are not sufficient, military force is finally used against significantly weaker opponents (6).
The aim of these economic wars is the elimination of competition, assertion of one's own supremacy, further growth of the wealth of the super-rich (disguised as "economic growth"), securing the supply of raw materials and so on. As billionaire Warren Buffett said in November 2006:
"There is class war, right, but it is my class, the class of the rich, that wages war and we win."
New elite without borders
A “new elite” is being trained for this modern war. This “business elite” must also be well trained; albeit in a different form and for different approaches than the "old elite", but with the same goal: destruction of the enemy!
And the new elite are also subjected to "stress tests". She must be able to work purposefully and competently to the point of exhaustion and cope with a flood of information that is constantly rushing into her.
The military academies are being replaced by elite universities. In Paris there is even an “École de guerre économique” (School for Economic Warfare). Here it is openly admitted that military experience can be used for war in the economy.
There "everything is permitted in war"[3], it can be assumed that there are no ethical limits to economic warfare either.
There is no longer any question of the “fair competition” of yore (which was often only lip service). The legal regulations are often inadequate and can often be circumvented for international corporations.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, social control of the financial world, which was viewed as a restriction, was largely abolished under the catchphrase “deregulation”. The global financial crash of 2008 was a consequence.
Whoever lets the "wild dogs" off the leash shouldn't be surprised if they then poach. Consequently, we had to experience that even previously highly respected institutions, large corporations and world-famous banks were not afraid of shameful manipulation and fraud.
The old, the belligerent elites were trained to kill people. First face to face, then over ever greater distances, up to the modern killshot by drones, guided by the screen.
The new, economically trained elites, sitting far away from the real world at the screen, are driving entire economies into ruin and often fail to even notice the hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of people who - mostly far from their own country - are in suffering and misery fall.
The financial industry has taken command
“The fact is that you can't put all truths on the table tough every day. If you are at war, you cannot tell the people what the truth is every day, possibly not even tell how many losses you have had, what withdrawals you have had to make. That will not work because otherwise you will succeed endanger the whole. I know this is an absolutely inadmissible example, but it shows how catastrophically dangerous the situation is.
Of course, the crises we are experiencing now, there are many crises, which of course were not ordered by the good Lord as a punishment for something, or anonymously, came upon us, of course, the triggers played a role. And these triggers are very often individual people, they are very often human institutions, whether they are banks or hedge funds or whatever. The fact that the financial industry, as the saying goes, or the financial world has now taken command of politics, has taken over our fate, that is of course the case. And to that extent is that a terrorbecause terror means in the sense that it forces people to do things that they actually didn't want to do on their own: save for the banks, for example, or tax breaks for the rich. It is not a conspiracy, but the actors are clearly recognizable ... "
Edzard Reuter, former CEO of Daimler-Benz AG. (8th).
Fight for world domination
The world's leading power, the USA, is faced with problems: when Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) wanted to sell his oil for euros instead of dollars and occupied Kuwait a few years ago, in 2003 he triggered the Iraq war. Because if world trade is no longer on a dollar basis, the United States of America will really get into financial difficulties!
In economic terms, the People's Republic of China will overtake the USA in a few decades and will then probably strive for the status of the most important world power. The supremacy of the USA against Asian competition can no longer be enforced by military means. Maybe with an economic war?
In the area of monetary policy, the battle for leadership has already begun:
China wants to replace the dollar as the world's leading currency with the Chinese yuan (7). This can not be done overnight. But the Asians - unlike Europeans and Americans - have patience, can wait and proceed cautiously, step by step.
This “Clash of the Continents“(Sven Hedin) affects Europe. According to competent observers, it even triggered the euro crisis (5).
So far, only a few people in Europe have wanted to open their eyes and recognize that here, too, so-called high finance is de facto making democracy ineffective.
This can already be seen in the USA: Here a small group of super-rich has driven the country to the brink of incapacity to govern with the help of the "Tea Party" it finances! Now the proud USA have to come along "Officials who sell themselves to the rich in this country to the highest bidder" (2) - Let the Chinese of all people rightly hold them up against deficits in democracy! (3).
All over the world governments are corrupt, bow to the demands of high finance, hide facts out of fear of the voters and drive their supposedly democratic states deeper and deeper into debt.
Where are the politicians who see the facts realistically and want to turn the wrong course?
In any case, in the long term it cannot succeed in dismissing every critical objection as a “conspiracy theory”!
Endnotes:
[1] According to “Der Spiegel”, 42/2013, page 16 “around 880,000 slave workers live in the EU”.
[2] Unfortunately, today's decision-makers no longer read Clausewitz. Otherwise they would think about what should follow after the fighting before they invade Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or bomb Gaddafi in Libya.
[3] The quote "In love and in war everything is allowed" is attributed to Napoleon.
Literature:
(1) Der Spiegel, 41/2013, page 63.
(2) Der Spiegel, 41/2013, page 81.
(3) Der Spiegel, 43/2013, page 93.
(4) Keegan, John, The Culture of War, Rowohlt, Berlin 1995.
(5) Müller, Dirk, Showdown, Droemer, Munich 2013.
(6) Perkins, John, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, Goldmann, Munich 2007.
(7) Rohmann, Jörg, Challenge to the USA: China is arming itself with tons of gold in the economic war, Focus Online, 09/27/2013. (http://www.focus.de/finanzen/experten/rohmann/yuan-gegen-dollar-kampfansage-an-usa-china-ruestet-sich-mit-tonnenweise-gold_id_3236769.html).
(8) NN, Europe is in an economic war, Akademie Integra, blog entry from November 12, 2012 (http://akademieintegra.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/europa-befindet-sich-im-wirtschaftskrieg/).
