Those who read my previous articles, “The deadly corporate world empire” and “The worst form of global government: that of businessmen”, surely would have concluded that passengers in this spacecraft-Earth travel under totally different conditions. A small group of the super-rich occupy first class, with scandalous luxury; other lucky ones travel in economy class, and are served reasonable food and drinks. The rest of humanity, and there are millions, travel in the cargo hold, where the temperature is many degrees below zero, almost dying of hunger, thirst and desperation. They bang on the walls of those above them screaming: “either we share what we have in this unique spacecraft or at some point the resources will be exhausted and regardless of social class, we will all die”. But who will listen to them? The comfortable ones sleep undisturbed after a very generous banquet.

This is, metaphorically, humanity’s real situation. We are truly lost and flying blind.  How have we reached this threatening situation?

We have experimented with two models of production and of utilization of natural goods and services to fulfill human demands: socialism and capitalism. Both have failed. There is no need to go into detail of how that happened. In practice, the socialist system was one of a centralized state planned economy. It reached reasonable levels of equality-equity in the fields of education, health, and housing, but due to internal and external reasons, especially its dictatorial character, it was unable to resolve its contradictions, and it collapsed.

The neo-liberal capitalist system of free markets with scant control by the State also failed due to its internal logic, that of accumulating material goods without limit, or any other considerations. It produced two grave injustices: social injustice, where the wealthiest 20% controls 82.4% of the riches of the Earth, and the poorest 20% must make do with only 1.6%; and an ecological injustice, devastating whole ecosystems and eliminating species of living beings at the rate of 70-100 thousand per year. This system collapsed in 2008, precisely in the heart of the central countries.

Chinese communism is sui generis: it pragmatically combines all modes of production, from the use of the physical labor of people and animals, to the highest technology, joining state, private or mixed properties, so that the final result is better production with only a minimal sense of social or ecological justice.

But is important to recognize that there is a growing certainty that the system-Earth, limited in goods and services, small and over-populated, no longer can support unlimited growth. She has lost the conditions necessary to replenish that which we take away, and therefore the Earth-system is becoming more and more unsustainable. But as a living super-entity, the Earth reacts ever more violently: with sudden climate changes, hurricanes, tsunamis, thaws, terrifying depopulations, erosion of biodiversity and an ever increasing global warming. When will this process stop? If it continues, where will it take us?

It is urgent that we change course, this is, that we adopt new principles and values, capable of organizing in an amicable form our relations with nature and with our Common Home. The most inspiring document certainly is The Earth Charter, born of a world consultation that lasted eight years, inspired by Mikhail Gorbachev and approved in 2003 by UNESCO. The Charter incorporates the best data of the new cosmology, that shows the Earth as a moment in a vast universe in evolution, alive and endowed with a complex community of life. All living beings are carriers of the same basic genetic code, making all of us relatives.

Four fundamental principles structure The Charter: (1) respect and caring for the community of life; (2) ecological integrity; (3) social and economic justice; (4) democracy, non-violence and peace. The document warns severely: «either we form a global alliance to care for the Earth and for one another, or we risk our own destruction and that of the community of life» (preamble).

The final words of The Charter call on us to retake humanity: «as never before in history, the common destiny calls on us to search for a new beginning. This requires a change of mind and heart. It calls for a new sense of global interdependence and universal responsibility. Only in this way will we reach a way of living sustainably, at the local, regional, national and global levels» (conclusion).

Let us note that it does not speak of reforms, but of a new beginning. It is about re-inventing humanity. Such a purpose demands a new way of looking at the Earth (mind), seen as a living entity, Gaia, and a new relationship of caring and love (heart), obeying the universal logic of interdependency of all with all and of a collective responsibility for the common future.

This is the path to follow that will serve as the navigation map so that the vessel-Earth lands safely in a different type of world.

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, cybermelinaalfaro@bandalibre.com,
done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

We have dealt before with the empire of the huge multinationals that control the economic flow, and through it, other aspects of world society. This perverse empire was built for lack of a global government, which becomes more urgent every day. There are global problems such as of peace, food, water, climate change, the migrations of the world’s peoples, and others that, because they are global, demand global solutions. But the egotism and individualism of the great powers is preventing such a government.

A global government presupposes that each country cedes a little of its sovereignty, in order to create a global and plural space where global solutions to global problems may be found. But no power wants to renounce any of its power, even if the problems worsen, especially those linked to the physical limitations of the Earth that can negatively affect all of humanity, through extreme events.

Let us say in passing that most economists exhibit a pitiful blindness. In their debates – as an example, in the well known weekly program, Globonews Pinel – the economy occupies a privileged space.  But I have yet to hear a single participant include in his analysis the limits of  sustainability of the life-system and of the Earth-system that check capital’s renewal. They prolong the tedious economic talk of the old paradigm, as if the Earth were a chest of unlimited resources and the economy were measured by the Gross National Product, GNP, like a chapter of mathematics and statistics. Thought is lacking. They do not understand that if we do not abandon our obsession with unlimited material growth and instead, search for social equity-equality, we will only make the already bad situation worse.

We would like to touch on an even more shameful component of the perverse empire of the huge multinational corporations. It is the search for a Multilateral Investment Treaty. Almost everything is discussed behind closed doors. But to the extent that it is detected, it retracts, to soon return under another name. The intention is to create a free market treaty between nations and the large corporations. The terms were well presented by Lori Wallach, director of the Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch in Le Monde Diplomatique Brasil, in November 2013.

These corporations seek to satiate their appetite for accumulation in an area where poor countries are relatively weak: sanitation infrastructure, health security, professional schools, natural resources, public equipment, culture, copyrights and patents. The contracts take advantage of the countries’ fragility, and impose leonine conditions. The corporations, being transnational, do not consider themselves subject to national norms regarding health, environmental protection or fiscal legislation. When they deem that due to such norms, the desired earnings have not been attained, they can, through judicial processes, demand payment from the country (from the people!) that can reach thousands of millions of dollars or euros.

These corporation treat the Earth as if it belonged to no-one, like the old colonialism, and get the tribunals to grant them rights to acquire land, water sources, lakes and other natural goods and services. Those corporations, Wallach notes, «have no obligation towards the country and can launch projects when and where they see fit» (p.5). A typical and ridiculous example is the case of Fattenfall, the Swedish energy supplier that is demanding thousands of millions of euros from Germany, for its «energy switch», having promised to abandon nuclear energy and more severely punish carbon emiters. The issue of pollution, of reducing global warming and preserving the planet’s biodiversity are dead letters to those predators, in the name of profit.

The commercial shamefulness reaches such levels that the countries signing that type of treaty «would find themselves obliged not only to submit their public services to the logic of the market but also to renounce any control over the foreign providers of services that covet their markets» (p.6). The country would have only a minimal control on questions of energy, health, education, water and transportation, precisely the topics most demanded in the June 2013 protests by thousands of demonstrators in Brazil.

These treaties were being negotiated with the United States and Canada, with the Free Trade Agreements in Latin America and especially between the European Community and the United States.

What do these strategies reveal? An economy that has become autonomous in a manner where only the economy is important, one that annuls the sovereignty of the countries, takes the Earth as a whole as property, and transforms business into an immense emporium. Everything becomes merchandise: people, their organs, nature, culture, entertainment and even religion and heaven. No consideration was given to the possible massive reaction of civil society that can, furiously and justly, reveal and throw everything to waste. Worse still, full of shame, but still obstinate, these projects are being hidden behind closed doors.

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar,
done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

Good wishes for a happy new year are ritual. They are no more than simple wishes, because they do not change the course of the world, where the super powerful continue their strategy of global domination. We need to think and even pray about this, because its economic, social, cultural, spiritual consequences and implications for the future of the species and nature can be dreadful.

Many people, such as Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, hoped that the legacy of the 2008 crisis would be a great debate about the type of society we want to build. They were totally wrong. That debate never happened. To the contrary, the logic that caused the crisis has been retaken with a vengeance. Richard Wilkinson, one of the main specialists on the theme of inequality, was more attentive and said a while back in an interview with the German newspaper, Die Zeit, that “the fundamental question is this: do we or do we not really want to live according to the principle that the strongest appropriates almost everything and the weakest falls behind?”

The super-rich and super-powerful decided that they want to live according to the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest, and that the weakest have to put up with it. But, Wilkinson comments: «I believe we all need greater cooperation and reciprocity, because people desire greater social equality». This desire is intentionally suppressed by the wealthy.

In general, capitalist logic is ferocious: one enterprise consumes another, (euphemistically, it is said that they have merged). When the point is reached where only a few big enterprises remain, they change the logic: instead of warring with each other, they make an alliance of wolves among themselves, and together behave as sheep. Arranged this way, they have more power, they can accumulate with more security for themselves and for their stockholders, without having to worry at all for the well being of society.

The political and economic influence they exert over governments, most of which are weaker than they, is extremely coercive, interfering in the price of the commodities, and reducing social investments, in health, education, transportation and security. The thousands of people who occupy the streets around the world and in Brazil, recognize through intuition this domination by a new type of empire, whose mottos are: «greed is good» and «let’s devour as much as we can».

There are excellent studies about the domination of the world by the great multilateral corporations. David Korten’s When the Corporations rule the World is well known. But a synthesizing study was needed, and this was done by the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School, (ETH), in Zurich, in 2011, one of the most respected centers of investigation, rivaling the Northamerican Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT. The document is short, no more than 10 pages long, with another 26 pages on its methodology, to show the absolute transparency of its results. It has been reviewed by the professor of economy, Ladislau Dowbor, of the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo, PUC-SP, Brazil, in his web page, <<http://dowbor.org>&gt;. We will base ourselves on that document.

From the 30 million existing corporations, ETH selected 43 thousand to better study their functioning logic. Thus is articulated the simplified scheme: there is a small central financial nucleus with two aspects: on one side are the corporations that constitute the nucleus, and on the other, those that are controlled by the nucleus. This framework creates a network of global corporative control. The small nucleus, (core), constitutes a super entity. From that nucleus emanates the control of the network, that facilitates cost reduction, risk protection, the increase in confidence and, what is most important, the determination of what lines of the global economy must be fortified, and where.

That small nucleus, mainly comprised of large banks, holds the majority of the stock in the other corporations. The cupola controls 80% of the entire network of corporations. They are only 737 actors, in 147 big enterprises. These include the Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, UBS, Santander, Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas (among many others). In the end, less than 1% of enterprises control 40% of all the network.

This data lets us understand the indignation of the Occupiers and others who denounce the 1% of enterprises that do what they want with the resources coming from the sweat of the other 99% of the population. They neither work nor produce anything. They only make more money with the money put into the speculative markets.

It was this absurd voracity of accumulating without limit that caused the 2008 systemic crisis. This logic deepens inequality more and more, and makes it more difficult to overcome the crisis.  How much inequality can the peoples of the world tolerate? Everything has its limits and the economy is not everything. But now we have been allowed to see the entrails of the monster. As Dowbor says: «The truth is that we have ignored the elephant in the middle of the living room». The elephant is breaking everything, the crystal, the dishes, and trampling the people. But…  for how long? The world’s ethical sensibility assures us that a society cannot subsist very long if it is based on super exploitation, deceit and death.

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar,
done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.