Re: Re: "Russia turns to yuan"

[Waistline2]

The Other Side of Stan - Midnight, from the vantage point of China and a new polarity.

There is a glut of oil in the world.

Melvin P.



Great article Mark. Time to get busy.

The US threat of war against China is dangerous. Capitalism means war. It is an integral part of the system. The US, in the face of an economic collapse, needs a big war to try to refuel its economy. Increasing military expenditures to the tune of $396 billion means the economy is being put on a war footing. The US must also prevent China from becoming a world competitor. It is willing to go to war to prevent this. Such a war could use nuclear weapons.

The activity of the US in Central Asia is part of an overall strategy. U.S. military encirclement of China has expanded through the war in Afghanistan. Control of the Caspian and Central Asian oil, along with its own oil and those deposits it already has under its control, will allow the US to try to dictate to not only Europe, but, as their energy needs continue to grow, China and India as well. Whoever controls the world's energy can control the world.

Bush's threats make China's longtime attempts to revamp its military urgent. At the moment, China is isolated. The Chinese people will defend their country. However, increased military spending takes away from healthcare and other needs, creating more social unrest. China faces the wrath of a new class of poor that is losing its social safety net as the old socialist economy is restructured around the new technology and global market.

The Chinese economy is growing at a dizzying rate and the US needs this market. Energy consumption is expected to grow. By 2010, half of China's energy needs could be filled by foreign oil. Of course, China understands its position in the world and has for years been taking steps so as to not be at the mercy of global oil markets. A rise in the price of oil could hurt their growth. China's defense is to boost home energy production, which they are doing.

Ultimately, the US effort to control oil in the Caspian region cannot succeed. First, building the pipelines and securing them promises to be even more explosive than the Middle East.

As an aspiring proletarian strategist I am compelled to examine the social equation a little bit different from Stan.

Second, there is a glut of oil in the world. This must be repeated: there is a glut of oil in the world. The glut has two immediately observable sides: the ability to pay for oil and the emergence of alternative energy sources. Oil is inexplicably fused to the fabric of capital but oil is not capital. Stated another way, oil is the industrial production of the social product. That is a historically specific form of energy driving a historically distinct mode of production. A leap in the mode of production is underway and its completion is impossible without the development of a new energy source that can drive the completion of the underpinning of the infrastructure.

In other words the transition from manufacture to industry could not take place on the basis of steam power. The emergence of an enhanced energy source - petroleum, was necessary although petroleum use is thousands of years old. Oil will go the way of the slide rule - in stages, and this does not call for a "perfect substitute," but a combination of different energy form with one dominator driving the fundamental pathways of the infrastructure.

There is a glut of oil in the world - market. There is so much oil under the earth that if all of it were burned, it would destroy the earth. This makes the effort to control the price, and hence the economies of the world, more difficult.

A third problem, related to the glut of oil, is that if too much oil reaches the world market, the price falls. Saudi Arabia loses $2.7 billion for every $1 fall in the price of oil, further intensifying the polarity of wealth and poverty, and creating political havoc in their country. In this light, the US war effort against Iraq is in reality a war to keep Iraqi oil off the market. Iraq sits on the second largest oil reserve next to Saudi Arabia. If Iraq's oil is released it could cause drastic changes in world energy prices. Even though much of the world opposes a war against Iraq, any incident, real or contrived by the US, could set it off.

Finally, the US must reduce Russian influence in the area. Russia is now a world player in oil with huge reserves. US effort could unleash social forces within Russia, which must defend their national interests. In addition, Russia is already unsettling the oil balance. It is poised to displace Saudi Arabia as the key energy supplier to the West, and Saudi Arabia does not like it. Also, other countries are challenging American and European dominance in energy.

What is being described is how every step the capitalists take creates more danger and more political turmoil as they try to implement their global policies. This is most clear when viewed from the perspective of the poor. The worldwide struggle of the poor today is a struggle for human survival. The struggle of the poor in Venezuela shows the potential political ramifications of this. War and global fascism is the only alternative the capitalists have to contain the process.

The world's people are paying the price for the slaughter of thousands of communists in the Middle Eastern countries and elsewhere, and for the action of counter-revolutionaries in the former Socialist countries. It is worth noting that it was after the overthrow of the communist regime in Afghanistan that warlord factions began to destroy the Afghani people's lives. The only thing that can save humanity in this period of epochal change is a society based on cooperation where the world's resources are distributed based on need.

From the standpoint of theory - abstraction, the division of capital into sectors is to establish its historical trajectory and immediate economic and political consequence. Within the relationship called capital are human social relationships identified as classes and sectors of society whose interaction describe the motion of the body politic. There is no other way to be coherent and make sense of the increasing growth of poverty stricken people outside to the polarization of wealth and poverty.

From a strategic point of view - which of necessity mirror military doctrine in general, the growth of a speculative sector of capital as dominator engenders its polar opposite in the exact same manner that the growth of industrial and then industrial finance capital engendered its polar opposite in the industrial proletariat. This class alignment, relationship of people, described the motion of the body politic in the previous configuration of history. It is neither infantile or reductionist to pinpoint a fundamental alignment of class forces and who they must behave to secure their material survival.

On the other hand the historical view of the Nixon years and the role of the creation of the petro-dollar, seems to me to be accurate, or what is understood as the floating of the dollar and the dismantling of the Bretton Woods Agreement. My point is the following stated as a summation: Japan demanded the conversion of Yankee Doodle dandies - dollars, into gold and Nixon says "no."  The deal is struck with the Saudis to make the purchase of petroleum payable in American dollars. These American dollars accumulated in the Middle East where sent back to America not simply in investment - in T bonds and securities, but infrastructure development and this meant construction. This process engendered a "national bourgeoisie" or recast the role of the historic merchant trader in the Middle East.

This raises another question because this process described above was part of a distinct period of history that embraces the collapse of Soviet power.  Here what is being referred to be what has been called the "general crisis of capital."  One cannot longer speak of simply a general crisis of capital because the conditions of era have changed and we are in a new phase of history. The general crisis of capital is inexplicably fused with the emergence of Soviet Power, although it arose before Soviet powers emergence.

Perhaps I can get to this tomorrow.  Have to be at work in one hour and promised to run to the store for the wife and get her some cigarettes. I ain't paying for her smokes, although I still smoke.

She never lets me have any fun and still gets mad when I stay outside after the street lights come on. I guess we are always little boys - even when world strategist. Damn. I am getting ready to deal BlackJack for the people.  


Melvin P.