The Plundering Nations Last Stand

In Nineteenth Century France a now mostly forgotten lawyer and political-economist lived until he died far too young at the age of 49 from throat cancer in 1850, Frédéric Bastiat, who is canonized today by Libertarians. During his life he made some very powerful observations that have proven true overtime:

When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. “Economic Sophisms," 1848

Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim--when he defends himself--as a criminal. “The Law,” 1850

When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe. «The Law», 1850

When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. “The Law,” 1850

When he died, Bastiat was working on a manuscript, History of Plunder, that remains unpublished along with other works, but his published works gave us the above gems and many more. At the time he seemed to be just coming into his own as a political-economist having just witnessed the series of revolutions in 1848 and the theft of France's Republic by Napoleon III. All of the above quotes can be applied to our world today. Bastiat was neck-deep in the Era of Plunder otherwise known as the Colonial Era or Era of Imperialism, and France was a major actor as was most of the Western European Realms. I don't call them nations because most were still mired in Feudalism and ruled by Royalty as most tried to suppress the radicalism spawned by the revolution in British America. Eventually republics were born but they still practiced plunder. Many today still try to plunder while themselves are subjected to it in often unrecognized ways. And one of the most significant actions happening today is the fact that the historical plunderers are now being plundered as that Era comes to a close and the new Era based on cooperation takes form and displaces those unwilling to be on the right side of history and will suffer from the effects listed in the third citation above.

Now, our tale. Recently at the Fans of Lavrov's Telegram, there was posted an excellent political cartoon that depicts the situation better than any I've seen--A snarling Uncle Sam firing a machine gun fed with an ammo belt using Ukrainians as bullets. I'd copy/paste it here but Telegram doesn't seem to allow that operation. Here's the caption for the cartoon:

"The results of the work of the Ukrainian propaganda machine are impressive: for example, 98% of Ukrainians are confident of victory in the special operation. Such survey data, commissioned by the Center for Analytical Studies (CISR) of the International Republican Institute (IRI), was published by the Rating group. The regime of Zelensky and his 'servants' continues day after day to hang noodles on the ears of the citizens of Independence, who in his political adventure are cannon fodder and the main means of warfare on the principle of 'war to the last Ukrainian'."

Too few people seem to understand that with the 2014 coup, Ukraine as an independent nation ceased to exist and was transformed into a de facto colony of the Outlaw US Empire which has guided its "development" (managed its plunder) ever since in a manner very similar to South Vietnam. The main difference is the lack of significant Imperial combat forces in-country. When looked at closely, there are very clear similarities between South Vietnamese forces and the UAF--their Naziness being one of them. While the nature of the two wars is slightly different, the capabilities of the two proxies isn't--both are inept for much the same reason: They are led by politicized Pentagon and State Department flunkies only interested in Plunder. The result again has the Outlaw US Empire fighting against nationalist forces aiming to liberate their people who have powerful allies supporting their cause. The situation's also very similar to what the British did in South Asia by using different proxies to fight each other instead of the Raj while it looked on and continued its plundering unabated.

The policy choice by the Outlaw US Empire to use Ukrainians as an anti-Russia force and to support them until they're totally spent while the Empire continued its plundering opened up a unique opportunity for Russian strategy--Russia would oblige the Outlaw US Empire's policy by ensuring NATO would bleed itself dry of its arms and munitions in supporting Ukraine while Russia went about demilitarizing all Ukraine had to start with plus all that's being sent. And then there were the sanctions, which Russia knew might hurt some but would become a very sharp weapon against the sanctioners that would generate chaos and possibly split the EU/NATO enemy organizations once and for all that would create a blank slate for a new Eurasian security arrangement fashioned mostly by China and itself. The result shows Russia gaining strength while NATO weakens daily to the point where NATO nations will be too poor to finance rearming themselves in the face of vast societal upheaval caused by their policy choices. Talk about Hybrid War!

Then there's the even bigger global picture as the once dominant Plundering Nations now plunder themselves via Neoliberal Parasitism. It's really quite a sight when one takes a moment to review it all. This editorial excerpt dealing with Biden's refusal to cancel the tariffs of Trump's China Trade War despite the fact that it harms the Empire's public far more than China is an excellent example:

"Besides, the US is the only superpower in the world. It has always been the bully, but when has it been bullied by others? In the realistic level of China-US relations, the US has always been the one that provokes China, so where does this 'being soft on China' rhetoric come from? This is a psychological disease in politics that needs to be treated. The endless competition of 'who is tougher on China' will make Washington lose itself and the courage for self-renewal. Moreover, the overall posture the US has shown in front of the world is becoming less and less honorable and more and more erratic."

Is there a touch of sarcasm there? The Global South observes the behavior of the Plundering Nations and snicker to themselves that they're finally getting the karma they so richly deserve. The global paradigm is rapidly changing as the Age of Plunder dies and the nations that benefited from it choke as they plunder themselves by following the diktat of what's rapidly becoming a failed state so deeply addicted to Pleonexia it will very likely die from an overdose while plundering itself. "Self-renewal" can't be done while you're busily plundering your people, which is the political disease at the core of all the Plundering Nations. In one sense they are exceptional nations because they are blind to the fate they are providing for themselves as a result of their addiction.

The great sorrow of this state of affairs is that it was well known centuries ago as Dr. Michael Hudson illustrates:

The greatest challenge facing societies has always been how to conduct trade and credit without letting merchants and creditors make money by exploiting their customers and debtors. All antiquity recognized that the drive to acquire money is addictive and indeed tends to be exploitative and hence socially injurious. The moral values of most societies opposed selfishness, above all in the form of avarice and wealth addiction, which the Greeks called philarguria – love of money, silver-mania. Individuals and families indulging in conspicuous consumption tended to be ostracized, because it was recognized that wealth often was obtained at the expense of others, especially the weak.

The Greek concept of hubris involved egotistic behavior causing injury to others. Avarice and greed were to be punished by the justice goddess Nemesis, who had many Near Eastern antecedents, such as Nanshe of Lagash in Sumer, protecting the weak against the powerful, the debtor against the creditor.

That protection is what rulers were expected to provide in serving the gods. That is why rulers were imbued with enough power to protect the population from being reduced to debt dependency and clientage.

Well before the Greeks, empires built on plunder already existed and slowly moved from West Asia to Europe. Within them arose a power relationship that continues to plague humanity--the plundering of debtors by creditors, or what's known as The Class War so few recognize because none of its origins and history are taught as such, while what is taught is euphemized to protect powerful institutions like the Catholic Church. Other words like exploitation are used as well as expropriation to mask the plundering. Recall the first Bastiat citation above, while learning there were means employed to renew society from the plunder through what're known as Debt Jubilees, which was actually codified into Mosaic Law and is what Jesus died trying to reinstate. (For more on this topic, go here.) As we should all know, the system was organized to legalize plunder, but as a rule we don't because we're not taught about it so it can continue and be thought of as a natural part of life. It must be noted that Saint Augustine failed to mention what was at the base of the moral debacle that prompted him to write City of God which was the elite's worship of the God of Mammon which Rome's elite fashioned Rome's legal system to support and ensured no one could challenge them via their policy of assassinating all opposition. And since Roman Law forms the basis for much Western Law, the great bias in favor of creditors versus debtors continues, which is clearly something Bastiat wanted to purge

And so the plundering empires of the Greco-Roman Era rose and fell as they were plundered themselves. But plundering didn't vanish; instead, it got religion. Into the power vacuum that developed with the fall of Rome arose the Institution of the Roman Catholic Church which despite its Mosaic Law and its Son of God being the champion of those being plundered broke its own laws and morals to become the Western World's biggest plunderer until the 1500s. It made possible the Age of Plunder that erupted with the “discovery” of sea routes to Asia and the Western Hemisphere's continents with its series of Papal Bulls that began in 1479 with the Treaty of Alcáçovas, was followed by its much more infamous Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 and capped by the Treaty of Zaragoza in 1529. The arrogance of these Papal Bulls is stupendous--only Christians (and only select Christians at that) were deemed to be humans, all other humans were animals and to be treated as such--and that led to a global genocide which isn't over yet. Even legal aspects of those Bulls remain on the books so the plunder they generated can continue. It didn't take long for all the plundering realms to adopt the Bulls, whether nominally Protestant or Catholic. Only the Eastern Orthodox refused to use them mainly because they were deemed to be unworthy Christians and thus animals.

And so began the most recent Age of Plunder which is finally drawing to a close after 500+ years of rampage and rape, although there remain forces trying their utmost to extend it further. Many efforts were raised over the years to combat and overturn the basis of Plunder all of whom failed until now, which builds on the efforts of Bastiat and other Classical Economist reformers during the 19th Century. Their primary aim was to end all Feudal privileges, many of which were granted by Royalty to exploit their subjects, and come under the heading of Unearned Income, or the Free Lunch many have heard about. The best contemporary work on this subject is Dr. Hudson's Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy, although he's been interviewed many times and written many essays on the topic, one terse version of the book being «The rentier resurgence and takeover: Finance Capitalism vs. Industrial Capitalism». Hopes for victory were high during Disraeli's government during the latter 1870s as many practical reforms were at long last passed into law, but not enough was done and a Reaction was sparked that still continues. The program was to cancel the initiatives of the Classical Economists and eliminate political-economy as a course of study at schools and universities, first in England then in the USA. The substitute was the promotion of a non-scientific form of economics having little relation to reality that's now known as Neoliberalism that was well entrenched after WW1 ended with the Parasites capture of the US Federal Reserve and City of London financial centers as well as those on Continental Europe. US plunder was rampant via what was called Dollar Diplomacy, which provided the motivation for General Smedley Butler to write his seminal War is a Racket. But perhaps the greatest attempt at plunder was the Versailles Treaty's reparations, or raperations, to be borne by Germany. Not yet under the illusion of the «new» economics and present at Versailles was John Maynard Keynes, who became so irate and disconsonant at what he was witnessing that he left for Marseilles to write his prophetic The Economic Consequences of the Peace, which predicted WW2. Both World Wars as well as our Hybrid Third World War were waged in the further pursuit of Plunder.

Fortunately for humanity, a countervailing force has arisen that's stronger than the Plundering Nations, which is commonly known as the Multipolar World. The irony is its strength is due to the Plundering Nations quest for ever more plunder, for under the Neoliberal doctrine, they parasitized their industry and sent it to developing nations to feast on the wage arbitrage, which is known as the financialization of capitalism, that transformed their nations into what were touted as Service Economies. The shortsightedness of this plundering policy was made very clear with Trump's Trade War against China. Biden's crew has not just continued that as noted above, it has also instituted a Sanctions War of Plunder against what were once its EU/NATO allies whose main aim is to nullify Germany as Europe's economic engine. The aim of this strategy is to make EU/NATO completely dependent geoeconomically on the Outlaw US Empire, which translates into more plundering. EU/NATO «leaders» are essentially owned by the Empire and thus do whatever it dictates, but fortunately not all. Then there's the public that's bearing the brunt of the plundering and slowly rising in protest despite the massive propaganda campaign based on Russophobia, longstanding and recently cultivated. So, between Russia's boomeranging the sanctions back at their originators and the policy of fighting Russia first to the last Ukrainian, then the last Balt, and presumably the last European, the EU is experiencing both destabilization and dysfunction that will reach a climax come January when Winter really takes hold and much of Europe has no gas to heat homes or run businesses.

It's difficult to judge the desperation of the Outlaw US Empire's plunderers and their UK allies. Their Free Lunch is in deep jeopardy as their domestic situations are also being subjected to destabilization and dysfunction. Meanwhile, all the organs of the Multipolar World grow stronger daily. The dedollarization of international trade gathers greater momentum. The theft of too many nation's assets by the plunderers throws up a big warning sign to all others that they aren't at all trustworthy. This testimony is but one instance:

For a long time, the US has been the country that attracts the most foreign investment. But over the years, under the poisonous atmosphere of pan-politicization and generalization of concept of security, the country has created many terrible precedents, making more and more originally rich investment soil into a minefield. For example, it has forced foreign high-tech companies to hand over their technology and even carried out "technical confiscation" of capital, leading many people to say that Washington is close to "open robbery." Can a company develop at ease if it is constantly worried about its investment and if it might be confiscated one day or waste all its investment? According to US media reports, CATL has long been planning to build US battery plants and visited some places in the US, but eventually may choose alternative plan to build plant in Mexico. It should be said that the doubts of CATL are also those of many other companies.

That's how plundering nations commit suicide. Currently, the planet's two most dynamic economies are under attack by the plunderers as they seek to avoid what those nations and their vast array of allies want to construct--A world with plundering replaced by sharing, Zero-sum replaced by Win-Win, perpetual war for plunder replaced by perpetual peace so humanity can mature and gain the wisdom it will need in the coming centuries. The plunderers have turned their «back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe» because of their Pleonexia affliction. As was done via Enclosure, the plunderers are now attacking their own polities and will likely be attacked by them soon. The Good Works being practiced by the Multipolar World and their solidarity in facing down those driven by Pleonexia for centuries have already won over 85% of humanity. Histories once hidden are being revealed in a manner that longstanding truths are now exposed along with the villains. The Global South is eager to learn those truths as are many within the plundering nations despite the efforts made to impose an information blackout. A very long Era/Age is closing that humanity won't miss. There does remain one big problem, however, and that's the possibility that the plunderers will unleash their bioweapons as opposed to nukes since there'll be nothing left to plunder if the latter are employed.