Your argument is interesting, however, I doubt that you need the "Dark
Ages" strawperson/strawthing. If you examine history written by people
such as Vine Deloria, Jr. or James Riding In, you will find that the Dark
Ages were quite Light. Sensational depictions of murders, wars and
plagues are the cosmetic halloween masks of old mainstream history---used
to frighten us in contemporary times or to minimize current problems.
>From that old historical view, Druids were atavistic, yet AIDS or cancer,
or any new plague will be solved via modern technology.
Incidentally, as you imply, the "Dark Ages" also seem to have been quite
Light for indigenous peoples, especially for those who had not been
colonized. But, of course, this issue is very complex.
In general, this is not to say that the 20th century is the best of times,
or the worst of times. And, the same goes for the ostensible "Dark" Ages.
On Tue, 28 Apr 1998, Richard K. Moore wrote:
>
> Sviatoslav Zabelin
> Goldman Environmental Prize winner-93
> Co-chairman of the Council of
> Socio-Ecological Union, International
> E-mail: svet@glasnet.ru
> P.O.Box 211 Moscow 121019 Russia
>
> Dear Sviatoslav,
>
> Thank you very much for your excellent call to action, based on sound
> systemic analysis.
>
> You said:
> > I feel certain that we simply have no time to wait. We do not
> >have years to make critical decisions, only months, and I will repeat
> >this sense of urgency a thousand times if it will help.
> >...
> > I am sure that only a coalition of courageous peoples from
> >different sectors, from different countries can give humanity a chance
> >not to return to the Dark Ages with its murders, wars and plagues.
>
> I am pleased to inform you that there are people who agree with you, who
> have made a similar analysis, and who have launched precisely the coalition
> you envision. I sincerely hope you will align your energy and vision with
> our initiative. I have taken the libery of subscribing you to our the
> coalition's networking list, which includes people from all over the world:
> renaissance-network@cyberjournal.org
>
> It is easy to unsubscribe, just send a blank message to:
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> and equally easy to subscribe, with a blank message to:
> renaissance-network-subscribe@cyberjournal.org
>
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>
>
> As a secondary issue, I must differ with part of your analysis. You say...
> >In their book "Beyond the Limits" published in 1992 they repeated
> >their calculations and confirmed that no significant changes occured
> >during the past 20 years and the development of the world economy is
> >still coinciding with the computer projections stated in "Limits to
> >Growth".
>
> There is a problem with using linear projections in this way, and that is
> they discount the ability of those who control the system from responding
> intelligently (from their perspective). There _have been significant
> changes in the past 20 years, but they have been changes of _political
> _control, the consolidation of the reins of power into the hands of the
> capitalist elite.
>
> It is not _yet in the interests of the elite to moderate the destructive
> impact of traditional capitalist enterprise: it serves the important
> purpose of furthering the destabilization of the nation-state world system.
> This centuries-old world system is "thesis", globalization is
> "antithesis", but "synthesis" is _not, I suggest, to be total systemic
> collapse.
>
> There are those who considered the Great Depression of the thirties a
> `collapse' and a `disaster', but for the banks who grabbed up agricultural
> land at bargain prices, and the warmongers who engineered WW-II out of the
> chaos, it served a very useful purpose.
>
> The standard marxist assumption that capitalism must, based on its own
> premises, finally collapse, turns out to be also be based on a false linear
> extrapolation, and fails to take into account the actual experience of
> latter-day capitalism. That latter-day phenomenon is exemplified by the
> petroleum industry, which long ago reached its essential global limits.
>
> Instead of collapse, it transitioned from competitive capitalism into
> fraternal market collaboration among the seven-sister majors. One might
> say the actual capitalist endgame is a return to a kind of feudalism, with
> the capitalist elite in the old role held by kings, popes, and landed
> aristocracies. The same endgame is now being played out in every major
> market segment, under globalization, as market after market comes under the
> dominion of cliques of global mega-operators, who only compete marginally.
>
> Finally, allow me to share this recently published article, which you may
> find of interest...
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998
> From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore)
> To: cyberjournal@cpsr.org
> Subject: PPI-017-rkm essay> Destroy & Rebuild -- The story of the global economy
>
>
> PEOPLES PRESS INTERNATIONAL (PPI)
> - a public service of CADRE (Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance) -
>
> Destroy & Rebuild --
> The story of the global economy
> (c) Richard K. Moore, 1998
>
> cadre home page -> http://cyberjournal.org
> PPI home page -> http://cyberjournal.org/cadre/PPI-archives
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>
> - Republication permission granted for
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> with all sig & header info incorporated (somehow), please.
> 017-rkm-destroy-and-rebuild.txt
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Destroy & Rebuild --
> The story of the global economy
> (c) Richard K. Moore, 1998
>
>
> The standard pattern of capitalist development, repeated fractally at
> every scale of operations, and througout the past two centuries, is
> `Destroy and Rebuild'. You can see this when an area is demolished to
> make room for a shopping center. What was a collection of residences,
> or whatever, suddenly becomes transformed into a reliable revenue-stream
> for the development-investors.
>
> Or a forest with wildlife becomes transformed into a sterile mono-
> culture `tree farm', with much higher board-foot per acre per year
> yields. Or the Great Plains and Western US, from whence the Indians and
> the Buffalo were `cleared' for the grandest single development program
> ever undertaken (ie, the USA), prior to globalization itself.
>
> You can see this very same pattern in the former Soviet realm, where
> economies and infrastructures are being razed to the ground, forced by
> Western intentional policies, overt and covert, so that a new
> international-capital friendly regime can be established -- and who
> gives a damn about whatever human suffering might occur during the
> transition.
>
> `Destroy and Rebuild' applies to plots of land, markets, technologies,
> industries, nations, and as well to international arrangements.
>
> Bretton Woods, together with the US gold standard, created an extremely
> stable and sound international financial regime in the postwar era --
> nothing's ever perfect but that was a damn good job.
>
> A primary characteristic of this system was that nations enjoyed
> relatively stable currencies (if their policies were sound) and could
> keep control over their economies.
>
> At some point an elite decision was made in capitalist circles that this
> regime was insufficiently profitable -- national economic policies were
> too restrictive of capital investments by the international investor
> community.
>
> There followed a series of destabilizing measures -- the `Destroy'
> phase:
> - US goes off gold standard
> - safe havens for unaccountable financial transactions (in truth
> money laundering operations) setup in Bahamas, Panama, and
> elsewhere
> - erosion, by deep & well-funded lobbying, of regulations on
> financial transactions across borders
>
> In fact, this was the beginning of the overt globalization process,
> beginning well in advance of the public coming-out-of-the-closet of
> neoliberalism, with Reagan and Thatcher as standard bearers, c. 1980.
>
> We are still in the very midst, the climax even, of the `Destroy phase'
> regarding the international financial system. As a matter of fact, the
> international financial system, under the guidance and with the direct
> participation of the elite-controlled IMF, has become a highly tuned
> instrument for the destabilization of national and regional economies,
> as we have seen in Brazil, Mexico, etc, and most recently in South East
> Asia, and soon-to-come in Japan.
>
> What we are seeing is a sequence of search-and-destroy operations being
> carried out against any economy which has any quality of local or
> regional integrity, which embodies any semblance of local optimization
> for local advantage -- the globalization vision is that all econonomies
> everywhere lie prone on their backs ready for consentual rape by passing
> capital investors -- `competitiveness' means that the nations should
> dress-up sexy so as to be more attractive to the capital-investor
> community.
>
> These intentional destabilization raids will continue, and when they
> cross the Rubicon into the USA and Europe, they will _suddenly be
> _perceived (ie, characterized in the media) as a _serious problem that
> _something must be done about.
>
> Then pundits will all-at-once realize that a more stable international
> financial system is needed and _lo and _behold a plan will be all ready
> for adoption! Such wonderful serendipity!
>
> And guess who will administer this marvelous just-in-time solution?
> That will be the WTO, or some other acronymical-bureaucracy equally
> dominated by `public-spirited staffers' from the TNC sector.
>
> So in the end financial stability will be `rebuilt', as is the standard
> final phase of every capitalist development project. We started with a
> stable Bretton-Woods, nation-centered regieme, it was `destroyed' by a
> sequence of measures, and we'll end up with a `rebuilt' regime which is
> elite-centered.
>
> The world economy has been razed so that it can be turned into a
> shopping mall for the capitalist elite, where they can conveniently go
> shopping for bargains among the world's various `markets', each of whom
> is expected to `compete' on the basis of its seductiveness to capital.
>
> rkm
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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