Rob : Do
you have a name for it? What do you call
this? What do you call this new economic
reality?
Glen : I
don't know. If I'd coined a phrase, I
would've shared it with you already.
Rob :
Well, you've got to come up with one (laughs).
Glen :
(laughing) But clearly, it's not sustainable.
Clearly it's not rooted in real values.
Clearly it's the most extreme expression of the speculative nature of
finance capital at this stage in history, and it is subject to constant
crisis. It is inherently unstable. I liken it to (the situation of capital
today) an old hoopdie car. This car,
there's nothing right with this car.
Everything is wrong with this car!
The transmission is shot, the engine is shot, the electrical wiring is
shot, the tires are bald. Everything is
wrong with this car. You don't know when
this car is going to break down.
Rob : I had a friend with one of those!
Glen :
(laughing) But you know it is going to break down soon. Yeah. (laughs)
Rob : I
had a friend with one, and you know what he does? He walks, and he takes the bus, and he gets
rides from friends, and he's been trying to get it fixed since the summer. And so what you end up with, taking this
metaphor personally to my friend Steve, is you've got a return to something
much more basic and core, and dependence upon others.
Glen :
Well, if these Capitalists don't continue to drive this car, of course they die
as a class. We know this car, at some
point soon, is going to stop. And we
know that sometime soon, when it stops, it will not start again, but nobody can
predict exactly what specifically will create the crisis. Is it going to be the transmission, or is it
going to be the engine, or the electrical system? Or whatever. All of it is shot, but one or the other of
these many systems in this hoopdie are going to break down, and it'll be
over. All except, of course (back to the
real world ), all except the weaponry.
Rob : The
weaponry. Yes. Now I just want to go back again to something
you said. You talked about Africa and
China. Now, China is just cleaning up in
Africa. They are scooping up deals for
resources, and the US is getting kicked in the butt with this.
Glen : That's because China actually makes
deals! And it's been described as Soft
Power, but it's actually just straight-up economic trade relationships. China will build you a railroad, and it
doesn't come with a Chinese military base attached; it doesn't come with the stipulation that you
will vote with the United States at the United Nations attached. It's just a railroad, or a port, based upon
the economic exigencies of the deal.
That's why -- there's no secret to this -- the US can't compete, because again,
we're talking about a country that's run by finance Capitalists who actually
are not primarily involved in the production of things. Who are not, primarily, they don't make their
fortunes off of trade, but the manipulation of markets, and increasingly, they
can only manipulate those markets by calling in the coercive powers of the
United States. And who wants to get
involved with that kind of trade interlocutor: nobody. You have to force people into these kinds of/
Rob: / Well I
think they kind of came uninvited. Like
to Libya: one of the places you've commented about. Isn't that a good example of where US style
trade negotiations are taking place?
Glen :
Yeah, you know, I disagree with lots of my colleagues in terms of the assault
on Libya. Although the United States has
plans to attack every conceivable target in the world - that's what militaries
do - I don't believe that the United States in December of 2010 had in mind to
launch a military assault on Libya. I
think that the assault on Libya was occasioned by the hysteria and desperation
of the United States and Europe with the Arab Spring, and the prospect of
losing the energy center of the world to these unknown forces that might be
unleashed. And, what could their response possibly be except some massive show
of force? And Khadafy was, especially in terms of domestic audiences, the ideal
target. So, I believe the Libya
aggression was a direct reaction, was their reaction, to the Arab Spring, and
really was not primarily a move against oil fields. I think it was far more political and
desperate than that.
Rob : Now you're talking about Arab Spring, and
you've commented on Israel and its connections with the US and Saudi Arabia and
the Arab Spring. Do you want to talk
about that a little bit?
Glen : Yeah, did you see how quickly the United
States and the Europeans moved to reign in Israel this time around, as opposed
to the assault in 2008 and 2009 against Gaza that killed fourteen hundred,
fifteen hundred [1400-1500] people?
That's because in this renewed alliance that the United States has
struck with the Salafists, with the Muslim fundamentalists, in the Arab world,
and this renewed relationship was occasioned by the Arab Spring, and the
assessment by the United States, that to get ahead of this Arab Spring, it had
to strengthen its ties with those elements and with their benefactors in Saudi
Arabia and Qatar. That creates another
set of contradictions for the Americans, because how are they going to maintain
this inherently unstable alliance - as we see with the attack on the US
ambassador in Libya -- how are they going to maintain that, and still have this
unshakable alliance with Israel: a country that has, since its inception, had a
policy of fomenting constant conflict within the Arab world?
Rob : So,
now you've described a collection here: the US, Europe, Saudi Arabia, and
Qatar, and you talked about Salafists; now, the other ingredient here Iran and
the Shia groups. So you've got the
fundamentalist Salafists who are Sunni.
Glen :
Yeah.
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