The symbiosis of international business and the big 3 of authoritarianism

[azul]

The new age of authoritarianism

By Chrystia Freeland

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, democracy was on the march and we declared the End of History. Nearly two decades later, a neo-imperialist Russia is at war with Georgia, Communist China is proudly hosting the Olympics, and we find that, instead, we have entered the Age of Authoritarianism.

~snip~

Yet today, in much of the world, the spread of freedom is being checked by an authoritarian revanche. That shift has been most obvious in the petro-states, where oil is casting its usual curse. From Latin America to Africa to the Middle East, the black-gold bonanza has given authoritarian regimes the currency to buy off or to repress their subjects. In Russia, oil has fuelled an economic boom that prime minister Vladimir Putin, and some of his foreign admirers, mistakenly attribute to his careful demolition of the chaotic democracy of the 1990s.

For Russians, that argument is strengthened by the fact that the rising economic power of the moment - China - is unashamedly sticking to its faith in one-party rule. The end of the cold war made it tempting to believe that as countries opened up their markets, and became richer in the process, they would inevitably open up their societies, too. George W. Bush, US president, reiterated that hopeful thesis on his Asia tour last week, insisting: "Young people who grow up with the freedom to trade goods will ultimately demand the freedom to trade ideas."

~snip~

Of course, another way to ensure popular support for your authoritarian regime is by playing up nationalist sentiment. We are more tolerant of our home-grown bullies if we think we need them to fight our enemies abroad - as even democratic America has demonstrated in recent years. Mr Putin has understood this all along, launching a brutal attack on Chechnya even before his coronation as president in 2000.

Russia's expert taunting of the hotheads in Georgia, followed by immediate and massive retaliation the moment Tbilisi took the bait, is the latest evidence that, for the Kremlin, neo-imperialism is an essential bulwark of neo-authoritarianism. Bringing down the walls really did make the world safer. Now that so many leaders are building them back up again, figuring out how to contain the 21st century's monied authoritarians is our most pressing foreign policy dilemma.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4bd4868e-6806-11dd-8d3b-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1


Young people will have the freedom to trade, as defined by the likes of the WTO, but to demand real freedoms will probably land them in prison, in this nightmarish like now future.

Are Russia, China, and the US abusing international business laws and monies to establish and entrench authoritarian regimes? And do they cooperate, via businesses and intelligence services, to play up threats against each other to consolidate their controls on media and freedoms and military spending? Like maybe Tibet, Iraq, Georgia? And by trading extensively with each other, support each other's abuses of power.

Do they now cooperate on fighting little skirmishes, to give each a little victory and keep these big 3 teams in power? And perhaps behind the scenes the business persons get the labor concessions and access to markets that money can buy when corruption is making the deals.

Is social-democracy the real threat to authoritarian regimes, and so it is being targeted in this manner? The 3 select flavors of authoritarian-capitalism working in sync to control all markets and labor and resources?

That Olympian meeting of Bush and Putin in China while Georgia attacks a province and is then immediately invaded has me donning my platinum headset, for best reception.

[Union Thug]

1. Business is intrinsically tyrannical and predatory. It follows

that establishing international trade for profit - the business of business - as the organizing principle around which the world shall revolve is bound to create global corporate tyrannies - classic fascism. Capitalism is NOT a good basis for government. Business models are meant to destroy everyone but the few.

That any of this comes as a surprise to anyone is the real mind-boggler.