Absolute Power -- The Making of the New World Order
        © 1998 Richard K. Moore

        As published in Toward Freedom, May 1998

The dominant trend of our time is globalization, taking such
forms as the elimination of trade barriers, downsized
governments, greater reliance on the private sector, reduced
regulation of business, and an increasingly global economy.
Many people interpret this as economic progress, basically a
good thing. But this form of globalization is actually
political regression, threatening to destroy democratic
institutions and turn the clock of human progress centuries
backward to something resembling feudalism.

In some ways, the US is central to the process. It's the
leading proponent of free trade, and provides the primary
military muscle to shape and maintain global order. When the
US president speaks on international issues, his words are
taken seriously. He is, after all, the most powerful and
influential world leader. Yet, the US isn't the primary
beneficiary of globalization, and doesn't appear to be
exploiting its advantage in the traditional fashion.

The reason should be obvious: Globalization isn't about
competition among nations, but rather about the increasing
power of mega- corporations over nations and their peoples.
In effect, the US government acts as a proxy for elite
corporate interests, not as a representative of its people
or even national interests in any traditional sense.
Although sovereign national states, sometimes competing and
sometimes cooperating, are the Familiar World Order,
globalization is leading us inexorably toward a New World
Order where mega- corporations (and the wealthy elite who
control them) reign supreme, while nations are reduced to a
vestigial, subservient, policing role -- as we see in much
of the Third World.

The Democratic Illusion

During the era of feudalism, there were three elites: the
church hierarchy, landed aristocracy/nobility, and royal
families. As that system ended, an additional elite -- the
business wealthy -- gained status and influence through
trade and manufacture. These elite groups competed for
power, with different accommodations from time to time and
place to place.

For the general population, the elites represented security
or tyranny, depending on your perspective. But it was
obvious to all that they ran things; no one pretended
society was democratic. With the advent of "democratic
republics," however, the older elites were removed from
power, while the business wealthy, who ushered in
capitalism, remained relatively undisturbed. Did this
transformation bring about democracy in any genuine sense,
or merely monopolization of power in the hands of the single
remaining elite? The question remains open.

Although sentiment for independence in the American colonies
was minimal prior to the latter half of the 18th century,
objective conditions made it a natural, and comparatively
non-disruptive step. The colonies were already largely
self-governing and economically self-sufficient, and had
their own social identity, extensive trading fleets, and
considerable natural resources. Boston was the third busiest
port in the British Empire. The issue was independence, not
a social or political revolution. The existing colonial
assemblies would presumably continue afterward, with more or
less the same people as leaders, and land ownership and
economic activity continuing more or less as before.
However, industrial development would be possible and
international trade wouldn't be directly limited by the
vagaries of British imperial entanglements. The resources of
the new continent could be developed without sharing the
spoils. For the elite, therefore, a divorce from the empire
represented profound and immediate economic opportunities.

Whatever one might think about the intentions of the (mostly
elite) Founding Fathers -- or the theory of the Constitution
-- US history has been a see-saw battle for control between
the people and the capitalist elite. At times, as in the
late 19th century robber-baron era, the elite brazenly
ruled. John. D. Rockefeller bragged about how many
government officials were "in his pocket." At other times,
as during Franklin Roosevelt's presidency, government seemed
more responsive to the needs and wishes of the general
population.

Gradually, the US became an almost mystical symbol, complete
with fable-like imagery: the land of freedom and
opportunity, a "bastion of democracy" where the streets were
"paved with gold." People everywhere yearned to believe in
this fairy tale kingdom. In reality, its growth was largely
achieved through periodic warfare.

There has been a significant war approximately every 30
years, often initiated (overtly or covertly) by the US, and
more often than not sparking a further expansion of US power
and US-based elite interests. Such aggression isn't
particularly unusual among nations; what is different is the
propaganda mythology that successfully defined the US as
always acting in defense of "freedom and democracy."

Again and again, the use of outrage-incidents triggered the
war spirit, and channeled the resulting wrath toward the
nominated enemy. It concentrated power in the executive
branch, where elite control was (and is) usually most
undiluted by popular influence. This process is exemplified
by the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which enabled full-scale US
military involvement in Vietnam. The incident itself was
faked, but Congress promptly issued its usual knee-jerk
resolution, authorizing the president to "act in defense."

The "authorized actions" were then incrementally escalated
into a full-scale war, with Congress having minimal
additional influence and popular will finding expression
only in the streets. Even when the hoax was exposed, it was
too late to put the genie back in the bottle.

Toward Global Dominance

The rise of communist and socialist movements following
World War I created considerable fear in elite capitalist
circles. Marxist ideology emphasized the tyrannical aspects
of the capitalist elite, and issued a call for solidarity
among peasants and industrial workers, whom Marx credited
with creating all real wealth. Although simplistic, this
ideology nonetheless took firm root in Russia and seemed
poised to spread farther.

In Germany, Italy, and Spain, anti-elite movements gained
popular strength under the banners of socialism, communism,
or anarchism. Thus, it wasn't surprising that the elites in
those and other countries welcomed and encouraged the rise
of fascist movements. Fascism was virulently anti-communist,
pro-capitalist, and willing to brutally suppress any who
opposed its agenda.

Hitler began his political career as an operative of German
military intelligence and received funding and support from
Western industrialists. While in prison, writing Mein Kampf,
he kept a portrait of Henry Ford on his desk. Mein Kampf
made it unambiguous that Hitler's primary objective was the
subjugation and economic exploitation of Russia. By ignoring
their own prohibition on German re-armament, the Western
elite in fact collaborated with Hitler in the development of
an invasion force targeted on socialism's bastion.

Meanwhile, it watched with discomfort Japan's growing
economic power and imperial scope. The latter was a
significant threat. Not only would markets and investment
opportunities in populous Asia be highly curtailed, but
Japan would be dislodging the West from its accustomed role
as collective master of the seas and arbiter of global
imperial arrangements.

The US handled this complex situation with all the finesse
and subtlety of a skilled martial-arts expert, guided by a
strategic vision unsurpassed by the imperial masterminds of
any previous age. The war-popularizing incident was the
inevitable Japanese strike on the US Pacific fleet, sparked
by the cutoff of Japanese oil supplies, which the US
convinced Holland to undertake. President Roosevelt feigned
surprise and outrage, and the most formidable, popularly
supported military crusade of all time was launched. By end
of the war, the US was very close to total global hegemony.
It had the run of the seven seas, an intact military machine
and national infrastructure, a monopoly on nuclear weapons,
greatly expanded influence in the oil-rich Middle East, and
the lion's share of the world's disposable wealth and
industrial capacity. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the
world was in shambles, deep debt, and/or under occupation.
The US had the prestige, power, and resources to guide the
construction of post-war arrangements largely according to
its own designs.

Rise of the Megacorps

Following the war, the Western elite, led by the US, drew a
line on the globe, separating the part they dominated from
the part they didn't. The "free world" (doublespeak for
"elite-controlled zone") was organized into a new kind of
investment realm, while much of the "free" population was
systematically subjected to military dictatorships
responsive to elite interests. The doublespeak usage of
"freedom," originating during the American Revolution, had
been globalized.

Meanwhile, the "communist bloc" (doublespeak for "beyond
elite control") was contained: ostracized, pestered around
its periphery by provocative military deployments, and
subjected to chronic economic destabilization via the "arms
race," expensive brushfire engagements, and trade
restrictions.

However, rather than using its strength to establish a
traditional imperial system, with Europe relegated to a
secondary position and Japan kept underdeveloped, the US
implemented a bold new global scheme: collective
imperialism. Under a Pax Americana military umbrella, an
international economic infrastructure was established (IMF,
World Bank, et al). Investment and trade were free to flow,
increasingly, around the "free" world, without the
territorial partitions traditionally imposed by a
competitive European imperial system. For the ex-colonies
(soon to be dubbed the "Third World"), the result was
domination by the capital elite, rather than the business
interests of a single national power.

This semi-homogenized, semi-pacified, investment environment
enabled large corporations to develop operations on a global
scale. Thus arose the era of megacorps -- mammoth
corporations with wealth and influence comparable to
nations. Megacorps are much more than simply giant units of
economic enterprise, capable of executing large- scale
business transactions. They're also significant political
and economic powers. Beyond any sense of home-nation
loyalty, they view regulations and trade barriers as
provincial interference. Their needs and demands are more
often than not the hidden agenda behind Western policies.

This is a new species of political entity, in direct
competition with its ancestor species, the modern nation
state. Born out of limited-liability laws, nurtured by
capitalist culture, and lacking any natural sense of limits,
megacorps extend themselves like cancer cells, poisoning
their host planet in the process. Their motivation is to
increase their market value on behalf of their owners.

What would be the nature of a megacorp-governed world?
There's no need to speculate: We can simply look at
Third-World countries, many of which have been dominated by
megacorps for some time. What we see are minimal regulation
and taxation of megacorp activities, along with repressive
regimes subsidized, armed, and otherwise bolstered by
outside elite interests.

The Neoliberal Revolution

In 1980, a new phase of consolidation was launched
simultaneously in the US and Britain, under the stage
management of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. The
platform of the "neoliberal revolution" was lower corporate
taxes, reduced corporate regulation, privatization of public
services, elimination of international trade barriers, and
the self- demonization of democratic political institutions.
"The only good government is less government" became the
kamikaze agenda.

This amounts to a wholesale transference of power, assets,
and sovereignty into megacorp hands, embezzlement on the
grandest scale ever attempted. Public lands, rights,
responsibilities, and assets are being passed into private
hands at undervalued prices -- without effective public
oversight. Government itself is being dismantled. By rights,
neoliberalism's public leaders ought to be indicted for
conspiracy and high treason. Their revolution represents a
declaration that nation states are no longer the tools of
power, and that megacorps are the primary vehicle for wealth
accumulation and organizing global society.

And they're making it clear that First-World nations and
their populations are no longer privileged partners in the
game. To this end, international arrangements such as the
WTO, IMF, World Bank, NAFTA, and GATT have been set up to
ensure that economic, social, and political polices can be
dictated globally by corporate-dominated commissions.
Megacorps and their commissions are controlled directly by
the elite. There are no democratic mechanisms and no
pretense that they represent the "will of the people."
Democracy, the scam which unleashed capitalism, has finally
become a direct hindrance to elite hegemony.

A significant difference between the neoliberal and American
revolutions is the lack of emphasis on democracy and
freedom. Today's promises are related mainly to
"opportunity." People are encouraged to assume that
democracy is a fact of life, an unshakable institution,
secure from any fatal dangers. We're also encouraged to view
capital exploitation itself as a sign of democracy,
particularly in formerly socialist states. As citizens there
suffer under intentionally destabilized economies, megacorps
organize exploitive infrastructures.

Meanwhile, we're told that the locals are simply "slow to
adapt." Traditionally in "democracies," police forces have
been small and order has arisen from the spirit of
citizenship. But under neoliberalism, abandonment of public
services is depressing satisfaction, while the de-emphasis
of nationalist ideology is undermining civic identity and
voluntary compliance. The elite understands that, as living
standards decline in once-prosperous nations, more economic
suffering -- and political discontent -- are inevitable. Not
surprisingly, then, police-state systems are growing, and an
intense propaganda campaign is underway regarding crime, its
causes, and cures. More police, longer sentences, and more
prisons are the elite's answer to the question of public
order.

The nature of the US penal system is changing. As prison
construction becomes the largest growth industry, a
formidable capacity is being built. Prisons are literally
becoming the concentration camps of the neoliberal regime,
places to isolate those redundant to corporate needs. But
never wanting to waste an exploitable resource, the elite
are also developing an extensive prison-labor system,
renting out inmates to fill lower-rung labor needs. This
growing network of slave-labor concentration camps has so
far escaped public notice. So, too, has its racial and
ethnic bias.

The World Cop

If nations are to be weakened, from where will the armies
come to maintain the New World Order? Nationalist spirit has
been central to modern war efforts. How can a
disenfranchised, betrayed populace be expected to rally "to
the defense" when the elite need their support? Who will
maintain the infrastructure for weapons systems and
delivery? What will be the command structure, and on behalf
of what political entity will military operations be carried
out? Finally, what about public opinion? The myth of
democracy requires that some degree of popular sentiment be
roused for dramatic military interventions.

The Gulf "War" and its aftermath demonstrated how the elite
plans to deal with some of these problems. The episode set
major historic precedents, establishing new paradigms for
global propaganda, weapons technology blitzkrieg tactics,
and international law. It planted in the global public mind
the principle that the US has a justifiable global policing
role, and exported to the global stage its traditional war-
incident scenario.

Technologically, it was a field test of significant new
weapons systems. Precise night operations, stealth defenses,
guided weapons, satellite navigation, cruise missiles,
bulldozers as mass-murder devices, air-fuel explosives,
uranium-weighted shells, anti-nerve gas vaccinations -- an
entire new generation of weaponry was tested on a modern,
supposedly well-armed, industrial nation. With almost no
loss of life in the elite forces, Iraq's infrastructure was
systematically destroyed and its population subjected to
relentless terrorism.

Technology helps solve the problem posed by the demise of
strong nationalism, which formerly provided large, motivated
armies. By emphasizing hi-tech weapons, operated from safe
havens, and using blitzkrieg tactics, the length of the
intervention was minimized, the number of casualties (on the
elite side) kept low, and the need for a large,
non-professional army reduced.

The war-provoking incident -- Iraq's invasion of Kuwait --
was brought about by Kuwait's economically provocative
oil-dumping policy, followed by a "go signal" from the US
secretary of state regarding Iraq's invasion. Once the
incident occurred, outrage and surprise were feigned, and a
world-wide media/lobbying campaign was launched to cajole UN
approval of US military action. Saddam Hussein was quickly
assigned the role of Hitleresque madman. The US launched a
military campaign of its own design, and -- as with the Gulf
of Tonkin Resolution -- UN approval was a blank check,
interpreted however the war-leaders wished.

This precedent has established itself very firmly on the
media-managed "world stage." Since then, the US has all but
been handed the official title of "Judge Dredd" -- -judge,
jury, and executioner of international law -- and US
intervention is no longer considered imperialism.

Unraveling the Big Lie

If the New World Order becomes completely operational,
overall policies will be set by non-elected,
corporate-dominated commissions; the world's economy,
information, and working conditions will be managed directly
by megacorps; governmental functions will be reduced to
administrative matters and police-management. And all this
will be enforced globally by an elite-dominated strike force
built around the US military and NATO.

The US has a unique role only partly due to its position as
the dominant military power. It also reflects the fact that,
compared to other First- World countries, it's the most
thoroughly captured by megacorp interests. And the US
people, in their habitual credulity, are the most
effectively mesmerized by media mythology fed them via
television. It's almost a "safe house" for NWO operations.

There is only a brief window of opportunity in which
First-World populations can reclaim their paper democracies,
through intensive political organizing and the creation of
broad coalition movements. But such an unprecedented
peaceful revolution will only become possible if people wake
up to the true nature of the threat. Given the dire
consequences of globalization, the widespread acclaim for
its steady progress is somewhat remarkable. The credit goes
to the sophistication and pervasiveness of the accompanying
propaganda campaign, plus the absence of effective forums
for alternate perspectives. If a Big Lie is repeated often
and loudly enough, people will eventually believe it.

In countering globalization rhetoric, therefore, perhaps the
most powerful argument regards the corruption of governments
and politicians. Although we're reminded daily of that
corruption, we're rarely informed that political corruption
is really the illegal intrusion of the corporate elite into
the political process. But if enough people realize this, it
will no longer be as easy for global corporatization to pose
as a "solution" to the problem.