SYRIA: IS A US-RUSSIA-CHINA CONFRONTATION POSSIBLE?

Syria's history and geography has determined to a large degree its alliances. As a former colony subjected to French imperialism, and a country lacking rich energy resources of its Middle East neighbors, Syria always needed to use whatever diplomatic leverage it had at its disposal to retain as much of its national sovereignty as possible. The question has always been what political system best expresses its national interests and retains its national sovereignty. The situation today is that the US and EU are interested in using Syria as a satellite to counterbalance Iran and gain immense foothold in the Middle East. This explains the reason for the Western-backed uprising that started in spring 2011 and it continues with more than 16,000 casualties, countless refugees, and a broader geopolitical instability that stretches from Turkey and Iran to Lebanon and Israel.

One the one side, there is Iran that has a stake in Syrian stability under Bashar al-Assad, with Russia and China having a long-term close relationship with Damascus. While it is clear that Russia makes billions of dollars in supplying Syria with weapons, the real goal of Moscow, along with Iran and China, is to prevent the US and EU from upsetting the balance of power in the Middle East by gaining a foothold in Syria. The question of what is in the best interests of the Syrian people is not one that either East or West are considering. No matter the inane US and EU rhetoric about freedom and democracy for Syria, something that Western institutions often deny to their own citizens, let alone remain silent about when it comes to allies like Saudi Arabia, the interest in Syria is geopolitical.

Geopolitical leverage is the only thing that Syria has and the current regime under Assad uses that leverage to retain the support of China, Russia and Iran. From 1958 to 1961, Nasser attempted a united Arab states project, but failed as nationalism was a dynamic force precluding alliances even among nations that had common interests and common enemies. Given that Syria was vulnerable after it broke with Nasser's Egypt, given that its neighbors were pro-West, it needed allies to counterbalance its enemies, while retaining the country's unity by satisfying the disparate socioeconomic groups. Syria's alliance with the USSR during the Cold War made geopolitical sense, given the alliances of Syria's neighbors, and given the ideology and political program of the ruling Ba'athist party that was closer to Socialism (heavily statist) than it was to Western-style market capitalism.

That Syria has been one-party state, essentially a dynasty catering to narrow interests at home and abroad is not something that the ruling party can deny, any more than it can hide from its record of favoring certain tribal, sectarian and ethnic groups over others. This is not to say that pro-West Arab regimes manage sectarian, tribal, and ethnic divisions any better than the Assad regime currently under fire from a mass popular uprising. That Syria has enjoyed China's and Russia's backing at the UN, which the US has tried to use to topple the Assad regime, is troubling to relations between East and West. China and Russia seem to dig in their heels on this issue, and will not permit another Western-backed uprising to overthrow a regime they support and see as key to the regional balance of power and stability.

When the US and EU condemned Syria for shooting down a Turkish plane that violated Syria's air space in June 2012, neither Ankara nor Beijing were willing to permit NATO to use the staged incident as a pretext for operations to support Syrian rebels. Turkey has a long-standing record of violating the airspace of neighboring nations. The government in Tehran has sent stern warnings that it will not permit Turkey and NATO to undermine the national sovereignty of Iran. That Turkey wants to become the great power of the Middle East is not a secret, any more than it is a secret that it will do just about anything to undermine its Arab neighbors to secure that preeminent role. As long as there is convergence of US-EU foreign policy goals, Ankara will be permitted to go all out in undermining its former close ally Syria. 

It is true that the Assad regime is a dictatorship and it must assume responsibility for failing to find a solution to the civil war of the past 16 months. It is just as true that Western nations have had a very large role in Syria's political opposition, aiding with weapons, money, intelligence, and massive propaganda - all for the good of democracy and freedom, they claim. Russia is correct to blame the US and its partners for supplying weapons to Syria, just as it is correct to worry about Syria lapsing into some type of an Islamic regime that would be hostile to Russia, which has had its own problems with Islamic rebels. Vladimir Putin wants greater not lesser influence in the Middle East, and Moscow seems determined to carry the contest of wills with Washington as far as it can, short of an open conflict.

Moscow asked for Iranian participation in the Geneva talks (30 June 2012) regarding the UN proposal to end the crisis (civil war) in Syria. Although Moscow proposed Jordanian and Saudi participation along with Iranian, the State Department categorically rejected the Russian proposal of allowing Iran to have any voice on the regional balance of power. It is very clear that Russia recognizes regional players as key to the solution, while Washington merely wants Russia and of course China to stop supporting Syria, thus making it easy to topple Assad. Iran would be one on the major losers if and indeed when Assad goes, but the US containment strategy toward Iran also impacts Russia, because containing Iran is an indirect way of containing Russia. 

The larger question is how far should the reach of the NATO powers extend, and to what extent should the West be permitted to destabilize the Middle East in order to exert hegemonic influence, assuming that would be possible under radical Islamic regimes in the future. Is Syria worth an all-out war between the US and EU on one side, and Russia, China and Iran on the other? Such a scenario is unthinkable and not realistic to contemplate. But where do Russia and China draw the line on Western encroachment in Muslim countries? Besides, what have the US and its partners really achieved that is to the benefit of the occupied nations or the region by military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Scenarios of a broader regional Middle East war are as numerous as there are analysts, especially those interested in promoting an agenda such as a stronger Israel, stronger US defense sector, war as a stimulus to the contracting economy, etc. War may not be in the cards before the US presidential election in November 2012, and by then Assad may have fallen. But it does not matter either way, because Islamic regimes will flourish out of the ashes of Middle East revolutions, especially now that the Muslim Brotherhood is in power in Egypt. Is a clash of civilizations inevitable and could such a clash lead to future smaller wars or Western-backed uprisings, or can the West live with Islamic regimes not so different in their approach to the West than Iran?

THE GREAT DECEPTION of US PUBLIC DEBT

Is the US public debt as serious an obstacle to economic growth and development as some strict monetarists (those advocating that government control the amount of money in circulation) contend; was the public debt at current 2012 levels created because of 'generous' government spending on social programs and entitlement programs; did the public debt create the global recession of 2008-present, or was it the private sector debt rooted in speculative - parasitic  or non-productive - enterprises mostly confined to financial institutions and insurance companies (banking crisis vs. fiscal structure crisis, with the former causing crisis in the latter); did the public debt rise owing to sharp rise in defense/intelligence/security, lower taxes for the top ten percent of the richest Americans, and a rise in corporate welfare; a combination of all of the above, with some areas having far greater responsibility than others?

Ever since the LEHMAN BROS failure that triggered the global recession, there been a massive PR effort on the part of corporate America - and corporate Europe, Japan, etc. - along with mainstream politicians, economists, journalists, and self-styled analysts to deceive the public about the nature of public debt vs. private debt in the economy, and to what degree has that deception convinced the general public - minus the Occupy Wall Street and other minority voices engaged in grassroots protests?  A synopsis of US public debt may provide a good background of where we are today and where we are headed.

Representing bankers, merchants and commercial farmers, the Founding Fathers realized the importance of public debt as a matter of both stimulus to the economy as well as national sovereignty. The US made remarkable economic progress in the post-Civil War era, an era that coincided with the vast expansion of railroads, agriculture as part of the 'Westward Movement', as well as mining, manufacturing, and banking. All along, the US was a net debtor nation, borrowing from western Europe to finance its vast infrastructure, as well as the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy. Such borrowing in the 19th century established the foundations for propelling the US into the preeminent global economic position in the 20th century. Growth and development carried out in part with borrowed money, a point that Harry S. Truman made during his presidency, helped America that was nearly self-sufficient in natural resources and benefited from cheap African-American and immigrant labor costs.

Naturally, it was not just foreign borrowing that laid the foundations for US economic hegemony during the era of the Second Industrial Revolution, which coincided with the era of New Imperialism of 1870-1914. The US aggressively sought markets in its own backyard, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as in Asia after colonizing the Philippines. The US was producing a surplus that needed foreign markets, otherwise it would suffer periodic contractions as the depression of the 1890s proved. At the same time, the US benefited by the rapid decline of Western Europe as a result of wars of imperialism that led to the Great War and then to the Second World War.

The two wars, the Great Depression, and the rise of Communism left an economic gap in the world market economy that propelled the US into preeminence after 1945. Keynesian policies (New Deal) combined with the enormous stimulus the war provided further helped to strengthen the US in relationship to its global competitors that had to endure fighting wars on their own soil and losing colonies after WWII. It should be noted that the US along with European creditor nations benefited from massive transfers of wealth from underdeveloped countries that were suffering public debt problems and fell under financial control by the advanced countries. In other words, public debt crises have served as a means of capital transferring from the periphery to the metropolis. Finally, the US benefited by the transferring both private and public capital from Europe and its colonies as well as Latin America. Public debt played a monumental role as a growth stimulant during the war, even as the US and the rest of the world had accepted the credit economy as the future.

Enjoying the strongest reserve currency in the world, good as gold and backed by it, the US became the undisputed superpower in a political, military and economic sense during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, and it established the domestic and international institutional mechanisms to maintain that hegemony. However, by the end of the Eisenhower administration, it was evident that the creditor-based Pax Americana expansion was beginning its long road to economic decline.

Keynesian militarist policies, deficit spending to fund the growing arms race with the Communist bloc as a means of maintaining global hegemony entailed weakening of the civilian economy and slowly becoming a net debtor. No matter L. B. Johnson's claim during the Vietnam War about the country's ability to continue spending to maintain a strong defense sector, while keeping a steady trend toward upward mobility for the middle class and a welfare state, the US was sinking deeper in debt owing largely to its ideological commitment stemming from the Cold War militarism, which was invariably linked to global economic expansion through various methods of government support for the corporate sector - what would eventually become known as corporate welfare capitalism. The Cold War and the commitment to subsidize businesses resulted in rising public debt at a time that government wanted to maintain a welfare state.

The debt-to-GDP ratio began to grow, but it did so significantly when Reagan opted for both massive military spending, tax cuts to the rich, and strengthening the corporate sector through varieties of fiscal measures. Debt-to-GDP ratio almost doubled in the 1980s, leveling off during the growth 'Clinton decade' of the 1990s, and then skyrocketing under George Bush who followed a policy of massive military spending and vast transference of wealth, using the state fiscal system as a conduit, to the corporate sector. Debt-to-GDP ratio rose sharply under Bush, while private debt climbed even faster, causing the global recession in 2008 as much in the US as in Europe currently suffering from public debt crisis because banks needed bailing out. Public debt under Bush has risen at about $500 billion annually since 2003, topping $1 trillion in 2008 and $1.9 trillion in 2009 amid the massive bailouts of financial institutions.

In May 2012, debt held by private investors was $11 trillion, half of which is owned by foreign investors. Non-marketable treasury securities debt was $4.76 trillion - the largest portion of which China and Japan own. Total public debt amounts to $15.77 trillion, or 102% of GDP - roughly half of Japan's debt-to GDP ratio. While public debt was growing at unsustainable levels in the last ten years, it helped the US that China and Japan were buying treasury securities, while the eurozone's public debt problems helped to maintain a relatively stable dollar as a reserve currency. A modest degree of growing debt helped to fuel the world economy, but the massive private debt problem seriously undercut the public debt market. That household debt rose commensurately with business debt and public sector debt entailed a convergence that created a crunch in the money markets.

As private sector debt has been declining, largely because the public sector has poured massive amounts of capital into the financial institutions, the problem now rests with public debt created as a result of speculative 

finance capitalism that was parasitic and failed to create real economic growth. Nevertheless, mainstream politicians, media, economists and self-styled analysts insist that the public sector has the problem, not the private sector that created both the public debt crisis and the global economic contraction. This is not just in the US where politicians are hasty to reach conclusions about the evils of government debt, but throughout Europe as well as other parts of the world that essentially follow the neo-liberal model, the same model that the IMF and World Bank peddle and the one that created the current economic and public debt crisis.

It is amazing that there are still people - politicians, journalists, economists, and other analysts - who still claim that the private sector left to its own devices creates economic growth, and that the only problem is the involvement of government. While it is true that the political class under representative of authoritarian regimes has a major role in determining the course of the economy, the political elites' interests are so intertwined with those of the socioeconomic elites that it is absurd to speak of them separately. Can a politician - US or French, etc. - of modest means be elected in absence of massive amounts of money needed to carry our a political campaign? And even if one succeeds to be elected, can such a politician survive private sector pressures? Can the business world function without the considerable intervention of government on its behalf, something that both European and American politicians recognized in the late 19th century - Progressive Era politics for the US. Given the private sources of public debt, is it sounds politics or mass deception to claim that the problem is government spending on social programs and entitlements?

With the exception of sharp rise in health care costs owing to hikes in pharmaceutical, hospital and health insurance. the cost of social welfare and pensions has remained steady and it is expected to stay so for the decade of the 2010s. By contrast, tax rates for the top ten percent and for corporations, combined with a rise in defense/national security and corporate welfare programs that include outsourcing services to private contractors, often at double the cost of what it would take for government to carry out. (see my article entitled "Outsourcing Secrets"). The obvious question is why are taxpayers asked to carry the burden of public debt that the private sector creates and from which it benefits, with minor benefits accruing to the middle class and workers?

Given that there is convergence of interests between the political and socioeconomic elites, how much of a chance does the rest of society have to make progress, how much hope can there be for a growing middle class or a feeble working class not just amid the era of global economic contraction, but for the next decade as well? It will not be long before more and more people demand a reexamination of the social contract, something that may take place in the next cycle of economic contraction, probably by the end of the 2020s-early 2030s that would mark the 100 year-anniversary of the Great Depression of the 20th century.

LIBYA: LEGACY OF UPRISING and NATO INTERVENTION

It is very early to arrive at any conclusions about the legacy of Arab Spring, given that the uprising is still unfolding in countries like Syria, and the ongoing sociopolitical dialectic in other countries like Egypt and Libya remains fluid. Although it seems obvious that Arab Spring may have had the seeds for greater freedom, democratic institutions, and social justice, it is not so certain the degree to which those seeds will blossom into anything that different from the authoritarian regimes overthrown. Moreover, let us consider that Western analysts looking at Arab Spring see it from the prism of a market-dominated political economy and NATO-centered perspective, thus terms such as freedom and democracy mean one thing to a New York Times journalist, invariably influenced by US-Israeli interests, and entirely another to a Muslim in North Africa/Middle East.

Arab Spring in 2011 swept across Northern Africa and managed to bring regime change in a number of countries, including Libya, but what kind of change; greater secularization, greater adherence to Islam, greater cooperation with the West, more tilt toward an Iranian-style Islamic regime? The question is whether the Libyan 'uprising' has led to any meaningful reforms to the benefit of the majority of the people belonging to diverse tribes as they define their interests; whether the end of the 40-year dictatorship of colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi has resulted in a more democratic and socially just society as they define it; whether indeed this was a homegrown revolution or merely a case of Western military intervention carried out with the help of al-Qaeda and other rebels whose agenda converged with that of the US and its NATO partners. Did Arab Spring in Libya really mean anything for the improvement in the lives of the people, or was the end result one form of tyranny replacing another? Will Libya become more dependent on the West, thus enjoying less freedom and democracy and much less economic and social justice?

On 17 February 2011, the 'revolt' erupted in Libya, and only ten days later the National Transitional Council was established, which France became the first nation to recognize as legitimate on 10 March 2011, followed by the Western-imposed no-fly zone on 19 March 2011. From March to October 2011, NATO operations in Libya helped to bring the end of Qaddafi, but not the end of turmoil, bloodshed any more than the formation of a democratic regime or social and economic justice. This remarkably rapid course of events - a matter of months for the Libyan revolt to be manufactured with Western help and carried out by Libyan dissidents  - does not appear nearly as spontaneous in retrospect as it did while it was unfolding, especially now that there are numerous reports that a number of Western governments had been working covertly inside Libya to bring down the Qaddafi dictatorship before Arab Spring.

There are many reports indicating that US, French and British intelligence were working with Libyan rebels as early as October 2010 to overthrow Qaddafi, apparently at the same time that al-Qaeda was just as anxious to have Qaddafi removed from power. It is also known that colonel Qaddafi had secret dealings with many western governments from which Libya was purchasing weapons, including the US. The curious secret dealings notwithstanding, the question is why did the US, UK, and France believe it would be best to remove Qaddafi in order to secure greater integration of Libya with the West?  And now that there is no Qaddafi dictatorship, and Libya has been moving toward greater integration with the West under more favorable terms for multinational corporations, has Libya achieved social peace and harmony?

On 9 June 2012, the minority Toubou tribe clashed with government forces in the south, just days after the government in Tripoli had announced that it was firmly in control of the country. The UN has reported ongoing tribal clashes in the south and failure of the government to contain deadly violence. A number of organizations have reported that militia groups that helped bring down the Qaddafi regime have been working in the framework of 'War Lordism' , carrying out executions, torture of prisoners, kidnappings, etc.  Many disparate groups, in this otherwise tribally-divided land, have engaged in protests against the new regime. From Benghazi, the eastern city where the Western-backed rebel movement started to Tripoli where the nine-month revolt ended, popular protests have been seeking transparency from the transitional government that is very weak and unable to unify the country in the manner it had been in the last four decades.

One issue of concern was a draft election law regarding the selection of the 200-member constituent assembly, a process carried out dictatorially without any oversight of consultation, and a law that encouraged Libyans to vote for wealthy and prominent citizens along tribal boundaries. Another issue is the lawlessness, chaotic justice system, and human rights violations that are part of post-Qaddafi society. The interim government acknowledges the chaos and corruption that prevails, but accuses former Qaddafi loyalists for the problems. Libyan legal experts have expressed concern about hundreds of millions and perhaps billions of dollars 'mysteriously missing', while government officials complain that 'there is no money' to deal with all of the problems.

To find closure for both Libyan rebels and the West that was behind the manufactured revolution/military intervention that ended the Qaddafi dictatorship, there is the possible trial of the colonel's son Saif Qaddafi by the ICC. As heir to the colonel, however, Saif probably knows about his father's dirty dealings with former EU leaders like Tony Balir, Nikola Sarkozy, and Silvio Berlusconi. He also knows about dirty dealing of giant energy companies, and above all, he may reveal how the US used Libya in the case of Muslim political prisoners that were tortured and denied due process. The ICC trial may reveal a laundry list of dirty secrets that could expose a number of Western governments as hypocritical, given their extensive dealings with Qaddafi whom they overthrew. Beyond the legitimate merits of the case against Saif about crimes against humanity, beyond the debate about whether the Libyan uprising was in reality a NATO military operation, there is the issue of how the ICC can justify crimes against humanity committed by NATO forces in Afghanistan and by the US in Iraq.

Ultimately, the larger issue in Libya is society's function today and its prospects for the future. Is Libya a society with relative functioning institutions, sociopolitical harmony and stability, and prospects for evolving into a more progressive society, or is it worse off today than it was under colonel Qaddafi and the prospects for the country much worse off, given that Western governments have been waiting in the wings for Qaddafi to fall so they can exploit Lybia's energy resources?

On a number of occasions, I have written that the Arab Spring uprisings were necessary to remove corrupt and oppressive dictatorships. However, their removal will not alter the Islamic nations into oasis of freedom, democracy and social justice, and it seems that the reason for popular uprisings is to put an end to hopelessness and to start a new era of progress filled with optimism. While the jury is still out on hope and optimism for Libya, there are lessons to be learned here for Syria where Russia and China have not permitted Western intervention, owing to the delicate regional balance of power. The case of Libya demonstrated that Western military intervention was rewarded, but were the broad masses of the population? The Arab Spring legacy of Libya so far is that a dictatorship fell only to be replaced with a weak and relatively incompetent and corrupt regime whose fate rests in greater dependence on the West, thus less national sovereignty, freedom, democracy and social justice for the people of Libya. 

POPULAR PROTESTS AND THE CRISIS OF THE GLOBAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

There are a number of essays and books about the new epoch of protest that the world has entered since the recession of 2008-present, which started in the US and spread to other countries. Do deep recessions cause chronic protests, and if that is the case, why did the world not see such trends during the Great Depression of the1930s? Or is it the case that epochs of popular protests actually take place amid periods of economic expansion, or at least relative affluence, as was the case in the 1960s?

The question is how one defines 'age of protest' while living in it, when it is very difficult to discern its features within the social  structure and political economy. Does the fact that Islamic countries started the 'Arab Spring' in 2011 entail an age of popular protest movements resulting in regime change? Will structural or systemic change take place in 'Arab Spring' countries, or have they merely changed leaders without impacting the institutional structure? And does this mean that mass protests will end, or will they continue until there is systemic change?

Do grass roots protest movements of disgruntled middle classes and workers in Spain and across much of Europe as well as in Canada, Chile, Russia, and even conservative Israel and US - "Occupy Wall Street" - entail that the masses have lost confidence in the social contract, in the political economy and established institutions that the political shapes? How do we know that all of these movements are not an ephemeral occurrence amid economic hard times and all will go back to the status quo ante in good time? Are we living in an era similar to the 1960s that gave us the civil rights, human rights, and women's rights movements, all gradually co-opted by the established institutions?

All signs are that the world economy is undergoing transition that impacts the social structure in a fundamental way, and therein are the causes of mass protests seeking change. We are at the beginning of a new age where capital concentration enabled by political systems claiming to represent all people have developed obvious contradictions that undermine the social contract. The capitalist world economy under a neo-liberal model with finance capital as its backbone, buttressed by the state as well as international organizations such as the IMF, OECD, World Bank, World Trade Organization, among others, is in its early stage of causing deep structural transition in the social structure; namely, downward social mobility amid social discontinuity. Social discontinuity rests behind the age of mass protests, structurally not very different from the first such age of protests in the 16th century Europe when the broad masses of the population recognized that the transition from the feudal-manorial system was causing disruptions in the social fabric at the expense of displaced peasant and workers.  

German theologian Martin Luther did not know that he was living in the age of protest, any more than his followers including the more radical Thomas Munzer that led social uprisings and became a symbol of egalitarians and socialists. The Protestant Reformation, which started with Luther castigating the abuses of the Papacy and church hierarchy, was not just a religious movement against the corrupt Catholic Church, but a popular movement against the nobility inexorably linked to the upper clergy and royal government, as well as the emerging merchant class.

The Protestant Reformation marks the beginning of mass movements, with the German Peasant's War followed by other mass protests that questioned the Age of Absolutism. This was first evident in 17th century England - Civil War and Glorious Revolution - that appeared to be a religious struggle on the surface, but was in essence a political and social struggle amid social discontinuity. In the 16th century clerical authority figures like Luther who enjoyed the support among of the German elites afforded a sense of legitimacy to protest. In the 17th century, John Locke representing the intelligentsia and merchant class questioned the established institutions, thus affording legitimacy to protest against the old order. Locke's philosophy that provides philosophical grounds for dissent came after the English Civil War, but it influenced the Age of Reason in the 18th century. Intellectuals - religious or secular -  provided the theoretical grounds for expressing opposition to an establishment that did not reflect the rapidly changing conditions in society, namely, social discontinuity.

The nature of protest movements, which had been middle class from Luther (Reformation) and Locke (Glorious Revolution) to Rousseau and Robespierre (French Revolution), took a turn toward the left during the revolutions of 1848 when Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto. Reflecting working class interests, nineteenth century ideologies - varieties of socialism, anarchism and syndicalism - afforded a sense of legitimacy to mass protests on the part of workers, minority populations and women against a bourgeois establishment that placed narrow walls around the institutional mainstream. Whether in Czarist Russia, US, or Mexico, in the 19th century government representing set out to crush mass protest movements with brutal force, presenting them as treacherous to 'the national interest', which meant the interests of the small establishment; a concept no different than regimes used to combat Protestant reformers in the 16th century, English Liberals in the 17th century, French republicans (anti-royalists) in the 18th century. 

Protests movements in early modern European history coincided with the transition from the agrarian economy to merchant capitalism that both the Protestant Reformation represented as well as Locke's Liberalism. In short, the middle class of northern Europe was at the core of these movements that never spread to predominantly Catholic Southern Europe. Similarly, the protest movements and popular revolutions of the 19th century were a reaction to the dreadful conditions that industrial capitalism was creating among workers from the mines of Russia to the factories of the US. Protest movements focused on the political economy creating such conditions, namely on the privileged class benefiting from the exploitation of subsistence labor values. The rapidly evolving market economy was creating social hardships, thus social disharmony largely because government was structured to represent the propertied classes and to keep the rest of society conforming to the existing system.

In the early 21st century, much of the world is experiencing a new protest era owing largely to rapid change in the political economy. There are differences between the current age of protest stemming from deep structural changes in socioeconomic structure and the popular protests of the 1960s. In the 1960s, protests aimed at curtailing wars of imperialism as Vietnam symbolized when there was upward mobility for the middle class in the Western World. At the same time, the 1960s protests were a middle class cultural reaction to the 1950s era of conformity stemming from the globalization of the Cold War used as a pretext to preserve the status quo even though the status quo included a society of racing, xenophobia, and gender inequality. Protest stemmed from social groups demanding a political voice into the institutional mainstream, not the overthrow of that institutional structure.

In the early 21st century, the entire institutional mainstream is questioned as not serving the vast majority of the people. There is the reality of downward socioeconomic mobility as the record of the past three decades indicates, a reality that has convinced many people to doubt the social contract best serves the majority. In the 1960s, there was hope of a better future for the young generation, whereas the young generation of the early 21st century does not have the same high hopes for a future better than that of their parents. On the contrary, the current generation realizes that society is democratic and seemingly egalitarian for an increasingly smaller percentage of the population that is at the top of the income pyramid, while the vast majority is squeezed down by finance capitalism that otherwise democratic regime endeavor to protect and preserve.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is a recognition that American democracy works for an increasingly smaller percentage of the people, while the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder must make due with high unemployment and underemployment, a health care system and higher educational system that leave millions behind, jobs that barely pay subsistence wages, a social safety net that is gradually disappearing. Protesters come from all walks of life, from society's mainstream to protest the tyrannical institutions that operate in the name of the open society but in reality work as tools of oligarchical political and socioeconomic powers.The situation is not very different for protesters in England, Ireland, France, Spain, across Southern and Eastern Europe. If the triumph of the market economy over Communism entailed better times for all in the future, why has much of the Western World sunk into worst times two decades after the fall of Communism? Where is the promise land that capitalism was to deliver under seemingly 'democratic' government?

Not that things are much better in Asia, In 2011, much  of Asia, including India and Japan, experienced mass protests. Naturally, war-ravaged  Pakistan and Afghanistan are special cases, but India and Japan that are politically stable have felt the pressure from citizens who lack of confidence not just in their political leaders, but in the political economy working for a small percentage of the people. The lack of confidence by an increasingly larger percentage of people raises the question of legitimacy regarding the social contract as much in Asia and Eurasia, as it does in Europe and US.

From Nigeria and Uganda experiencing social unrest owing to various causes from tribal and political to fundamental economic hardships; from Russia where nationalist regimes governing on behalf of oligarchs replaced Communism to Romania where there have been mass protests and riots in Bucharest over a controversial government health plan and austerity policies, people recognize that the market economy under the neoliberal model is the beginning of mass socioeconomic disruptions at the expense of the many and for the benefit of the very few. The situation is not very different in Quebec province, Canada where hundreds of thousands have been protesting college tuition increases; or in Spain, Greece, and Italy where hundreds of thousands of people recognize that austerity measures benefit finance capital but destroy the average middle class and working class families, and all in the name of “saving” the global political economy that exists under the 'democratic' label.

Social discontinuity is inevitable because capitalism is a dynamic system based on the constant accumulation and concentration of capital in fewer private hands and fewer countries. In a previous essay, I argued that
 the dialectic of social and cultural change is invariably linked to grassroots forces trying to find expression within the institutional mainstream. The success of the American political economy, and to a large degree the Western one as well is largely the result of the success of mainstream institutions to co-opt 'identity movements' and grass roots cultural trends/movements. As long as the institutional mainstream will have the ability to co-opt identity social movements and cultural trends, society will remain strong and dynamic; failure to successfully co-opt will result in the gradual waning of the entire system and it will be the nascent stage of social discontinuity.

LEFT-RIGHT POLITICS in the 21st CENTURY

Reading or listening to Western journalists, analysts or mainstream politicians describe political parties one has no clue of what they really mean. Invariably, they label social-democratic groups as 'far left'; they place middle class environmental groups in the same category and call them radical left;  anti-globalization groups are in the same category as Communists; leftist rebels in Latin America are 'terrorists' without any distinction from Islamic or extreme right-wing groups employing para-military methods to achieve their goals. How can the news reader/audience possibly understand anything from the term 'radical' when the mainstream media uses it to lump together al-Qaeda, Colombian rebels FARC, environmental groups of varying types, social-democrat movements, and protesters against austerity programs? Is the intention of such rhetoric to inform, or to indoctrinate the audience toward conformity to the status quo?

Providing no explanation of the ideological and political terminology leaves the reader/listener/viewer confused and forced to associate anything politically evil with the terminology used. Why do mainstream media journalists, politicians and analysts, especially in the West deliberately use hyperbolic terminology to stigmatize any progressive group by lumping it together with fringe elements of varying types? Given that there is often no attempt to ascertain the details of the group's ideology and/or platform/agenda, and given that the loaded ideological/political terms have a different meaning today in different countries because society has moved toward a neo-liberal model under globalization, it is important for the reader/listener/viewer to look at the agenda or intention behind the rhetoric.

Just as Stalin and pro-Soviet groups used the term 'social-fascists' in the 1930s to describe those that were not Stalinists, and just as American journalists, politicians and some intellectuals in the 1950s used the term 'totalitarian' to describe both the Soviet Union as well as the Nazi and Fascist regimes, similarly today there is an amorphous term 'leftist' to describe anyone and anything advocating anything from environmental protection and minority rights to trade union rights and anyone opposed to neo-liberalism, globalization and military intervention in non-Western countries. This trend continued during the early Cold War in the US amid the Communist witch hunts when intellectuals, journalists and politicians endeavored to engender conformity among the general population, and it continues today during the age of globalization with the purpose of engendering conformity to the neo-liberal political economy. For example, in the 1950s a pacifist advocating abolishing nuclear weapons was a leftist, someone supporting Communism and the USSR.

As far as the critics of Franklin D. Roosevelt were concerned, he was a radical leftist, while as far as Stalinist were concerned, he was a social-fascist. Did these terms say anything at all about FDR, or did they really describe the critics ideological and political orientation? To some people, Obama is a radical leftist who appeases gays and Islam, while to others he is a mainstream Democrat who supports the sociopolitical and economic status quo while pursuing militaristic policies abroad. Is he either of those things, a bit of both, or something different? And what about cases of politicians who may be fiscal conservatives but have a progressive - left-leaning - position on sociocultural issues, or any such combination? Unless there is deconstruction to ascertain issue by issue the politician or political party, how well does the label 'left or right' serve the public? Today, mainstream media journalists, analysts and politicians expediently use terms 'far left' not to describe anything about the political party, person or position, but to stigmatize and defame, without really saying anything about the specific policies.

During the French Revolution of 1789, the terminology of leftist and rightist politics and rhetoric emerged. The term left designated the seating of Estate General representatives that sat on the left side of the assembly hall, and adopted progressive positions, that is, positions that benefited socially, economically and socially the Third Estate representing mainly the middle class, as opposed to the nobility and clergy represented by the second and first estates respectively. The French Revolution evolved from a moderate phase in 1789 to a more progressive phase in 1793, thus the term left evolved, because a leftist in 1789 was a moderate (centrist) in 1793.

In the course of the 19th century, as Europe was embracing increasing influences from the middle classes and workers during the dawn of mass politics, the terms left were attributed to anarchists, syndicalists, and socialists of varying types from Utopian to Marxian. Rightist politics became identified with those demanding either the preservation of the status quo, or reverting to a bygone era - hence the term reactionary, also made popular during the French Revolution.

The term 'centrist' emerged to describe mainly classical liberals and advocates of liberal democracy - both in the Lockean and Jeffersonian sense - those who believed in some compromise to the unrepresented classes of people in the bottom of the social ladder and outside the mainstream. The terms right, center and left have never had a fixed meaning across different nations or even within a country, considering that a radical in New York is not the same thing as in Mississippi. Such terms have always reflected society's political establishment and mirror the critics' ideological/political position rather than the position of the movement or person they describe.

In a more conservative Western society like America, the term left or radical could easily describe a centrist, whereas in a more progressive society like Norway, terms like left do not describe the same political ideology, group or party as in the conservative society. Moreover, a position that was once far left or radical, such as the right to collective bargaining for trade union workers, eventually became mainstream, and currently radical owing to neo-liberalism that prefers no collective labor contracts or any protection for workers. Therefore, we see that a program or position, which at some point in history in a particular country is radical, could evolve into a mainstream or status quo position and back to radical depending on political and socioeconomic conditions.

Clearly, the media, mainstream political parties and institutions mold public opinion to accept hyperbolic rhetoric describing political ideology, group or party as 'far leftist'. However, the self-proclaimed 'leftists' have had a hand in defaming the progressive forces, given that Socialist political parties across Europe have evolved into neo-liberal ones, embracing policies that are more accommodating to big capital and globalization than conservatives. This has been the case across Southern Europe. Considering that the Socialist political parties or Labour in the case of the UK are linked to trade unions also calling themselves 'leftist', the term has lost its meaning because the label and rhetoric may be progressive but the policies are neo-liberal and hardly different in essence from those that conservatives pursue.

When a genuine socialist or even social-democratic political party or group emerges, as in the case of Greece with SYRIZA, the entire Western media, analysts and politicians label it 'far left', or radical left. In essence, SYRIZA platform reflects policies that European Socialists or social-democratic parties of the 1970s would have embraced without raising an eyebrow. Clearly, what has changed is that society throughout much of the world, especially the West, has moved so far toward a market-dominated mode that center-leftist positions are now called far left, or radical left.

Varieties of progressive groups and political parties that emerged in 20th century open societies where women, minorities, and workers demanded political representation and basic human and political rights. This meant that left, center and right groups fell under a large ideological and political umbrella. The issue of whether there is a gap between ideological positions, actual platform and practices of political parties is another issue. Similarly, a left-wing politician in the US may be a Kennedy-style Democrat, while that same politician may be a center-rightist at best in Norway or Spain. Nor does the label left mean the same thing geographically in the US today as it did in during the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

It could be argued that people want simple terms to describe politicians and do not care about specifics or nuances. Left-right political terms are subject to relativist interpretations that include factors such as geography, epoch, given societal and political conditions. The discerning 'consumer' of news and analysis would do well to investigate the intention behind the rhetoric, for as the philosopher of language Ludwig Wittgenstein argued, intention behind words is of the essence and not necessarily the words. Finally, the only way to make sense of loaded terms that mainstream media, and politicians use is to examine the source using the terms.

DECONSTRUCTING A BANKRUPT NATION: GREECE

INTRODUCTION: TRAITS OF COUNTRIES

 In Persian Letters, French Enlightenment thinker Montesquieu  makes a case for cultural relativism rooted in a value system and traditions that become the norm as part of a societal construct, thus 'good' for society. In Persian Letters and The Spirit of the Laws, the French philosopher makes a case for writers (intelligentsia) of a society that manufactures a reality based on fragments of societal myths and empirical conditions. This manufactured reality reflects society as much as it shapes it and among the influences are everything from geography and climate to religion and music.

Given the interplay in society between religion and political regime, an ideology develops that accounts for most people in a given society accepting societal institutions as 'natural', products of the laws of nature and not human constructs. From ancient times to the era of the trans-Atlantic slave trade the master-slave relationship was regarded as 'natural', even by great philosophers and clergy, and not just slave owners. Besides political expediency, moral imperatives are attached to institutions that help shape the human mind in society that strives to distinguish itself from others.

Throughout history, some countries have become notorious for their 'Leviathan' regimes, invariably ruled under  personality cult - monarchs, or dictators of the extreme right or the left. Russia under the Peter the Great as well as Russia and Stalin fits the mold of the above description. Institutionally and culturally, such societies always carry remnants of the Leviathan regime, no matter how far they may attempt to remove themselves, as we can see in Russia under Putin's nationalist (quasi-statist) rule.

Some countries have become notorious for their obsession with warfare and aggressive foreign policies intended to help them reach great strength. Still others, most notably the Scandinavian countries in the second half of the 20th century, stood apart for their quest toward social justice despite the global tide in political economy that runs counter toward such trends.

In a world dominated by the Great Powers, it is difficult for a small country to catch global attention, unless something very serious is taking place, something like the case of Cuba that has defied the US for decades, or North Korea that opted for relative isolation with China as its major patron state. From 2010 until 2012, Greece became notorious for its sovereign debt, which had the potential of severe international consequences because the country is a eurozone member. That nations great and small feared emulating the 'Greek disaster' is indicative of the stigmatizing role Greece has had internationally.

It is simply irrational, at least it should be, that a country as tiny as Greece in terms of geographical size, population and GDP that is one-third the market cap of Apple Computers, has the ability to trigger EU monetary instability, global market shocks and a double-dip recession. Yet, the symbolic significance of Greece and what its sovereign debt problems mean for the capitalist system under the neoliberal model is significant.

Keeping in mind that human nature is the same, it is environment and within that cultural influences that play a catalytic role in differences between societies and communities, whether under the nation-state structure or under any other as have existed in the past. Modern open (pluralistic) societies under the same political economy of capitalism share similar structural traits from a hierarchical social structure to a multi-party system and basic freedoms of the individual as well as basic human rights.

Cultural heritage of a society steeped in 'traditionalism' (societal value system rooted in secular but especially religious traditions) differs from one that has undergone modernization through a political, cultural, technological and/or industrial revolution. Thus an open society like modern Turkey is very different from France, although both share in the same global economy that influences their institutions. Similarly, an open society like Japan is very different from Brazil. The degree to which Japan and to a large degree France look forward toward the future is not the same as the cases of Turkey and Brazil, both thriving economies, but immersed in the historical past. The nuances of each society as well as the degree to which they respond to the process of cultural diffusion and the degree to which they are prepared to subordinate the past for the sake of a more promising future is what sets open societies apart from each other. 

SYNOPTIC HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF DEPENDENCY
With the help of Russia, France and England, Greece carried out a national independence movement from the Ottoman Empire in the 1820s. The creation of Greece as a nation-state owing to the efforts of the Great Powers entails political, military and economic dependence on the Great Powers, and especially industrialized England that would retain hegemonic role over Greece until the Second World War. Unlike the French Revolution that was a grassroots uprising intended to change the entire institutional structure, the Greek War of Independence was a movement carried out primarily by large landowners and merchants with the backing of the Orthodox Church.

To carry out the rebellion, rebels borrowed heavily throughout the 1820s from the House of Rothschild and from London financiers who had every intention of forcing their government into the conflict so they would not lose their money. Anglo-French loans continue pouring in throughout the 19th century until the country declared bankruptcy in 1893 when the deep recession swept across Europe and US. Sustaining the government and economy through inordinate foreign borrowing without using the resources to become more self-reliant was a prescription for perpetuating economic and political dependence indefinitely.

From the War of Independence until the present, Greek politicians as well as businesspeople looked West for political, economic and political integration. A comprador (middlemen and externally dependent) political class has always existed alongside the compador socioeconomic class whose fortunes rested with northwest Europe. Given that the country rests between three continents, it has always held geopolitical significance, something that became even more apparent after WWII when the US and its Western partners resolved to secure the energy sources of the Middle East. Whether in the early 19th century as a base of British naval operations in the Eastern Mediterranean, or in 2012 as a launching base for possible operations against any Middle Eastern country, Greece has value owing to its location on the map.

Greek politics under an external dependency and internal clientist structure has never been the process of a social contract that has as the ultimate goal the advancement of society as a whole with all social groups benefiting, or at least not creating extreme social polarization. Instead, politics was a matter of catering to the foreign patron power (s) under a patron-client relationship. Individual relationships based on private interests invariably against public welfare is at the core of externally dependent and clientist politics. The voter delivers the votes, and the politician delivers favors that range from securing a job for the client, to making sure that the client's relative secures priority in a hospital for a surgical procedure; a process that necessarily entails the rejection of rationalizing institutions and rejecting professionalism in bureaucracies of both the public and private sectors.

The patron-client system, which has existed in various forms since the Roman era and characterizes the political process in many less developed nations today, best served both the comprador bourgeoisie as well as the foreign businesses that were able to buy influence. The same system served the 'patron' country on which Greece was dependent, namely Great Britain from the mid-1830s until the Truman Doctrine, the US from Truman to Clinton, and Germany in the last fifteen years.The significant question is the degree to which it has contributed to the bankrupt nation.

CULTURE and ETHNIC IDENTITY
Ethnic identity is an issue for Greeks, only in so far as they are in denial about the true origins of the populations that lives in southeastern Europe and speaks a language that is a variation of classical Greek. It is no secret that people who live in Greece believe they are the direct descendants of classical Greeks whose creative accomplishments are the rich legacy to the Western World. That Greeks believe they are the 'other chosen people', namely, the gentiles that 'civilized the world', entails their cultural assumptions are an impediment to forward-looking thinking to progress. This mindset resting on the laurels of ancestors is an obstacle to societal progress in so far as it entails  that the entire nation is immersed in myths and illusions of grandeur of the distant past and fails to appreciate societal and individual (personal) limitations set by the structural perimeters of external dependency and clientist relations, to say nothing of the fact that when one swims in such myths and illusions, then there is less effort to be productive, creative and self-reliant.

After all, if I am carrying the legacy of classical Greece, why would I need anything more to prove my inner self-worth, and why would not arrogance to an extreme degree be my distinguishing trait that sets me apart from the 'Barbarian other' who is not carrying such a legacy as I do? This is to some degree a tragic reality with the Greeks who remain convinced that they are separate and distinct from the rest of (barbarian) humanity, an illusion that permits them to be content with the archaic and decadent status quo, which is itself rooted in Medieval Ottoman culture.

Added to the illusion of grandeur owing to the legacy of classical Greece, there are the illusions that the Orthodox Church contributes. An institution that has been intertwined with the political world from Independence to the present, the church inculcates the illusion of separateness, uniqueness on top of other-worldliness into the minds of the masses; myths that politicians use and exploit to engender sociopolitical conformity. That the church has a major role in the economy and society, is a reflection of adherence to 'traditionalism' and 'exceptionalism', both obstacles to assessing societal conditions objectively without the injections of illusions regarding uniqueness, other-worldliness and above all dogmatic thinking derived from religion but applied in all endeavors. If the church were a socially progressive and corrupt-free institution as some of the more radical Protestant sects that could have been a positive influence on society, but it is a Medieval institution perpetuating an archaic mindset on the broader masses of society.

Needless to say, Greek politicians are a reflection of some of the most decadent and archaic traits of a the culture of 'traditionalism' that is still influenced by aspects of the legacy of the classical world, the Orthodox Church, and the Ottoman Empire. At the surface level, society projects an image of modernity simply because of prevailing consumerist Western values, everything from dress mode, entertainment and lifestyle that are thin layers on top of the underlying 'traditionalism' substructure of society. In short, Greece is a society that never had a cultural/intellectual revolution endeavoring to modernize by simply copying the consumerist and lifestyle habits of the West.

POLITICAL ECONOMY
There are two parallel elites that exert power and influence in how society operates. The first is the political class and the second the socioeconomic class, both comprador - externally dependent - and both resting on the cultural foundations of 'traditionalism'. Without going into detailed historical analysis, suffice it to say that structurally those pyramids have been in place for the duration of modern Greece and remain so to this day, both constituting obstacles to socioeconomic progress rooted in social justice.

From the War of Independence to the present, there have always been a few thousand families that have owned most of the assets in the country and this group constitutes the dependent capitalist (comprador) class invariably linked to foreign capital and exerting hegemonic influence in the political arena. 
How does this class operate differently than the dominant sociopolitical class in a modern Western society?
My theory is that 'Baksheesh capitalism, a system rooted in clientist relationships between consumer and provider and a reward system to provider by the consumer to demonstrate appreciation for products/services rendered, is at the root of the political economy. There are endless examples of how the system operates, but let us consider a few.

The medical devices and pharmaceutical provider to hospital offers payoffs to various individuals starting with ministry of health officials all the way down to the doctor who orders the specific product for the hospital and takes a bribe. Similarly, defense contractors (Russian, US, French, German, etc.) offer millions in bribes to everyone from the defense minister all the way down to military officers and trade union officials whose shop will receive the product for services. Similar bribery schemes are across every sector, some very sophisticated involving offshore companies around the world that launder money and involve every sector in the public and private domains as well as segments of the Church/monasteries. This means that the cost of products/services is much higher owing to layers of bribes, and that the product or service not necessarily the best in the marketplace. The price for baksheesh capitalism is perpetual backwardness for the entire society and blatant social injustice.

Is it difficult to track down the web of baksheesh capitalism and go to its source if the entire society is immersed in it? The web begins with the political class and socioeconomic hierarchy. For example, the energy is a sector where the state loses billions of euros owing to black market operations starts with the two large refineries owned by two multi-billionaire families. The corruption scheme then filters down to distributors and truck drivers delivering the product.

The black market energy racket could not take place in the absence of bribes to everyone from top politicians, judges, police, customs officials, and a host of others whose assistance is essential to sell the product illegally.The ultimate goal of all parties in the web of baksheesh capitalism is to make as high a profit as possible by avoiding tax payments, a situation that necessarily leads the government to borrow heavily, and thus to higher debt that eventually must be paid under bankrupt or semi-bankrupt conditions.

The paradox of baksheesh capitalism web is that everyone involved from the gasoline station cheating with a computer chip inserted in the machine to government ministers has the following reactions to endemic corruption that contributes to perpetual external dependence and the current bankruptcy. First, everyone takes and gives bribes and/or is somehow involved in a corrupt scheme. Second, the 'other' is to blame because the 'other' offers or receives larger bribes than I do. Third, the problem is not baksheesh capitalism but the foreign enemy that offers bribes to domestic players (comprador bourgeoisie and politicians) and foreign banks and governments that do not offer 'cheap and endless credit'.

There is general agreement that the entire society is swimming in the system of baksheesh capitalism, but there is no agreement on a) who/what  is to blame; b) how to fix the system without impacting the personal interests of the few thousand families that own most of the wealth but evade paying fair share of taxes; c) how to end baksheesh capitalism without impacting the political class that uses the economy as a tool to perpetuate itself. For its part, the large segment of the labor force that works for the public sector as part of a clientist system does not wish to lose its privileged position where bribery is a component for everything from school teachers and university professors to clerks at social security offices.

Realizing that bankruptcy under a structured loan program from the European Union, European Central Bank and IMF entails impoverishment for at least one-third of the population and substantially low living standards for the middle one-third of the population, the political class and the socioeconomic elites have tried to convince the general public that the problem is to curb the 'bureaucratic state' and strengthen the private sector under a neo-liberal model that would permit foreign capital investment to absorb all the lucrative economic sectors. Naturally, the leftist political elements argue in favor of wealth redistribution primarily through fiscal and monetary policy. Environmentalists argue in favor of solar and other forms of renewable energy to replace fossil fuels. Ultra-nationalists, now popular among the young, argue in favor of closing the borders to foreigners and creating a more 'pure' society fit for the true 'Hellenic' descendants of Plato and Pericles, as though there are any.

Not one word about self-reflection without the myths that Montesquieu discussed in Persian Letters, nor a word about the need for a grassroots sociopolitical and cultural revolution that would give life to a new society looking toward a promising future with social justice at its core. Nor is there any self-reflection and self-criticism about the fact that the vast majority believe that the public sector is there to cater to the individual, namely, that society as a whole owes to the individual and it exists to buttress the individual who in turn has no responsibility to society in any respect from paying taxes to making sure that garbage is properly disposed and not scattered just anywhere. Given that we live in the age of self-indulgence, atomistic modes, consumerism and hedonism, in a culture of 'I am OK you are OK', thus there is no need for self-reflection or self-improvement, one can expect that the entire society from top politicians and businesspeople to the intelligentsia would continue to stroke themselves on the back as essentially the 'other chosen people' chased by a global structure that is the enemy.

This is not to suggest that global capitalism is not responsible for systemic fluctuations, including austerity policies, in smaller countries with public debt problems. On the contrary, capitalism as a world system prevails over nation-states. The issue remains how to manage the national political economy within the larger world-system, and in that respect we have many models from the social-democratic Norwegian to the nationalist Argentinian, from the corporate welfare US system to the quasi-statist Chinese system. The political economy and national institutions a society builds are a reflection of that society's values, aspirations and vision of the future as well as a reflection of the past. In the case of Greece amid a tumultuous period where bankruptcy is a reality, the elites remain steeped in myths of 'traditionalism' dragging with them most of the population, looking backwards instead of forward, because it serves their immediate interests and retains their privileges.

CORRUPTION, ECONOMIC GROWTH and SOCIETY

Corruption, illegal and/or unethical conduct involving public and private sector transactions, has been a reality since the creation of institutions and the formation of government. Studying Medieval society in the Latin West, one can see that the entire feudal-manorial structure was predicated on a system of legalized corruption, or something akin to modern day mafia or powerful narcotics gangs. The very nature of institutional structure, both public and private, lends itself to corruption because those in positions of power and authority deem themselves above mechanisms of accountability that they would apply to all others.

Even movements, secular and religious, that start out with an agenda against corruption and abuse of power wind up victims of corruption once they become institutionalized. This is a point that German theologian Martin Luther made in the 16th century about the rampant corruption of the Catholic Church that had become so intertwined with the secular world, it was difficult to discern the lines of power separation. Naturally, whether in the case of the Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation, or today with banks and multinational corporations, the ultimate goal of corruption is wealth and power. In short, public, private sector, religious, education, or any other type of corruption is catalytic to maintaining societal elitism and a necessary component toward that goal.

With the advent of mass politics - everything from Communism, parliamentary democracy to Fascism/Nazism -  in the 20th century, institutional corruption became more pronounced, not because it was any worse than in the 16th century, but because there was the promise of public accountability behind government and institutions. Given the increasing dependence of business on the state, public and private sector corruption intertwined, especially in the past half century in the era of welfare capitalism. Naturally, the advanced capitalist countries stress that corruption in the public and private sectors is something mainly confined to semi-developed and underdeveloped nations.

A closer look at the sources of corruption, however, indicates that in many cases the advanced countries invariably are the sources for corruption in the rest of the world. This is certainly the case with weapons sales made mostly by the advanced countries to semi-developed and underdeveloped nations. Not just Germany with its submarines sales, but France with its aircraft sales and other advanced countries are notorious in corruption schemes that filter down to semi and less developed nations where politicians, business people, trade union bosses, journalists and public opinion makers are easily bribed so that the weapons exporter can make the sale, while adding on the cost of the bribes.

While some from the West may feel that corruption is the necessary grease for the slow wheels of bureaucracy, most would not publicly make such a claim for it would be 'undemocratic'. Nevertheless, when it comes to making a deal with a government, labor union, or company, there is no hesitation to grease the wheels so the job can be completed. In the non-Western World, especially in the Middle East, the issue of baksheesh is one of feudal tradition where a person shows their appreciation for a favor.

A person in Norway would not think of bribing everyone from the tax collection agency to the surgeon operating on a relative to the university professor and local politician, whereas such was and remains the reality in Greece as well as other periphery European countries and the Middle East. Clearly, tradition, history, education and cultural values play a role with regard to levels of corruption and the degree that it is tolerated by society. The cultural aspect of corruption is deeply ingrained in society and it would take decades to eliminate it, though one must keep in mind that the issue of corruption is not merely about teaching high moral standards, but having mechanisms of rewards and punishment in place to prevent it.

Regardless of culture, bribery is and remains a way of doing business under the capitalist system because it means making the sale in cases when it may or may not be necessarily useful for the country purchasing it. In a recent posting entitled "Defense Spending and Declining Economy", I mentioned that 40% of illegal activities on the planet are related to weapons production/sales. Equally noteworthy that corrupt practices account for approximately ten percent of the world's GDP and of that amount 40% is from defense-related corruption/illegal activities. This is especially significant given that governments have convinced the public that defense equals patriotism, and opposition is tantamount to treason.

Local corruption like the old 'machine politics' Chicago, and other US cities, mafia-style corruption that has characterized Southern Italy, endemic local corruption as evident in Chinese provinces, urban mobster corruption rampant in Russia, or any other type that may involve everything from protection payoffs to bribes to officials for transit of human trafficking to narcotics invariably retards the legitimate or official economy as it entails transfer of capital that could have been invested in the productive economy. However, as bad as such corruption may appear, it does not compare with the damage to the economy that legal practices have caused and led to the global recession of 2008-present. Such legal practices included everything from HDC and hedge funds to corrupt banking practices that acted to legally weaken the regulatory mechanisms and permit banks and brokerage firms to nearly destroy the mainstream economy.

The global recession of 2008-present, combined with the massive banking scandals in the US and EU, followed by the Arab Spring uprisings against corrupt dictators, convinced many scholars that corruption impedes sociopolitical and economic progress. In short, if there were no corruption either in the public or private sector, society would be relatively free of such dire problems. Naturally, there are exceptions to this scenario, given that some countries with relatively low level of public sector corruption suffer just as badly in this global recession as the corrupt ones. For example, Iceland and Ireland cannot be compared with Southern or Eastern Europe's public sector corruption. Nor can Belgium, France, and Holland, all showing sings of structural financial weaknesses in 2011 and 2012.

Moreover, if corruption on its own hindered development, how do we explain China's phenomenal economic growth in the last decade, a country that ranks 78 out of 179 countries, much higher in the corruption scale than let us say southern Europe, especially Greece, immersed in official and private sector corruption. There are politicians, journalists and academics that claim corruption is a deterrent to investment. If this were the case, then the BRIC nations - Brazil, Russia, India and China - should not have enjoyed the bulk of the world's foreign investment in the last decade.

In fact, scholarly studies regarding corruption - the nexus between public and private sector - whether in countries pursuing quasi-statist policies like China or neo-liberal models like Southern Europe, indicate that in the short-term corruption actually helps speed up economic growth, while longer term there is a price to be paid in terms of higher costs to the taxpayer and consumer. However, the corruption costs are far higher in countries operating under the neo-liberal model where the state is subordinate to the private sector, than in countries where the state is hegemonic as in the case of China.

Clientist politics usually practiced in many countries, including much of Africa and Middle East  under undemocratic regimes tend to stand out as egregious cases of corruption. The reason is that the West has convinced the public through the media that 'bourgeois parliamentary democracy' entails public accountability, thus less or no corruption. A very interesting aspect of corruption is how governments use it to manipulate public opinion. For example, the US, UK, France and to a lesser degree the rest of EU used the issue of corruption against Libya in spring 2011 to forcibly remove Muamar Qaddhafi from power. Granted he was a corrupt dictator that used government to amass personal/family wealth. But was the goal of the US, UK, and France to end corruption Libya or to take over the markets in Libya and secure energy contracts?

Another key question is whether Libya under a corrupt dictator was detrimental to the welfare of the majority people, any more than Bahrain or Lebanon. Corruption is probably much higher in Bahrain and Lebanon than it was in Libya, but there is no noise made about either of them. Lebanon is a transit point - from Russia and Eurasia, Europe, Africa and Middle East - for all sorts of money laundering operations. It is a country with offshore companies doing business with shady businesses in Panama, Virgin Islands, and of course the world's legal money shelter, Switzerland. Lebanon does rank 13th among 17 Middle East countries in the corruption index and 134th in the world, but that hardly makes it Finland.

Although there are economists who argue that corruption can contribute to economic growth, in general it is viewed as a reflection of backwardness and lack of efficient and professional institutions, at least in theory. No politician or public official can possibly go before the public and offer a positive case for corruption and economic growth, no matter what they believe privately. That corruption is almost a given, one way or the other, is the unspoken truth. The question is to what degree is public welfare advanced and to what degree is it harmed by corruption in the private and public sectors and to what degree is it a political issue used by one government against the other?
 
Corruption is used as a political issue to weaken or remove regimes, as a pretext for the structural problems of capitalism that is headed toward unbridled a corporate welfare state, a pretext for the fact that finance capitalism has weakened the system and it is looking to apportion blame. This is not to suggest that corruption does not add to obstacles to development, nor that it does not add to production costs and parasitic capitalism, instead of productive enterprises intended to generate greater economic growth.

If the entire economic system is based on a corrupt - bribery, money laundering, illegal movement of capital, tax evasion, etc. - it is still possible to achieve growth, but not the kind of growth that would be achievable if such activities were at a minimum. However, capitalists and bourgeois politicians operate under a model of corruption in order to preserve the system that is falling apart. Worse than institutionalized private and public sector corruption are the policies that have legalized social injustice under the guise of 'democracy'. Finally, if we lived in a world free of corruption, but all else staying exactly the same, would there be any less poverty, gross socioeconomic inequality, political and environmental injustice?