Capital's Globe Wide Risks

Under the darkening shadow of capital's crisis hundreds of world capital bosses are meeting in Davos, a snow covered Swiss mountain village. On the eve of this annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), capital's salvation-searching convention, the Global Risk 2012 report “reveals a constellation of fiscal, demographic and societal risks signalling a dystopian future”, George Soros apprehends possibilities of riots and violence in the center of the center of the world capitalist system, and forecasters apprehend a lost decade for the UK . While about 1.1 billion people worldwide were either unemployed or living in poverty, as the ILO's latest Global Employment Trends report claims, capitalism is being questioned by its proponents. Prof Klaus Schwab, the founder of the WEF, said: “Capitalism in its current form no longer fits the world around us.” ( “ Davos 2012: Has capitalism got a future?”, BBC , Jan. 24, 2012 ) All these developments and pronouncements unerringly show capital's inherent incapacity in resolving its own crises that are disproportionate to its capacity.

The Global Risk 2012, insight report ( GR ) identified five risks: economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological. Based on a survey of corporate leaders the most frequently chosen Centres of Gravity, the risks of greatest systemic importance, in today's world are: chronic fiscal imbalances, GHG emissions, global governance failure, unsustainable population growth, and critical systems failure.

“Analysis of the 2012 Global Risk Map”, the GR said, “reveals four risks as playing significant roles in connecting the Centres of Gravity to each other. These four Critical Connectors […] are: severe income disparity; major systemic financial failure; unforeseen negative consequences of regulation; extreme volatility in energy and agriculture prices.” “The signs already exist that the world is becoming more fragmented, inconsistent and mistrustful; the question is the extent to which these developments could lead to a global dystopia”, said the report.

Global governance failure, the GR mentioned, is the most interconnected of the 50 global risks having a direct connection with 75% of the risks covered in the report. The GR said: “[D]ominant issues of concern emerged from the Arab Spring, the ‘Occupy' movements worldwide and recent similar incidents of civil discontent: the growing frustration among citizens with the political and economic establishment [….] In developed economies, such as those of Western Europe, North America and Japan, the social contract that has in recent decades been taken for granted is in danger of being destroyed.”

Almost-similarly, the Edelman Trust Barometer , a global survey, suggests there has been a sharp decline in public trust, not only in business, but in governments around the world also.

Experts, the GR said, anticipate that high unemployment rates will increasingly co-exist with employers' unmet demands for skilled labor.

There are, the GR said, important factors of concern with unknown consequences that are emerging. It admits combination of chronic labor market imbalances, chronic fiscal imbalances and severe income disparity amplified by extreme demographic pressures that could lead to “the emergence of a new type of critical fragile states – formerly wealthy countries that descend into a spiral of decay as they become increasingly unable to meet their social and fiscal obligations.”

Young and old of the world, the report said, could face an income gap and a skills gap so wide that threaten social and political stability. “In the absence of viable alternatives, this could precipitate a downward spiral of the global economy […]”, said the report.

Significant questions for stakeholders were raised by the GR : (1) How can countries collaborate more effectively to correct chronic labor imbalances? (2) What will “social contracts” be like in 2022? (3) What steps can be taken to reduce income disparity? (4) How can fostering entrepreneurship prevent the seeds of dystopia from taking root? (5) How can leaders break the pattern of crises? (6) How can appropriate regulations be developed so that firms will undertake effective safeguards? (7) How can businesses and governments prevent a rapid breakdown in trust following the emergence of a new widespread risk? (8) How can business, government and civil society work together to improve resilience against unforeseen risks?

At the same time another warning came from the IMF: The world's economy is “deeply into the danger zone” because of risks from the euro zone. The escalating euro zone debt crisis could derail the global economic recovery, the international lending agency said in its latest World Economic Outlook report. The IMF hacked its 2012 global growth forecast warning the outlook had devolved in most regions. With the same tone, the IMF chief warned: The global economy could fall into an economic spiral reminiscent of the 1930s unless action was taken on the euro zone crisis. She has called on Europe to construct a wall against financial contagion. Echoing the warning, the IMF chief economist said: “The world could be plunged into another recession.”

The euro zone is set for a “mild recession” in 2012, the IMF predicts. Italy and Spain could be the first cases. Growth estimates have been reduced for the main euro zone countries including Germany , the euro zone powerhouse, and France . Central and eastern Europe and Asia could also be hit by the euro zone crisis. A sharp slowdown in the pace of growth in emerging and developing countries has been predicted by the IMF. It reduced Asia 's growth outlook for 2012.

The IMF cut its projection for Japan , and said: the US and other advanced economies would likely not escape unharmed if Europe 's crisis widened further. Moreover, the advanced economies “have homegrown challenges [...] including overcoming political obstacles”, the lending agency said. The EU economic affairs commissioner is also apprehending a “moderate recession” across Europe in the first half of this year.

News from the UK is not good. There are increasing concerns that the credit crunch will ultimately result in a “Lost Decade” for the UK . Many fear the UK is already experiencing the early stages of a lost decade. (“Could Britain Be Facing A ‘Lost Decade'?”, Sky News , Jan. 22, 2012 )

The UK government debt, as BBC reported, has risen to a record £1 trillion. The current net debt total is 64.2% of the UK GDP, and number of its unemployed citizens rose to 2.69 million. The unemployment rate rose to 8.4%, the highest since January 1996. The number of persons claiming Jobseeker's Allowance in December rose by 1,200 to 1.6 million. The number of young persons looking for work reached a record height: 1.043m. Citing the Office for National Statistics BBC informed these figures on Jan. 18, 2012 .

The world unemployment reality is also discouraging. The ILO report said: The number of “discouraged workers”, persons stopped looking for work because they think they are unlikely to find a job, is 29 million. With this number of discouraged workers, the global unemployment rate jumps to 6.9% from 6%, and the number reaches to about 225 million persons worldwide, the report said. “Judging by the present course, there is little hope for a substantial improvement in their near-term employment prospects”, said the ILO's Employment Trends report. The outlook for the world labor market has worsened from last year, the ILO said.

This capitalist reality does not make George Soros, one of the most cunning investors in the world, hopeful. According to two US media outlets including Newsweek , Soros perceives: “The euro must survive because the alternative — a breakup — would cause a meltdown that Europe , the world, can't afford.” “At times like these, survival is the most important thing,” he said. Soros doesn't just mean it's time to protect assets. Rather, he signals: it's time to stave off disaster. The world, Soros feels, faces one of the most dangerous periods of modern history — a period of “evil.” A strange pronouncement indeed; as in Reaganspeak, “evil empire”, the Soviet Union , is no more on the world map. It is capitalism only that now dominates the globe. Soros has more perceptions: Europe is confronting a descent into chaos and conflict. In the US , he apprehends riots leading to a brutal clampdown and dramatic curtailment of civil liberties. The global economic system could even collapse altogether as Soros predicts. “The situation is about as serious and difficult as I've experienced in my career,” Soros tells Newsweek . “We are facing an extremely difficult time, comparable in many ways to the 1930s, the Great Depression. We are facing now a general retrenchment in the developed world, which threatens to put us in a decade of more stagnation, or worse. The best-case scenario is a deflationary environment. The worst-case scenario is a collapse of the financial system.” (“George Soros on the Coming U.S. Class War”, Jan. 23, 2012 )

The almost self-explanatory facts cited above and conveyed by mainstream media tell some truths, bitter for it: (1) crises-ridden condition of the world capitalism; (2) the way the system has generated its crises, one after another, one gravitating the other, one influencing another; (3) width, globe-wide, and magnitude of the crises; (4) the system's worshippers' confused intellectual condition; (5) its extent of power that cannot control itself; (6) its need for a huge reserve army of labor to keep labor press down to dust, to bargain favorably, and at the same time, it cannot escape the possibility of facing force of labor pent up in reserve labor; (7) its ulterior motive: preparing ground for an onslaught on labor. While capital continues waging its class war against the working people it raises hue and cry as if it is being targeted. The only salvation path capital can find is: create havoc in social reality, in mass-mindset, burden down masses with the pressure of hardship and hunger, name of which is “austerity”. Not only is the system's economy facing danger. Its governing system, capital's dictatorship, is losing credibility and coming under question. The mainstream admits this, one of the primary condition for a retreat. A significant admission, indeed!

A Ruling Class Alliance In An Agitating Egypt: One Year After Mubarak’s Ouster

Class collaboration between the Egyptian military junta and their neo-political allies, the Muslim Brotherhood, now confront the people standing for democracy. One year ago, the matrix of collusion was not evident to many. One year ago, the actors on the Egyptian political stage had different robes.

Mass protests for 18 days in the most populous Arab country brought Mubarak’s three decades of autocratic rule to its end on Feb. 11, 2011. To many, it was part of a spring sweeping the Arab jaahaan. But in countries of the region, it turned a cold, reactionary winter.

With a new ruling class alliance and deployed extra soldiers and tanks by the generals Egypt now is fomenting with protests. On the opposite, there are plans for waves of strikes aimed at forcing out the generals from power. The generals’ council, the protesting forces claim, stands opposite to democracy, social justice and individual freedoms. The planned strikes show confronting position of liberal and leftist social forces and the alliance of the generals, Islamist politicians and religious leaders. The strike planners say: The “people must show duty to the nation and spare its tattered economy fresh damage.” On the contrary, the religious authorities have called on to scrap the planned strike. The first strike planned from Saturday, Mubarak’s overthrow anniversary, would close universities and factories, cancel trains and stop public services. A statement by 39 youth groups said: “The strike is just a beginning to carry the revolutionary battle forward, to link political and democratic demands with social and economic ones.” The Muslim Brotherhood has refused to back the strike. Mahmoud Hussein, general secretary of the MB, said in a statement: “This call is very dangerous […]”

“I appeal to you”, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb, Grand Imam of Egypt’s highest Islamic authority Al-Azhar, said in a message, “not to disrupt work even for one hour.” “Civil disobedience”, Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda III said in a statement, “is not accepted by religion and the state does not accept it and there are many verses in the Holy Book that talk of following the ruler.”

Protest and violence regularly overshadow Egypt. Last December experienced protests as military police assaulted demonstrators challenging military rule, and in turn, protesters hurled Molotov cocktails at the parliament building. There was violence around ballot-counting that compelled hundreds of judges monitoring the parliamentary elections to announce threat to quit over.

The parliament is acting as subordinate to generals, employees on the payroll of people. The legislature now holds a promissory note given by the generals to turn over power to the people, the generals’ employer, by the end of June 2012, after the ratification of a new constitution and the election of a president. There are basic and burning problems in today’s Egypt.

The hulking problems

Dire economic reality with springing up frustrations over poverty overwhelms every aspect of life in the country. Inflation climbed to 9% in November, a 2% rise over the previous month. Food and beverages prices jumped further. With spiraling prices of staples the rising living cost comes as an increasing number of people are struggling to find work. Foreign exchange reserves have fallen down to around $18 billion in January from $36 billion. There is a drop in state income. The tourism industry, one of main sources of revenue generating about 10% of GDP, has taken a downturn with revenue for the year stood at $8.8 billion. In 2010, it was $12.5 billion. Standard and Poor’s has downgraded the country’s creditworthiness to B+, four levels below investment grade. This will increase borrowing costs. (Oxford Business Group, “Egypt: Facing economic challenges”, Jan. 30, 2012)

A stagnating economic growth under the shadow of a financial crisis and virtually dried up foreign investment have coupled with an annoying 12% official unemployment rate. The youth unemployment rate is at least double that official figure. Heavily pressurized exchange rate for the currency and mounting debts has increased the worrying load. A further devaluation will increase food prices stimulating already smoldering grievances. The legion of jobless and underemployed reinvigorates legitimate grievances that can renew social unrest. The government has announced plans to cut down about $4 billion from the deficit of more than $30 billion. Energy subsidy is being cut as negotiations with the IMF over the terms of a $3.2 billion loan have been reopened.

The great divide – the rich-poor – is there. Intact is the illogical distribution system that feeds and fattens only the rich, who are also powerful. The new masters at the helms will not address these problems. Their class interest can’t allow them to move into that territory.

The volte-face

The Muslim Brotherhood, the ruling class alliance component, after denouncing Western colonialism for decades, now supports free markets, an inefficient, undemocratic tool in efficient hands of capital to hook people. The political actor also feels the urgency of subsidy reform, and is befriending the IMF. Now, the MB is also having an understanding with the Empire, its old arch enemy. Political alignments for unhindered raging of neo-liberal compact are thus being ensured. Wealth distribution question is being ignored.

The standard bearers of “democracy” and the generals have united in a compromise on a legal system no more Islamic than the earlier one. The compromise is assuring for major internal and external stakeholders in Egypt. The MB and the military negotiated, and the MB is finding out ways to help the generals to exit with immunity.

In November, the MB was assuring public that they would challenge the military over its right to continue appointing the prime minister and the cabinet until a constitution is ratified and a president is elected. Weeks later, the great giver of assurance said it would leave the military-appointed government until June. A number of MB leaders said the constitution should be drafted on the military’s preferred timetable, before the election of a president. Till then, the generals will retain control of the government. “We will cooperate with everyone, the people, the Parliament, the cabinet and military council”, Essam el-Erian, a MB leader, said. He said the group was putting off a confrontation with military rulers, and hoped that the US would continue to support the country financially. With the biggest share in the parliament, it is giving confusing and contradictory signals there.

At the same time, MB is standing opposed to the people demanding ouster of the generals, who have no mandate. The MB prevented hundreds of protesters from reaching parliament on Jan. 31. The protesters were demanding the end to military rule. An AFP news report quoted an MB member: “We are standing here as a human shield, because if the protesters go any further, they will clash with the police.” The report quoted an anti military protester: “The Muslim Brotherhood youth are blocking all roads to the parliament, preventing the anti-military protesters... They are […] standing […] like militias.” The march to parliament was called to press the newly-elected parliament to implement the goals of the popular upsurge.

Protesters accuse the Islamists colluding with the generals: “Badie, you are selling the revolution!” they chanted, in reference to Mohammed Badie, the Islamist movement’s supreme guide. On the first anniversary of the anti-Mubarak upheaval, political activists accused the Muslim Brotherhood of a deep compromise with the generals. Their slogans said: “You sold out the revolution.” It is a deal with common interest.

While the protesters were calling on the generals to quit immediately the MB tried to keep the anniversary demonstration upbeat, US press reports said. After getting surrounded by protesters in a Cairo demonstration the MB “speakers attempted to join the crowd by leading chants of ‘the people want the fall of the regime’ and ‘down with military rule’. But the protesters appeared unconvinced. The speakers retreated [.…T]he crowd […] began chanting, ‘Get off! Get off!’ to Brotherhood officials on the stage. Another sound system […] in the square boomed: ‘No Brotherhood, no officers! Down, down with military rule!’”

The military

Now, a year after the popular upheaval, Egypt is still under martial law. The 19 generals leading back-to-past staggering continue cracking down on pro-democracy activists. Thousands of democracy activists are being sent before military tribunals and jailed. A brutal crackdown left at least 40 demonstrators dead on the eve of the first round of parliamentary elections.

The parliament remains subordinate to the generals. Jimmy Carter holds not much hope. After discussions with the generls including Field Marshal Tantawi, Carter doubted the general shaaheebs would fully submit to the elected authority the rulers with batons had promised to install. Armed with all encompassing police power they deploy draconian measures to silence critics, ban strikes, and are accused of human rights abuses. The generals find foreign interference behind demonstrations for democracy.

The US-dependent generals, part of the ruling elites, wore a mask on their face. The smiling sober mask created a non-political assumption: they would help install a democratic government. Political novices kept their belief: it is a secular shield against Islamists. Islamists rightly banked on it to secure their dominance. Basing on class allegiance it ultimately secures the Empire’s interests in home and in the region as $1.3 billion flows in annually in military aid to Cairo from Washington. And, the elites’ alliance depends on the Empire’s world system.

The Empire

Reversing its position the US has forged closer ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. A complex geo-strategic equation for the Empire!

The US financing of NGOs to promote its agenda is an old tale. But it took a new turn with the generals’ tactical move. In late 2011, an investigation into foreign financing of a number of NGOs, and police raids into offices of four NGOs including the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute that promotes US agenda made the scene tricky. US citizens including Sam Lahood, local director of the IRI and son of US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood were banned from leaving Egypt. The NDI and IRI activists took refuge in the US embassy. The situation enraged a number of Congress members and the US State Department. But actually the general’s stroke against the NGOs was aimed at Egyptian people, not the Empire. To cast away confusion, Egyptian officials went to the US, and met military officials and congress members there.

Not a defeat

After appeasement and compromises by the same class elements, to some, last year’s Egyptian uprising appears a defeat. But in a broader socio-historical perspective, it’s not a defeat, rather, part of a longer process. Despite prospects of temporary failure, initiatives of resistance and rejuvenation are getting organized.

The Egypt Revolutionaries' Alliance demands Tantawi, the de facto ruler, and El-Ganzouri, the interim prime minister, to step down. The political alliance and students are planning to start civil disobedience against military rule on February 11, the one-year anniversary of autocrat Mubarak’s ouster.

The ERA, umbrella of over 50 political groups, workers and students, has made seven demands. The principal demand is the immediate handover of power from the generals to a civilian administration in the People's Assembly, the lower house of the parliament. Other demands include: Immediate dismantling of the incumbent interim government, and appointment of a national salvation government, whose members to be selected by the People's Assembly; immediate holding of presidential elections; forming an investigation committee to investigate all crimes and massacres committed by the ruling authorities; establishing “revolutionary tribunals” to try all former regime figures found guilty of involvement in crimes committed after the January uprising; immediate dismissal of the prosecutor general; and purge and overhaul of the Ministry of Interior. In a statement, the ERA asserted that civil disobedience “has become a valid means for expressing […] demand for the handover of power to a civilian administration in light of the recent deterioration of domestic circumstances. […The generals have] failed to live up to its promises and Egypt continues to suffer a chronic security vacuum.”

There are other acts of protests by broader populace in Egypt that signify journey for democracy by the undaunted Egyptian people, which may be long, painstaking and complex with possibilities of set backs as there is weakness in grassroots organization. But ultimately it will move as the dominating class alliance is failing and will fail to fulfill people’s demands that go against the interests of the ruling class alliance.

A German Satire On A Greek Stage

Germany is staging a satire in burning Greece. While school children there go unfed and homeless increases in number bankers punish the exhausted Republic by imposing harsh, humiliating conditions to take last cents away from the bankrupt capitalist state in Europe.

“Socialist” Koutsoukos, the Greek deputy labor minister resigning in protest to the EC, ECB and IMF dictated package, accused the troika of “shameless extortion” in its policies towards Athens while Karatzaferis, the extreme right leader and coalition partner, spoke of national humiliation and Greece “under the German boot”. Samaras, the New Democracy leader, said “Today we are in danger of losing our freedom and independence.” With the power of trampling sovereignty bank capital unites “socialists” and far-right in humiliation, subservience and anguish. A satire with a German lead role it seems.

As riot police clashed with protesters on Athens streets five ministers resigned in protest at the scale of the spending cuts and police ringed the parliament building to secure it from citizens’ wrath. Finance minister Venizelos said an unruly default would take the country to the brink of civil war and the country would be bought under colonial terms. He was scared of “total dissolution of the economic, social and institutional web of the country.” This led prime minister Papademos and former prime minister socialist Papandreou to sell out their right and left hearts! The price is a new support package, a haircut of debt, and a population’s plight.

But the rescue cash is not at sight. Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, demands more. Days back, Merkel, the German Chancellor, turned impatient with her Greek debtors. It is time, she said during a joint press conference with Sarkozy, the French president, for Athens to accept the tough austerity measures being demanded as a condition for a second bailout package. Should Greece reject the demands, she almost threatened, insolvency and an exit from the euro zone could come quickly. Sarkozy lent his tough voice: “They have no choice.” The bank bosses told bluntly: No new bailout unless there are further budget cuts, on top of the already promised austerity measures. Otherwise, Greece will go bankrupt. The Greek government agreed.

On the austerity program, EU demands signed, irreversible, binding pledge from the three coalition partners, regardless of winner in the next election. The austerity-pledge includes chopping out 150,000 public sector jobs, cutting down the minimum wage by 22%, and reducing pensions. It is, in summary, people are to pay, pay for plunder and wrong doings of elites, pay for inefficiency and accounting corruption of dominating interests.

With an emerging underclass, the Orthodox Church feeding 250,000 people a day, 20.9% unemployment, 48% youth unemployment, all Greek families hit by joblessness, 20,000 shelter less citizens, more than 10,000 on Athens pavements, park benches, in metro stations and shopping arcades, doorways and cars, 25% “new homeless” – evicted from home, 27.7% of Greek citizens staying on the brink of poverty and social exclusion, and hard-hit middle class having no savings an acute social crisis is brewing up. Among social groups, Crete Gazette reports, pensioners suffer most from low income and high cost of living while 33% of poor are over 65. Almost 60% of Greeks are afraid of falling into the poverty trap in the next few years. According to the Hellenic Statistical Authority the country’s manufacturing output contracted by 15.5% in December from a year earlier and industrial output fell 11.3%.

Press reports say “[e]ducated professionals, too shamefaced to want to speak, now stand in line with immigrants from developing countries waiting for food handouts from the town hall.” Citing relevant source McClatchy said: In the relief organization Doctors of the World’s Perama clinic more than 80 patients seek help three days a week. To cope with demand, the DW plans to operate the clinic seven days a week. The number in the clinic has quadrupled in the past two years. Eight in 10 patients now are Greeks, four times what it had been. The Greek chapter chief of the DW told McClatchy “The state doesn’t know who’s poor or who’s vulnerable. People used to be able to get money and find a doctor. Now everything is breaking down.” Citing a teacher BBC said: “In schools we didn’t have books up to the middle of the school year and not only that - we have children that do not really care about the lessons, because of all the problems at home.” The narratives, it seems, are from Third World or from any failed state. Helena Smith in a report in The Guardian describes a desperate, unhappy father, life in mess, deep in debt, owing money to butcher, baker and grocer “took the decision to put in an official request for three of his boys and one daughter to be taken into care.” “The crisis had killed us. I am ashamed to say, but it had got to the point where I couldn’t even afford the two euros needed to buy bread,” the father said. The local Deputy Mayor and director of social works said: “Requests for support have shot up. Last year, we sent food to 400 families [..] This year, 1,200 asked for help and they weren’t […] low-income people. Many had good jobs until this year when their shops and businesses closed, but to be asked to take children away was something new.” The deputy mayor visited the poor father’s home and “saw the situation […] the third-world conditions, the poverty and filth, [that they] couldn’t believe […]” Charities, doctors and unions suggest this is not a single case. […] “People are going hungry, families are breaking up, instances are mounting of mothers and fathers no longer being able to bring up their own kids,” said […] general secretary of the civil servants’ union ADEDY. “Until now, there has been a conspiracy of silence around the tragic effects of the austerity measures the IMF and EU are asking us to take.” From cases of newborn babies wrapped in swaddling and dumped on the doorsteps of clinics, to children being offloaded on charities and put in foster care, the nation’s struggle to pay off its debts is assuming dramatic proportions […] (“Poverty in Greece forcing parents to give up their children”)

Archbishop Ieronymos, the country’s spiritual leader, in a letter to the prime minister, a rare public intervention, said: “Homelessness and even hunger […] have reached nightmare proportions. The medicine we are taking has proved fatal for the nation.”

The situation is breeding protest, even from part of the ruling machine. A Bloomberg report said: The Greek Police union called for arrest warrants to be issued for EU, ECB and IMF officials negotiating austerity measures. In an open letter to the troika the police union said: “[W]e warn you that you cannot make us fight against our brothers. […W]e will issue arrest warrants for […] legal violations [including] blackmail, covert abolition or erosion of democracy and national sovereignty.” Mighty bank capital demolishes all barriers and unites all including priest, police and people. Athens braced a 48-hour strike fringed with violent protest, petrol bombs. It’s not only an economic crisis. It’s also a social and political crisis, a crisis in democracy a republic practiced with its dominating class mooring. The dominating interest is now passing over its burden of failure on the people.

In response to these human sufferings the dominating interests now have two memorandum agreements made between the Greek government and the troika, or imposed on the Greek people in a finance-democratic way: The 51-page Greece — Memorandum of Understanding on Specific Economic Policy Conditionality, Feb. 9, 2012, and the 31-page Greece — Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies, Feb. 9, 2012. Still there will be fresh conditions from financers that Greek people and their elected representatives have to meet before the bail-out is endorsed. Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister and head of the euro group, did not find “all necessary elements on the table to take decisions […] In short: no disbursement before implementation.” The ECB, as Mario Draghi, the bank’s boss, feels, would not step in to ease Greece’s burdens through a tricky debt swap with private creditors. The Greek republic now has to negotiate a debt relief agreement with private creditors worth 100 bn euro if it is to receive the EU-IMF aid package. If not, Greece could default as early as next month, when 14.5 bn euro in Greek government bonds turn due. The financers are demanding greater sacrifices from Greece, ultimately the people.

The Greek government has urged the ECB to forego profits on its Greek bond holdings. The bank’s governing council discussed the issue. But the ECB sustaining any loss has been ruled out. Profits on Greek bonds would have to pass on to governments when they are realized. The financial bosses are concerned with the issues of “tensions in euro area debt markets and their potential spillover to the euro area real economy.” It is their problem.

In fifth straight year of recession in Greece, a Reuters report said: Protesters compared Greece’s plight to its seven years under military dictatorship. Then, the fact comes to light: money is not less mighty than military, and domination is not only made with weapons; there are mighty arms of money and market to dominate and stomp down democracy, even money’s system of governance.

Death Of Dinesh Das, A Third Or Fourth World Journalist

Again there is another death on a Dhaka street. The latest victim is Dinesh Das, a Third or Fourth World journalist. And, it is almost the same tale of a Third or Fourth World city, its traffic management system, and of a part of a society with its indifference, brutality and callousness.

The accident-account is the same old story: an indifferent bigger vehicle’s wheels crushed a smaller one, the smaller vehicle rider was the unfortunate guy, a wrong time and a wrong place for the lone rider, brutal high speed and hapless slow speed, and an ill-managed traffic system in an illogical city. What’s the output of the irrational equation? Last journey of a life.

The story turns unbearable as one gathers information from press: the journalist was without job, without money, without the capacity to enroll his small daughter in school, was failing to pay monthly house rent. The brutal facts are bared before a citizenry: a brutal system – you have to work and work, you have to run and run in a nasty rat race simply for keeping your nose afloat, you have to pass each and every day throughout your life of uncertainty, you have to be faithful to the system, you have to serve the system, and there will be brutal wheels waiting and running for you to crush, to send your spouse to the same circle without any escape route. And, then, all after this “kind” arrangement of the system, you, a journalist, you a teacher, you all have to be diligent to work, be faithful to duty designed by meager salary, be incorrupt, and be the mirror of honesty. And, your knowledge will allow you to be aware of the intricacies of plundering tricks, but your knowledge of alertness will tell you not to tell the tricky plundering truths. Nice punishment sticks are in the wings if you deviate, if you fail to serve faithfully, if you turn rude, if you nourish audacity deep in your bosom. What happens if you turn a renegade to the system? You will be punished, punished with uncertainty, unemployment, grinding poverty, will be pressed to the dust.

In the case of Dinesh, arguments and counter-arguments can be devised and thrown around. To some, he was rude, unscrupulous, disobedient. Thread bare analysis of his character will provide arguments for his character assassination. To many, he was a kind-hearted, honest professional, uncompromising, faithful to humanity, profession and family, a person keeping head high. Different perspectives provide comparative arguments. An individual is a product of the individual’s time and space, a product of social reality. This piece is neither to denounce Dinesh nor to eulogize the dead. Friends and colleagues of Dinesh will carry on the task. Whatever he was, that does not allow anyone to take away his life, does not permit anyone to push his family to den of uncertain days.

This piece is simply to once again tell the vulnerability of life in this city. How fragile life is in this city! How many journalists, students, poor pedestrians have paid with their lives in this city dominated by wheels? A few days back, Nikhil Bhadra encountered a brute fact in this indifferent city. The journalist lost his leg in the city street. Rest of his life? Who knows?

What happens to the families of these victims? Does the society that tries its best to expand informal sector have devised any arrangement for the victims and their families other than begging mercy and help? An inglorious path for mere survival! The social division of labor ensures smooth revolving of wheels of the society, ensures pressed life every day, presents gloomy days throughout life for millions. It ensures this guy shall be a peddler, that fellow will be a journalist, that person will be a policeman, this man shall be a teacher, that woman will be a nurse. Then it demands dutifulness and honesty of millions. Dinesh was only one of those faceless millions. Nikhil is another. Other journalist pressed under wheels months back was another. No social security, no established medical facilities for these victims! Yes, there are mercy and benevolence.

But, doesn’t the society manage bigger affairs and events with bigger money? Doesn’t the society organize bigger arrangements? Yes, there are all those but social security of Dinesh, a jobless journalist who had to rely on the last savings of his wife, only Taka one hundred and fifty or about two dollars diligently saved over months in an earthen pot, in the last day of his life.

Does the society lack that money resource that can ensure social security of journalists, of other working people? The level of surplus labor produced in the society and appropriated and robbed are evident in private celebrations, luxuries, vehicles in the capital city and villas now coming up around. Does logic tell that all after all these huge surplus labor produced working people have to languish in uncertain life, a crushed journalist’s wife has to face uncertain future waiting for mercy and benevolence? Should there be lack of resource to organize a safer traffic management system in the capital city and all over the country? And, for how long shall this state of business move on? Journalists, somebody identifies them as kalam saineek, soldiers of truth armed with pen, now aggrieved and tormented with the painful death of Dinesh Das shall search answers to the questions, the questions of livable, safer city, of a safer traffic management system, social security, and of a decent, dignified life for all journalists, for all working people.

2011, A Year Replete With Revolts, Uprisings And Occupation

Uprisings, revolts and occupation are keeping their undeniable marks on 2011. In recent times, a year with so much and so wide protests from periphery to world metropolis are rare. In this crises-ridden period, the competition-charged, tumultuous year saw status quo questioned and challenged. In recent times, capitalism with its fundamental contradictions of capital accumulation has never encountered so vigorous and wide social criticism and rejection.

The globe eclipsing status quo has created conditions for protest and uprising, and also trammeled these. With these contradictory acts, status quo has illegitimated itself, and has provided legitimacy to protest and uprising against institutions for coercion and ideological hegemony that capital builds up to dominate public life. As captive of income- and opportunity-inequalities, people in countries are giving tongue to their dissatisfaction with the status quo, its philosophy, policies, politics and economy. As democratic practice, people are dissenting, disapproving and denouncing dominating power’s contempt of life and liberty. People are declining to acquiesce to the destruction of peace on the earth.

People in countries were passing days while corporate personhood was taking control of peoples’ life and bare minimum spaces essential for people’s existence. It was capital’s indifferent campaign to destruct all life on the earth.

The prevailing system with its all its brutality – poverty, unemployment, wars, intervention, and indifferent elites indulging in luxury and speculation – has provided logic to protest in countries. Working people are being deprived of their rights. Narrowed down space for dissent and curtailed rights have ignited revolts. In 2011, people began resisting mainly through nonviolent protest marches and occupation. Internet based social networking has turned into a tool to communicate and propagate. In 2011, with industrial action, by striking valiantly, labor in scores of countries heroically stood in front of capital. In Third, Second and First Worlds, student activism, their protests and marches, occupations of educational institutions and media centers unmasked the dominating system that does not hide its profit motive in the area of public instruction. In 2011, riot and anarchic acts, only a few in numbers and only in a few countries, reflect dire living condition, and encroached democratic space. These are initiatives by an impatient section to ensure jobs, homes, security and freedom from the tyranny of capital.

The Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement are two key moments in the worldwide protest process in 2011. These are junctures. In terms of magnitude and force, these two surpassed the Seattle Uprising in 1999, the Prague Anti-globalization Protests in 2000 and the Iraq War Protest in 2003. In terms of significance, these two influenced and will influence societies and politics at regional and world levels.

Tyrants, Empire-allies, caricature characters in politics, financial and political institutions, coercive apparatus, all had to face protests by people from Australia to Middle East, from North Africa to North America, from Wukan, a China village, to the US cities, from a mining giant headquarter to ports and auction house. Tunisia, Italy, Malaysia, Morocco, Russia, Bahrain, Greece, France, the UK, backward, conservative societies and advanced capitalist countries, all came under questioning by its citizens. Madrid, Athens, San Francisco, Paris, Philadelphia, London, Leeds, Los Angeles, and hundreds of cities and towns saw protest marches. Election thievery sparked protests, sometimes violent. In 2011, tens of thousands of “mass incidents”, huge demonstrations and protests, reflected undercurrents in today’s Chinese society. Striking oil workers occupied the main square in Zhanaozen, a Kazakhstan town, for more than six months. In the last days in 2011, police firing on the protesting Kazakh oil workers killed at least 10 people. During the last days of the year, protesting people continue making supreme sacrifices in Egypt, a geostrategically important area, where an alliance between retrogressive forces and imperialism has been completed. In Lens Creek Mountain, West Virginia, USA, people marched more than 50 miles to save ecology and a glorious history.

Occupy Wall Street, the Occupy Movement that began on September 17 with a few thousand protesters in New York to condemn greed and capitalism has become a political expression in the entire US, and broadly, a worldwide approach with broad coalitions. In France, Marseille Chamber of Commerce was occupied. In Kerala, India, a soft drink plant was occupied. And, 2011 saw similar many more.

Within days, the Occupy Movement became a world symbol with the universal slogan “We are the 99%”. Jobless and homeless, union members and priests, nurses, teachers and students stood in protest, peacefully marched down streets, built camps with libraries in parks and city squares, tried to make their stand in the face of forced evictions. But capital’s dictatorial force prevailed. Occupy Movement protesters have been arrested, their camps bulldozed.

Occupy Movement campaigned to move homeless people into buildings foreclosed by banks, stood by labor’s struggle, and has tried to widen its support-base. Defying cold, rain, snow falls and evictions in countries, Occupy Movement protesters are still undaunted, and hope to re-occupy public spaces.

Now, it is Occupy Everywhere. It’s a new discourse and dynamics of political action. It is not an isolated act of protest. Rather, it is now a worldwide process, an expression of revolt against capitalist economy and politics.

Labor, either in unions or defying status quoed union leadership, in countries has joined the waves of uprising, and in countries has determined pace of politics for a period, may be for a short one. Labor worldwide is trying to assert its position. In 2011, labor made strikes at Australian coal mines and walked outs at giant Grasberg mine in Indonesia. Chile’s state-owned copper giant, African gold producers, and scores of mine owners in countries had to face labor action in the year.
At least in a country, a new law banning street protest has been enacted. At least a country now plans to use its political power to detain its citizens for indefinite period. Police reportedly went undercover at an Occupy camp to find out protesters’ intentions. Police spies infiltrated protest groups at least in a country. In countries, public servants, hardly a few thousands in number, are wielding the power to define limits of “democracy” for millions, and in actual sense, billions. The year 2011 once again exposed these truths.

In 2011, by violating fundamental rights of people, and even by violating bourgeois democratic norms, ruling classes in respective societies have quashed its claims to rule, have confirmed its void moral standing, and have provided people the logic to reclaim fundamental features of bourgeois democracy and public spaces. In 2011, ruling machines in countries are breaking its laws the machines are committed to safeguard, and breeding contempt of the laws enacted to secure existing property relations and perpetuate dominance over people. In countries, honesty is an abandoned concept within forces of and institutions for hegemony. So, the logic to reclaim comes from Abraham Lincoln. In 1858, Abraham Lincoln said while debating Stephen Douglas: “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”

In 2011, capital’s “holy” alliance is being exposed. States with their inherent inefficiency and incompetence continue to stand as inefficient and incompetent. With their monopoly of coercion states are attaining mistrust of its citizens.

In 2011, main stream media got exposed as a tool of capital. MSM’s acts appeared deep rooted conspiracy, often a conspiracy of silence, to the protesting people. It tried to keep silent on the Occupy Movement. Its “shrewd” tact to ignore people’s struggles ultimately breached its credibility, and to regain credibility, it had to provide information, sometimes disinformation or misinformation.

In 2011, the dominating economy’s incapability is being exposed as it continues to snatch away social safety arrangements, as it fails to provide bare minimum livelihood space to citizens, and as it fails to balance its competing interests. In a continent, dominating capital stands on the brink of falling apart as its powerful parts fail to resolve fatal competition.

In 2011, like past years, states, huge in number, continue to serve their masters – capitals, monopoly finance capital, speculator capital, ecocide capital, war capital. With demagoguery and outright falsehood, with a state of war or a threat of war, with justification to torture and murder, states fomented protests, revolts and occupation in 2011.

Status quo is engaged with full force in stopping peoples’ legitimate claims on economy and politics. In 2011, societies are on the border of bankruptcy, societies are faltering with burden of seemingly endless mal-governance, lumpenocracy, immense corruption and hopelessness. Dominating classes’ historical role has brought the societies to this limit. The dominating classes have initiated the process of destruction of these societies. In countries, people found no other way but protest and revolt in 2011 as speculators and bankers shape economy and trample sovereignty, polluters define limits of livable environment, and tyranny encroach public spaces. All Tyranny depends on deception, hypocrisy, economic and political power, and compels people to resort to revolt. The year, as a reaction, demonstrates force and power of revolt. The year is witnessing unimaginable riches and military might, but finds it imprisoned to the desire to use the power in the interests of absolute minority section in societies. People find them encountering tyranny and oppression in the guise of status quo in 2011.

“No nation”, as James Madison said in Political Observations in 1795, “can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” But, the world is experiencing continual war waged by dominating capital. The year 2011 with pain and tears is going through this war. It is war for resources and cheap labor being waged in lands around the globe, it is war for thievery, it is wars declared and undeclared, and it is age-old war waged by a minority class against the majority classes. Under the endless sky, it is being waged in politics, in diplomacy, in economy, in propaganda, in ideology and education. It is being waged in the squares of the cities, in slums, on waste dumping grounds, with public properties being sold in market, in factories and workshops, in ports and offices, in degraded educational institutions and hospitals without any ribbon of hope, in all public spaces.

In countries, people are now no more wandering, no more having aimless moves in 2011. In countries, people are now striving to transform politics, taking initiatives in politics with limitations imposed by a period and respective societies. Despite the fact, protesting people, revolting people, not individuals, have initiated a process to reclaim their space, their land, to reiterate
This land is your land,
This land is my land
This land is our land.

Democratic Struggle And The Struggle For The Environment Are Tied Together

By Fred Magdoff & Farooque Chowdhury

Interview of Professor Fred Magdoff by Farooque Chowdhury on climate crisis

“People's democratic struggle and the struggle for the environment should be intimately tied together. If the environmental issues are brought front and center within the people's struggles it might even result in more support for change”, said Fred Magdoff , co-author of What Every Environmentalist Needs To Know about Capitalism, A Citizen's Guide to Capitalism and the Environment (with John Bellamy Foster. MR Press). I n an interview, first carried by MRzine , Fred Magdoff, professor emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont and adjunct professor of crop and soil science at Cornell University said: “We should oppose all ‘market oriented' so-called ‘solutions'. They are not actually solutions, but rather just a new way to make money.” Prof. Magdoff writes frequently on political economy. His most recent books are The Great Financial Crisis (written with John Bellamy Foster, MR Press) and Agriculture and Food in Crisis (edited with Brian Tokar, MR Press).

In the backdrop of climate crisis threatening millions of people around the world and their struggle for democratic life, and the coming climate talks in Durban, CoP 17, Fred Magdoff ( FM ) was interviewed in late-November, 2011 on climate crisis by Farooque Chowdhury ( FC ), a Dhaka-based freelancer. Following is the text of the interview:

FC: We know CoP 17 is going to begin in Durban . What issues should the most affected/vulnerable countries raise in the conference?

FM: The most affected and vulnerable countries are clearly concerned about the lack of urgency felt by the wealthy countries. The crux of the issue is to get a commitment from the United States , Europe, and Japan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There is some indication that China is beginning to move in that direction, although its rapid pace of growth may outweigh efforts to reduce emissions. Although effects are already felt in the U.S. and Europe , the most difficult results of climate change have been felt in the poorer countries and among vulnerable people. The sea level rise along with warming is necessitating the transfer of Alaskan villages away from the coast. Seawater intrusion in Vietnam 's Mekong Delta region is causing salinity to develop in some of the rice soils, reducing their productivity. The melting of the Andean glaciers has already resulted in water shortages during the dry season.

FC: There is the debt crisis in Europe . The Great Financial Crisis has not retreated to its den. What will be the probable impact of these on the CoP 17?

FM: The theme that is commonly expressed by those wishing to do nothing is that a movement to restrict greenhouse gas emission would cost jobs. Fewer coal miners, less electricity generated (if coal powered electric generating plants were closed down), and so on. So they say that this is not the time to do something that would cost jobs. Of course, it is just an excuse. If a transition was planned and done well many jobs could be created. Also, what kind of society and economy do we have that would say that we need to continue polluting so people can work? This is not only an irrational economic/social/political system but also a dangerous one.

FC: In the backdrop of conflicting interests of major polluters, which is essentially conflict of interest of related capitals for their accumulation, what should be the negotiating strategy of most vulnerable countries in CoP 17?

FM: Far be it from me to give advice to the most vulnerable countries. They seem to be very well aware of the political problems. They have previously tried a number of innovative strategies and I am sure that they will continue to do so.

FC: Is there any change in the climate crisis negotiation scenario since the CoP 16 in Cancun ?

FM: The position of the wealthy countries has if anything solidified and hardened. There is an Guardian (UK) article of November 20, 2011 that is titled “ Rich nations 'give up' on new climate treaty until 2020” and has as its subtitle: “ Ahead of critical talks and despite pledge for new treaty by 2012, biggest economies privately admit likelihood of long delay.” This, of course, has been greeted by the most vulnerable with dismay and anger.

FC: As a participant, you presented a key note paper in the Mother Earth conference in Bolivia . There is the Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth in Bolivia . A ministry in the country looks after these rights. Have the deliberations and call of the conference, and the step by Bolivia made any impact in today's discourse on climate crisis?

FM: I think that Bolivia played a very important role following the failure of Copenhagen meetings in December of 2009. Just bringing so many people together in Cochabamba , Bolivia in April of 2010 was quite a feat. The discussion was very good as was the final declaration of the conference. One of small things that happened was the exposure to the large group of how the United States was using a money offer in order to get Bolivia and Ecuador to sign on to the Copenhagen statement drafted mainly by the wealthy countries. A cabinet minister from Ecuador said that she was authorized to tell the assembled people that Ecuador refused the money but was prepared to offer the United States the same amount of money if it would agree to sign the Kyoto protocols. Needless to say, there was plenty of laughter after that statement.

FC: Is there any conflict, but not articulated, between the dominating economic interests and people's interests in the position emerging economies have taken in climate crisis negotiation?

FM: YES! The main conflict is one of the interests of capitalism as a system and of its most powerful representatives. Since at the heart of the issue is the normal way capitalism functions — it has to continue growing or else it's in crisis and has no other goal other than the accumulation of more and more capital. It would take a VERY enlightened leader of one of the leading rich capitalist countries to even attempt to take on the vested interests that are perfectly happy with the way things are.

FC: If “yes”, how to resolve this contradiction or what program should be there from people's perspective in the emerging economies?

FM: This is certainly a very difficult question to answer. Perhaps an equivalent of “direct action” activism is needed by the most vulnerable. Maybe disrupting the workings of the UN or other world organizations might get some positive results.

FC: A portion of capital is now-a-days active to make a climate deal as climate crisis threatens its domain. At the same time, to a section of capital, climate crisis appears a potential market. How to ensure people's interests in this market that is making climate crisis a commodity?

FM: I think that we should oppose all “market oriented” so-called “solutions.” They are not actually solutions, but rather just a new way to make money. They give the appearance of accomplishing something, although they are rife with fraud and do not solve the problem even if well carried out.

FC: What role can people's organizations play in respective countries/societies that can impact climate crisis negotiation? Should these only be confined in raising demands, organizing demonstrations, etc. or along with these, widen public space through mobilizing people in positive, locally practicable approaches?

FM: It is up to the creativity and energy of the people to develop new approaches to the negotiations. It is not clear to me how to negotiate when one group is not really interested. This is something like what is happening in the U.S. Congress where the Republican Party has absolutely no interest in negotiations, whatever the consequences.

FC: Can participatory climate assessment at local level be a tool, a better one than mere forming human chains, etc. for a shorter period, to make people actively aware and to actively mobilize them on the climate crisis issue?

FM: Using a participatory assessment to make people aware of their climate and the implications of changes that are occurring can certainly be useful. It is also important to start discussions and even planning at the local level for sea level rise, droughts, floods, hot weather, etc. — whatever is most relevant to the local or regional situation. There are low-tech ways of lessening some of the detrimental effects.

FC: Will not climate crisis negatively impact people's democratic struggle?

FM: I think that the people' democratic struggle and the struggle for the environment should be intimately tied together. The climate crisis, as well as the other environmental crises that are occurring, should make it clearer to people that these are crises of the system itself. And the only meaningful way to deal with social as well as environmental problems is to organize a new society based on equality, democracy, and care for the environment. So the issue itself provides another argument against the capitalist system.

FC: Should the crisis be viewed as a potential threat to people's struggle for a decent, democratic life?

FM: The way I view it, while making things more difficult for people, climate changes provide another argument against the capitalist system and provides more urgency to seek systemic changes. If the environmental issues are brought front and center within the people's struggles it might even result in more support for change.

FC: Is not there the need to include climate demands in the program for democratic struggle, targeting the global and local climate criminal capitals that are snatching away atmospheric space from people?

FM: Absolutely. This must become a central part of the struggle. And I would broaden the issue to other types of environmental degradation — chemical pollution of air, water, and food; overfishing by factory-size boats causing depletion of fish stocks; soil erosion and degradation; depletion of fresh water supplies; etc.

FC: Can organizing climate crime tribunals at respective levels be a forum for active mobilization and protest by climate-poor?

FM: Yes. I think that this is one of the ways that more attention can be focused on the issues and on the intransigence of the wealthy countries.

FC: Thank you, for the interview.

Europe’s Lost Decade!

It is Europe, neither Italy nor Greece, that is now having a tragic appearance. The “attributes” of tragedy are now in Europe’s economy, politics, institutions, diplomacy, and “democratic” practice, in essence, autocracy of bank capital. Finance and political leaders’ HardTalks are revealing the bitter fact, a fact that bares the heart and brain of capitalism.

The world is going to have a lost decade. The IMF chief has made the warning on November 8. George Soros warned a few days back: Europe may experience a lost decade.

Japan’s and Latin America’s lost decades are old stories. Of Africa? Of the poor? Who knows? Probably, it is lost centuries.

Christine Lagarde, the IMF chief said: “The world runs the risk of a downward spiral of uncertainty.” She has warned that the global economy is at risk of being plunged into a “lost decade”.

Amid fear of the escalating euro zone debt crisis making impact on the world economy the IMF chief said: The crisis has resulted in an uncertain outlook for the global economy. “We could run the risk of what some commentators are already calling the lost decade,” she added.

She forecasts: “There are clearly clouds on the […] horizon, particularly in the advanced economies and particularly so in the European Union and the US.”

Only a few days ago, George Soros, the billionaire financier, warned the EU faces an economic “lost decade”, or more. Citing a combination of a bank crisis and a sovereign debt crisis he expressed fear: “Europe is in […] a very serious crisis.” The crisis, he apprehends, “is a political crisis. The euro is in the process of undermining the political cohesion of the European Union.” “This will lead to a long-term economic depression. When you look at similar situations [like Latin America in the early 80s and Japan slightly later] you had a lost decade... I am afraid that this is the outlook for Europe this is the unfortunate reality”, he concluded.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has warned: The EU was in its “deepest ever crisis”. In an interview with the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung Barroso said that national governments can’t be trusted to take determined action. Setting rules for a stable euro zone could not only be left to the member states. He has suggested: the EU’s institutions need to be strengthened to stabilize the euro zone. He called for more power for the EU's institutions, arguing that it was an “illusion” to think that the euro zone’s economic policy could be coordinated just by the European Council.

Alistair Darling, the former UK chancellor, has said: The economic crisis facing Europe has become far worse than the banking crisis of 2008 and will see the break-up of the euro if it is not resolved by Christmas. “In 2008 we were facing a banking crisis. Now we are facing an economic crisis, and if it gets worse it will turn into a banking crisis that will worsen the crisis”, he said.

He told the Guardian: The G20 summit in Cannes was “a disaster”. The G20 leaders “appeared to gather on a wet Friday, appear mesmerized by Greece and then were away by 3.30, as soon as they possibly could get out of the place. Sometimes it is better to have no summit than a failed summit”.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said in her weekly podcast: It would take a decade before the euro zone is in a better position.

Joseph Stiglitz suspects that “we’re going to see a lot of volatility. Whether at the end the euro zone will emerge intact or not, it’s hard at this point to say.” “It all depends on the politics. […T]he political process in some ways is not in tune with the economics. The problems are deep.
I think there is a reasonably good chance that a year from now you would find the euro zone smaller than what it is today”, he added. (“Austerity not the way to go for Europe”)

The macro-scene is grim. Europe’s slow down will bring down exports from the US. Similar fate looms over Asia. The US and the euro zone are the biggest markets for Asian goods. Suffering economies of the US and Europe are slowing down demand for Asian goods. China has already begun experiencing this. A slowdown of Asia’s export oriented economies will have greater negative impact on the global economy.

Not only Asia’s export oriented economies, a few of Europe’s economies are also experiencing the chill. Economists and the Danske Bank are warning that Denmark may be on the brink of a new recession as exports are being affected by the slowdown in Denmark’s traditional trading partners. Danske Bank has reduced its growth forecast for this year to 0.7% from its previous forecast in October of 1.1. The 2012 forecast has also been downgraded to 1.0% from 1.6%. Italy’s financial crisis has yet not showed signs of improvement despite Silvio Berlusconi’s pledge to resign once Parliament passes austerity measures. Markets does not know its reactions to Italian political drama.

Many analyses, ideas and suggestions are now floating on the finance-politics stage. There are talks of hyper-deflation, “kick-starting” the economy, turbo-capitalism that dislikes any regulation inhibiting financial markets’ growth, turbo-Keynesianism, turbo-capitalism’s more accommodating twin, etc. Bankers are encroaching sovereign space of states. Democratic practice is being infringed by bank capital. Suggestions for immediately recapitalizing Europe’s banks are there. The mainstream assumption that financial markets are capable of taking care of all their “good” work now stands wrong. That was an imagination without any roots in reality.

The specter of crisis, “financial crisis”, “economic crisis”, “banking crisis”, and other crises – political crisis, interstate crisis”, institutional crisis, crisis in formation of state, crisis in visualization of EU founding fathers – are now haunting the continent overwhelmed with advanced capitalist economies. Euro, according to Soros, is “an incomplete currency: it had a central bank but no central treasury.” (“The European Union’s Catalogue of Failures”, July 18, 2011) European leaders, Stiglitz said, “didn’t do anything in the 10 years before there was a crisis.” (op. cit.) There are now many similar ideas and concepts in the market of mainstream discourse.

But, what are the roots of the crisis? The MSM simply skips the answer. The MSM constantly declines to look at the base of the crises. As the causes creating these crises the MSM finds “leaders’ lack of farsightedness”, “institutional weakness”, “stubbornness or weakness of this leader or that leader”, etc. But does a leader act according to own choice or preference or whim or knack? Can a leader act on own wishes and can an institution play role on the basis of its own wisdom? Where from the wishes and wisdom enter into head or decision making process? On these, and similar other questions, the MSM stands on a void base, an absolute void.

The MSM has to provide answer to the burning questions: why lost decade visits this country and that continent? Why their wisdom and analytical prowess visit them always after a crisis calls in, and why they fail to identify root cause of all the crises?

The MSM is concerned with securing banks, finance, credit-credibility. Why it fails to put people, their suffering before finance, etc.?

Stiglitz finds politics will determine the euro zone’s shape. No, capitals shaping politics will determine euro zone’s shape. Capitals’ contradictions within itself will determine its accommodating/co-opting capacity and power. Its conflicting interests will shape euro zone, euro zone’s institutions, and politics, democracy and sovereignty in countries in the zone.

Because of limitations imposed by interests of capitals involved in the crisis the dominating capitals will stand against people in respective countries, and as a whole in the entire zone, and squeeze their life to squeeze out all the surplus peoples in these countries are capable of generating. This will sharpen contradiction between the peoples and the capitals in the crisis dominated zone influencing politics in the zone. The sharpening contradictions pose a burning question to the peoples in the continent: will the coming days bring only suffering to them or struggle along with suffering? Answer to the question and actions by them will influence politics of bank capital in the zone.

Dance: Language Of Protest

Protest has its own language. And, protest has its many languages. Silence sometimes speaks as protest. Dance also. In countries, protesters, in group or individually, have danced as protest.

In Chile, student demonstrators took to the streets of Santiago. They danced as protest in June, 2011. Dressed as goblins and ghouls from Michael Jackson’s iconic “Thriller” video they protested, as they described, the country’s “rotten” and “dead” education system. The protesting students re-created Jackson’s moves in front of presidential palace. They said: the zombie motif was an appropriate metaphor for the country’s education system.

One student said: “Public education is dying so we took this Michael Jackson creation and we united to this movement that is dying, the zombies.”

A 72-year-old woman on the floor of a George Washington University dance studio, a 39-year-old Maryland woman in her apartment, a 38-year-old dancer in Charlottesville, and many others danced to draw attention to refugees, particularly the Iraq and Afghan wars refugees. They, the 31 solo dancers, took humanity’s problems seriously while millions turned busy with New Year celebrations. (Washington Post, “31 Dance Performances Protest Results of Wars”, Jan. 2, 2009)

The Maryland woman danced for 24 hours. “It’s not about being radical for the sake of being radical,” said the dancer before commencing her in-home performance.

One of the dancers “chastised the United Nations in particular for maintaining its ‘impressive composure’ in a world soiled by ‘war, starvation, refugees, pornography, slavery, you name it.’” Others planned to bring to notice the “plight of Iraqi refugees, the bombing of Gaza and the scourge of war in general”. One of the dance-protest participants said: “You know you want to do something. You become like an antenna for an idea, and an antenna for a value system. … It’s saying, ‘Hey, let’s think, let’s move, let’s consider.’ It’s a lot about tapping into basic human things like compassion and memory”.

The plight-protest-project was conceptualized by New Yorker Miguel Gutierrez. Miguel described it as an “endurance-based action”. “It was either art, depending on your view of such things, or a political protest, or both.” The idea was of having dancers around the country to “make a social-justice statement for the new year by wearing blindfolds and earplugs, denying themselves food and letting the world watch their improvisational performances via the Internet.”

In 2008, a group of persons gathered at the Jefferson Memorial to dance in silence. They were dispersed and one woman was arrested on misdemeanor charges. A year later, a judge affirmed a ban on dancing at the memorial, “in order to maintain an atmosphere of calm, tranquility, and reverence.” The charge against the arrested was demonstrating without a permit.

Reports across the internet inform, on a late-May afternoon, five protesters were arrested by US Park Police in the Jefferson Memorial for dancing in silence. Titled as “civil danceobedience”, the dancers were there protesting the court decision in early-May that upheld a ban on dancing within the memorial.

Dance Anywhere, an annual, conceptual public art performance, invites people to stop and dance on a specific date and time. By co-opting art into daily public spaces and demonstrating audiences to dance, DA “transforms perceptions of where and how art can occur, demonstrating that art does not need to be exhibited in a gallery, and dance does not need to be performed on a stage.” The initiator, a professional dancer, conceptual artist and printmaker exhibiting nationwide for 30 years, is “committed to changing the world through community service and art.”

DA is an open invitation for people to stop and dance at a specific time around the world. Participants are encouraged to document their experience through photography and video, which is shared on the DA website. In 2010, it was March 26.

DA tries to engage people, many in number, in a global public art performance, to build community and change the world through dance and art, inspire audiences to reconsider art, public space, and community, make art accessible to all by bringing dance to public spaces.

Why do people dance? At certain age, under 16, Dr. Peter Lovatt says, “dancing is for fun.” At other stages, “dance has different meaning and motive, drive and desire.” Dr. Lovatt, principal lecturer in psychology at the University of Hertfordshire and known around the campus as Dr. Dance, found reasons behind dancing is related to age, gender and genetic makeup. He has completed a research into dance, analyzing 13,700 people’s responses to issues related to dancing. Lovatt says: “Some dance because they are told they have to, and it has been used to show strength and fearlessness”. (Guardian, “Why do people dance? And what makes some more confident than others? Dr Dance has the answers”, mid-Dec. 2009)

Many ethnic groups, studies have found, use dance in their regular activities as a way to keep communities and larger population together. Dancing help societies keep younger generations within guidelines. But, dance cannot transcend socioeconomic condition in the society it performs. It reflects the divide that economy imposes on society. Under-classes fail to accept dances of upper-classes. To the under-classes, dances of upper-classes that tell stories of only the upper-classes appear abstract. Dance also turns into tool of the upper-classes to perpetuate their hegemony. Then, people, depending on their level of learning, develop their own domain of dance. Hegemony doesn’t allow people to have their own dance. This leads hegemony to narrow down people’s space for their dancing. That’s done by lengthening people’s working hour, increasing hardship in life, and by making language of dance imperceptible by people.

Dance “may reflect or challenge the social, cultural, even religious traditions and values of their root cultures.” (Michael Crabb, “Why People Dance, Dance & Dancing: Just Doing What Comes Naturally”)

Why do people protest? Science provides the answer. Luxury of arrogance or indulgence with ignorance or denial of undeniable rights produces protest. Is it possible to torpedo the reasons behind protest? It is also science that provides the answer. It is a nay, an emphatic no. Protests look for language within limits of reality. Protest denies power. Protest disobeys authority. But it can’t deny reality. Dance with delicate steps, with complex expressions extends parameter of protests. But it can’t restrain reality. These, dance and protest, live within reality, evolve within reality. Pace and speed of dance and protest depends on reality. That’s its strength.

A Drama In Disarray: G20 Summit In Cannes

The G20 summit in Cannes has concluded in disarray and without details in “agreements”. Leaders were unable to agree upon financing the IMF to help advanced capitalist countries in distress. No G20 state is willing to participate in the euro zone bailout fund.

However, one “achievement” is there instead of a total failure: interventions in two democracies – Greece and Italy – appeared close to coup although a G20 leader disagreed. So, all should agree with the leader: These are not coups de grace, but a mere attempt to change government or press government to listen to interventionists for the sake of markets. Italy and Greece have been made to submit to creditors’ dictation.

The Cannes Crisis Festival, considered a flop by some commentators, saw little progress on resolving Europe’s debt crisis. The leaders, as Angela Merkel acknowledged, had failed to interest any of the G20 state in investing in a new initiative. From her statement it appeared that China and Russia bargained a bit. Russia and China demand IMF to secure their investments. A strange symptom within a world structured along a NATO-WB-IMF-WTO design.

But Cannes summit has failed to raise market confidence. Stock markets in New York, Frankfurt and Paris initially expressed their reaction by moving down.

The continuing eurozone debt crisis dominated summit had the hope to increase IMF resources by $250bn to more than $1tn. But the hope has not touched this material world. The hope has been kept suspended for G20 finance ministers with the hope to be materialized in next February.

The summit communiqué made commitment to move “more rapidly” towards greater exchange rate flexibility, agreed to give IMF more money, welcomed Italy’s “wisdom” to invite the IMF to monitor its reforms, and called on countries with strong public finances to take steps to boost domestic demand.

“Dark clouds, Ban Ki-moon warned at an event with main stream labor leaders in Cannes, “have gathered once again over the global economy. […M]any people cannot even see the light at the end of a long, long tunnel.” With a similar mood, David Cameron said the crisis was having a “chilling effect” on his country’s economy. He hinted at worse to come, describing this as only “a stage of the global crisis”. The UK leader felt that in the interest of his country the eurozone crisis should be sorted out as rapidly as possible.

For playing down failure to make progress on major issues Nicolas Sarkozy tried to appear as a warrior for the cause of Robin Hood tax. Sarkozy expressed his willingness to “fight to defend Europe and the euro” as he said in a post-summit press conference.

Sarkozy said: We cannot accept the explosion of the euro, which would mean the explosion of Europe. He has assured that the G20 had agreed to boost the IMF. He made a forecast: G20 would agree by February. The French leader denied the demands on Silvio Berlusconi represented almost an IMF coup: “We never wanted to change governments, either in Greece or in Italy. That is not our role; that is not our idea of democracy.” However, he said that George Papandreou’s decision not to tell fellow EU leaders about plans to hold a referendum was “shocking”. Barack Obama reminded Greek and Italian parliaments to take decisive action. The US leader praised increased scrutiny of Italy as a step in the right direction.

The summit deliberations showed Britain’s inability to take burden. Cameron admitted that the G20 summit had failed to resolve the eurozone debt crisis. He went on: “I’m not going to pretend all of the problems in the eurozone have been fixed, they haven’t.” Cameron feels, “[t]he problem is that not all of the details... have been put in place.” He assured British taxpayers that increasing UK contributions to the IMF would not put their “money at risk”, and the money would not support a eurozone bailout. He revealed a fact: Contributing money to support the IMF was, as a trading nation, “in our interests”. He also suggested that the issue of increasing contribution to the IMF would not be put on a vote in the Commons. It appears that UK capital does not have interest in euro bail out, but in expansion of global business.

The Greek drama annoyed the Cannes festival as Papandreou announced to hold a referendum on austerity package being pushed through Greece’s throat. The political move panicked markets around the world and the G20 leaders. But dominating capital’s dictation made Papandreou step back. He threw away referendum plan to seek people’s mandate on the austerity plan that includes sell-off of public property. The Papandreou government sought confidence in parliament after alleged horse trading and survived a confidence vote.

Italy with its near-nonexistent growth was an amazing player in the Cannes show. Rome now threatens to carry Europe’s debt crisis up to a level that can fall on the entire earth’s capitalist economy, and make it spin listlessly. Italy’s borrowing rates are rising to the levels that forced the PIG to seek bailout “benevolence” in all its crudeness. With a $2.5 trillion debt Italy has agreed to let the IMF monitor its implementation of austerity program.

But, as a Reuter’s story described, the “fierce pressure from financial markets and European peers” was not a humiliation for Berlusconi as he agreed to have the IMF and the EU monitors. It was reported that Berlusconi “was summoned to a late-night hotel meeting with Merkel, Sarkozy, the IMF director general Christine Lagarde and Obama, where he was instructed to bring Italy under […] IMF surveillance to ensure he implements […] measures, including changes to the labor market, […] the sell-off of state assets.” However, Berlusconi tried to minimize the satiric-political impact of the decision, saying that it had been requested by Italy rather than imposed by world leaders. He boasted: He had invited the IMF to offer advice; he had rejected an offer of IMF funds. He claimed that his country was more solid than France or the UK. “Italian restaurants and vacation spots are always full. Nobody has the sense the country is in a crisis”, said the scandal-ridden Italian leader.

The IMF bosses will audit Italy’s books of accounts to make sure the austerity measures are implemented with brute force. An EC team will also supervise. Moreover, the Media Mughal of Italy with a history of not standing by promises had to make a new promise to European leaders in Cannes, the famous film festival place that sees attractive film figures: a confidence motion within 15 days in Roman Senate. These developments achieved by external and Italian finance elites impacted Italian politics. Desertions from coalition government of Berlusconi have made its life uncertain.

Shall there be horse trading in the country’s political market dominated by the rich? Shall the trade be called democratic distribution of patronage by one of the richest men of Italy? All, from Catholic Church to business, want Berlusconi’s exit. But the democratic warrior knows well that Italy is not Libya. This perception has led him to brush aside the desire of powerful interests. He has already found traitors to the country as he described party rebels. Have ghosts of fallen dictators overshadowed the character of Italian comedy in a Roman Holiday? However, there are all the possibilities of Berlusconi’s Mubarak Moment.

The world now is a bit different whatever the Italian leader claims. The IMF bosses do not only dictate the poor in the South. They are now showing muscles in advanced capitalist countries. Now, after Greek Tragedy and Italy Incident, the ruling elites, many of them are pure robbers and plunderers, of IMF-dictated-poor countries should get “rid” of sense of shame. The founding fathers of the Bretton Woods institutions had not imagined that one day in future their institutions designed to subdue the poor world would discipline advanced capitalist countries. Even, Marx had not imagined. Has something rotten down in the core of capitalism? The IMF is disciplining Ireland, Portugal and Greece, “dignified” capitalist countries not “shameless” like the poor countries.

Russia made a major advance in the summit as the country will be allowed into the WTO, “the biggest step in world trade liberalization since China joined a decade ago.” The step will have implication on present major players in the world trade club. China’s increasing power was evident in the summit as the country resisted calls to allow its currency to appreciate. It now appears that these two countries are making their voices heard in the gathering of the powerful and aspiring-powerful.

The disarrayed drama, the unwillingness to fund IMF, the flexing of power reaching close to coup in advanced capitalist countries, the humiliations, etc. raise a few fundamental questions related to capitalist world system that was in euphoria with a brute onslaught named globalization a few years back.

November 2: General Strike In Oakland

Oakland is going to observe a general strike on November 2. The strike will be “against the growing gap between the rich and everybody else,” said the website of Occupy Oakland. “The whole world is watching Oakland,” OO said in a statement. “Let’s show [the world] what is possible.” The OO announced on its website that it is planning a march to the Port of Oakland, the US’ fifth busiest, to “shut it down.” New agency reported that tens of thousands of people are expected to participate in the general strike. It was also reported that organized labor will extend support. These are signs of growing discontent.

The decision for city-wide general strike was passed by Occupy Oakland General Assembly by a 96.9% majority. The OO has urged other groups nationwide to organize similar events.

The OO statement said: “We […] propose that on […] November 2, 2011, we liberate Oakland and shut down the 1%. We propose a city wide general strike.” Now, Oakland is getting prepared for a general strike that in 1946 also observed a general strike

The OO has invited all students to walk out of school. “Instead of workers going to work […] the people will converge on downtown Oakland to shut down the city.” The statement said: “All banks and corporations should close down for the day or we will march on them.”

The OO has also called on people “for much more. People who organize out of their neighborhoods, schools, community organizations, affinity groups, workplaces and families are encouraged to self organize in a way that allows them to participate in shutting down the city in whatever manner they are comfortable with and capable of.” On November 2, marches have been planned at 9 a.m., noon and 5 p.m., so that as many people as possible can participate.

The decision for the general strike came out as a result of an incident related to Scott Olsen, 24, former Marine and Iraq War veteran. Olsen sustained a skull fracture after being shot in the head on October 25 with a police projectile while peacefully participating in an Occupy Oakland protest. The images of Olsen standing peacefully in the Oakland protest frontline, next to a Navy vet holding a “Veterans for Peace” flag, and the images from moments later of Olsen lying on the ground wounded have shocked all. The atrocity sparked anger leading to a call for the general strike. Olsen has become a rallying cry for the USwide Occupy movement.

Olsen served two tours of duty in Iraq before being discharged in 2010. After leaving the Marines, he was working as a system administrator for a software firm. He joined the Oakland protests with members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, a group raising issues of homelessness and unemployment among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. “It’s ironic that days after Obama’s announcement of the end of the Iraq War, Scott faced a veritable war zone in the streets of Oakland […]”, The IVAW said in a statement.

John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation and associate editor of The Capital Times writes: “We Are All Scott Olsen!” was the message of solidarity vigils, rallies and marches held in cities across the US and around the world in answer to a call from IVAW and Occupy Oakland for recognizing Olsen. Thousands attended a candlelight vigil in Oakland. In Las Vegas, an image of Olsen was projected at the site of the Occupy encampment. In New York, Occupy Wall Street activist took to the streets chanting “New York is Oakland, Oakland is New York.” In London, images of Olsen were displayed at gatherings. The buzz about the wounding of the veteran was everywhere, and was best summed up by activist protesting at Wisconsin’s state Capitol with Olsen in February. It read: “He could be any one of us.” (The Nation, Oct. 28, 2011)

The Oakland Occupy protests that began October 11 have witnessed more than 100 arrests and a violent confrontation last week between protesters and police. According to press reports, the conflict came after police dismantled the protesters’ camp for more than two weeks. Police fired tear gas over a three-hour period clearing out the camp on October 25.

Only Oakland is not experiencing steps by authorities. Steps against the protesters are being escalated as people are protesting in US cities. On October 30, about 30 anti-Wall Street protesters were arrested in Portland, Ore., after they refused to leave a park. Later they have been freed. In Nashville, demonstrators raised slogans in defiance of an official curfew: “Whose plaza? Our plaza.” State troopers began enforcing the curfew on October 27 night, three weeks after protests began. In Phoenix, a Councilman suggested charging demonstrators the costs of the city in overtime for police, and others since the protests began October 14. The cost was calculated: $204,162. Probably, it is the fee for protest in a democracy!

The issue of cost is not sarcasm with democratic rights, but the real face of a democracy that spends trillions of dollars to help its absolute minority, the finance-elites, and fails to help the suffering millions, the absolute majority. This has plainly been told by Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster in his speech in Occupy Eugene rally on October 15, 2011: “US society has become fundamentally unequal.”

In this society, John B Foster said, “between 1950 and 1970, for every additional dollar made by those in the bottom 90 percent of income earners, those in the top one hundredth of one percent received $162 dollars. But that was back when things were more equal! Between 1990 and 2002 for every added dollar made by those in the bottom 90 percent of the population, those in the top one hundredth of one percent made an additional $18,000. […] In the United States 400 individuals […] own as much wealth as the bottom half of the US population, some 150 million people. […] The top 1 percent of the population in the United States owns four times as much financial wealth (excluding houses) as the bottom 80 percent of the population. […W]e live in a plutocracy rather than a democracy, where money outvotes public opinion at every point in the political process. […U]nions are on the defensive in this country. [T]hey have been smashed by unfair legislation. [T]hey are struggling to find a way to fight back. […E]lementary and secondary education system in the United States is being privatized and destroyed. […A]ll of this is related to the system of economic power, to a society that believes in the Wall Street principle, “greed is good,” the signature of capitalism.” (“Why We Occupy, What We Know”)

The worldwide monopoly-finance capital’s tricks are many, and it has to depend on its political machine. Attempts are made to avoid public scrutiny, which expose the real face of democracy and accountability. Actual amount of bail out is much more than the widely cited amount. Citing an audit by the US General Accounting Office, John Bellamy Foster said, the Fed provided more than $16 trillion in financial assistance in the latest financial crisis to the largest corporations in the US and the world. “The rich were bailed out while the majority of the population was made to pay the cost! And we are still paying!”, he said.

The present financial crisis that has built up the background of today’s occupy movement should be understood in proper perspective. The crisis has not cropped up from housing bubble, etc. that are widely being mentioned. Rather it is a terminal stagnation in the economy that Paul Sweezy and his fellow-travelers told decades back. Pointing out this Foster said: “[T]here is no real economic recovery; […] we are in a period of economic stagnation, where only the rich are prospering. That economic growth in the United States has been slowing down in each successive decade since the 1960s and is now virtually stagnant.”

Today’s worldwide movement has the painful experience of blood and tears, an inevitable output of imperialism. The Monthly Review editor said: “United States and its allies have been engaged recently in wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. […A]n intervention is being planned for Iran, and possibly Venezuela. […US] military bases dot the entire globe and are increasing in numbers. […US] spends around a half a billion dollars officially on the military each year, and in reality a trillion dollars a year.”

Today’s worldwide Occupy Movement is historically significant in this world of seven billion people. “We know that we are the necessary, last defense of humanity. That we are the world’s 99%. That we will not ‘thin out’ when the weather gets bad. That we are not a mob. That we are the earth, we are democracy, we are the future. The world has been occupied too long by a tiny minority. It is time for the people to reoccupy it. To take it back”, Foster said. [Emphasis added.]

Resistance and revolts in societies have respective trajectories determined by historical and socioeconomic condition. “[…A] Great Revolt from Below was likely in the United States today, given a deep and lasting economic stagnation. But that we might have to wait three or four years, just as in the great depression, for it to get off the ground, and for the people to ignite. That, just as in the Great Depression, the revolt would not materialize until people had learned that the promise of economic recovery was false, that they had been lied to and systematically robbed. Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Eugene, Occupy the United States is the Great Revolt from Below in our time. […] Everywhere people are uniting in struggle”, said the Monthly Review editor.

Today’s movement in the US is significant. “The reason is that we in the United States live in ‘Fortress America’, the heart of a world empire. Revolts are not supposed to happen here! If a break in the wall appears, if massive protests occur, here, ‘Inside the Monster’, as José Martí called it, the whole world is suddenly uplifted and encouraged to resist. Because then they know that the empire is crumbling. Our struggles here are opening up space for resistance for all the people of the world”, John Belly Foster said.

But, it should not be expected that these public protests and the general strike are the US’ Tahrir Time. Still a critical mass of labor, and, broadly, people are in the waiting. Without their active participation the Tahrir Time will not touch ground. A general strike, part of democracy people can practice, turns political, broadly and specifically. A general strike for political rights, and based on democratic principles trains people with politics. It facilitates activate passive part of populace, and raises essential and functional political questions, which are essential parts to move forward. The plebeians’ general strikes, secessio plebis, ultimately made the patrician creditors bow down – adoptions of the Twelve Tables and the Lex Hortensia. But, it took more than two hundred years in Rome.