-- destructive militarism for more; capitalism requires it;
-- people exploitation enhances it;
-- consumerism keeps it profitable;
-- efficiency also as well collateral ecological fallout.
It's horrific - enormous waste; destructive wars; and little relief in times of peace: conglomerated production and agriculture; exploited labor; extreme wealth disparities; commodifying everything; planned obsolescence; productive overcapacity; unemployment and underemployment; racism; people as production inputs to be used and discarded like waste; and deep-seated levels of corruption.
As companies grow, things worsen in our war-addicted economy profiting business and government together - a mutually destructive alliance. Their gain is civil society's loss, and the stakes keep getting greater. It's what Dowd means by a world "at the cliff's edge."
Part II - The Global Spread, Functioning, and Breakdown of Industrial Capitalism, 1815 - 1945 - From Imperialism to WW I
Dowd gives a sweeping review of 130 years through WW II's end. Of necessity, this account is briefer. Britain was dominant in the 19th and early 20th century through WW I. Inevitably it was challenged by Germany's science and educational superiority and America's incomparable strengths. These three nations and other European ones "unleashed the 19th century version of colonialism. It was called imperialism (and it) made colonialism look tame." By the late 19th century, resource needs "were raging," and competition intense to secure them.
Consider Africa - resource rich and "doomed to endure one set of disasters after another." Slavery gave way to endless civil wars to ruthless imperial exploitation. The Congo was typical and most important as the continent's greatest prize - an abundance of ivory, cobalt, copper, rubber, diamonds, gold, zinc, manganese and more in a country the size of western Europe.
Belgium's King Leopold took it as his private fiefdom, sucked out its riches at the cost of millions of lives, and the country remained a colony until post-WW II. Popular protests won liberation as in other African states. Patrice Lumumba became its first Prime Minister. He wanted Africa freed from European dominance, and he paid with his life for his efforts. The continent is no better off today. America exploits it most. Oil and its other resources are coveted, and no independent leaders are tolerated.
The war in Somalia and challenging Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe highlight the continent's crisis (and nations everywhere). By 19th century's end, European powers controlled all of it. Today America is preeminent and intends to remain so.
Asian history is similar and a lot more than about China and Japan. There's the subcontinent, Central, and Southeast Asia for a vitally important world region. Add the Middle East and its vast oil riches that were discovered early in the last century.
The US was least aggressive but not quiescent. In the 19th century, it took America and half of Mexico, then added Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Samoa, assorted other territories, the Canal Zone and control of Cuba with in perpetuity Guantanamo Bay rights so long as rent is paid or unless both countries back out by mutual consent. Looking back, it was mere prelude to far greater 20th century aims, especially post-WW II when they extended everywhere and now include space.
1914-1945: The Most Disastrous Years in History
Dowd is blunt, and who can disagree. He calls the period between WWs I and II "the most turbulent and disastrous in all of recorded history." Economically the global economy suffered. Many countries endured depressions that were only exceeded by the "most severe conflicts in their history." Britain was one, and its economic troubles emerged in the late 19th century. Brits created "the first world economy." It was strongest militarily, the envy of all Europe, and it became a recipe for rivalries. Who'd be able to create an empire first and be strong enough to keep it. It led to WW I, a flawed peace, years of chaos, conflict and convulsions leading to another great war that the first one was supposed to prevent.
Except for the Great Depression, America was spared, and is now the world's only superpower. Post-WW I, the US emerged strengthened. For its part, Britain was effectively bankrupt. The war took its toll as it did against the continent's other combatants. It turned the 1920s into years of "serious recession, economic slack, withdrawal from international trade," and the rise of fascism as an antidote to hard times. WW II was a war to end it. Instead, it merely slowed it, then relocated it to America - first in "friendly" form, but post-9/11 in increasingly new millennium despotism. What Peter Dale Scott calls the "deep state" - unaccountable, lawless, below the radar, self-serving against the public interest and operative for decades but near omnipotent today. Its classic elements are mostly evident and worrisome:
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
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