Social System by Lincoln Stoller


Here's an interesting piece from Felix Salmon on what really went on in Hank Paulson's treasury in 2008, and it's taken 3 years to become public knowledge in spite of there being no institutionally orchestrated wall of silence to keep it from the public eye. This is what government conspiracy really is, and it's not "conspiracy" per se, it's collusion on various scales carried out in an ununified manner. Nevertheless, it looks the same and comes to the same end as a "real" conspiracy. Please read "Hank Paulson's inside jobs" at:
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/11/29/hank-paulsons-inside-jobs/

Here Salmon says:

"What on earth did Hank Paulson think his job was in the summer of 2008? As far as most of us were concerned, he was secretary of the US Treasury, answerable to the US people and to the president. But at the same time, in secret meetings, Paulson was hanging out with his old Goldman Sachs buddies, giving them invaluable information about what he was thinking in his new job.

"The first news of this behavior came in October 2009, when Andrew Ross Sorkin revealed that Paulson had met with the entire board of Goldman Sachs in a Moscow hotel suite for an hour at the end of June 2008. He told them his views of the US and global economies, he previewed a market-moving speech he was about to give, and he even talked about the possibility that Lehman Brothers might blow up. Maybe it's not so surprising that Goldman Sachs turned out to be so well positioned when Lehman did indeed do just that a few months later."

My point is that what outsiders view as conspiracy is, in most cases, simply profitable information being passed between collaborators for the purposes of private gain, tighter cooperation, and more monopolistic organization. These events don't need to be done with a master plan in mind, they simply leverage jointly valued opportunity that generates a narrower, more focused collusive network. This is how the network grows.

At some point in the future these networks might be taken over by a singular power with an over arching plan, but even without that kind of top-level heirarchy they still operate to the common advantage of the participants who share a de facto common goal. They don't need a "master plan for world domination" because the system in which they operate already offers them ever increasing power by operating within the existing "winner takes all" model of international corporatism and weakly regulated government collaboration

Orchestrating a coordinated operation that involves careful timing and invented stories, such as the World Trade Center attack, does involve a conspiracy of the more conventional sort, although in the context of certain institutions, such as rogue states, the Pentagon and the Executive Branch, close coordination of that sort is already in place.

What people need to understand is that for a collection of interests to develop unified operations outside of public view does not require any singular authority or master plan. These segregated networks develop organically and will conduct exclusive operations consistent with the internal organization on which they're built. Our system rewards them for doing so.

In this case traditional Wall Street collusion between a mega-brokerage and its politically connected inner-circle, which includes academics, industry organizations, corporations, think tanks, hedge funds, politicians and private clients, simply persisted after this confederacy infected itself or was admitted into higher levels of government. From this point the inclusion of other closely connected organizations -- like Rockerfeller, Rothchild, Bildeberg, the Chinese or whatever groups -- is a foregone conclusion. Once these other groups gain access to the levers of power through this "inner circle" mechanism, then each of these groups will struggle to dominate, working in public institutions but outside of the public view, for the purposes of furthering their own agendas.

This is the nature of our system which has private corporations buying influence in systems that are supposed to be democratic. This cannot be changed by singling out specific groups or erecting single-issue fire walls. This is not the result of a few rotten apples. It is the fungus of international corporate capitalism operating in the "fruit salad" of selectively democratic republics.