War and economic breakdown: How did we get here?

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Lead Editorial

22 September 2021
Vol. 23 No. 38

There is a direct connection between the British Empire’s reaction to the young American Republic adopting a national credit system in the 1790s following the American Revolution, and the position Australians find themselves in today: on the brink of war with our neighbour and largest trading partner, China, at the very time that our economy is hitting the wall after three decades of the deliberate destruction of a once-effective credit system and productive economy.

Most Australians would have no idea of that lineage: of the British imposition of an economic system as a means of global control, anchored in “free trade”; of the subsequent geopolitical schemes leading to two world wars consuming the first half of the twentieth century; of the post-war order envisaged by, among others, Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the USA, Clement Attlee in the UK and Ben Chifley in Australia, hinging on national banking to fund economic development; and of how that order was sabotaged. (Chifley pursued the national banking design of Labor MP King O’Malley, the self-described “Alexander Hamilton of Australia”, Hamilton being the inventor of national banking following the American Revolution.) A far cry from today’s new alliance, AUKUS (Australia, UK and USA), FDR et al.’s vision was aimed at getting nations to lift the economic conditions of their people through infrastructure, industry, healthcare and education.

The latter half of the 20th century was shaped by the deliberate destruction of the post-war Bretton Woods financial order, along with political events, from the assassination of US leaders attempting to keep the country true to its mission as a beacon of hope and liberty for the world (the Kennedys and Martin Luther King), to the Cold War. In the background, the coordinated rise of neoliberal economic policy across the globe dictated the withdrawal of governments from economic policy and banking, leaving the free market to reign over an era of outsourcing, just-in-time economics, and the abandonment of the principle of the common good.

Efforts to knock out competitors to the unipolar Anglo-American order took a new course following the 9/11 terrorist attack, targeting major nations like Russia and China capable of creating a coalition of nations returning to credit systems and national development. Regime-change wars and a series of deadly interventions in the name of protecting human rights set us on the course for today’s direct escalations against Russia and China.

Announcing the AUKUS deal on 16 September, Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared that we have exited the “relatively benign environment” of days past, entering “a new era”. On 20 September, war propagandist Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News pumped out its latest anti-China propaganda from Sharri Markson, and Channel 9 aired an “Under Investigation” episode considering the likelihood of outright war with China. The coordinated timing indicates that decisions that could lead us into war, and that will have an impact another hundred years from now, have already been made.

Thankfully, senior, experienced Australians, from former Prime Minister Paul Keating to former Deputy Ambassador to China, John Lander (p. 9), have raised serious concerns about the new agreement which locks us into AngloAmerican objectives and further robs us of our sovereignty. Even ANU professor and former Deputy Secretary of Defence Hugh White, with whom the Citizens Party has had profound disagreements before, bluntly declared it “the wrong move”. (p. 11)

This historical chain of events is the causality for where we now find ourselves and explains our political and economic inability to deal with all the crises we currently face. The mission of the Citizens Party is based on the recognition that the lives of all citizens—of all political beliefs and persuasions—depend on defusing the danger of a new world war and fixing the disintegrating financial and economic system. This is the level on which we must fight.

In this issue:

• Watch ‘The Aussie battler vs. the giant bank’
• Government’s own inquiry exposes de-banking used to protect Big Four monopoly
• Evergrande: a lesson for regulators
• China banks on industrial growth
• US National Infrastructure Bank proposal makes headlines
• China: Australia squandering 40 years of goodwill
• AUSMIN/AUKUS make Australia staging point for WWIII
• Did ‘Operation Hookless’ hook Biden?
• Uniting people around the big issues
• World War I: A warning from history
• ALMANAC: Australia must revive manufacturing! Part 1

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