[A-List] Linking anti-war and anti-globalization movements

["Hans G. Ehrbar" <ehrbar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The war on Iraq will neither be the first nor the last war.
Indeed, the capitalist world system is associated with a
continuous string of local and global wars.  At any given
point in time in recent history there have been open
hostilites at several locations on the earth.  This is not
surprising, because capitalism is based on exploitation and
is therefore inherently violent.


The anti-war movement can only be truly successful if it
addresses the root cause of wars, i.e., capitalism.  For
this it is important to make the concrete connection between
capitalism and whatever war is presently on the agenda.  We
must be able to explain concretely why the war on Iraq is a
necessity for the capitalist system.


The answer which I am proposing here has to do with the
connection between oil and the dollar.  Since 1945, the
national currency of the USA has been accepted world wide as
international money.  Originally, there was a dollar
shortage.  The USA was the only industrialized economy
emerging from World War II intact, and everyone needed
American goods.  This economic predominance has faded.  It
still holds in certain areas; in biotechnology and arms
technology, the USA is still the undisputed leader.  But in
other areas (alternative energies) the USA is a dinosaur.


The continued acceptance of the dollar has two reasons: (1)
the USA is the overwhelming military leader, and (2) the oil
exporting countries have agreed to sell their oil for
dollars, which are then invested back into the US economy.
This link between oil and the dollar is at stake.  It is
maintained by the collusion between the USA and one of the
most reactionary governments on earth, that of Saudi Arabia.
9/11, carried out by Saudi Arab citizens with Saudi Arab
money, demonstrated how tenuous this link has become.
Iraq's switch to the Euro in 2000, and the recent events in
Venezuela are other symptoms indicating that the USA's
control over the oil supply is slipping.


The capitalist system as a whole would survive, it would
even be better off, if the link between oil and the dollar
were broken and the dollar ceased to be world currency.
Instead of a system in which the richest country on earth is
allowed to steal even more wealth by printing paper money, a
truly international overdraft money is needed.  In a growing
world economy under a market system, new purchasing power
must be created somewhere in order to pay for the new goods.
This privilege of "printing money" should be granted to the
less developed countries so that they can build up their
infrastructure and catch up with the developed nations.
In embryo, such a money already exists, it is the SDR,
but until now the USA has succeeded to consign the SDR
to irrelevance.


The US ruling class cannot tolerate the loss of the dollar
as world reserve currency.  The US economy is too addicted
to the privileges associated with it.  Therefore the logical
thing for the US would be to invade Saudi Arabia and take
over their oil wells directly.  They cannot invade their
staunchest ally because they would lose all other allies in
the process.  Fortunately there is Iraq.  It is right next
to Saudi Arabia, and it has the world's second largest oil
reserves.  And the USA can pretend they are liberating Iraq
from Sadam Hussein.


What about the Euro?  Economically, the Euro is a challenge
to the dollar, but:

(a) A nation which unilaterally prints world money creates
an economically unstable situation.  Eventually it has to
back this paper with its military presence.  The European
Union does not have this capability.

(b) Having the Euro as world reserve currency is just as bad
as having the dollar as world reserve currency.  We need a
world money which is not at the same time a national
currency.


If we can substantiate this link between the flaws in the
present international monetary system and the war on Iraq,
then the Anti-War movement can put forward the demand that a
truly international credit money is needed.  Every
reasonable economist in the Third World knows this, but
until now people simply haven't seen how this could be
achieved politically.  The seeming irrationality of the war
on Iraq has brought these hidden connections into focus.  If
the anti-war movement could adopt this demand, a solid
connection with the anti-globalization movement would be
established.


Hans G. Ehrbar