Ticktin

["Jurriaan Bendien" <bendien@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Professor Ticktin's states that "Of the two British companies, BP and Shell,
most of the shareholders are American".

In the case the BP, Morgan-Chase hold 29.13 percent or about a third of
ordinary share capital, as regards a small amount of preference shares,
Cooperative Insurance Society Ltd and Prudential have significant holdings.
Beyond that there seems to be a wide dispersion of shareholdings with many
institutions holding less than 1 percent, but a significant shareholder base
exists inside Europe (I cannot estimate exactly how large because normally
reports do not quantify individual shareholders).

The estimated geographical distribution of shareholdings in the Parent
Companies of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company at the end of 2002 was:

Royal Dutch Shell: Continental Europe 69 percent, UK 1 percent, USA 30
percent
Shell Transport: UK 97 percent, USA 3 percent
Overall: Continental Europe 42 percent, UK 19 percent,  USA 19 percent

As regards the war against Iraq, I think it was basically a creative policy
idea which, following the rational actor model, could focus a whole number
of political and business agenda's which, it was thought, would strengthen
the US position in the Middle East, earn brownie points for the
administration, and create a better global environment for business to work
in. I think Bush was genuinely shocked by 9/11 and felt he had to strike
back, do something, but to strike back, he needed a target. In developing
that target (Afghanistan) it was thought that the campaign could be utilised
to achieve a range of political, geostrategic and business objectives. The
Afghan campaign was a winner, because the USA could not lose it, that's also
why they did it.

Inspired by this achievement, the administration was emboldened, and thought
they would clear up the lingering problem in Iraq as well, they thought they
could do that quickly. It would send a clear message to the Arab world.
Of course, such initiatives have a bandwaggon effect, both ideologically as
the intellectuals seeks to justify and criticise (liberty, democratic values
and so on) and economically, because of the business opportunities.
Politically the idea was, that if the Iraq situation could be resolved in
the favour of the US, then one would be in a stronger position to resolve
the Israel/Palestine question (get the Palestinians under control), and once
that was resolved, you would have more stability in the Middle East.

What the processes actually show is the difficulty the imperial governments
have in forming a policy that can inspire cohesive unity among the big
powers and the big corporate players, and translate that into politically
realistic action. This, I think is a result of the structure of the
ownership, control and operations of the corporations, in which it is
impossible to advantage some corporations without disadvantaging others, it
is impossible to get some nations on-side without getting some nations
off-side.

That is why the US administration talks about coalitions: you have this
project you want to do, which you think will benefit world capitalism, and
you try and rally as many countries as you can to support the project, talk
them into it. But the international corporate entanglement is just much more
extensive and complex than it was in the past. For example, French business
is the big loser in Iraq so far, yet you also have to keep the French
government on board, and France is a big player in the EU. The Americans
helped Saddam Hussein into power, but France helped him a lot economically
and militarily. So France gets a rap over the knuckles, but on the other
hand you cannot alienate France too much either. And so on.

So it is a very contradictory situation really. I think ultimately the
campaigns must be viewed as the assertion of the bourgeois values which the
US and UK governments would like to see the world adopt. They're very
concerned ultimately about moral rot, the decline of cultural standards,
social disintegration, etc. and believe you have to fight, and pursue a firm
policy, because otherwise things will become chaotic or unmanageable,
increasing the chance of terrorism and revolts based on irrationalist,
fanatical ideologies and so on. The basic complaint of the US and the UK is
that the Continental European bourgeoisie just doesn't seem to be able to
get itself organised to fight for a decent capitalism, but "somebody has got
to do it", i.e. somebody has to get the chestnuts out of the fire and assert
authority, this is essential for leadership. But leadership to what end
exactly ?

The majority of the world's population at best just sees capitalism as a
lesser evil, you put up with it, but nobody is really enthusiastic about it
either. So leadership really just means maintaining the capitalist order as
it is, and destroying or co-opting any credible alternatives to it. The real
problem of bourgeois politics is how you get and maintain a real political
grip on a population that is in large part disaffected from politics, which
doesn't believe in the efficacy of politics much anymore. What themes do you
use that can appeal to people and unite them behind your party ? These
themes cannot have much to do with real interests, because there are too
many conflicting interests. In which case you talk about symbols and
cultures and moral behaviour and so on.

Jurriaan