Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Organizing Autonomies
The ongoing criminal enterprises associated with US institutions and markets illustrates clearly the behavioral difference between states and nations. States, as static structures protecting the privileged from the populace, stand in stark contrast to nations, dynamic political entities organized to protect their populace from being ripped off.
The War on Terror and Wall Street bailout plan may be the most current incarnations of state and market collusion in committing fraud, but they fit into a long-established pattern of corruption by modern states. The now twelve-year litigation by Native Americans to recover resource royalties, stolen from Indian trust fund accounts at the Department of Interior (with the assistance of the energy industry), provides a cogent example of the conflict between nations and states. Fourth World nations fighting "free trade" state colonialism throughout the Americas provides another.
The obvious solution is to not let the states and markets mismanage economies in the first place, allowing indigenous nations and other more democratic entities to control their own destinies. Organizing such autonomies requires enacting the principle of subsidiarity at community and regional levels--affecting a redistribution of the power now so corruptly concentrated in Washington and New York.
The War on Terror and Wall Street bailout plan may be the most current incarnations of state and market collusion in committing fraud, but they fit into a long-established pattern of corruption by modern states. The now twelve-year litigation by Native Americans to recover resource royalties, stolen from Indian trust fund accounts at the Department of Interior (with the assistance of the energy industry), provides a cogent example of the conflict between nations and states. Fourth World nations fighting "free trade" state colonialism throughout the Americas provides another.
The obvious solution is to not let the states and markets mismanage economies in the first place, allowing indigenous nations and other more democratic entities to control their own destinies. Organizing such autonomies requires enacting the principle of subsidiarity at community and regional levels--affecting a redistribution of the power now so corruptly concentrated in Washington and New York.
