Thursday, February 14, 2013
The Ultimate Sin
While the institutionalization of theft as an economic practice is
centuries old, its enshrinement in international law since the founding
of the United Nations in 1945 has increasingly lent legalized larceny an
air of inevitability if not legitimacy. Yet, as UN-backed austerity
measures sweep the planet, the globalization of poverty generated by
institutionalized theft is creating the conditions for a vast
mobilization of resentment. While institutions and affiliated networks
work hand in glove with markets to consolidate theft as a way of life,
the environmental, pro-democracy and indigenous peoples movements are
finding common ground in opposing this colossal fraud. Even as
institutions market the glorification of theft and its icons like
Microsoft and the Open Society Institute, they are finding it difficult
to contain the indignant rage of the world aimed at tax-dodging,
money-laundering market entities dependent on the policies of
institutionalized theft. As the breakdown of modern states accelerates
in large part due to institutionalized theft, there is a window of
opportunity for indigenous nations to take the lead in reversing this
corrosion of human values. As the delinquents of institutionalized theft
are slowly called to account, networks of integrity are positioned to
recreate the international regime in ways that return a public sense of
theft as the ultimate sin.
