World Domination & the Death of the Mind Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit [A very nice succinct explication of the "death of the mind" in a world of the woefully ignorant, dominated by predatory corporations, intellectually lazy academics, and journalists greedy for advancement. ] World Domination by Jane Pole American governments have enjoyed world domination at least since the end of World War Two. British governments enjoyed similar power until the beginning of the First World War which bankrupted the European powers and left the world market to American business. [Carl Von] Clausewitz said that war was the continuation of diplomacy by other means. He could have argued that trade is the continuation of war in a similar way. The inter-war years were characterised by conflicts over trade and charges of dumping, protectionism, and attempts to control the market. The US economy, which had grown up during the 19th century behind the highest tariff wall in history, was now the advocate of free-trade, or at least was until the Wall Street Crash in 1929, when, with a quarter of the labour force unemployed, it retreated back into its shell. It was only the beginnings of preparation for the Second World War that revived capitalism in the middle 1930s. At this same time the American government found itself in control of the world monetary system. Britain's government had taken the pound off the gold standard and the dollar took over. Keynesian economics preached that the cause of capitalist crises was lack of demand and the solution was to print more money. Under FD Roosevelt the American government took it up enthusiastically, using dollars printed in the back room to buy up raw materials, companies and markets around the world, and also gold, which lent credence to the dollar. The size of the American economy allowed it to increase this dominance after the war. Competition from European film-makers was crushed and the only work for actors and directors was in Hollywood which could dump the ends of its production runs on Europe for little more than the cost of the celluloid. Publishing and television has gone the same way in Britain where a common language does not present any barrier whereas Continental media industries can use theirs as a partial defence. With the advent of television the take-over continued and similarly with recorded music and book publishing. Seventy-eight percent of the "British" press is foreign-owned, mostly identified with American-based interests. We are not in the business of defending British capitalism or any other version; workers do not, by definition, own newspapers, but it is hard enough identifying our interests filtered by London, let alone through Washington. Most of the old publishing houses, Hodder, Unwin, etc are now merely a floor in a New York corporate skyscraper and while the reason for publishing is sale and profit, as it always was in the last analysis, James Joyce and Marcel Proust could today not expect anything more than a rejection slip. The first because he is too obscure for the mass market, and the second because a twelve-volume novel would take up too much space in an airport kiosk. With scholarly work, most of the writers tend to be American because the new requirements dovetail into their academic system where universities function like businesses competing for government and private funds. Teachers are expected to produce written material to promote the university, under the maxim: "Publish or Perish," regardless of whether the writer has anything of value to say or not. American teachers complain that their students are interested only in making money. The most popular degree is that of MBA (Master of Business Administration). Ideas and scholarship are for nerds and losers. source - activist_list group at yahoogroups.com ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytlab-06.11.02-19:57:02-13417