The roots of Western wealth: at whose expense Europe and the United States prosper?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

As is known from the universal law of conservation of energy and the Lomonosov-Lavoisier law in the physical world, nothing comes from nowhere and disappears into nowhere. And therefore, if the British or, say, Americans live better than others, then this life is sure to be paid for by someone.

So if the United States consumes up to 25% of the annual global volume of mineral raw materials, more than 50% of the world consumption of uranium, about half of the aluminum used, as well as more than a quarter of the oil, natural gas, tin, copper and iron ores produced, but at the same time it does not give in exchange or produce the same equivalent - resources flow only in one direction, and printed dollar paper in the other.

Within the framework of the general theory of capitalism, it has long been known that the result of economic development in such a system always turns out to be only one - if at one of its poles there is an accumulation of wealth, it means that poverty and misery appear at the other.

So if the United States has had an acute trade and budget deficit for decades, and much more goods are imported into this country than the state exports to the outside, then this difference is covered by someone. In other words, in a strictly physical sense, countries outside the United States each year become poorer by the same equivalent as Americans get rich in. At the same time, there is a huge redistribution of world wealth in favor of the United States.

It is indicative, for example, that America consumes about 20-25% of the total world oil consumption, and this despite the fact that the main factory in the world is not at all, but "Celestial Empire". It is China that needs energy as a basis for real production, but the Chinese consume only 13% against the American 25%. At the same time, the population of the United States, which in many ways burns this colossal figure, is only 4.3% of the world's population.

So, according to studies published in The Los Angeles Times, back in 2012 in the United States, almost half of the purchased food is thrown into the trash heap every year, thereby Americans throw away food worth a total of $ 165 billion

In general, the discrepancy between consumption and creation on the part of the United States is easily expressed at least in the fact that the average American consumes 4 times more goods than the "average inhabitant of the planet", 5 times more than any Latin American, 10 times more than a Chinese and 30 times more Indian, and also throws out 2 times more garbage and spends 3 times more water.

Swedish environmental scientist Rolf Edberg gives even more specific figures, according to him, an American, Swede or, for example, a Swiss consumes 40 times more of the Earth's resources than the average Somali, eats 75 times more meat than an Indian and burns 150 times more electricity than the average Nigerian. The statistics can only be supplemented by the fact that even an average cat in England consumes 2 times more protein than an ordinary African.

The United States is very fond of teaching others that all these benefits of the West are a deserved result of their own labor and a "unique" system, however, the truth is that the EU and the US can only live this way within the framework of capitalism as long as they parasitize on others.

Europe and America, whose population is only 20% of the world's population, consume 60% of all products produced on the planet. Therefore, it is not surprising that the "world community" has been trying since the 90s to declare all Russian subsoil resources a "common" property.

If absolutely everyone will live like this, there will simply be no one to exploit, and therefore in this case it is more appropriate to ask the question - how many planets on Earth are needed for everyone to live like Americans? And, by the way, the answer to it has long been - 4, 1 planets. According to research by the analytical center Global Footprint Network, which calculates the so-called "ecological footprint" (that is, how much natural resources are spent on the production of energy, food and other goods on average for one person and one country), it turned out that if seven billion people consumed as much as today's Americans, we would need more than 4 planets.

This state of affairs clearly shows that the Western way of life is possible only through the exploitation of others, although after the collapse of the USSR this term was long laughed at as a relic of "red" propaganda.

The "twist" of the world financial system in favor of some and against others can be called the main "secret" of current capitalism. Not the values of the West and not a "unique" system, but cheating, covered by a "recipe" for an economic miracle.

So, Europe, which does not have its own resources, receives them at low prices in the necessary quantities only as long as its corporations quietly and imperceptibly keep Africa in poverty and lawlessness. For a pittance, they siphon off its resources by supporting smoldering conflicts, revolutions and an anarchic system. Likewise, the United States is the leader of most technologies, while it has the exclusive right to issue unsecured funds, thus, since the 70s, it has had colossal financial opportunities to buy brains, talent and disruptive technologies.

As the example of China and the USSR shows, it is extremely difficult to catch up with the one who prints and lends money to himself, using only his own resources. And even if Western corporations have been on your side for decades, sharing technologies out of greed on their part.

If we consider those Western countries that are currently ranked among the leaders of world GDP, then an even brighter picture becomes visible - all these states have a significantly smaller share of production than the scale of their consumption.

So, in the United States, according to experts, this level varies within 20 to 40, that is, with the United States' share in world production (in purchasing power parity) equal to 20%, the consumption of this country in the world consumption scale reaches 40%.

And although this figure cannot be fully proven, since there is no open data on all cross-border material flows, and contracts for financial flows are hidden or paid for by "gray" schemes on indirect grounds, it is approximately the following. Moreover, we are now observing the main of these signs.

Capitalism, in order to develop or at least maintain its current standard of living, must always pay for itself. From this point of view, a capitalist country is no different from a similarly private corporation. The payback of the leading company in the capitalist world comes down to capturing markets and suppressing competitors, and the payback of the leading capitalist country to the seizure (direct or indirect) of the state apparatus, the absorption of economies and the inhibition of the development of potential rivals. While this process is possible, capitalism is developing, but when there is no one to rob, and the growth of competitors has already been missed, the West begins to have classic problems. At the peak of these problems, in the pre-nuclear era, world wars were usually organized, competitive markets were reset, and previously closed economies were reopened to private capital. Since the middle of the 20th century, the situation has changed, but the collapse of the USSR came to the rescue.

In the 10 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the level of welfare of American households grew unparalleled, and grew as rapidly as the robbery of countries and the seizure of the markets of the former socialist half of the world. While the West received super-profits, some of them were prudently directed towards raising the living standards of the people, but by the end of this stage, the income growth of the ordinary American also stopped. By the time Bill Clinton left, the parasitism on the socialist bloc had finally exhausted itself, the pace had slowed down, and the graph of the level of welfare of American households surprisingly coincided with the fall in the rate of robbery of the former Soviet Union. It is no coincidence that since the early 2000s in the United States, a firm belief has spread that each new generation of Americans from the Millennium lives worse than their parents.

The reason for this situation was that there was nowhere to expand globally. Everything was captured. The process was kept at a nominal level, starting in 2000 with regular local incursions, but this was just a surrogate.

Later, China entered the arena of economic superpowers, and Russia entered the Olympus of military and geopolitical superpowers. Since 2014, both of these forces have become more and more active in preventing the West from continuing the chaos of the regions, and the expansion has begun to stall.

Until recently, by rebooting a particular region and artificially bringing its capital to the “zeroed” markets, the West extended the positive dynamics of its usual way of life. But since the PRC from the economic side began to hinder such a policy in Asia and Africa, and Russia in the Middle East, Central Asia, Central America and a number of African countries, it became more and more difficult to parasitize, and the payback of "developed economies", despite all the stories about self-sufficiency, immediately went downhill.

Previously, wars, revolutions, coups and the infection of economies with financial viruses (through the structures of the IMF, World Bank, and so on) stimulated the flow of capital to the treasury of Western capitals. And while the West democratized the Third World, its own accumulated problems cost it nothing. At the expense of the destroyed Libya and Iraq, Haiti, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen and so on, the colossal American national debt was serviced, the NATO armies were supported, and the Western way of life was maintained at the proper level. However, as soon as the interruption began in the flow of profits, many things had to be paid for on their own. It was then that it became clear to what extent the West's own capabilities do not correspond to its current appetites.

This is where the audit that was forcedly started with the arrival of Donald Trump follows. Its goal is to somehow reduce costs and buy time until the current situation with China and Russia can be resolved. The maximum program is a coup in Moscow or a slowdown in Beijing's growth, although in general Washington does not hesitate to work in either direction.

After that, the White House expects to repeat the reliable scheme that proved to be excellent after the collapse of the USSR. Then, by the beginning of the 70s, the economic situation of the United States was on the verge of collapse, and the outwardly stable economy, according to the American Nobel laureates, was on the verge of the future fate of the USSR. However, the leadership of the Soviet Union refused to intervene, and in the 1980s it deliberately surrendered the country's ideological and economic positions. The moment was lost and after the abolition of the gold standard, the victory of the United States was a matter of time. It was quite obvious that sooner or later the USSR's attempt to compete with the United States with its own resources, despite the fact that the Americans were now printing funds on an unlimited scale, was doomed to failure. The United States only needed to play for time.

Ironically, today, trying to stall for time again, Washington is doing the same. Making attempts to rob others and burden its allies with its problems, the United States is trying to somehow patch the holes - to extend the current state of affairs until the Chinese and Russian issues are resolved.

The only problem is that the allies themselves are not in the best position. Moscow and Beijing are preventing new invasions from being organized, and the existing market has already shrunk to the point of provoking trade wars. The United States demands money from Europe, European countries from each other, and so on along a long chain …

Italy today has debt at 148% of GDP, Portugal at 128%, Belgium at 106%, France at 99%, Spain at 98%, Britain at 88%, Germany at 66%, and so on.

And this applies to all the leaders of the "civilized world" - Japan as of January 1, 2019 had a debt of 251% of GDP, the United States at 107%, Singapore at 97%, Canada at 91% and others on the list. Russia, on the other hand, ranks one of the most advantageous places on this indicator - 175th position, with a debt of only 19.43% of GDP.

The same is observed on the world stage. It doesn't matter how the exploitation of certain countries is supported by the West, military threats like Germany and Japan, or a credit stranglehold like Ukraine or Greece. The main thing is that in the current capitalist paradigm, the level of Western well-being cannot be maintained without the conflicting coexistence of peoples. And Russia and China hinder these conflicts extremely strongly …