However, few are disturbed by this fact, and nowadays usury has flourished violently. It has become the basic principle of operation for modern banks, corporations, and other commercial entities. Moreover, it dominates the social and the state sectors. Usury has filled in all the pores of the current economy and has become the rudder of management and planning. The cupidity of individuals has been elevated to the level of state priorities.
That is why, if we believe the world news, it is the results of speculative stock exchange transactions that are significant, and not the economic advances. Consequently, the daily global foreign currency and financial transactions exceed fifty-fold the commerce in goods. For instance, the Russian banking system holds more than 72 trillion roubles in assets, while it invests as little as 1 trillion roubles in production. Obviously, this does not simplify nor render more efficient the economic processes.
Thanks to the global flourishing of usury, the major effort in the present economic system is employed in getting rent (derived from nature, money, property, power, information, intellectual property, the military, etc.); it is the fastest delivering and least demanding source of income, used instead of increasing human creative capabilities. Profits are generated by crime, finance, and corruption, and not through useful production. Everybody strives to create a monopoly by exterminating their competitors, and shirking fair competition. That is, the ultimate goal is profit by any means, not the improvement of the production and moral values of the society.
Consequently, it is no surprise that in the current conditions property and capital bring more profit than the use of work force. This leads to unemployment, as production improvement does not increase the workers’ free time or wellbeing, as supposed, but the number of surplus workers whose labour does not bring a third person the desired income. This could explain why as little as 32% of Americans under 25 are employed full-time, the situation that all highly developed capitalist countries suffer from. At the same time, young people are the most active society members, it will be them who will build families and educate new generations.
On the other hand, virtual economy does not produce other than virtual values. Due to this reason, its flourishing is conditioned by the servitude of the real, productive economy. The result is the reduction of the economy’s financial resources and the recent multiplication of loans. By consequence, the very notion of the money has been corrupted; money no longer serves the exchange of commodities, but has become the key source of usurious profit. The aggregate debt of all countries in the world compared to their aggregate GDP attained 286% by 2014, and developed countries contributed ¾ of this amount [8].
Such situation has led to unprecedented concentration of the capital in the hands of the few. For instance, the annual income of the 200 world’s top corporations exceed the aggregate annual income of the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty. The large corporations control 27.5% of the world economy while employing only 0.78% of the world population. Between 1983 and 1999 alone, their profit grew 360%, while the headcount increased by 14% only. They do not simply control economy, they set its direction – they can afford it. It is therefore no coincidence that of the 200 corporations, 82 are located in the US, 71 – in Western Europe, 41 in Japan, 5 in South Korea, and 1 in Canada. The rest of the world has none.
That is why the combined fortune of the world’s 8 richest billionaires exceeds the assets of 3.6 billion people from developing countries. Wealth-X reports that 2,473 dollar billionaires alone possess $7.7 trillion. By 1998, the top 10% in the US owned 90% of business value, 88.5% of bonds, and 89.3% of the public stock. Similar situation is observed in modern Russia and many other post-socialist countries.
On the one hand, the nouveaux riches do not need to produce as many commodities for themselves, as the rest of the population need, which inhibits the social oriented production. On the other hand, this decreases the effective demand of the population, which impedes economic development as a whole. By consequence, the demand drops further and forces supplementary cuts in production, etc.
B. G. Shaw wrote, “If the wicked flourish and the fittest survive, Nature must be the god of rascals’6. However, following the liberal principles, the state must create ever more favourable conditions for the business to have a greater income. “What is good for General Motors, is good for America’, said W. Wilson, the President of the US. This is a cunning logic. Besides, businessmen’s “interest is never exactly the same with that of the public so they have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public’ (Adam Smith).7 For this reason the flourishing of business and the wellbeing of the society do not coincide, in fact, they often contradict each other.
Indeed, in the end, business is a form of activity that generates personal income serving as a source of increasing personal fortune, not the public benefit. On the one hand, business encourages people to develop their talents, sparks energy in them, diversifies production and service forms, and creates new jobs. On the other hand, it promotes profit-making at the cost of Nature and society. In addition, it contributes to manufacturing and sale of low-quality merchandise, drugs, counterfeit medicines, surrogate alcohol, etc. Besides, such economy naturally contributes to gangsterism, corruption and unemployment.
In the current situation, the money that the financial elites have laid their hands on gives them the reign over all global processes, and allows to ruin entire states and social strata for their personal fancies. This weakens the human society, deprives it of the strength to protect itself from aggressions, shocks, phobias and attacks. A good example, here is what Louis McFadden, Chairman of the United States House Committee on Banking and Currency, wrote about the 1930s Great Depression: “It [the depression] was not accidental. It was a carefully contrived occurrence <…>. The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so that they might emerge as the rulers of us all’8.
But this is not the main point. To prevent people from protecting the values that they create from external encroachments, everything is done to deprive them of independence, render them powerless, psychologically and physically defenceless. Through mass media and the very lifestyle, deformed culture, education, perverted ideology and repressive religious beliefs are imposed on people. They are stripped of their human dignity, crippled by false stereotypes, alcohol, and pushed on the path of further degradation. People left without means of existence, property or good health. Deprived of rights, work tools, money, resources, they cannot provide for themselves any more. Otherwise, would anybody tolerate being a milking cow for the “the select few’? The humans are poisoned with unhealthy foods, admixtures, surrogates and hypnotized by ideology. Their environment is destroyed. However, all this is done in accordance with the liberal economic principles!
As the result, the society often loses the feeling of community, of common roots, as well as the reverence of the values earned through the sweat and blood of their predecessors. The harmonious vision of the world, the understanding of one’s place and purpose within it are gone. For instance, 26% of the Americans have no idea that the Earth orbits the Sun, and not vice versa. People have lost life’s purport and have become an easily mouldable material. They have accumulated suffering and spite, losing confidence and strength, belief and conscience, hope and kindness. And what is a man without them? The man does not live by bread only, not by gold or power. “No man can serve two masters’ (Gospels)9.
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