Introduction to WHY? The Deeper History-September 11

On 9/11/2001, terrorists hijacked four American passenger jets minutes apart, flew two of them into the New York World Trade Center twin towers, and flew one into the Pentagon. The fourth crashed when heroic passengers battled the hijackers at the plane’s controls.

The question most asked was WHY? Americans were stunned. In newspapers, on radio, in news magazines, and on TV there were thousands of hours of open discussions, all trying to understand WHY?

The more obvious reasons why America is hated were discussed. Was it American support for Israel as the Jews terrorized the Palestinians into fleeing so as to reclaim their homeland of 2,000 years ago? Was it the Western embargo and continued assault on Iraq? Was it American troops and weapons on sacred Muslim soil? Was it all of these?

In the book WHY, we look at the deeper reasons and study in depth the proposition that restructuring to a peaceful world is really quite simple once one understands the oppressive economic and foreign policies which impoverish other nations, which have caused anger throughout the world, and which remain conveniently ignored.

The United States of America is a great country. It was founded on the great ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of movement, and freedom from oppression. These were considered extremely radical for their time. This author cherishes those values as much as anyone else and believes firmly that the war against terrorism must be waged.a But that war must be fought, not militarily, but by understanding and removing its causes. In so doing, it will be quickly won.

Almost every book is written with a view to being politically correct. As we are attempting to look reality right in the eye, we cannot worry about such niceties. Our research is simply finding the truth in history for there is much hidden history that does not square with justice, with ethics, or with doing what is right. That part of Western history must be fully understood if we are to understand the terrorist attacks on America.

It is important to note that most policies-of-state which we will be addressing that are unethical and unjust were put in place by good people, no different than ourselves. These managers-of-state are locked into a system of unequal trades which began in the Middle Ages. The very life-blood of powerful societies flows through those arteries of unequal trade and conscientious leaders could not disrupt that unequal flow of commerce without creating a severe crisis for their constituents.

However, the gains in technological efficiency from restructuring to a more efficient economy under democratic-cooperative-(superefficient)-capitalism provide the opportunity for a historic shift to ethical state policies of equal and fair trade.

That transition alone, if it develops, will quickly reduce violence, terrorism, and wars and their elimination, once the benefits are shared, will wipe out most poverty. After all, only an additional $40-billion a year is needed to provide clean water and sanitation, maternity and child care, basic health, nutrition, and education for all while the money spent on arms annually is $800-billion. The wealth destroyed by war is surely an equal amount, and the wealth production forgone by these wasteful efforts is by far the greatest losses of all.

Many within the media know very well why America is hated so much. If they research seriously they cannot help but become aware that America has a hidden foreign policy which suppresses freedoms and rights in other countries, those very freedoms and rights that are cherished for its own citizens. We discuss in depth in Chapter three how ideology, peer pressure, job security, self censorship, and protection of wealth and power do not permit an in-depth analysis of these suppressive foreign policies.

Once self-censorship has been practiced for any length of time, the media are entrapped in a social-control paradigm (a belief system, Eric Fromm’s “framework of orientation”) they themselves help create. Once a belief is firmly in the social mind, even a conscientious major media outlet cannot expose the truth because they would not be believed and would lose customers and advertisers in droves. Thus self-censorship remains firmly in place.

When a national security crisis such as the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack on America which triggered this book erupts, a self-censored media must still remain silent or be branded as traitors and supporters of the terrorists; witness Bill Maher’s temporary loss of his TV show, Politically Incorrect.

Maher stated that terrorists who flew those planes into buildings were not cowards as everybody was saying. The real cowards were those who sent missiles into Yugoslavia from a safe haven 2,000 miles away. He temporarily lost his show for pointing out an obvious truth. Not even a show titled Politically Incorrect can dare be too politically incorrect. This is why the closest any media guest—or political leader, foreign or domestic—ever came to exposing the deeper history we are addressing were soft statements like, “American foreign policy is partly to blame.”

We had immense media coverage on the “war against terror.” However, the range of discourse itself was quite narrow. We had amazing details on what was happening, how leaders were responding, how citizens were reacting, how the economy was faring and so on. But we have little discussion on the deeper causes which, if known by most, could have led to changes in foreign policy and elimination of the causes of those attacks. Only by discussing this deeper history can America realize the terror of its foreign policy as viewed through others’ eyes. This book presents that in-depth discussion.

People are good and this includes America’s leaders but there is a reason why America has persisted in such a violent foreign policy. Enormous wealth and power is dependent upon maintaining a system of unequal trades and this inequality needs protection to continue. The secrets of plunder-by-trade, well hidden from mainstream history, are still operational today and we address them in depth.

Protecting the rights and freedoms of you and I are not the issue at all, they never really were. The issue is, as it has been throughout history, the protection of wealth and power—the struggle for control of resources and the wealth-producing-process.

Broadening the issue to encompass the rights and freedoms of all people, we will be discussing a world development policy (democratic-cooperative-(superefficient)-capitalism) in which both the rich and poor countries can win; a win-win policy as opposed to today’s win-lose or even lose-lose policies.

Because what can only be described as “wholesale” state terrorism to protect wealth and power is so well hidden from Western nations’ own citizens, our third chapter presents an outline of how Western state terrorism was left out of the civics, sociology, and history books and the daily news. We deal in no conspiracy theories. We study the well-documented and historically accurate facts of what is likely the greatest propaganda machine in history. Looking past that propaganda, we look at and analyze the institutional and systematic use and abuse of power that creation of reality is designed to hide.

In Chapters four through six, we address the more violent assaults on what can only be called innocent people wishing to be free and in control of their destiny. It was this wholesale terrorism that America’s propaganda machine was designed to hide.

State terrorism is not simply mindless violence; its causes are buried deeply in economic history. So we next lay the deeper economic history of those past centuries on the table. Western society went from plunder-by-raids to plunder-by-trades centuries ago and today’s plunder-by-trade is the unspoken reason for world violence today—just as plunder of another society’s wealth has been the cause of wars for centuries.

It is the same battle over wealth that caused the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack on America. Those terrorists simply had no other weapons except suicide bombs. The last half of the 20th-Century saw the greatest peacetime transfer of wealth in history from the already-impoverished to the already-wealthy. It is worth noting that the 9/11 terrorists attacked America’s most visible symbol of world trade, the World Trade Center, and the most visible symbol of the military might which enforces the unequal rules of world trade, the Pentagon.

Philosophers understand that societies dare not tell the truth about themselves. The reason is that societies try to be altruistic but simply cannot relinquish the amenities of life, produced by the labors of others, that they have become accustomed to. Thus they present to themselves, to their children, to their students in the universities, and to the world, the face of a moral and altruistic society while the truth is that powerful societies are doing almost the exact opposite of what they claim. Witness again the immense wealth transferred from the already poor to the already rich over the centuries that is ongoing yet today.

A good example of lying to oneself and the world to protect both one’s image and one’s advantage is the very foundation philosophy the world economy supposedly functions under—Adam Smith free trade. The truth is, as addressed in Chapter two, that no country ever developed under Adam Smith’s free trade philosophy as interpreted by neo-mercantilists (i.e. unrestricted, survival-of-the-fittest capitalism). Instead, virtually every wealthy country developed successfully under Friedrich List’s philosophy for protection of tender developing industries and markets.

Britain imposed Adam Smith free trade upon the world even though she developed under protection (Chapter two). So long as the undeveloped world could be made to believe in and follow Adam Smith’s free trade philosophy (as interpreted by neo-mercantilists), they would unwittingly hand their wealth to Britain of their own free will. The old imperial nations broke themselves battling over the world’s wealth (World Wars I and II) and America took over the job of imposing Adam Smith free trade upon the world. Of course the mighty American military is there to force back in line any who would not accept that philosophy.

Western society must lie to itself because its own population will not tolerate injustice in its name. It must also provide a cover story to the world because the citizens of the world would not tolerate the theft of their wealth if they fully understood that the primary mechanism of this theft was the very philosophy being imposed upon them. Thus it was necessary to set up the greatest propaganda system in history (Chapter three), backed by massive military might, to impose a corrupted Adam Smith free trade philosophy upon the world.

Imposing a philosophy on the impoverished world antithetical to their best interests could not have been done in one sweep. The process grew as technological development and world trade grew and the world was never given the opportunity to establish any other economic and trading system. World trade was monopolized at the start of the industrial revolution under the philosophy of mercantilism and the wealthy and powerful simply never abandoned monopolization, rhetoric and the teachings in universities notwithstanding. Every attempt to establish a more equitable system was suppressed by massive military power backed by an equally massive propaganda system.

How could there possibly be propaganda in a society with a free press and free speech? It is because most of the rewards within a society’s educational system go to those whose philosophies protect and expand that system. Not only will a professor or media personality not receive any of those rewards if he or she were to lay out the truth, they would be totally ostracized, much the same as speaking out against one’s religion in church.b Thus professors and major media personalities, even most on the so-called left, stay politically correct. Being interested only in the bottom line truth we will be documenting that all the essentials of mercantilist plunder-by-trades are in force today hiding under the cover of Adam Smith free trade.

All wealth comes from combining plentiful labor and capital with scarce natural resources and most of those resources are in the impoverished former colonies, now known as the developing world. To ensure this wealth flowed primarily to themselves, the strongest empires gained control of natural resources (primarily through establishing and protecting puppet governments) and dictated the rules of unequal trade. The key is to gain control of the wealth-producing-process and guide most of the wealth to themselves. The old imperial nations eventually broke themselves battling over the world’s wealth (World Wars I and II) and they no longer had the power to maintain control of their puppet governments. Those former colonies were then able to make their break for freedom.

The only major accumulation of wealth remaining was in America. The old imperial nations of Europe handed the baton to their American cousins to suppress the world’s break for freedom and thus protected their continued access to those resources and control of the wealth-producing-process. Although America had enough resources to remain wealthy, under the thunderous rhetoric of the Cold War, and for the same purpose as Britain (i.e. to protect access to those scarce resources and control the wealth-producing-process), Americans took over the job of imposing Adam Smith free trade upon the world in exactly the same way—propaganda backed by a massive military.

Partly to hide their own guilt, partly because speakers and writers do not know this deeper history, and primarily because we have been told all our lives how altruistic we are, the citizens of the powerful West still believe they are trying to help the world rise above poverty. But the truth is far simpler. Utilizing labor and capital, all wealth is processed from scarce natural resources most of which are in the impoverished world, and powerful nations must control those resources and the wealth-producing-process. The resulting appropriation of the wealth of others is the secret of their wealth and power and the cause of poverty in weak nations.

All wealth is processed from natural resources. Check a globe and note the tiny area of land taken up by the old imperial nations of Europe. Where are their natural resources? They have few. Where are Japan’s resources? Almost none exist on those islands? Where are Taiwan’s resources? Where are South Korea’s Resources? Hong Kong’s? Singapore’s? Those resources are primarily in Africa, South America, the collapsed former Soviet Union, the Middle East, North America, and Australia. Only Indonesia, Malaysia, and China amongst the rapidly developing countries have substantial resources.

To counter fast expanding socialism, the powerful West protected the economies of virtually every one of those resource-poor countries through protecting their access to resources and markets. Though still a communist nation, China was allowed into the protected group only under the understanding that she would restructure to a capitalist economy.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West, no longer fearing another developing center of capital, withdrew some of those protections. As a result, even while totally under centralized control, Japan’s economy immediately went flat and then started dropping. Then, in 1997, currencies on the periphery of empire collapsed. Even having put protections in place against that currency collapse, Malaysia’s economy shrank 25%. Without that protection, Thailand’s economy was hit even harder and the South Korean economy harder yet and the resource-rich Indonesian economy totally collapsed. With controls firmly in place (Friedrich List protection), China’s economy continued to surge forward.

Until the 9/11/2001 terrorist assault on America, the imperial centers strengthened financially while the periphery of empire was collapsing and the money was flowing back to the imperial centers. Those collapses stemmed from the withdrawal of protection for Japan and the “tiger economies” following the collapse of the Soviet Union.c That is financial and economic warfare.

Through economic warfare, financial warfare, covert warfare, and overt war, powerful nations throughout history have obtained weaker nations’ resources for a fraction of their true value. The simple cause of world terrorism is that the wealth of powerful nations was stolen, and is still being stolen, from weak nations. The collapse of the periphery, as the center strengthens, speeds up this wealth appropriation process exponentially (Chapter two).

The alert in the developing world understand this. Their nations have a long history of being plundered in various forms and they are more aware of what is really happening today than we in the developed world are likely to be. Some, as a result, are very angry.

But, upon learning where their wealth comes from, citizens of the wealthy world need not despair. We go on to address how subtle-monopoly capitalism can be restructured to democratic-cooperative-(superefficient)-capitalism and utilize the wealth once wasted in economic wars, financial wars, covert wars, and overt wars to produce industry for developing regions. With that industry, these regions can build their own economic infrastructure and consumer products; even as the economies of the wealthy world are protected.

If the world is to have peace and security, if terrorism is to be eliminated, there is no choice but to share natural resources and permit each other to share fairly in the wealth-producing-process. If the powerful continue to control the world for their own selfish ends, the same 20% of the world will be wealthy and insecure while the other 80% will remain impoverished and insecure. The mere existence of terrifying nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction is a ticking time bomb that must be defused by sharing the world’s resources and the fruits of the wealth-producing-process. If we do not, the entire human race is at risk.

This book, our earlier books, and books we have yet to write are geared to pointing the way towards democratic-cooperative-(superefficient)-capitalism so we can attain peace, security, and prosperity for all. After all, it is the impoverished countries’ resources—their natural wealth—which is transformed, as per the wealth appropriation formula in Chapter two, into the manufactured wealth (economic infrastructure and consumer products) and capitalized wealth (the financial wealth) of the powerful world.

The world’s manufactured and capitalized wealth is produced from natural wealth so the impoverished countries which own those natural resources are entitled to their fair share. Only with such equality will the anger of the dispossessed subside and terrorism fade into history.

Subtle-Monopolization is a Remnant of Feudal Property rights

As they are a form of law, it is well recognized that social customs thousands of years old are huge obstacles for societies to evolve efficiently. Yet the fact that the debris of residual-feudal exclusive titles to nature’s wealth severely reduces the efficiency of capitalism is not even considered.

We are taught that monopolization has been eliminated. This is not true. Laws are designed by the powerful, for their protection and they have specifically designed subtle monopolization into the laws of capitalism. Under residual-feudal exclusive title to nature’s wealth a tiny minority monopolize natural resources and the wealth produced. As Western societies evolved from full-fledged feudalism (absolute exclusive titles to nature’s wealth), the entrenched powers and the newly powerful only granted residual-feudal monopoly rights to a few more people.

The basic principals of monopolization were never abandoned, that we are taught they were notwithstanding. We have full rights only in the sense that each has a chance at becoming a wealthy monopolist. But only a calculable few can attain those monopoly rights. This is not visible to Americans and Europeans because of the large percentage that has a high standard of living and thus appears to have full rights.

But, unrealized by the masses and most in academia, that high standard of living is only through the purchase of the wealth of weak nations for a fraction of its true value, and the distribution of that appropriated wealth through the massive expenditures on the military (the multiplier factor) which is the final arbiter to maintain the system of laying claim to others’ wealth. This translates to an economic system not viable in times of peace. The powerful today are fighting to retain their residual-feudal exclusive property rights just as historic feudal powers fought to maintain the monopolization of wealth based on their feudal absolute exclusive property rights.

All this will become visible as we demonstrate how, through abandoning those remnants of feudal exclusive titles to nature’s wealth and restructure to democratic-cooperative-(superefficient)-capitalism, economic efficiency will increase equal to the invention of money, the printing press, and electricity. As we describe today’s internal economies and global trade, we ask the reader to take note of the close connection current subtle-monopoly laws have to up-front monopoly laws of feudalism. Today’s wars are protecting a monopolized wealth-producing-process just as aristocracy fought to retain the monopolization of nature’s wealth, the source of their wealth and power. Today’s partial democracies are only a stepping stone towards full freedom and full rights for all as the last remnant of residual-feudal exclusive titles to what is properly social wealth is converted to conditional titles that recognize everyone’s rights to their share of nature’s bounty.

The efficient economy we are describing will not happen until true democracy is established. At each point in the centuries-long march to full rights and full democracy, the powerful have structured the laws for their protection. The rights of the masses were only considered when a crisis threatened. Full rights were not attained even after revolutions. There was too much debris of residual-feudal monopoly law and customs to clean away.

Theoretically we have democracy today but we actually have only partial democracies with the potential of full democracies. But we are getting closer. The very meaning of democracy is subverted by those subtle-monopolies. Once democratic-cooperative-(superefficient)-capitalism eliminates those residual-feudal exclusive titles, a full democracy can emerge.

If we are so militarily secure, why does America have such a violent foreign policy as this book exposes? It is because the rest of the world may declare their freedom and federate into powerful centers of capital just as America is so federated, as the former Soviet Union was at the height of its power, as all of Europe is becoming, and as China did centuries ago. Only this emerging earth federation with have as its goal the inclusion of all nations and the beginning of peace and prosperity for the entire planet.

If most of the developing world formed trading alliances (precursor to a full federation), and assuming that cohesiveness held (a full federation will do that), they could negotiate with the imperial centers for equality in trade and would soon build equality in wealth. Thus the federation of weak nations is a threat to all imperial centers of capital. However, it is also the foundation for peace.

Unless they are being destabilized by outside powers, federations typically do not have internal military struggles. Once weak nations first ally, and then federate, there will be no periphery for the imperial centers to control. With the assurance of the destruction of all belligerents, surely the imperial centers will not go to war with each other. With most the world’s precious resources in a newly federated world, the federation of the entire world is the route to equal access to resources and a quality life for all.

This book borrows heavily from Economic Democracy: The Political Struggle of the 21st-Century. We felt the fundamental thesis of a modern commons and residual-feudal property rights in Cooperative Capitalism: A Blueprint for Global Peace and Prosperity were so important that, to give those readers the benefit, we inserted it into this manuscript and that of later editions of Economic Democracy: Each book has its own focus which gains strength when built upon the central theses of our magnum opus, Economic Democracy, and that of Cooperative Capitalism. Though there is duplication, we trust our readers will recognize the need of later concepts to fit within this little discussed world view and bear with us.

The title of John Perkins’ book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, alerts us that this is a must read. Finally, one of the managers of state defected and eposes the heart of the beast; our analysis is right on target.

Michael Hudson’s Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance, giving a point by point description of how financial warfare and economic warfare are waged, is also crucial.

Likewise Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber’s Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing is Turning America into a One-Party State. These authors explain how once a week the hard-right pass out crucial talking points to their radio talk shows, to news outlets they control, and to key government officials. The essence of those talking points flow out of those news outlets simultaneously building an “echo chamber” which imprints upon the American mind a view of the world that protects their excessive rights.

Michael Hudson and Baruch A. Levine’s Privatization in the Ancient Near East and Classical World addresses the 5,000 years of the ebb and flow of privatization. We outline how, in one stroke, Henry George’s conversion of exclusive titles to natures wealth to conditional titles restores those original commons in modern form and is the answer for full and equal rights with a quality life for all.

As all stops will be pulled to prevent loss of monopoly power and its unearned wealth, we do not expect Wi-Fi’s (wireless fidelity’s) potential for a return to a modern commons with full and equal rights for all to happen soon. But only the iron grip of fascism or World War III (an extension of fascism) can prevent it. Quite simply, if each citizen of the world can talk to any other citizen worldwide for free, or at minimal cost, if news and cultural TV and radio of every society is beamed into the living rooms of every other culture, the propaganda system necessary to sustain the massive worldwide repressions protecting monopolies will collapse.

With 10 times the capacity at 10% the cost (meaning one percent the cost per unit of information transmitted) of the current communications structure, Wi-Fi has that potential. If structured to its maximum efficiency potential, every TV and radio station anywhere in the world will have access to every Wi-Fi wired living room in the world.

Current secondary carriers of Radio and TV programming (which is most stations) will fail to adapt. Access to every living room worldwide by progressive groups purchasing those bankrupt stations for a song will break the monopolist grip on information reaching the masses.

That massive programming will be so overwhelming that viewers and listeners will withdraw to a few programs they like and stations owned and operated by groups in which they have a deep interest. Those deep interests (environmentalists, sustainable living, the peace movement, minority rights, labor rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, antipoverty, and a thousand more causes) will be able to buy bankrupt stations for pennies on the dollar.

For the first time in history the voices of the world’s dispossessed will be heard and their message will be louder than the voices of the dispossessors. Propagandists only pour out a few repetitive buzz words and buzz phrases. Since most will go through a severe economic crisis during this transition, those deep and moving messages carried by the deeply concerned will trump those buzzwords. A peaceful, prosperous world is possible.

This is a chapter from the book, Why? The Deeper History Behind the September 11th Terrorist Attack on America. Visit that link for more information about the book.