- Introduction
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- We live in a time of dynamic, regressive,
regime changes. A period in which major political transformations and
the dramatic roll back of a half century of socio-economic legislation
are accelerated by a prolonged and deepening economic crises and a world-wide
financier led offensive. This essay explores major ongoing regime changes
that have a profound impact on governance, the class structures, economic
institutions, political freedom and national sovereignty. We delineate
a two-stage process of political regression. The first stage involves
the transition from a decaying democracy to an oligarchical democracy;
the second stage currently unfolding in Europe involves the transition
from oligarchical democracy to colonial-technocratic dictatorship. We
will identify the specific features of each regime focusing on the specific
conditions and socio-economic forces behind each "transition".
We will proceed to clarify the key concepts, their operative meaning:
specifically the nature and dynamics of "decaying democracies"
(DD), oligarchical democracies (OD) and "colonial technocratic dictatorship"
(CTD).
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- The second half of the essay will detail
the politics of CTD, the regime which has moved furthest from the notion
of a sovereign representative democracy. We will clarify the differences
and similarities between traditional military-civilian and fascist dictatorships
and the modern up-to-date CTD, focusing on the ideology of apolitical expertise
and technocratic rule as a preliminary to an exploration of the profoundly
colonial hierarchical chain of decision making.
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- The penultimate section will highlight the
reason why the imperial ruling classes and their national collaborators
have overturned the pre-existing 'democratic' oligarchical ruling formulas
of "indirect rule" in favor of a naked power grab. The turn
to direct colonial rule (a coup by any other name) was consumated by the
major financial ruling classes of Europe and the US.
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- We will evaluate the socio-economic impact
of rule by imperial appointed colonial technocrats, the reason for rule
by fiat and force over the previous process of persuasion, manipulation
and co-optation.
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- In the concluding section we will evaluate
the polarization of the class struggle in a time of colonial dictatorship,
in the context of hollowed out electoral institutions and radical regressive
social policies. The essay will address the twin issues of struggle for
political freedom and social justice in the face of fiat rule by emerging
technocratic colonial rulers.
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- What is at stake goes beyond the current
regime changes to identifying the most basic institutional configurations
which will define the life chances, personal and political freedoms of
future generations, for decades to come.
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- Decaying Democracies and the Transition to Oligarchical
Democracies
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- The decay of democracy is evident in every
sphere of politics. Corruption is all pervasive, as parties and leaders
vie for financial contributions from the wealthy and powerful; congressional
and executive positions have a price tag; each piece of legislation is
influenced by powerful corporate "lobbies" which spend millions
writing the laws and engineering their approval. Prominent influence peddlers
like the US felon Jack Abramoff boast that "every congressperson has
their price". The vote of citizens counts for nothing: the politician's
campaign promises have not relation to their behavior in office. Lies
and deceptions are considered "normal" in the political process.
The exercise of political rights are increasingly under police surveillance
and active citizens are subject to arbitrary arrest. The political elite
depletes the public treasury subsidizing colonial wars and pays for their
military adventures by eliminating basic social programs, public agencies
and services.
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- Legislators engage in vitriolic demagogy
in virtual Punch and Judy puppet conflicts as public displays of partisanship
while in private they feast together at the public trough. In the face
of the discredited legislative institutions and the overt, gross buying
and selling of public office, executive officials, elected and appointed,
seize legislative and judicial powers.
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- Decaying democracy evolves into an 'oligarchical
democracy' as executive officials rule by fiat; overriding democratic rules
and ignoring the interests of the majority. An executive junta, of elected
and non-elected officials, resolves questions of war and peace, allocate
billions of dollars or euros to a financial oligarchy, and reduce living
standards of millions of citizens via class biased "austerity packages".
The legislature abdicates its legislative and oversight function and submits
to the executive junta's "accomplished facts". The citizenry
is assigned the role of passive spectators even as anger, disgust
and hostility spreads and deepens. Isolated voices of dissenting representatives
are drowned out by the cacophony of mass media contracted prestigious "experts"
and academics shilling for the financial oligarchy and advising the executive
junta. No longer do citizens look to the legislatures for relief or redress
from the executive siezure and abuse of power. To fortify their absolute
power the oligarchies emasculate the constitutions, citing economic catastrophes
and all pervasive 'terrorist' threats. A vast and growing police state
apparatus, with unlimited powers, enforces constraints on civic and political
opposition. As legislative powers are sapped and executive authorities
enlarge their sphere of action, the remaining democratic freedoms are curtailed
via 'bureaucratic restrictions' on time, place and forms of political action.
The purpose is to minimize the critical minority from mobilizing a sympathetic
majority. As the economic crises worsen and the bondholders and investors
demand higher interest rates, the oligarchy extends and deepens their austerity
measures. Inequalities widen, exposing the oligarchical nature of the
executive junta. The social bases of the regime narrows. The well paid
skilled workers and middle class employees and professionals begin to feel
the acute erosion of wages, salaries, pensions, working conditions and
future career prospects. The narrowing of social support undermines the
junta's claim to democratic legitimacy. Faced with mass discontent and
discredit and with strategic sections of the civil bureaucracy in revolt,
factional strife breaks out among rival cliques within the 'official parties'
of government. The 'democratic oligarchy' is pushed and pulled in several
directions: it decrees social cuts but can only find limited support in
implementing them. It decrees regressive taxes but cannot collect them.
It launches colonial wars but cannot win them. The executive junta alternates
between force and compromise; robust promises to the international bankers
and then, under mass pressure, backsliding.
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- Over time oligarchical democracy is no longer
useful as to the financial elite. Its democratic pretensions no longer
can deceive the masses. Prolonged elite factional warfare erodes its willingness
to impose the financial oligarchy's full agenda. At this point oligarchical
democracy as a political formula has run its course.
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- The financial elite are ready and willing
to discard all pretenses of ruling via democratic oligarchs. They are
seen as willing but too weak; too subject to domestic pressure from factional
rivals and not willing to proceed to savage cuts in social budgets, even
greater reductions in living standards and working conditions.
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- The real power behind the executive juntas
comes to the fore. The international bankers discard the 'native junta'
and impose non-elected bankers to rule dubbing their private bankers
as technocrats.
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- The Transition to a Colonial 'Technocratic' Dictatorship
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- The naked rule by foreign bankers is disguised
by an ideology which describes it as rule by technocrats who are experts,
apolitical and above private interests. The reality behind the technocratic
rhetoric is that the officials appointed have a career of working with
and for big financial private and international interests. Lucas Papdemos,
the appointed Greek Prime Minister, worked for the Federal Reserve Bank
of Boston and, as head of the Greek Central Bank, was responsible for cooking
the books covering up the fraudulent budgetary accounts leading Greece
to financial disaster. Mario Monti, the appointed Prime Minister of Italy
was employed by the European Union and Goldman Sachs. These appointments
by the banks are based on their total loyalty and unstinting commitments
to impose the harshest regressive policies on the working populations of
Greece and Italy. The so-called technocrats are not subject to party factions,
nor remotely responsive to any social protests. They are free of all political
commitments except one, to secure the payment of the debt to foreign bondholders
especially the loans owed to major European and North American financial
institutions. The technocrats are totally dependent on the foreign banks
for their appointments and tenure in office. They have not a smattering
of a political organizational base in the countries they govern. They
rule because, foreign bankers threatened to bankrupt the countries if they
were not appointed. They have zero independence, in the sense that the
'technocrats' are merely instruments and direct representatives of the
Euro-American bankers.
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- The "technocrats" by the nature
of their appointments are colonial officials explicitly appointed at the
behest of imperial bankers and sustained by them. Secondly, neither they
nor their colonial mentors were elected by the people over whom they govern.
They are imposed by economic coercion and political blackmail. Thirdly,
the measures they adopt are designed to inflict the maximum pain by totally
altering the basic relation-between labor and capital, by maximizing the
power of the latter to hire, fire, fix salaries and working conditions.
In other words, the technocratic agenda imposes a political and economic
dictatorship.
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- The social institutions and political processes
associated with a democratic-capitalist welfare state, corrupted by decadent
democracies, eroded by oligarchical democracies are threatened with total
demolition by the emerging colonial technocratic dictatorships (CTD).
The language of social/regression is full of euphemisms but the substance
is clear. Social programs regarding public health, education, pensions,
and disabilities are slashed or eliminated and the "savings"
transferred into tributary payments to foreign bondholders (banks).
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- Public employees are fired, their retirement
age extended and their salaries reduced and their tenure eliminated. Public
enterprises are sold to foreign and domestic capitalist oligarchs with
services curtailed and employees shed. Employers shred collective bargaining
agreements. Workers are fired and hired at the whim of the owners. Vacations,
severance pay, starting salaries and overtime pay are drastically reduced.
These pro-capitalist regressive policies are dubbed "structural reforms"
.Consultative processes are replaced by the dictatorial powers of capital
"legislated" and implemented by the appointed technocrats.
Not since the time of Mussolini and fascist rule and the Greek military
junta (1967 1973) has such a regressive assault on popular organizations
and democratic rights taken place.
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- Comparing Fascist and Technocratic Dictatorships
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- The earlier fascist and military dictatorships
have much in common with the current technocratic despots regarding the
capitalist interests they defend and the social classes they oppress.
But there are important differences which disguise the continuities.
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- The military junta in Greece and Mussolini
in Italy seized power by force and violence, outlawed all opposition parties,
press trade unions and closed the elected parliament. The current "technocratic"
dictatorship is handed power by the political elites of the oligarchical
democracy a 'peaceful' transition at least in its initial phase.
In contrast to the earlier dictatorships the current despotic regimes
retain the hollowed out and emasculated electoral facades, as rubber stamp
entities to provide a kind of "pseudo-legitimacy", which beguiles
the financial press but fools few public citizens.
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- From the very first day of technocratic rule
the key slogans of the organized movements in Italy was, "No to a
government of bankers"; while in Greece the slogan that greeted the
puppet pragmatist Papdemos was "European Union, IMF, Get Out".
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- The earlier dictatorships began as full blown
police states, arresting pro-democracy movement activists and trade unionists
before pursuing their pro-capitalist policies. The current technocrats
first launch their vicious all-out assault on living and working conditions,
with parliamentary assent and then in the face of sustained and determined
resistance by the "parliaments of the street", proceed to escalate
police state repression by degree practicing incremental police state
rule.
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- Policies of the Technocratic Dictatorships: Scope, Depth
and Method
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- The dictatorial organization of a technocratic
regime is derived from its policies and political mission. In order to
impose policies that result in massive transfers of wealth, power and legal
rights from labor and households to capital, especially foreign capital,
an authoritarian regime is essential, especially in anticipation of sustained
resistance. The international financial oligarchy cannot secure 'stable
and sustainable' long term extraction of wealth with any semblance of democratic
governance, even a decaying oligarchic democracy. Hence the last resort
for the bankers in the EU and USA is to directly appoint one of their own
to push, shove and impose a sequence of comprehensive large scale, long-term
regressive changes. The mission of the technocrats is to impose an enduring
institutional framework which will guarantee long-term, high interest payments
based on decades of impoverishment and popular exclusion.
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- The mission of the "technocratic dictatorship"
is not to put in place a single regressive policy of short duration, such
as a salary freeze or dismissal of a few thousand school teachers. Their
intent is to convert the entire state apparatus into an efficient press
to continuously extract and transfer tax revenues and income from workers
and employees to bond holders. To maximize the power and profits of capital
over labor, the technocrats grant the capitalists absolute power to fix
the terms of labor contracts, as far as hiring, firing, longevity, hours
and working conditions.
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- The technocrats "method of rule"
is to have an ear only for the foreign bankers, bondholders and private
investors. The decision process is closed and limited to the coterie
of bankers and technocrats without the least transparency. Above all,
under colonial rules the technocrats must ignore the protestors if possible
or, if necessary break heads. Under pressure from the banks, there is no
time for mediation, compromise or delays as was the case under decaying
and oligarchical democracies.
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- Ten historic transformations dominate the
agenda of the technocratic dictatorships and their colonial mentors.
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- 1) Massive shifts
in budgetary allocations from welfare to bond and bank payments.
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- 2) Large scale changes
in income policies from wages to profits, interest payments and rents.
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- 3) Highly regressive tax
policies, increasing consumer (VAT) and wage taxes and lowering taxes on
bondholders and investors.
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- 4) Eliminating employment
security ("labor flexibility"), increasing the reserve army of
unemployed to lower wages, intensifying the exploitation of employed labor
("higher productivity").
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- 5) Rewriting labor codes,
undermining the balance of power between organized labor and capital .Wages,
working conditions and health issues are taken out of the hands of rank
and file unionists and put in the hands of technocratic "corporate
commissions".
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- 6) The dismantling of a
half century of public enterprises and institutions and privatizing telecommunications,
energy, health, education and pension funds. Trillion dollar privatizations
are windfall profits on a world historic scale. Private monopolies replace
public and provide fewer jobs and services without adding any new productive
capacity.
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- 7) The economic axis shifts
from production and services for mass consumption in the domestic market,
to exports of specialized goods and services to overseas markets. This
new dynamic requires lower wages to "compete" internationally
but shrinks the domestic market. The new strategy translates into an increase
in hard currency earnings from exports to pay the debt to the bondholders
but results in greater misery and unemployment for domestic labor. Under
the technocratic "model", prosperity accrues to vulture investors
buying lucrative but financially strapped local producers and real estate
on the cheap.
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- 8) The technocratic dictatorship
by design and policy aims at a 'bipolar class structure' in which the bulk
of the skilled workers and the middle class is impoverished and suffers
downward mobility while enriching a strata of local bondholders and business
owners who cash in on interest payments and the low cost of labor.
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- 9) Deregulation of capital,
privatization and the centrality of financial capital leads to greater
colonial (foreign) ownership of land, banks, strategic economic sectors
and 'social' services. National sovereignty is replaced by imperial sovereignty
in the economy as well as politics.
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- 10) The unified power of colonial technocrats and
imperial bondholders dictating policy concentrates power in a non-elected
power elite. They rule with a narrow social base and no popular legitimacy.
They are politically vulnerable, therefore, constantly dependent on economic
threats or physical force.
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- Three Stages of Technocratic Dictatorial Rule
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- The historic task of the technocratic dictatorship
is to roll-back the political, social and economic advances gained by the
working class, public employees and pensioners since the defeat of fascist
capitalism in 1945. The unmaking of over sixty years of history is no
easy task, least of all in the midst of a deep ongoing socio-economic crises,
in which the working class has already experienced severe cuts in wages
and benefits and the number of young unemployed (18 30 years) throughout
the EU and North America ranges between 25 to 50 percent.
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- The proposed agenda of the "technocrats"
parroting their colonial mentors in the banks is ever more
severe reductions in living and working conditions.The proposed "austerity"
occurs in the face of growing economic inequalities between the wealthy
5% and the bottom 60% between Southern Europe and Northern Europe. Faced
with downward mobility and heavy indebtedness, the middle class and especially
their 'educated children', are outraged by the technocrats call for even
greater social cuts. Outrage spreads from the lower middle class to business
and professionals on the verge of bankruptcy and loss of status.
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- The technocratic rulers, constantly play
on mass insecurity and fear of a "catastrophic collapse" if their
'bitter medicine' is not swallowed by the anguished middle classes who
fear the prospect of sinking into the working class or worse.
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- The technocrats call on the present generation
to sacrifice, to commit virtual suicide, to save future generations. With
gravity and humble posturing they speak of "equal sacrifices",
a message belied by the firing of tens of thousands of employees and the
selling of billions of euros/dollars of the national patrimony to foreign
bankers and investors. Lowering public expenditures to pay bondholders
and entice private investors erodes any appeal for "national unity"
and "equal sacrifice" ..The technocratic regime strives to act
decisively and quickly to impose its brutal regressive agenda, the rollback
of sixty years of history before the masses have time rise up and bring
them down.
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- To preclude political opposition the technocrats
demand "national unity", (the unity of bankers and oligarchs),
the backing of the decadent electoral parties and their leaders and their
total submission to the colonial bankers' demands.
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- The technocrats' political trajectory will
be short lived given the draconian systemic changes and repressive structures
they propose, the best they can accomplish is to dictate and implement
policies and then return to their lucrative sanctuaries in the overseas
banks.
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- Technocratic Rule: Stage One
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- With the unanimous backing of the mass media
and the full backing of the powerful bankers, the technocrats take advantage
of the downfall of the despised and discredited politicians of the past
electoral regimes. They project a clean government image which speaks
to a regime which is efficient and competent, capable of decisive action.
They promise to put an end to deteriorating living conditions and partisan
political paralyses. At the onset of their rule the technocratic dictators
exploit the justified popular disgust with privileged "do-nothing"
politicians to secure a measure of popular consent or at least passive
acquiescence from the majority of the citizens drowning in debt and in
search of a "savior".
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- It should be noted that among the most politically aware
and social conscious minority, the bankers resort to a colonized "technocratic
regime" cuts no ice: they immediately identify the technocratic regime
as illegitimate deriving powers from foreign bankers. They affirm the
rights of citizens and national sovereignty. From the beginning, even
under the cloak of emergency powers, the technocrats face a core of mass
opposition.
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- The bankers realistically recognize the technocrats
must move quickly and decisively.
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- Stage Two: Technocrats' Shock Policies:
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- The technocrats launch a 100 days of the
most egregious class warfare against the working class since the military/fascist
regimes. In the name of the Free Markets, the Bondholder and the Unholy
Alliance of political oligarchs and bankers dictate edicts and laws
are passed, immediately firing tens of thousands of public employees.
Scores of public enterprises are rushed to the auction block. Job security
is abolished and firing without cause becomes the law of the land. Regressive
taxes are decreed and households are impoverished. The entire income pyramid
is turned on its head. The technocrats widen inequalities and deepen immiseration.
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- The initial euphoria greeting technocratic
rule is replaced by bitter reproaches. The lower middle class looking
for a paternal dictatorial resolution of their condition, recognize "another
political swindle". As the technocratic regime races to fulfill
its mission to the foreign bankers, the popular mood sours, bitterness
spreads even among its 'passive collaborators'. There are no crumbs from
the table of a colonial regime empowered to maximize the outflow of state
revenues to bondholders.
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- The compromised political oligarchy tries
to revive their fortunes and "questions" the particularities
of the technocratic 'tsunami' smashing the social fabric of society. The
scale and scope of the dictatorships' extremist agenda and the ongoing
build-up of mass frustrations frightens the political party collaborators,
while the bankers urge them on to bigger and deeper social cuts. The technocrats
in the face of the burgeoning popular storm begin to cower.
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- The bankers call for greater backbone and
offer new loans for "keeping the course". The technocrats bunker
down alternating between pleas for time and sacrifice with promises
of prosperity 'around the corner'. Mostly they rely on constant police
mobilization and de facto militarization of civil society.
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- Mission Accomplished: Civil War or the Return of Oligarchical
Democracy?
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The outcome of the "experiment" with a colonial dictatorial technocratic
regime is difficult to predict. One reason is because the measures adopted
are so extreme and extensive, that they unify almost all important social
classes (except the top 5%) against them at the same time. The concentration
of power in an "appointed" elite further isolates them and unifies
most citizens in favor of democracy against colonial submission and unelected
rulers. The measures approved by the technocrats face the unlikely prospect
of full implementation, especially by civil servants and public employees
facing firings, pay cuts and reduced pensions. The across the board cuts
undermine 'divide and conquer' tactics. Given the scope and depth of the
downgrading of the public sector and the indignity of serving a regime
clearly under colonial tutelage,it is possible that breaks and fissures
will take place in the military and police apparatus especially if they
provoke popular uprisings which turn violent. The technocratic juntas
cannot ensure that their policies will be implemented. If not, revenues
will falter; strikes and protests will scare off predator buyers of public
firms. The big squeeze will undermine local business, production will
decline the recession will deepen.
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- Technocratic rule is by its nature transitory.
Under threat of a mass revolt the new rulers will flee to their overseas
financial sanctuaries. Local oligarchical collaboraters will hasten to
augment their billion dolla/r euro overseas bank accounts in London, New
York and Zurich.
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- The technocratic dictatorship will make every
effort to hand power back to the oligarchical democratic politicians with
the proviso that they retain the regressive changes in place. Technocratic
rule will end up with "paper victories" unless the overseas bankers
insist the "return to democracy" operates within the 'new order'.
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- The application of force could boomerang.
The technocrats and democratic oligarchs renewed threats of an economic
catastrophe for non-compliance will be counter-manded by the reality of
real existing misery and mass unemployment. For millions the living catastrophe
resulting from technocratic policies will outweigh any future threats.
The rebellious majority may choose to rise up and overthrow the old order
and take its chances in an independent democratic socialist republic.
One of the unforeseen consequences of imposing radical colonial appointed
technocratic dictatorship is that it clears the political landscape of
parasitic political oligarchies and lays the groundwork for a clean break.
It facilitates renouncing the debt and reconstituting the social fabric
of an independent democratic republic.
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- The serious danger is that the discredited
politicians of the old order will demagogically attempt to seize the democratic
banners of the "anti-dictatorial anti-technocrat" struggle to
bring back what Marx called "the old crap of the previous order".
The recycled political oligarchs will adapt to the "restructured"
new order of eternal debt payments as part of a deal to maintain the ongoing
process of unending social regression. The revolutionary struggle against
the colonial technocratic rulers must continue and deepen, to block the
restoration of the democratic oligarchs.
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