Book Review: Who Will Tell The People? by William Greider

Lila Wagner

1992

Published in:

The Northwest Technocrat, 4th quarter 1992, No. 329, Vol. 54

As Mr. Greider says: "The American Moment cannot be about acquiring more wealth or weaponry or territory; the facts will not allow it. It must involve a more difficult search for social invention, for a governance that will take the democratic idea to its next higher plateau in human history. It must aim for mutual understanding and equitable and shared objectives. It is our chance to lead the world to the high ground where no nation has ever been before."

Thus William Greider concludes his most timely-for-Technocrats book, WHO WILL TELL THE PEOPLE. In fact, nearly everything he says corroborates what Technocracy has been saying for years. However, he stops short of saying that a solution to our problems has already been worked out. That means that our task is still monumental.

He calls the global marketplace the "Closet Dictator," allowing U.S. corporations to ally themselves with any other country's business interests to enhance profits, declaring loyalty to the U.S. only for tax subsidies or for bailout by American taxpayers.

He wants the American people to continue to oppose free trade, saying that profits derived from poverty wages for children, from workers prohibited from unionizing, from factories that are virtual sweatshops with total disregard for the health of the workers, and from, unlimited environmental pollution -- such trade cannot truly be called "free." He gives specific details; for example, the 1300 American factories across the border in Mexico, while exploiting Mexicans and depriving Americans of some 500,000 jobs, have polluted the area so badly that the border is a "2000 mile Love Canal."

The current GATT negotiations are designed to reduce business regulations still further; the "fast track" is to prohibit any possible Congressional debate.

He tells the people that the Federal Reserve has no connection whatever with the federal government; that it is composed of private bankers manipulating the money system for the benefit of banks and corporations.

Globalization will enhance the power of the imperial presidency. International elites will meet off-shore behind closed doors; their deals will have the force of law. Their respective national governments will thus be weakened and armies, especially the U.S. army, will exist to prevent interference with their plans. Greider warns that it is stupid, if not fatal, to continue the course of the last 45 years with the CIA creating theoretically plausible "enemies." The Cold War and frequent interventions have reduced our allowable margin of error and our general abundance, yet government and business seem locked into a permanent war economy.

In this society, corporations are the leading offenders, their crimes so commonplace as to have lost their shock value. Perhaps the worst effect of untrammeled corporate power is the feeling of impotence on the part of the people who alone, but working as one, can revitalize our society. While the people want the U.S. to lead the world to higher environmental and other standards, the governing elites advance their own narrow interests, betraying the citizens.

"The world's existing manufacturing facilities, constantly being expanded by cheap labor and new technologies, can now turn out far more goods than the world's economy can afford to buy." (Have we heard that before?) This imbalance is driving all nations to the lowest common denominator.

We must assert a wise, purposeful nationalism even though in the global age this is considered reactionary. He says the dream that a world institution could govern equitably across national borders is not feasible in our time. The gross injustices of global commerce are concealed behind the high-sounding platitudes about "free trade."

He suggests using the military to help solve domestic problems, the risk of militarizing the home front being no greater than the dilemma we now face, the dimensions of which are so profound as to be yet unrecognized (or admitted).

Comment: Greider, as do many others, closes the door on any strategy for influencing world events. Technocracy, however, has long held that probably the only workable strategy for North Americans is to first unify North America and operate it with a social design such as Technocracy proposes. This would provide a new model for the world to follow.