The big bankers of the world, who practice the terrorism of money, are more powerful than kings and field marshals, even more than the Pope of Rome himself. They never dirty their hands. They kill no one: they limit themselves to applauding the show.
Their officials, international technocrats, rule our countries: they are neither presidents nor ministers, they have not been elected, but they decide the level of salaries and public expenditure, investments and divestments, prices, taxes, interest rates, subsidies, when the sun rises and how frequently it rains.
However, they don’t concern themselves with the prisons or torture chambers or concentration camps or extermination centers, although these house the inevitable consequences of their acts.
The technocrats claim the privilege of irresponsibility: “We’re neutral,” they say.
Eduardo Galeano, “Professional Life/3”
I just finished reading an interesting book about American colonial history that I picked up in preparation for a trip to New York that I’m taking next week. The thesis was essentially that the colony of New Netherland was responsible for the pluralistic, multi-cultural society that America was to become, whereas the colonies of New England were totalitarian theocracies that had more in common with Iran then with the country that we were to become. Now, living in New England, I, of course, feel that the book showed a New Yorkers typical belief that all civilization springs forth from the loin of Manhattan, but it was still a well-written history of a time period that had tended to be glossed over in American history books.
In reading more about the Puritans recently (in both this book and in the book “The Seduction of Place” by Joseph Rykwert with regards to Utopian city planning) I’ve had to think some about the ideas of utopianism as opposed to the Evangelical beliefs that I was brought up with. I find it extremely interesting that, although Evangelicalism grew out of the Puritan traditions (the denomination that I attended after high school grew directly out of a group called the Plymouth Brethren) the beliefs about the direction the world is headed are exact opposites of each other. The Puritans believed that they were going to build “a citty upon a hill” and that they would, through Christian governance achieve a kind of heaven here on the earth. Fast-forward 350 years. I was brought up believing that world is constantly getting worse. Moral degradation is without precedent and eventually, the world will become a lot like the set for Blade Runner until eventually Christ decides to come back and burn it all up (after removing all the Christians and leaving our folded clothing on the airplane seats that we had occupied). I’ve been told that it was World War II that caused this shift, but I’ve also been told that “wine wasn’t as strong in Jesus’ time” so I tend to take everything with a grain of salt.
After leaving the Evangelical church for the Post-Modern one, I once had a conversation regarding this very topic with a Pastor. He tended towards the view that the world is actually improving, and at the time, fresh from my time spent in the optimistic European Union, I was inclined to agree with him. This isn’t a direct quote, but he said something with the jist, “wouldn’t you rather live now in any country in Africa then in Europe or American 200 years ago.”
I no longer agree with this statement. The emergence of the “Forth World” country in the last 15 years stands in stark contrast. The “Forth World” is any country that has lost ground in standards of living since independence. One of the best examples is Haiti, which was highly civilized, with good industry and a standard of living that was almost twice as high as the neighboring Dominican Republic (and, in the 1890’s, still better then Florida.) Today, Haiti is the poorest nation, by far, in the western hemisphere, and one of the poorest in the world. The majority of Haiti’s population of 8 million lives on less then $.50 a day. The budget of Haiti’s government is slightly lower then that of Cambridge, Mass. Other countries that fall into this grouping are The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone (once the two richest countries in Africa because of their positions as colonies for returned slaves from the US and Britain respectively), Somalia (once the center of trade for the entire western Indian Ocean resulting from Mogadishu being one of the few natural harbours on the east African coast, Somalia was once called the only modern nation-state in Africa), and Cambodia (who hasn’t seen photos of the stunning accomplishments of the Khmer kingdom based at Angkor Watt?). I would rather be born into Europe in the 1300’s than into West Africa now. At least they didn’t have AK47’s in the middle ages.
So then, is the world becoming better or worse? Here lies the root of many of the problems of our post-modern world. I think it is doing both at the same time. The gap between the rich and the poor is ever widening. There is real hope for many developing countries (Costa Rica, Brazil, Mexico, China, India ect.) that they will reach the first world in terms of development and standards of living, however, many more nations and falling ever farther behind, or, in some cases, even running in the other direction.
The question then is: can we be satisfied with our American or European lives knowing that not so far away, things are getting constantly worse for a large portion of the worlds population?
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