Wall Street and the Hegelian Dialectic

August 6, 2013

Andrew Dilks, Contributor
Waking Times

These days, describing the big banks as criminal syndicates extorting billions from the public is hardly sticking one’s head above the parapet: the foreclosures scandal, in which GMAC, Bank of America, CitiBank, JPMorganChase and others ignored banking laws in their fervour to throw people out of their homes as quickly as possible, was just one example of a long list of the many crimes of the financial sector, which by now has become so completely deregulated that its players are acting not just with impunity from any kind of prosecution but with the active assistance of the governments of the West.

The political establishment, in its subservience to the banking elites, decided to deal with the financial mess (well, it’s a mess for the common man – the banks on the other hand are finding the situation incredibly lucrative) by implementing wide-ranging austerity measures, designed to hit the poorest hardest. British Chancellor George Osborne announced a cut of £7 billion from the benefits of the British poor – the same amount the bankers responsible for the crisis awarded themselves in bonuses. One wonders how much it’ll take before such brazen disregard for equitable financial policies will be met with violence on the streets in Britain and America – after all, the French, Belgians, Greeks and Spanish aren’t taking these cuts lying down (although the latter two know where this is heading, having lived under brutal dictatorships in living memory).

This isn’t simply a case of bad economic planning: the governments of the Western world – at the behest of the big banks – are carrying out an orchestrated looting of public money as part of a deliberate redistribution of wealth into fewer hands, something that has been happening for decades. Wall Street banks engaged in property tax collection, buying up thousands of tax liens, and making huge profits by hitting homeowners with predatory interest, absurd penalties and extortionate legal fees targeting the poor and the elderly. It’s another attack on top of cuts to social spending, the theft of pensions and the refusal on the part of the banks to issue new loans to the little people, while at the same time ‘defense’ spending reaches new heights.

None of which should come as a surprise to anyone who understands the nature of central banking. What’s happening in the rich Western nations is no different to what the IMF and World Bank have done to third world nations for decades with their Structural Adjustment Programs, which instigated austerity measures, currency devaluation and privatization of state-owned enterprises leading to massive increases in poverty and often violent repression on the part of the state. It’s no coincidence that all the elements of a police state have been put into place in the US and Europe – the elite bankers and their political co-conspirators are well aware of the impending civil unrest stemming from their policies and are more than prepared to deal with it, be it with soft or hard power.

Nothing is more profitable to the big banks than war. One only has to look at the disparity between spending on social programs and the war machine to understand where priorities lie – cutting back on illegal wars and imperialistic expansion clearly isn’t an option for the elites. Given that the 20th century can be viewed as one long process of war profiteering and resource theft, this is hardly surprising. But few people realize quite how deeply this ideology of war and exploitation runs. The history of the major world wars of the last century has been carefully rewritten to cover up the role of the big Wall Street banks: it is hardly common knowledge quite how orchestrated and carefully planned these conflicts were, let alone the extent to which major financial institutions and industrialists were instrumental in both setting up and sustaining the opposing sides of the wars.

Historian Antony Sutton, who died in 2002, has outlined in great detail the extent to which wars are manipulated to maximize profits for bankers and industrialists. In the following interviews he discusses the role of Wall Street in the Bolshevik Revolution and the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party, and how these events are intertwined with America’s “Secret Establishment”, centering around the Skull and Bones secret society, heavily influenced by philosopher Georg Hegel’s dialectical process.

It’s not hard to see how the elites are using the Hegelian Dialectic today – what the Trilateral Commission called “conflict management” is self-evident in the concept of “disaster capitalism,” while the dialectic process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis, which characterised Hegel’s thinking, is apparent in the manner in which enemies are carefully manufactured: the backbone of the “War on Terror” and the creation of conflict which can then be steered towards a resolution favourable to the elites. While the mainstream media repeatedly informs us how we’re fighting the “evil” Taliban, for instance, the US hires warlords, Taliban commanders and even Iranian spies to provide security at vulnerable US military outposts in Afghanistan.

It is not only Hegel’s dialectic process that informs the worldview of the elite planners, with the creation and resolution of crises – his influence on the political philosophy of the top planners extends also to his championing of the power of the State over the individual, and how the function of the latter is viewed entirely through the prism of the supremacy of the former. To Hegel, the State was the “Divine Idea”:

“It must be understood that the State is the realization of Freedom, i.e. of the absolute final aim, and that it exists for its own sake. It must further be understood that all the worth which the human being possesses – all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State.”

It’s not hard to see how this principle has manifested itself in the rapid expansion of State power and the erosion of the individual’s rights across the globe. Nor is it hard to see how the State uses war to consolidate its power.

As Hegel said,

“War has the deep meaning that by it the ethical health of nations is preserved and their finite aims uprooted. And as the winds which sweep over the ocean prevent decay that would result from its perpetual calm, so war protects the people from the corruption which an everlasting peace would bring upon it. History shows phases which illustrate how successful wars have checked internal unrest and have strengthened the entire stability of the State.”

About the Author

Andrew Dilks writes on culture and politics at orwellwasright.co.uk. He is the author of Goliath and Flow.

This article is offered under Creative Commons license. It’s okay to republish it anywhere as long as attribution bio is included and all links remain intact.

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Wall Street and the Hegelian Dialectic

Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution

Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler

America’s Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones

About the Author