The concept of Oligarchy is not new, it dates back to the days of Aristotle and before. Rule by a wealthy rich and powerful minority goes back to the earliest recorded civilisations.
This pernicious and often obscured ruling class have long exercised power over the political and governing institutions, nominally presumed to represent the interests of the majority. By virtue of wealth or birth, this minority has deemed themselves entitled to rule over the majority and loot any surplus produced by their lessers.
For the international capital class the creation of an Oligarchical elite is an essential component of any plan to infiltrate and corrupt existing political institutions. The European banking elite could gain little traction in the young United States. The founding fathers, in particular Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, had dealt with them as they attempted to raise funds for their War of Independence, they quickly came to understand the game. The Declaration of Independence was as much a rejection of this capital class as it was of King George and the Monarchy. The powers that be were threatened by America’s bad example, and a constitution that declared, “all men are created equal” was bound to elicit a negative response from those who thought they ruled the world. The then dominant British empire never forgave the upstart Americans and embarked on a century long war of capitalist revenge.
The creation of an American Oligarchy was how the banking elite dragged America back under control of the European bankers. Often referred to as “The Robber Barons”, Rockefeller in oil, Carnegie in steel, Harriman in railroads and J.P. Morgan in banking, and many other monopoly capitalists, were all covertly financed by London banks. It took this nascent Oligarchy a few years, but in 1913 they managed to pass the unconstitutional Federal Reserve Act. The American money system was now in the control of the European bankers, where it remains to this day. This was the point when America became the very thing it was established to oppose. The foundational myth of the American dream, became just that, a myth.
Today the American Oligarchs are not in steel or railroads, they are in finance and tech, all essential components of complete societal control. The “charismatically challenged” Bill Gates is such a creation. Funded by the national security state he had the financial backing to ensure Microsoft obtained a virtual monopoly over the global software business. Unknown was that his software contained backdoors accessible to U.S. security agencies that they may spy on the world. Bill now apparently feels qualified to lecture the world on vaccines and health while concurrently pushing his de-population agenda. The equally odious Mark Zuckerberg is a more recent version of this same phenomena.
In recent years, the term Oligarch has often been preceded by “Russian”. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989 it presented the capital class with the opportunity of a lifetime. The vast Russian landscape was abundant in oil, gas and other natural resources. The Russian state sector, inefficient and bankrupt, was particularly ripe for plunder. Seemingly out of nowhere appeared a new generation of Russian “businessmen” who began to buy up, for pennies of the dollar, distressed state sector assets. These newly aspiring western-backed Oligarchs looted the country of their birth with impunity and without compunction. Through these proxies the Neo-liberal west feasted greedily on the Russian corpse. In Francis Fukuyama’s book the “End of History”, he declared the west had won, the Cold War was over, and Neo-liberalism reigned supreme. Not so fast…
Assumed to be another corrupt aspiring Oligarch, Vladimir Putin was not opposed by the west when he ran for the Russian presidency. Putin insinuated that it would be “business as usual “if he became president, that was sufficient reassurance for the West and he was elected Russian president in 2000. However, it transpired that Vlad was neither corrupt nor an aspiring Oligarch, he was in fact a fiercely patriotic Russian nationalist who despised what the West had done to Russia and was determined to reverse it. Of specific ire were the Russian traitors who had so callously raped the Russian economy and impoverished its already blighted people. Putin summoned the eighteen most prominent Oligarchs and laid down the law. They could keep a portion of their ill-gotten gains, but they would pay tax, and they would not influence or interfere with the political process. Many took it onboard and fled Russia for the safe, Oligarch-friendly haven of London and stayed out of Russian affairs. Not all however, Mikhail Khodorkovsky continued to meddle, and Putin, true to his word, put him in jail.
Putin had fooled the West and taken back Russia for the Russian people, and the West hasn’t forgiven him and since then Russia has been subject to every trick in the playbook of revenge capitalism. Under Putin, Russia has regained its status as a great power. His popularity with the Russian people is due to their understanding of the forces he is battling.
China, while enjoying its spectacular rise from the ashes of its western-imposed “century of shame’ has been fighting the same forces of “money power” as Putin’s Russia. Jack Ma, the head of mega tech conglomerate Alibaba discovered how seriously China is on the subject. Just prior to Alibaba’s long anticipated IPO, Jack felt emboldened enough to criticise the Chinese state banking system. His IPO was cancelled and he was advised to go live quietly somewhere and enjoy his money, he has wisely done so. In fact, Jack Ma is just a creation, a front for the rich and powerful Jiang family faction from Shanghai. One of its sons, Jiang Zemin, was Chinese premier in the early 2000’s. and was always considered too sympathetic to Western interests. The real power needs frontmen, and like Gates, Zuckerberg et al., Jack Ma was just such a front.
President Xi addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos by video link last week. If the attendant Davos crowd were expecting any softening on China’s position, they were to be disappointed. In typically nuanced fashion he referred to the capital class and its ambitions. He made it clear that China intended to strictly adhere to its policy of zero tolerance towards foreign interference in the affairs of China. He restated the Chinese commitment to a multi-polar world. At an ensuing internal summit on anti-corruption the language was less nuanced. “The collusion between capital and power” (Oligarchy) was the main cause of corruption and would not be tolerated.
The spectacular economic and societal rebirths of both Russia and China should serve as an example to the world of what can be achieved without the insidious influence of a parasitic money class. As the west continues to slide inexorably towards a dystopian economic and societal abyss, its people still fail to recognise the true enemy. The Russian and Chinese fight against this Oligarchical class is everybody’s fight. Once the rest of the world realises that, it will be a better place for all decent people.
Author
Dr. Eamon McKinney is an eminent Sinologist with more than 40 years’ involvement in China foreign business. He is C.E.O. and founder (1985) of CBNGLOBAl, his company has managed more than 300 major China-Foreign projects. He lives in Qingdao, China.
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