From the results of this meeting it appears that global capitalist leaders have run out of solutions to the slump in the world's economy and all the ravages on societies that this is creating.
In the immediate wake of the financial crisis, the G-20 meeting in London, held at the beginning of April 2009, saw verbal commitments to co-ordinate economic policies claiming the lessons of the 1930s had been learned and there would be no repeat of the conflicts which marked the Great Depression. Now even these words have gone.The Great Depression of the 1930s ended in another world war. This happened because too much wealth became concentrated in the hands of a few capitalists with the vast majority impoverished. Of course, this is what their system is precisely designed to do. In such a situation no capitalist invests money in production because people cannot afford to buy their products. Because a capitalist economy only functions to produce profits for a social class known as capitalists instead of supplying needs to a society, economies comes to a virtual standstill or "depression". In the 1930s capitalists saw war as solution because wars create demand for weapons of war (which get blown up and need to be replaced), and wars destroy the capital of hopefully other countries which will create demand for the restoration of capital by the winning capitalist country. Today we live in a very different world.
Our neoliberal world's economy is largely controlled by transnational industrial and financial capitalists who operate in many countries. After the last world war, an Anglo-American capitalist gang emerged as top dog in the world, and they launched a project to secure the world for themselves by subduing other countries such as Iran, countries of Central and South America, Korea, Indonesia, etc--any countries who sought to pursue an independent course. In recent decades we've seen the emergence of nations that challenge this Anglo-American Empire primarily composed of China and Russia which have mixed economies. The Empire is now undertaking to subordinate these nations to the rule of the Empire, and the former are beginning to fight back any way they can.
In our time a world war now means a likely nuclear conflagration that would destroy far too much capital for capitalists to be comfortable with. Hence, we have been witnessing many smaller wars such as we are now seeing in the Mid-East. Even if we are able to escape a nuclear nightmare (Look at the Doomsday Clock--it's nearly as close as it ever was to midnight!), we are likely to continue to see many other smaller wars continuing and starting up all over the globe.
Another option that we have already experienced is austerity and government giveaways to corporations. This is also likely to continue as Mike Whitney argues in his post entitled "Wall Street’s Savage Reckoning: Clouds Gather Over G-20 Summit".
Of course the only sane solution is replacing the destructive system of capitalism with a sustainable system that serves all people and can exist in harmony with nature (our biosphere). Will humans choose a sane solution? Stay tuned, or better yet stay informed and actively engaged in positive changes, in revolutionary changes.
