Grosse concludes by citing Kissinger and Cyrus Vance in their pivotal roles in regard to opening up China:
Kissinger, acting as Nixon’s national security adviser, embarked on a secret mission to Beijing in 1971,[47] to make official, exploratory contact with the communist regime. Nixon himself followed in 1972. The delicate process of normalizing diplomatic relations between the United States and China was completed in 1978 by Kissinger’s successor as secretary of state, Cyrus R. Vance, a leading Council officer before and after his government service.[48]
The normalization of relations between the USA and China were soon followed up in 1973 by a business delegation headed by David Rockefeller. Rockefeller returned from China in an optimistic mood reminiscent of Thompson’s attitude towards Bolshevik Russia in 1917. In an article for The New York Times Rockefeller wrote: “The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao’s leadership is one of the most important and successful in history.” Rockefeller goes on to praise the “sense of national harmony,” and “more efficient and dedicated administration … whatever the cost of the revolution.” In the same year he founded the Trilateral Commission with Zbigniew Brzezinski, a member of the CFR, who, as related above, had early in his academic career outlined a dialectical method of historical analysis from a capitalistic viewpoint.[49]
Domestic and Foreign Revolutionaries
That certain factions of international capitalism look favorably on certain forms of socialism is indicated not only by the favorable reception some of these Big Business luminaries gave the Bolshevik Revolution and how they viewed the prospects of business with China under communism, but also by the backing given to domestic left-wing movements, again from what would seem to be dialectical motives.
One of the primary institutions that received patronage from some of the largest financial interests was – and is – the London School of Economics (LSE). It should be recalled that the LSE was founded by Fabian Socialists, with Sidney Webb playing a particularly significant role. Among the original patrons of the LSE was Sir Ernest Cassel, a partner in Kuhn, Loeb and Co., and in the armaments firm of Basil Zaharof, Vickers. Cassel, whose humanitarianism might be open to suspicion, nonetheless backed the LSE as a means of training a “socialist bureaucracy.” Prof. J H Morgan K.C., wrote of Cassel’s support for the LSE:
When I once asked Lord Haldane why he persuaded his friend, Sir Ernest Cassel, to settle by his will large sums on … the London School of Economics, he replied, “Our object is to make this institution a place to raise and train the bureaucracy of the future Socialist State.”[50]
Other funding came from the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds, the quintessential international capitalists. The relationship can be readily determined by Sir Ernest Cassel’s having established the chair of “economic geography”; and of Sir Evelyn Robert de Rothschild having been a Governor of the LSE.
In 1923 the first contribution from the Rockefeller Foundation (via the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Fund) of $1,000,000 was made to the LSE[51]. From 1929-1952 the Rockefeller Foundation donated $4,105,592 to the LSE.[52]
The archival history of the London School of Economics and Political Science is instructive in respect of the political motivation and funding of the LSE. A synopsis of the Archives held by the British Library of Political and Economic Science,[53] a department of the LSE, states:
The London School of Economics and Political Science was officially opened in the autumn of 1895. It owed its existence to the will of Henry Hunt Hutchinson, a provincial member of the Fabian Society, who had left a significant sum of money in trust for “propaganda and other purposes of the said [Fabian] Society and its Socialism and towards advancing its objects in any way they [the trustees] deem advisable.”
The Archives confirm that largesse came from Rockefeller and Cassel funds:
The appointment of Sir William Beveridge in 1919 marked a period of rapid expansion in all areas of the School’s activity. The Commerce Degree (BCom) was instituted, attracting both applicants and finance. The School was able to expand the Clare Market site into Houghton Street, building the “Old Building” (1920) and the Cobden Library Wing, and expanding the Passmore Edwards Building to incorporate the Founder’s Room. Beveridge also used new funding from the Cassel Fund and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund to make numerous academic staff full-time and permanent, and create chairs in subjects including Political Economy, Social Anthropology and Statistics. New departments were created, notably International Studies, and emphasis placed on social science research.[54]
It might be asked what individuals regarded as epitomizing the free market, and the institutions connected with them, were doing subsidizing overtly socialistic causes? Dialectics seems to answer the paradox, and H. G. Wells’ comment on the convergence of capitalism and communism as forms of collectivism seems to offer an explanation. The alternative would presumably be that these capitalists are too stupid to understand what they are doing; that they are self-destructive, which would seem to be unlikely, given that it is they who are triumphing while Lenin’s ideal lays in ruins and is being superseded by what appears to be another phase in the capitalist dialectic.[55]
It is the same dialectical process that has seen the luminaries of capitalism and their Foundations patronize sundry socialistic institutions other than the LSE, including the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, and the New School for Social Research.[56]
In the USA, certain business interests seem to have followed a dialectical strategy in their patronage of the “New Left”. Is there any convincing evidence for this other than what might be thought of as an implausible conspiracy theory? Again, turning to Brzezinski, the “New Left” also comes under dialectical scrutiny:
The long-run historic function of the militant New Left depends largely on the circumstances in which it will eventually either fade or be suppressed. Though itself ideologically barren and politically futile, it might serve as an additional spur to social change, accelerating some reforms. If it does, even though the New Left itself disappears, its function in the third American revolution[57] will have been positive; if not, it will have been a catalyst for a more reactionary social response to the new dilemmas.[58]
Thus Brzezinski is cogent in explaining his view that the “New Left” would serve as either a dialectical means of generating “social change”, or it would result in an antithetical reaction. History showed that with the failure of George Wallace for example, it was the “social, change” of the type desired by Brzezinski and his employers that prevailed. Subsequent efforts at the presidency by Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan for example have been easily rendered futile.
fool’s paradise….
Kanan48,
Thanks for posting the article onto your website. Encouraging…
I read with interest your article on debt in Greece, that being the abode of my colleague Dr Dimitris Michalopoulos of the Academy of Social and Political Research.
My suggestion – rather obvious – but which seems to be overlooked, is that the foundation of debt is the debt-finance system, and one tackles the symptoms by dealing with the cause.
I have been writing lately on this question: which basically is that if private banks can create credit as a profit making commodity (i.e. usury) why can’t states do it as a non-usurous means of exchange?
The New Zealand Labour government solved unemployment in the 1930s by issuing 1% state credit through the Reserve Bank to fund a giant public housing scheme. Canada used state credit from World War II until the mid 1970s. Lincoln did it with Greenbacks, Kennedy with US Notes that bypassed the Federal Reserve System; Guernsey Island since the 19th Century issued its own credit when it was destitute and bankrupt and continues to have its own credit. Germany achieved recovery prior to rearmament by the same method, and Japan did as well; where Maj. C H Douglas, who formulated Social Credit theory, toured and was enthusiastically received.
It was the doctrine fo the Church for centuries and is still the basis of Islamic banking. The most succinct pamphlets on the subject were written by Ezra Pound.
Ironically in this day of univrsal education and fast travelling news when debt again is a major issue, hardly anybody seems to understand that nature of the banking system; whereas in the 1930s there was popular understanding. Indeed, the first Labour Government in New Zealand was voted in precisely on the issue of banking and credit. Now the answers are either to tax the “rich” or “austerity”; neither address the root cause.
Thanks to you and Foreign Policy journal.
It is so depressing to see so little discussion of the alternative financial system so well expoused by KR Bolton. Clearly the attempts by Chavez, in particular, and Morales in Latin America are not reported for geo-political/ idealogical reasons. Why not have a UK bank based on lending citizens/ business funds at reasonable or zero interest with profits used for the ‘public good’. The competition, so lauded by the neo-liberal elite, would surely encourage the likes of Barclays, Lloyds,RBS, etc. to get their houses in order!
The capitalist dictatorship is determined to overthrow anything that is different/better than its own system be it political, social, economic or moral. The examples provided by you are very apt. We are forced to live in a world of illusion. Anything apart from capitalism is forbidden and must be maligned and if necessary crushed with force.
There seriously is a need for activism and increasing awareness. Writing will not just solve our problems and bring the world closer. People of Greece are tasting something what people of third world countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America have been facing for centuries. It’s time we tear down the capitalist dictatorship and bring a new system in which people’s power is truly represented. Sounds communism but it was no different from capitalist system, as described by the writer in this article.
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Awesome, Thx!
“The capitalist dialectic in simple terms can be seen as the mirror image of the Marxist dialectic”. you are right
Well written .thanks for sharing this article, as a historian, i find it very useful