ne of the most far-reaching consequences of the ongoing economic crisis is the empowerment of mafia activities as the primary mode of capital accumulation and, therefore, the financing of the huge debts of the states. In fact, not new The rackets are a major source of profits of multinationals and the states. What is new is that the crisis reinforces this tendency of capital since the early 70's replaced the financial sector as an engine output of the system.
Of course, this does not happen only in times of crisis. Since capital turned to robbery, speculation and plunder of nature, of peoples, of entire nations and other capital, in what has been called
accumulation by dispossession, the difference between legitimate money or legal and illegitimate and illegal has faded quickly. Examples abound. The Working Group of the High Seas (High Seas Task Force) reported that in 2005 there were 800 fishing vessels engaged in illegal fishing in the waters of Somalia, a country that can not control the depredations of their costs. The English fishermen caught 200 000 tonnes of tuna illegally in Somalia, providing 40 per cientro domestic consumption.
However, the European Union
carefully regulates its fishing waters. This week, after arduous negotiations, the ban was lifted four years and fishing for anchovy in the Bay of Biscay, admitting only the capture of 7 000 tonnes per year, restricting fishing severely threatening to review the permits. All Europe regulates fishing in its waters for cod was banned for 10 years in the North Atlantic.
When the tsunami 2004, appeared in off Somalia containers of toxic waste that had been secretly thrown into the sea. Europe via the Italian mafia, gets rid of toxic waste in Somali waters , according to a report of Ecologists in Action. In the old continent every tonne of toxic waste that is processed takes between two and three thousand euros, but pour into Somalia is worth barely two euros and a half.
say nothing of Barrick Gold, a multinational mining for the extraction of gold in the world. Business in South America and represent 47 percent of its proven and probable reserves. Several studies suggest that Adnan Khashoggi was the founder of Barrick Gold, who made a majority investment together with friends who "organized the exchange of guns and drugs between Iran, Israel and Nicaragua, which led in 1986 to the scandal of Iran-Contra " . Khashoggi has close ties with Peter Munk, Barrick's president, and this with George HW Bush. Barrick, along with other mining multinationals, was responsible for the war in Zaire in 1997 which resulted 3 million dead to seize the world's largest reserves of coltan, a key mineral in the world of electronics.
The Alternative Nobel 2004, Raúl Monenegro, president of the Foundation to Environmental Defense denounced the death threats he received journalists in the province of San Juan, Argentina, to say the truth about environmental impact caused by the Canadian miner Barrick Gold. He added that journalists suffer
censorship or are displaced from their plural programs to address environmental damage caused by the mining company
. The multinational also prevented the presentation in Canada of a book that denounces the atrocities in Africa. This week the British press reported that the director of Office on Drugs and Crime United Nations, Antonio Maria Costa, said the capital from
organized crime was the only capital investment
liquid in the second half of 2008, which was available to the banks to the brink of collapse. It is 352 billion dollars of profits from drug trade that helped save the situation during the crisis of liquidity in the financial system. The drug money, said Costa, became an important factor for many banks, which suggests that financial capital is increasingly mafia capital.
The theme has two ramifications for those who want to change the world. The first is to note that the theft and destruction of the environment and people is now the main form of capital accumulation. This means that the looting will be intensified because it is the quickest way to end the crisis. When the United States and its allies speak of combating drug trafficking and terrorism should be understood that set out to destroy other capitals, mafia or not, as a way of further concentrating wealth. And power. But that attitude makes in institutional gangs whenever they resort to these methods. The second issue has to do with the type of political regime is adequate to protect and encourage the looting. This is electoral systems that allow the rotation of leadership teams, but block structural changes. Democracies is supervised by the soft power of mass media to influence the political agenda, and the hard power of the empire, finance capital and multinationals. The state has been modeled and overwhelmed by the mafia capital, may not be the main lever the necessary changes.
Difficult times ahead. The gangster capital, hegemonic today in a Latin America that does not go, can not or will not-the extractive model (mining and culture), states need their own image, which explains the reasons why some state apparatuses are shipwrecked on impotence. A sharpening of a historical problem that deserves discussion to guide collective action.
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