by To simple people it is indubitable that the nearest cause of the enslavement of one class of men by another is money. They know that it is possible to cause more trouble with a rouble than with a club; it is only political economy that does not want to know it. — Leo Tolstoy, What Shall We Do Then? (1886) The financial sector has the same objective as military conquest: to gain control of land and basic infrastructure, and collect tribute. To update von Clausewitz, finance has become war by other means. It is not necessary to conquer a country or even to own its land, natural resources and infrastructure, if its economic surplus can be taken financially. What formerly took blood and arms is now obtained by debt leverage. The creditor’s objective is to obtain wealth by indebting populations and even governments, and forcing them to pay by relinquishing their property or its income. Direct ownership is not necessary. Fully as powerful as military force, debt pressure saves the cost of having to mount an invasion and suffer casualties.
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To simple people it is indubitable that the nearest cause of the enslavement of one class of men by another is money. They know that it is possible to cause more trouble with a rouble than with a club; it is only political economy that does not want to know it.
— Leo Tolstoy, What Shall We Do Then? (1886)The financial sector has the same objective as military conquest: to gain control of land and basic infrastructure, and collect tribute. To update von Clausewitz, finance has become war by other means. It is not necessary to conquer a country or even to own its land, natural resources and infrastructure, if its economic surplus can be taken financially. What formerly took blood and arms is now obtained by debt leverage.
The creditor’s objective is to obtain wealth by indebting populations and even governments, and forcing them to pay by relinquishing their property or its income. Direct ownership is not necessary. Fully as powerful as military force, debt pressure saves the cost of having to mount an invasion and suffer casualties. Who needs an expensive occupation against unwilling hosts when you can obtain assets willingly by financial means – as long as debt-strapped nations permit bankers and bondholders to dictate their laws and control their planning and politics?
Such financial conquest is less overtly brutal than warfare waged with guns and missiles, but its demographic effect is as lethal. For debt-strapped Greece and Latvia, creditor-imposed austerity has caused falling marriage rates, family formation and birth rates, shortening life spans, and rising suicide rates and emigration.
Michael Hudson – Finance as warfare
