Having spent well over two decades of my life firmly ensconced in the new-age/alternative scene, I consider that I’m well versed with the idea of “One World” - a project that we have all been working towards. A happy place of individual freedom, self-development, minority rights and gender equality, where love rules the day. What’s not to approve of?
This idealistic vision of how the world “could be” has been pursued progressively by many in my scene for decades. Whilst it has its roots earlier in the twentieth century, perhaps in the work of Karl Popper, it’s really been rocking along in the post-Soviet era that began in 1991.
It was then that the idea of a global free market suddenly became a real possibility. US political economist Francis Fukuyama famously marked this point as the “end of history” in his book of the same title. Supply chains, the backbone of industrial capitalism, began to spread worldwide. Goods might be produced anywhere and then sold anywhere else.
The political ideology that tagged along with this global free market became known as neoliberalism - let the market do its thing and all will be well. And where us idealists wanted to take all this to was, yes… One World, One Heart, One Love.
This vision of global oneness has fuelled thousands of new-age festivals all over the world. It has been the guiding ideology behind a million alternative workshops in subjects as diverse as crystal healing, Tantra and permaculture. It’s supplied the lyrics to heaps of uplifting dance tracks. It was The Vision and we all held it.
And I don’t think it’s going to happen. Not for a while anyway.
Why?
Well, mostly because of the statement of a man called Larry Fink, made back in March this year, whilst he was writing his annual letter to the shareholders of his company BlackRock.
Larry is the head of the world’s biggest asset management firm. His company holds a 5 - 10% stake in pretty much every major company on the planet. Big Tech, Commodities, Media, Social Media, Pharmaceuticals, Industrials, Agriculturals and Weapons - BlackRock are major investors in all of them.
BlackRock have thus become the subject of a mountain of conspiracy theories, where they are regularly accused of secretly running the planet.
Or, perhaps more intelligently, of anti-trust issues - situations where many of their diverse holdings might all benefit from a specific strategy. Their media holdings push one narrative, which feeds the need for certain pharmaceuticals or weapons, and, hey-ho, it’s a win-win for BlackRock.
But let’s not delve into all this stuff here. Suffice to say that, if anyone on the planet might be termed “a globalist,” then that guy is Larry Fink.
But, in his latest letter to shareholders, Larry said straight up that what’s been happening recently in the world has put “an end to the globalization we have experienced over the last three decades.”
He was talking about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, coming on the back of the Covid pandemic. The West’s necessary sanctioning of Russia is the straw that he believes has finally broken the camel’s back.
On top of other sanctions that the West currently has in place; on top of reduced output due to Covid measures; on top of concerns about China’s “Belt & Road” Initiative. There is just no longer any way that globalisation can march forwards.
Supply chains, once unravelling merrily across the whole planet, will now need to curl up into tighter balls, in order for Western capitalism to continue to function. Although 20 years behind the Chinese, in terms of manufacturing say, mobile phones, Western companies will need to start to do more and more of the drudge work themselves. We will need to tool up and re-learn the basics.
Larry’s statement attracted the attention of every major business media outlet worldwide, such as this piece in the FT.
One of the guys whose attention was similarly grasped was a well-regarded, though anonymous, Washington insider, NS Lyons, who writes on Substack as The Upheaval. The ongoing political turmoil in the West caused him to launch into a huge “brain-dump,” which he titled The World Order Reset. (April 28th 2022).
Having ploughed through this mighty piece of writing several times, I would like to focus on Lyons’ predictions for where the world, and specifically the West, might be heading, given the imminent end of globalisation.
Lyons predicts that, given all that has been happening, the West will seek to both keep what it’s already got, as well as shutting itself off from outsiders.
Although only roughly 13% of the world’s population live in the West, we nevertheless generate some 60-70% of the GDP. And we will want to keep hold of that and ensure that anyone who wants a slice has to play by our rules.
How this will be done, he says, is through the US and the EU harmonising standards of digital communication, issuing Digital IDs to their populations, and rolling out Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).
A “digital fortress” will thus be created, enclosing only those countries whose citizens are enrolled in the scheme. All money will be digital and all interactions with the State or commercial outlets the same. Everything will be recorded and tagged back to you via the biometrics that accompany your Digital ID.
The system, whilst somewhat decentralised at a user level, will nevertheless feature top-down control towards allowing outsiders access. Any country not in the West, who wants to supply goods or purchase services from us, will need to be compliant with whatever rules we set. Or they just won’t be allowed in.
This “Plan B” for Western economies, now that globalisation has become unfeasible, does seem to me to be already unravelling. Covid passports, whilst lacking scientific credibility, do function well as a potential precursor for Digital ID. CBDC’s are being discussed by many Western central banks.
For myself, I’m not against Digital IDs and CBDCs in principle. But giving the State total control over my finances feels scary, given that should I start to have an opinion deemed unacceptable, they could well switch my money off!
Dodgy situations have already manifested. Some of those contributing money to the recent Canadian truckers protest found their bank accounts frozen temporarily. In addition, PayPal have being closing down the accounts of some independent media outlets, apparently for having the wrong political opinions.
To draw this piece of writing to a conclusion, I do feel sad that the vision of One World does look to be out of the reach of our current generation. But if supply chains start to curl back on themselves, and the West punts other countries into some kind of Forbidden Zone, then that is what it looks like right now.
But, of course, the future is unwritten.
Thank you for reading