By Jeremiah Novak

Manuscript copy of a speech presented at Penn State University Experimental Seminar on the Future, May 19, 1977. Printed by permission.

Contributor's Note: This article was printed in The Freemen Digest (unknown date, unknown issue, pp. 112-125). The Freemen Digest was a publication of The Freemen Institute, W. Cleon Skousen’s predecessor to The National Center for Constitutional Studies. The Freemen Digest issued 20 publications from the late 70's through the early 80's.

Introduction

Each day in our leading newspapers there are references to a new world economic order. For example, the May 6 editorial of the New York Times said: “Government intervention to manage domestic economies has been accepted, even demanded, in every advanced country, at least since the great depression of the 1930’s. But international machinery for joint management of economic policy in an increasingly interdependent world is still lacking. ... The Western leaders (meeting at London this week) will discuss ... trade, the needs of developing countries ... etc. But unless they create a mechanism, formal or informal, public or confidential, that brings them to agreed actions for economic recovery, none of the other problems can be solved.”

The Use of Technocratic Language to Conceal Plans of the Trilateral Commission

What is interesting about this editorial is that it emphasizes the establishment of “machinery,” a technocratic word that is used instead of “institutions.” For what is generally known to those who follow international economic-political events is that Jimmy Carter and 16 members of his administration, working in a group of scholars, multinational businessmen, and labor leaders, have a plan to establish a political and economic commission to coordinate the policies of the world’s richest nations. They enunciated this plan in a pamphlet in 1973, published by their group, known as the Trilateral Commission. The paper was entitled “The Crisis of International Cooperation.”

Outlining Trilateral Goals

More sophisticated readers have noticed that Foreign Policy magazine had an article in its spring issue by Richard N. Cooper entitled “A New International Order for Mutual Benefit.” Cooper, who is the Undersecretary of State for International Economic Affairs, in this article elaborated his views which had previously been summed up in another Trilateral document called “Toward a Renovated International System,” a draft of which was discussed in articles, on January 12, February 7, 14, 15, 16 and March 7, in The Christian Science Monitor, and, on February 5, in America magazine. These articles were written by me.

The Call for Human Rights Has Nothing to Do with Democracy or Justice

Further, if one follows events in Congress closely, he would have noted the recent hearings on the replenishment of the World Bank, in which a new aid program, including a provision for “human rights,” appears; “human rights” in this sense have nothing to do with democracy or social justice. This debate ended on April 5. Human rights were a subject of discussion in Mr. Brzezinski’s book Between Two Ages, published in 1970. Mr. Brzezinski is the head of National Security for the U.S. and a member of the Trilateral Commission.

Arthur Burns’ Advocation of Trilateral Policies

On April 12, further, you might have noted that Arthur Burns made a call for a new International Monetary Fund that duplicated exactly a proposal made by the Trilateral Commission in 1973 in a pamphlet called “Towards a Renovated World Monetary System.” And Richard Cooper, also in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for an international commodity fund to support the prices of Third World raw resources. This also had been discussed in Trilateral pamphlets.

Carter Is Working with America’s Wealthiest Men to Mold a New World Order

These reports that have been dribbling out of Washington are indeed a sign of new times. In the first place, they show that Jimmy Carter has a plan to totally reorient the international order. That he has a plan is in itself a revelation because Carter, unlike Ford, has been working for at least four years with America’s richest men – David Rockefeller, David Packard, Walter Wriston, Alfred Clausen, Michael Blumenthal, Harold Brown and Cy Vance – working for them to put into effect a new order.

A Call for a Complete Change of International Institutions

Secondly, what is surprising is that it is not only the poor, but the rich who are calling for a new order. Indeed, in every aspect, the Trilateral Plan calls for as complete a change in world institutions as the poor nations’ Declaration for a New International Order which was codified in the Sixth and Seventh Special Sessions in the U.N. in 1974 and 1975, and which was updated in February 1976 at the Group of 77 Ministerial Conference in Manila. In short this call for a new order by rich and poor means that something is desperately wrong in the world economic system – a system that exists, but which is totally beyond the ken of most Americans.

The Purpose of this Paper

In this paper, I will try to summarize this history of the world economic order, its major institutions, and how it works. Then I will discuss how it will probably shape up in the future. Lastly, I will briefly touch on the Third World Plan and the Trilateral Plan and then offer my own prescriptions for action....

I believe that America should be involved in a debate over a new order. The Third World debates their plans for a new order widely in their press – and I must confess that I am shocked that we in America are not debating the Trilateral plan. As an American, I am troubled that Jimmy Carter acted as if he were a peanut farmer, and never really told us that he and the Trilateral Commission were planning a new world order. Moreover, I am troubled that we have not had a chance to debate his plans and even to understand the Third World Plan. Nevertheless, as an American I feel it incumbent to raise the debate and I thank God that I can....

The Rise of the World Order

… Let me review briefly the world order as it existed before the first World War and before the second World War, and then how it looked after 1943 to 1971.

The heyday of classical Western imperialism reached its apogee in the days before World War I. Spain, Portugal, Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, the United States and Britain were the major colonial powers, ruling nearly two-thirds of the earth’s surface and 70% of its people.

A Community of Diplomats Who Coordinated Western Policy

As the result of this control by a few capitals of Europe, it was easy to establish a world order, based on the colonial powers. Communications by land, telegraph, and sea were easy. There existed a community of diplomats who knew one another and made coordination of their policy simple.

Economically, these same capitals enjoyed the fruits of trade; colonial products were shipped back to these metropolitan capitals, where they were traded among the rich nations. J.A. Hobson, writing in his book, Imperialism, in 1910 (University of Michigan Press) said that England traded little with its colonies, but gained most of its real trade earnings with other powers. That is trade among the great powers, and not what we call North-South trade, predominated, and Hobson saw that in this sense, trade and not the colonies were the key to imperial wealth.

The Rothchilds Act as the Central Bank of the World Economic System

But Hobson did not truly elaborate the world order, nor did Lenin. What they did not see was that the genius of the system relied on five factors:

1. Free trade that permitted duty-free exchange of goods without discrimination.
2. A banking system, in large measure regulated by the multinational Rothchild Bank, which acted as the Central Bank of the world system.
3. Technology, which gave the Western nations a way to process raw materials for the colonies.
4. Colonial administration which helped develop the colonies into markets for industrial goods.
5. A recognized international monetary system, known as the gold standard, that regulated, not only trade between nations, but which, by its rules, forced every nation to adjust its internal economic policies to conform to the needs of the world system.

These five factors accounted for the nearly peaceful 60 years before World War I. Indeed, so peaceful was this period that it is still the longest period of peace in Europe and the world in modern history.

Events Leading to World War I

The collapse of the system prior to World War I has been told and retold from a marxist, capitalist, ideologist, nationalist, political, economic and sociological point of view. And I will not try to repeat that history here. However, there are several factors that led to the War:

1. The Rise of Technology. At the turn of the century we still lived in a steam and iron age – the age of chemistry, petro-chemistry, electricity, internal combustion engine, aerodynamics and aluminum was just dawning. Two aspects of this technology appear relevant: (a) The first is the fact that the U.S. and Germany, as opposed to France and England1, were now the “technological” powers. (b) The second is that technology no longer depended on the inventor, but was the result of what we now call “research” by organized interdisciplinary teams, primarily in corporations.2
2. The Trade Impact. The U.S. and Germany, by means of superior technology, were not only threatening the markets of Britain and France, but also increasingly invading the markets of Britain and causing balance of payments problems3 which in turn presented problems to the international system of monetary adjustment – problems similar to the recent OPEC crisis.
3. The Resource Impact. Feverish efforts of the British to monopolize resources, culminating in the Boer War and beginning in 1870, were desperate attempts by Britain to control resources, even as she lost the technological edge.
4. The Rise of Russia. Russia in 1910 was on the verge of a major technological breakthrough in resources which threatened not only Germany, but Austria-Hungary and Britain as well. One only has to read the history of India to see how fearful the British were in this period of Russian intervention.
5. The Rise of Japan as a commercial and industrial new power in the East which threatened British holdings.
6. The rumblings of anti-colonial movements in Africa, Asia, and Latin America which, as early as 1857, had questioned the economic underpinnings of the system.

The Years Following World War I

The above factors, from what Barbara Tuchman called the Proud Tower to the Guns of August and to the final quiet on the Western front, led to the final collapse of the pre-1914 world order. For 15 years after World War I, the U.S., Germany, the Soviet Union and Japan were to arise as the paramount world powers. France and Britain were to recede and throughout the colonial world, revolt hung in the air. “The way to Paris and London runs through Delhi and Peking,” said Lenin – and he was almost right. It also went through Newfoundland, Bretton Woods, and Moscow. But that would come later.

Reasons for the Collapse of the Post-World War I Order

In 1926 the world order was reconstituted by a return to the old imperial gold standard and there was

an attempt to erect a new economic order on the old – around gold, free trade, the empires, and technology. But by 1933 the system collapsed.4

The reasons for the collapse of the post-World War I order were several, among which I would like to suggest these:

1. The crushing of Germany. By the terms of Versailles, the Germans had to pay a huge war debt which they could only do by increasing their exports at cut-throat prices – as Keynes said would happen. This export onslaught of superior goods wrecked British trade in the Commonwealth, in Europe, and the U.S.
2. Britain could not pay her own war debt to the U.S. because of a negative balance of trade.
3. The rise of international anarchy. The U.S., Britain, Japan, and Europe all erected self-serving and sometimes discriminatory tariffs that impeded trade and called for retaliation.
4. The continued weakness of Britain and France, technologically, and therefore economically.
5. The continued and unimpeded rise of Japan.
6. The rise of independent but financially weak nations in Central Europe that borrowed excessively.
7. The rise of the Soviet Union.

Tariffs Erected throughout the World

By 1933, Britain had retreated behind its own tariff walls within the empire – imperial preferences, the walls were called. The U.S. sat behind Smoot Hawley Tariffs. Japan, finding tariffs erected everywhere, began to seek access to markets and resources through conquest. And Hitler began to erect walls around Germany and by invading Latin American markets in competition with the U.S.

A Divided Economic World

The result, by the 1930’s, was not a world order, but a completely divided economic world that found itself in total economic warfare.5 One need not dwell on the economic causes of World War II. There are histories available. However, there is a need to go back one step.

A Call for a Universal League of Nations or a World Government

At Versailles, Wilson called for a Universal League of Nations that was based on self-determination. This League was to create a peace-keeping force in the world.

A League of Nations Could Not Exist without a World Economic System

In later years, it was apparent that no League of Nations could exist without an economic system that eliminated trade powers and discrimination. Cordell Hull used to say, “If goods cross borders, no soldiers would.” And therefore there was a need to eliminate the barriers to trade that caused so many of the factors that led to the depression and World War II. What was clear in 1933 was that the League had no powers over trade and therefore was helpless. Because of this, economic war was inevitable. That this was turned into a shooting war also was inevitable.

Lessons Learned in Attempting to Construct a World Government

Despite the fact that the U.S. did not join the League, various men in the U.S. and Britain had learned a number of lessons in the 1930’s.

1. First of all, empires had to go. Not only were liberation movements making them untenable (Gandhi in India, Mao in China, Nkumrah in Ghana), but imperial preferences excluded non-imperial countries such as Germany, the U.S., Japan and Russia from having equal access to markets and resources.
2. There was a need to envision a world of independent states trading with one another within a one-world trading system, based on free trade, free access to resources, and based on some form of international bank. [The above two principles are a combination of the Versailles promise and the economics of free trade of Cordell Hull.]
3. And there was a need to create an international political unit that reflected democratic principles and which would supply the political input to the world order.6

These ideas, summarized as briefly as they are, influenced two groups of thinkers. The first, led by John Maynard Keynes, included Roy Harrod, Denis Robertson, and other economists in London. The second group formed earlier in 1939, and included Sumner Wells, Cordell Hull, Harry Dexter White, Will Clayton and Henry Morgenthau, along with Eddy Bernstein and Leo Pavolsky. Both groups developed their concepts for a new order along similar lines.

An Attempt to Remove English Tariffs

The sequence of events that occurred were as follows:

1. Britain, in the death throes of a major war in 1941, asked for aid from the United States, which was given in the form of lend lease. The aid was given on terms that were to be negotiated later.

The Eastern Establishment Sought to Open the British Empire

Sir Roy Harrod, in his Life of Keynes, and Richard Gardner, in Sterling Dollar Diplomacy, both tell how at the Atlantic Conference in 1941, Cordell Hull tried to have written into the Atlantic Charter a provision that would have made it mandatory to open the British empire to goods from Japan, Germany, France, the U.S., etc., with no tariffs. Churchill, who realized that such a policy would not only allow others free access to imperial raw materials, but also free access of more competitive goods, which would destroy British trade, fought off Hull’s efforts. As a result, the Atlantic Charter did not promise the end of empire as Churchill would say to India independence leaders a few months later.

Opening Up the Colonial Areas to World Trade

Hull, however, was not put off. He did have put in the Atlantic Charter Point 4 which read: “They will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all states, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity.”7

The accent here, which followed Point 3 which called for self-determination, was to open up the colonial areas to world trade.

Churchill Tried to Maintain the British Empire

However, Churchill, who was still fighting for empire, inserted the clause “with due respect to their existing obligations” as a way of defending English “existing obligations” to empire.

But Hull did not suffer defeat gladly and waited for his time.

2. The lend lease negotiations on the terms of settlement for lend lease. This occurred in 1942.

When Congress authorized lend lease in 1941, it did require that the goods be paid for in cash. Indeed, there existed in America and Europe a fear of what war debts could do to the peace.8

Payment to the U.S.

Consequently, Roosevelt was authorized by Congress to accept payment as long as it brought some “benefit to the United States.” He was authorized to accept “payment or repayment in kind or property or any other benefit the President deems satisfactory.”

Attempting to Gain Open Markets for U.S. Goods

Hull had determined that lend lease would be paid for by Britain’s renouncing imperial preferences and, with no qualification, “offer the enjoyment of all states, victors and vanquished, access on equal terms to the trade and raw materials of the world.” He hoped to gain open and free markets for U.S. goods, even if it meant that Britain gave up its empire.

Remission of England’s $60 Billion Debt

At the Lend Lease negotiations in March 1942, Hull had inserted into the agreement Article VII, which demanded “action toward the elimination of all forms of discriminatory treatment in international commerce.” In exchange for this destruction of tariffs, the United States granted England complete remission of its $60 billion dollars of debt.9

The Eastern Establishment’s Work for Removal of Colonial Ties

Article VII sealed the fate of the empire. It was not the only reason empire ended, but it was the main reason it did, for the United States, in the post war era, worked avidly, except in Yemen, for the removal of colonial ties of the French, Dutch and English colonies. Its desire for such removal had to do with trade – or what is known as “access” to trade and raw materials.

The End of the British Empire

For Britain, whatever use the empire was in terms of a monopoly over its trade and resources, now, once and for all, disappeared. Now more competitive U.S. goods would enter the imperial markets, denying wartorn and obsolete British empire what little protection they had; and into the empire would flow American investment, buying up the chrome in Rhodesia, the oil in the Middle East, the diamonds and gold of South Africa. Similarly American capital would soon outweigh British. With the signing of Article VII, the empire ended.

The Inevitable Breakup of the British Empire

There are many who argue that without Article VII, Britain bankrupt and non-competitive, would have lost its empire anyway. Liberations movements, Britain’s own idealism, and the cries for democracy would have led to the fall of empire. All of this is true. But Article VII made the British see that the inevitable had to be faced up to.

International Banks and Multi-national Corporations Would Inherit the Commercial Aspects of the British Empire

For the Americans, they knew that their rich financial resources ($30 billion of gold but overseas debt), their throbbingly alive technology, their superb air, sea, cable and wireless communications would make them the commercial inheritors of the British empire. They would, because of their undeniable economic strength, dominate the colonial areas.

But they would not do so via takeover of the British lands. Rather, they envisioned, faithful to their Wilsonian ideas, the rise of scores of new democratic nations who would welcome American capital and know-how.

A Community of Nations Was Envisioned

Conceptually, they envisioned, not a new empire, but a commonwealth of free and sovereign nations, where trade and not colonial administration linked all the nations of the world. Even Britain knew that they were not ceding the empire to American government, as the Spanish had in Cuba, and the Philippines, but would give their empire to sovereign successor states beyond the rule of the U.S.

The U.S. Was to Rule the New States Indirectly

There are many who argue that the U.S. did not accept the British empire, because the U.S. felt it could rule the new states indirectly, through its command of capital and trade. While there is much truth to this, it is not the whole story. There did exist a strong idealism to American policy that would have prohibited this. Moreover, the United States would, and did, recognize that any nation that developed itself in its own way could do so, e.g., India.

A Global Community Made Up of All Nations

Where the thrust of the neo-colonialist argument has its truth is that the Americans and the British did work very hard to see that the successor states adopted the principles of democratic or monopoly capitalism, but this concern only really appeared after the cold war began. For in 1943, the Soviet Union was invited to belong to both the U.N. and the Bretton Woods system. In short, at the outset, the social system of the new order was viewed as one where all nations could belong.10

A New World Order

The new order predicated by the Atlantic Charter and Lend Lease was one of the rise of many new nations from under the British flag and not a world, as before World War I, administered by a few European imperial powers. Secondly, the world order to be created after the war was designed to avoid the economic warfare that undermined Versailles and led to, and then prolonged, the depression.

Two Worldwide Institutions Were Planned

Two organizations, one primarily political and one organization in the economic field, were contemplated. Both organizations were designed to absorb all new nations into a new world order. And both organizations were to be run by a community of developed nations. The U.N., by a security council of world powers; Bretton Woods by the economic powers.11

85 New Nations Freed Themselves from Colonialism

Over the post-war era, the fruits of Cordell Hull’s efforts saw the United Nations grow from its original 44 to 144. Eighty-five of these were new nations that came to the world forum after freeing themselves from colonialism. By 1960, new Afro-Asian nations constituted a majority of the U.N.

Evolution of Bretton Woods Organizations

A similar event took place in the Bretton Woods organizations. World Bank, IMF, and GATT’s membership climbed by the same numbers and at the same rate.

The New World Order Now in Existence

What became apparent by 1960, when U Thant, a Burmese, became Secretary General of the U.N., was that indeed a new world order had come into existence.

Origin of the Bretton Woods Economic System

The second time the U.S. attempted a world order came in 1943. And Americans were determined not to repeat the error of Versailles by ignoring economics. Indeed, the biggest difference between the League of Nations and the United Nations was that in addition to the U.N. there grew up a truly international order in the economic field that complemented the political order.

Three International Institutions Established Were to Govern a New World Economy

What Bretton Woods did was to define the world economy as one unit based not on the decisions of the financial centers of European imperial powers, but on the basis of three institutions that would deal with each nation that came into existence on a one-to-one basis. The three institutions formed were the IMF, the World Bank, and an international trade organization that evolved into GATT, an institution without a name but with an acronym that stood for General Agreement on Tariff and Trade. Essentially, the IMF, World Bank, and GATT were to make sure that certain rules were followed. Each institution was to monitor different aspects of the system: To oversee this system three organizations were set up: the International Monetary Fund, which monitored exchange rates and provided credits for countries in deficit; the World Bank, which provided a mechanism for loaning capital to war-ravaged Europe and Japan; and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which enforced the most favored nation rules.

Bretton Woods Forced All Nations to Adhere to the Same International Rules

These institutions reinforced one another by ensuring that tariff violators would suffer credit loss, and that currency manipulators would be penalized by higher tariffs against their exports. This system made all nations adhere to the same rules.

Great Expansion of World Trade

The Bretton Woods system created a framework which enabled a tremendous expansion of world trade. Trade increased from the low point of 1945 to nearly $400 billion by 1971. Although most of this trade took place among Western industrialized nations, during the same period developing nations increased their trade to nearly $100 billion.

1. Bretton Woods 1943-1959

For analytic purposes, the Bretton Woods era can be divided into two periods: the period between 1943 and 1959 and the period between 1959 and 1971, when the Bretton Woods agreement ended.

In the first period nearly all the assumptions upon which Bretton Woods was built were shattered. Let us see how this occurred.

The Bretton Woods Agreements Sought to Create a World Economic Government

Assumption #1. Universalism. The Bretton Woods agreements looked to setting up international economic institutions on a universal basis. This meant that it looked to one world where all nations would share in the operations of the institutions including the newly freed colonies, and the communist nations. Universalism died first when Communist nations withdrew from the system, after they had been co-founders as did some developing nations.

Communists withdrew from Bretton Woods

Essentially, the problem lay in ideology. The Bretton Woods institutions were developed by economists from the U.S. and Britain, two capitalist countries, and they depended on capitalist institutional structures such as free trade, wage restraints, fiscal and monetary policies, free investment and capital flows, and economies, unlike the Communists, geared to export. The Communists realized that such a system was inimical to their interests.

The World Divided into Two Competing Systems

Consequently the system broke down in a divided world between two competing systems, Communist and non-Communist systems – Comecon and Bretton Woods. Because of this division there arose a new urgency in the former empire to see that successor regimes to the empire, that is the new nations, joined either the Comecon or Bretton Woods systems.

New Nations Were Faced with Only Two Avenues to Pursue

I would like to emphasize here that this division is not between two competing Imperialisms, that is, between Soviet and the U.S., but rather between which economic system, Bretton Woods or Comecon, each new nation would join. China, North Korea, North Vietnam, Angola and Cuba joined Comecon. The rest, except Tanzania, joined Bretton Woods.

Competition between the Two Systems

It was the decision of each new nation which they would join and both the Soviet Union and the U.S. did their best to see that the officials of the successor regimes favored the world order they preferred.

To the degree that this is neocolonialism then neocolonialism exists. However such a phrase as neocolonialism refers not to old-fashioned colonialism, but, too, can only be understood within the context of the world orders of Bretton Woods and Comecon.

The World Economic Order Is Temporarily Delayed

In any case, by 1947 the assumption of a universal economic order had greatly subsided.

The Equilibrium Concept

Assumption #2. Equilibrium. There is in all western theories of Free Trade, upon which the Bretton Woods institutions were founded, a belief in equilibrium – that is, that all competitive countries in the world market are equally able to export and earn foreign exchange.

Such a concept failed immediately within the system. For war torn Europe and Japan were totally unable to export. We should pause here and explain how the system works.

The Purpose of the International Monetary Fund

A nation that wants to grow economically must be able to export its surplus production. Based on its exports it earns foreign exchange, or foreign money, with which it can buy imports such as raw materials and machinery or consumer goods which it needs from abroad. The IMF was established to help finance the difference between what a country exports and what it imports. That is, if it imports more than it exports, the IMF can step in and give temporary financing to buy what it needs.

U.S. Taxpayers Supported the Bretton Woods System through the Marshall Plan and Foreign Aid to Developing Countries

Faced with war torn, non-competitive Europe and Japan, the IMF did not have the finances to support the payments imbalances of Europe. As a result, the IMF system failed to work, and it was necessary for the United States to supplement the IMF via both Marshall Plan aid to Europe and Japan and foreign aid to developing countries. Such aid went to these countries to give them the capital to buy capital equipment and build up their economies. This aid shored up the Bretton Woods system until 1959. It also kept Europe, Japan, and most of the Third World out of the competing Communist system.

International Economic Cooperation Diminishes National Sovereignty

Assumption #3. Economism. The men who built Bretton Woods, such as Keynes, Harry Dexter White, Cardell Hall and others had a deep understanding that economic matters had the supreme influence on behavior. They did not anticipate the political cues of socialism, social justice, and national sovereignty that arose in the world. In particular, they did not see that an international monetary order would have a direct impact on the freedom of action each nation would have in its own economy. Richard Cooper, a leading economist in the United States, now Undersecretary of State for International Economic Affairs, and a Carter-Trilateralist, summed the issue up succinctly:

“The central problem of International economic cooperation is how to keep the manifold benefits of extensive international economic intercourse free of crippling restrictions while, at the same time, preserving a maximum of freedom for each nation to pursue its legitimate economics objectives.”12

The Carter Administration's Economic Policies Are Based on International Considerations

In political terms, Cooper’s statement means that there is a political-institutional trade-off that affects sovereignty over a nation’s economy when one joins a trading system. Even the United States is subject to this discipline (see the March 1977 hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Richard Cooper explains how the Carter stimulus package was based previously on international considerations and not on what is good for the American people).

The IMF Has Forced Small Nations to Obey International Rules

For an idea how the IMF has forced nations to obey international rules in their economies see Cherl Rayer, The Debt Trap. She explains how the rules of trade affect national sovereignty.

Therefore, because of this effect, the Bretton Woods Planners lost sight of political and social aspirations which caused a serious breakdown in the system. Nations resented outside interference,13 and said so. This particularly occurred in India, Indonesia, Tanzania, Brazil and Mexico.14

2. Bretton Woods 1959-1971

After the war torn countries of Europe and Japan regained their economic strength, the Bretton Woods system came into it. What had been a U.S. run system in the 1950’s evolved into a full-fledged world order with strict international rules in the sixties. Indeed in the sixties the U.S. lost its economic position as the dollar fell in value and as Germany and Japan grew in strength.

Reasons for the Major Economic Crisis in 1964

The system posed a major crisis however by 1964.  The crisis stemmed from a number of factors which I will explain below:

1. The U.S. was rapidly easing its competitive  position. Between 1960 and 1971, the U.S. imported more than it could sell abroad, losing as a result most of its gold stock. Indeed in 1964, 1967, and 1968, Japan and Germany had to step in and bail the U.S. out.15

2. The rise of Europe and Japan openly challenged U.S. leadership.

3. The continual disequilibrium of the Third World made the system top heavy and unable to keep exporting markets.

4. The inability of the system to replace gold of the U.S. dollar as a universal currency.

5. The need to expand the system to include Comecon.

By August 15, 1971, the system collapsed.16 The U.S. devalued the dollar, raised import duties, nations, shocked our allies, and ended the rules.

The Rise of OPEC

Had we lived in the days of empire and not in the days of world order, neither Japan or Germany would have been able to rise from the ashes to challenge U.S. supremacy, nor would Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Brazil and Mexico have been able to compete in the world market. But these nations did rise, taking away traditional markets for textiles, electronics, autos, pocket calculators, shoes, etc. But surely in the days of empire no OPEC would have been possible. But without imperial power, there was no way to stop OPEC from fixing prices. OPEC – the rise of 16 developing nations – shattered any and all illusions of empire and neocolonialism and found these nations now acting as creditors to the West. Indeed not a day goes by without another appeal from Washington asking the OPEC nations to prop up the IMF and World Bank.

The Rise of Other Cartels

The rise of OPEC raised other cartels in tin, coffee, cocoa, and aluminum, all of which have in the past two years raised prices more than OPEC. The success of these cartels have resulted in other negotiations for tea, copper, chrome, and other minerals.17

An Era of World Order Politics

These new cartels could only have arisen in the context of World Order and not empire, and it is my contention that based on the rise of OPEC, the cartels, and Brazil, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore as major competitors to the U.S. are proof positive that imperialism is dead and that we are living in the era of World Order. Further the collapse of the system is proof positive that this occurred and that anyone who still raises the language of imperialism has the same relevance to today’s world as lightning rod salesmen.

Since 1943 Two International Economic Systems Have Existed on Planet Earth

Since Bretton Woods two systems have existed on the planet – a communist system and the IMF, World Bank, GATT system. Both are international systems not held up as extensions of any one nation.

Secondly, those systems have rather amazingly permitted a tremendous growth of trade in the world.

Failure of the Comecon System

Thirdly, the Comecon system has failed because of a lack of technological renovation which has forced them to open to the West where they now trade. The Bretton Woods system failed because of the rise of Japan and Germany which challenged U.S. leadership and the rise of competitive Third World nations.

Breakdown of Bretton Woods Rules

Fourth, since August 15, 1971, we have lived in a world with no world order and agreed set of rules.

Fifth, this review of history has been carried out to convince you that imperialism by a single nation is a concept that is dead.

The Dawn of a New World Order

Lastly, this review should hint that a new world order is dawning.

Before describing the new order, let me make some further points.

Understanding Interdependence

Any discussion of the future, especially discussion of resources and growth, must account for interdependence. But to understand interdependence we must understand how interdependence is translated from theories into reality. The world economic system is the mediation point of interdependence. All goods, all labour, all technology is translated into economic terms by the system. Both Capitalists and Communists agree to this.

A System of Global Economic Rules Devised by Designing Men

This world economic system, devised by monopoly capitalists, carries out these functions, not through the invisible hand of the market, as would occur in a genuine state of free trade, but through institutions and rules that are made by these men. The world economic order is a system of rules established by men to achieve their own ends. Consequently, how these institutions function depends on what ends the system is to achieve. The IMF, World Bank, GATT, the cartels, even national economic policies are man-made, and as such how they are shaped will affect the environment, scarce resources, wages, prices, technology, jobs, etc. They will affect all of our lives: Thus interdependence is not a static term but a dynamic one which challenges our efforts to understand its aims. In the final analysis what interdependence means will be dependent on the meaning various influential and powerful men give it.

The World Economic System Is Crucial to Our Future

At present, trade between nations equals 1,000 billion dollars. Two out of six jobs in America count on foreign trade. 40% of all the corporate profits are earned overseas. 40% of the world’s food supply is monitored by trade. 80% of the world’s oil, copper,  coffee, chrome, and steel is allocated by the world trading system and no discussion of resources like the club of Rome or of population by the zero population groups can take place without reference to how the world system functions. Indeed all such discussions on resources and population depend on the world economic system, and not vice versa. Therefore, the world economic system is crucial to our future, more crucial than any ideology that we now have.

A Supranational Agency Which Supervises Each National Economy

Moreover, we are talking of an international system that will rule how each national economy will function. That means a supranational agency supervising each national economy. At present, the IMF has the power to tell each nation how to run its economy.18

An Example of IMF Power

Last December, the IMF told Britain to reduce government spending, raise taxes, freeze wages, and the IMF posted an observer in Britain to supervise the economy.19

Similarly, on January 7th the Wall Street Journal reported: “Negotiations are continuing on a standing credit from the IMF… The purpose (after negotiations) is to have strict IMF control over the country’s economic policies to reassure international lenders.”

Documentation of IMF Interference with Individual Economies

IMF interference with internal economies can be documented.20 These policies include demands on national governments to control prices, wages, and interest rates at IMF approved levels. They also call for reducing welfare payments, and increasing exports, for building dams instead of helping farmers, etc. Because of this supranational control of nations, who runs the IMF, World Bank, and GATT runs one world and its resources and this issue is critical to how the future shapes up.

Two Plans for World Order

At present two plans for world order are now before the public. The first is the call for a new international economic order put forth by the Third World.21 The second is the plan put forward by the Trilateral Commission, as mentioned above.22

Both plans have been created to deal with the crisis in the Bretton Woods system in August 1971. Both plans deal with the same problems. Both express the viewpoints of their creators: The rich nations and the poor nations.

There is no Communist plan that I know of… It should be noted that China supports the Third World plan.

General Principles of Both Plans

Both plans intend to deal with the famous three problems of Bretton Woods – equilibrium, universalism, and economism.

An Eventual Merger with the Comecon System

First off, both the Third World plan and the Trilateral plan call for incorporation of the Comecon system into the world order. Indeed, both plans not only call for this incorporation, but are sensitive to the needs of Soviet trade.23

Secondly, both plans account for the disequilibrium that exists between rich and poor nations.

And thirdly, political, as well as economic, factors are considered.24

Finally, both plans take account of resources, population, food, pollution, and other factors affecting the planetary economy.

The Third World Plan

It is essential to first of all spell out what the Third World plan is not. The Third World plan is not a call by poor nations to punish former colonial powers. In recent weeks there has been an attempt to label the New International Order as radical position by Professors Bauer and Yaney in Commentary Magazine in April, and by George Mosse in the Sunday New York Times on May 1. Such attacks are unwarranted and false.25 The Third World plan makes equal demands on communist and capitalist countries; that is, on all rich countries and not just on Western countries.

Two Groups of Third World Nations

Secondly, it is crucial to introduce to American listeners the fact that there are two groups of Third World nations.26 The first is the non-aligned nations which expresses itself in totally Marxist language.27 The second group is the Group of 77 which was founded in 1964 by Roul Prebisch, the first Secretary General of UNCTAD, and which deals in non-Marxist, non-capitalist Third World language,28 that deals with the issues of the world order.

Current Regimes in the Third World

It should be noted that the current regimes of the Third World are children, for the most part, of Bretton Woods. They grew up, not in the days of empire, but in the days of world order. Consequently they have addressed that order as a totally different reality from empire. Indeed, they treat the order as a man-made system that can be altered.

The Sovereign Nation Is the Economic Building Block of the World Order

Moreover, unlike Westerners who talk about the world order as the monopoly capitalist order, the Third World sees the world order as a supranational agency that regulates the trade of nations – not business. To the Third World, all nations are independent economic units, working in a community of nations subscribing to the same rules. They see the world order as a compact, not as a world dominated by rich nations. In their eyes the sovereign nation is the economic building block of the world order. And further, they believe that the nation has the right to establish its economic units on a capitalist, laissez-faire, Christian Commonwealth, socialist, Gandhian, or communist basis, as each nation chooses.

Consequently, their idea of a world order does not, as did Bretton Woods, include the need for monopoly capitalism. Because of this, they do not see the need to interpret interdependence as integrated capitalism.29

The Main Aspects of the Third World Plan

If they do have a prejudice, it would be stated as follows: The continued prosperity of the planetary order demands that current disequilibrium that exists in the world order between rich and poor be eliminated – so that both rich and poor benefit through the obvious fact that trade between rich nations is always greater than trade between poor nations. In other words, they take J.A. Hobson’s early argument against imperialism (see above) and turn it around – if the poor are rich then they can buy more from the rich. In a nutshell, that is their argument.

A Blueprint for a New World Economic Order

What is heartbreaking about the Third World program is that they have had a blueprint for a new international economic order since 1964.30 In 1968 and 1972 they pushed for this new order at the quadrennial United Nations Conferences on Trade and Development to no avail, as Western economists simply dismissed their calls, or refused to understand their position.31 As a result, when the system broke down in 1971, no Western country had a plan to rebuild the system. And it was not until 1972 when Brookings Institution formed its Tripartite Committee that the plan became real – and not until 1973 with the Trilateral Commission’s founding that hard work was done – and it was not completed until January 1976.

The Economic and Business Community Condemned the Group of 77 Plan

As a result, when, in 1974, with the full power of OPEC behind them, the Group of 77 forced passage of the New International Economic Order through the Sixth Special Session of the U.N., the U.S. and the West were in disarray, and could only reply by sputtering that the Third World was a “tyrannical majority.” For they had in 1974, 1975, and 1976 no plan that matched, in breadth and scope, the revision of the system.32 And lacking such a plan, and unable to enunciate the truth to the American people, they condemned the Third World plan, without even spelling it out. And this is not the fault of Nixon, but of the economic and business community who were unprepared and therefore allowed the world economy to totter throughout 1974 and 1975 until the present without a plan.

Summary of the Third World Plan

Therefore it is worthwhile to integrate in a summary form what the Third World plan is.

Under Bretton Woods the rule of the game was exports – unless a nation could export, a nation could not buy the technology, machinery, skills, or raw resources one needed. The basic rule was that economic growth depended on exports. Nations like Japan and Germany, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, to name a few, understood that export-led growth was the only way to grow. Indeed, most of these nations disregarded economic textbooks like Paul Samuelson’s, which most American students were trained on, and read the works of Third World economists Sir Roy Harrod and James Tobin of Yale.33 Indeed, on January 7, in the Wall Street Journal, Walter Heller took Americans to task for not concentrating on foreign trade as a path to growth. “Not many Americans seem to be aware that in dollar volume, total export demand now equals business fixed investment. The level of foreign demand for U.S. exports now is as important as the level of plant and equipment spending.” What this means is that exports are also more important than defense in keeping full employment.

Underplaying the Importance of Exports

This importance of exports has been underplayed in U.S. economic thinking and most U.S. economists stress new investment or defense, or public works as spurs to investment.

Two John Maynard Keynes

Third World thinkers do not. They realize that there are two John Maynard Keynes. The first wrote what we in America call Keynesianism – the second Keynes, the Keynes of Bretton Woods, advocated exports. But Keynes died too soon after Bretton Woods and did not revise his views and only those nations who grew up under Bretton Woods understood the reasons.

The reason was that in the 1930s Keynes believed in imperial preferences and wrote his General Theory in a world without free trade. In 1944, at Bretton Woods, he changed the ground rules, and therefore deficit spending, public works and other concepts like the Phillips curve died, to be replaced by trade.34

The Third World Studied the Rules of World Trade

Recognizing the role of trade in helping their economies grow, the Third World studied how the rules and regulations of world trade worked. The result of their study showed the following:

1. Technology was all in the hands of the rich nations.35

2. Rich nations put no tariffs on raw materials but placed high tariffs on finished goods, i.e., no tariffs on Chilean copper, but high tariffs on Chilean copper wire, so that Chile could not manufacture and sell its wire.

3. Rich nations, by means of tariffs and quotas, restricted imports of textiles and shoes.

4. The IMF and World Bank did not have the resources to transfer capital to poor nations.

5. Prices of raw materials, which constituted 70% of Third World trade, were not increasing as fast as the prices of goods they bought from the West.

6. 93% of all manufacturing took place in rich countries and…

7. While per capita income increased by $2000 in the rich countries, it only increased by $120 in poor countries between 1950 and 1970 – the years of Bretton Woods.

Recommendations of the Third World

To remedy this situation the Third World recommended (1) revising the rules of GATT and permitting a fund to be established to support the prices of raw materials and (2) having rich nations lower tariff barriers, so that the poor nations could earn more from what they presently export. With these extra earnings they wanted to expand their export and manufacturing capabilities for which they needed access to Western technology, and a more viable World Bank and IMF to provide the capital they needed.

A 1964 Proposal to Revise Bretton Woods

The result of all this is to totally revise GATT, the World Bank and IMF to meet their needs and the needs of the rich nations. In other words, as early as 1964 they had a plan to revise Bretton Woods.

Economic Rights and Duties of States

In addition, they passed a document called the Economic Rights and Duties of States in December 1974, in the U.N., which assured that no new IMF and World Bank could dominate their lives.

And finally they, by stressing trade, became full, active and respectable partners in the world system. Their achievement is not to be sneezed at and they deserve full credit.36

The Trilateral Plan

The events of 1971 are what woke up the West. In 1971 Larry Krause of Brookings Institution wrote a pamphlet called “A New Bretton Woods.” He recognized that attempts to patch the system, as at Washington in December 1971 and at the Smithsonian in 1972, were bound to fail.

A Call for Rapid Integration or a Merger of Advanced Countries

Shortly after his pamphlet, thinkers at Brookings took note of a work by Zbigniew Brzezinski who called for rapid integration into a “community of developed nations,” made up of the rich nations of Europe and Japan and North America. Brzezinski, recognizing America’s waning relative strength, saw that while the U.S. could no longer lead by itself, the democracies of the West could join together. He wrote of this community in Between Two Worlds and in a book about Japan called The Fragile Blossom.

The Brookings Institution Issued Tripartite Reports

Brzezinski’s ideas were picked up in late 1971 and were translated into a group of pamphlets known as “tripartite reports” issued by Brookings. These reports were working reports, prepared by scholars from Japan, North America and Western Europe.

David Rockefeller Proposed the Trilateral Commission at a Bilderberg Meeting

Based on these reports and Brzezinski’s influence in 1973, David Rockefeller broached the idea of a private group to establish a Trilateral Commission, made up of businessmen from Europe, Japan and the U.S. He made his proposal at Bilderberg, where annually the world’s richest men meet to discuss their problems. He received support and founded the Commission in 1973, with Brzezinski as full-time director. Two of the first private members were Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale.

Blueprint for a Renovated International System

And over the next three years, a full plan evolved into a complete program for redoing the world order.37

The Relationship between Carter and Multinational Leaders

The relationship between Carter and Rockefeller has never been fully told, but it is deep,38 but so are Jimmy’s relationships to heads of EXXON, Mitsubishi, Bendix, CBS, Time Magazine, Nippon Steel, Seimens, Hewlett Packard and other of the 100 corporations listed as members of the Commission. What is certain is that Jimmy is a puppet of trilateralism.

A Unique Global Perspective

Their plan has several rather kinky quirks to begin with:

1. The plan is not written from the point of view of either the rich nations or the poor nations. It is written from the point of view of the multinational companies.39 There is nothing wrong with this except that multinational companies have a unique global perspective which may or may not be of help to the man on the street.

The Assault on National Sovereignty

2. The Trilateral Plan is a total assault on sovereignty. Fred Bergsten, now Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and a Trilateralist, said that the world needs a “custodian” to protect the sovereignty of nations “whose real sovereignty has fallen further than their nominal sovereignty ever will.” Richard Cooper wrote in “Toward a Renovated International System,” a Trilateral pamphlet, that “heads of state and people of all nations continue to live in a world that no longer exists – a world of separate nations.” And a Trilateral pamphlet written in 1973, “The Crisis of the International Cooperation,” calls for two supranational commissions to “coordinate” the political and economic affairs of the Trilateral nations. These assaults on sovereignty were made official at the London Conference, where “machinery” was set up to force national compliance.40 In addition, the Commission favors complete surveillance of national economies through the IMF.41

Consequently, not since Kennedy tried to call for an “Atlantic fleet” has such an attack on national sovereignty been perpetrated.

A Complete Retreat from Multilateralism

3. In addition, the Trilateral Plan calls for a complete retreat from multilateralism. In their pamphlets “Toward a Renovated International System” and “A Renovated Trade System,” the authors call for the top 10 industrial nations to decide how to form both the IMF and GATT, proclaiming that big meetings on a multinational basis are too difficult to manage. Indeed, implied in all Trilateral thinking is the idea that the rich nations are the only ones who can decide the fate of the new order.

Disregard for True Principles of Human Rights

4. Included in all Trilateral thinking as well is human rights. Human rights does not mean either democracy or social justice to trilateralists. In a bill sponsored by Chairman Ruess of the House Banking Committee and by Jimmy Carter, “human rights” were defined as the use of torture and prolonged illegal detention. Nowhere in Carter-Trilateral documents are there any references to democracy, social justice, property rights or rights listed in the U.S. Bill of Rights. This means dictators are all right as long as they don’t torture people.42

Proposals of the Trilateral Plan

With these provisos in mind, let us turn to the proposals.

Like the Third World, the Trilateral Plan is trade oriented. Like their plan, it is based on Keynes’ Number 2. Like the Third World, the Commission is in favor of incorporating the communist nations into the rich nation bloc, as well as other advanced nations (Brazil, Iran, Saudi Arabia) and, like the Third World, the Commission is calling for commodity supports,43 lower tariffs,44 etc.

Little-Known Goals of the Trilateral Commission

There are some things the Commission wants that may be not known. The Commission wants a GATT for Investment to guarantee private investment. It wants an international resource bank to guarantee mineral mines and oil companies; it wants stronger patent laws; it wants the IMF to share all its knowledge on national economies with private banks. In short, not only are the rich nations to share in all this, but the rich corporations are to receive guarantees they never had before. For example, they want the IMF to be a world central bank to be able to act as bank of last resort backing up multinational banks who have leant over $52 billion to poor nations.45 And they want the World Bank to lend more to help the poor nations pay back those debts.46 In short, nearly every proposal of the Commission represents multinational businesses and a furthering of giant monopolies throughout the world.

The Two Plans

In a presentation like this, it is crucial to be aware that the two plans have distinct points of view. The question is whether the multinational approach or the Third World approach is the better way.

My own feeling is that the Third World approach is the better of the two. However we should not preclude the formation of other proposals for establishing a true and just world order which may develop. My reasons are as follows.

The World Is Tired of Trilateral Governance

1. The world is frankly tired of the rich nations pretending they have all the wisdom in the world. The Third World has had 30 years of doing it our way and I’m not sure they can take more.47

The Need to Work Openly and Fairly on a Multilateral Basis

2. We have to recognize the need to work openly and fairly on a multilateral basis. We have a right to our point of view, but not a right to impose our point of view. Surely better parliamentary skills would allow the world to work on a multilateral way.

Difficulty of the Multinational Viewpoint

3. The multinational viewpoint is not, and should not, be the American viewpoint. There are thousands of workers48 who have lost jobs because of foreign competition; many plants are built overseas to escape American wages and regulations, many multinational banks siphon off U.S. savings to be invested overseas. We need to see who will protect American workers and we have to stop blaming Mexicans for taking our jobs when multinationals take them overseas.

Disregard for National Sovereignty in Trilateral Thinking

4. The issue of sovereignty has not been debated in America and is belittled in Trilateral thinking. The Third World plan insures national sovereignty.

Disregard for Real Human Rights in Trilateral Thinking

5. I simply do not believe, despite the Commission’s concern with “human rights,” that there is any concern with social change or social justice or for democracy in the Third World. After Vietnam, which was run by Trilateralists all the way (Cy Vance and Harold Brown were hawks), I cannot believe that I ever want to entrust my political soul to technocrats. I trust the Third World even more.

Trilateralists Favor Population Control, Etc.

6. The Trilateralists are triagists, close to John Rockefeller, Garrett Harding and Paul Ehrlich. The Third World plan is based on Colin Clark and eschews triage and population control.

For all these reasons, I feel that the Third World plan is obviously the better of the two approaches if for no other reason than to stir a deep debate in this country.

Some Serious Questions for Consideration

Our integrity is at stake! Our sovereignty is at stake! And lastly, do we want to try a third time to build a world, like at Versailles and at Lake Success and Bretton Woods, only this time with the people who gave us Vietnam? And do we want to live in a world where forces beyond the purview of Congress can set our economic future? Why not wait until we have a world government that can police the system?

The questions are deep and deserve debate.

What We Can Expect in the Future

We can expect, as the result of the clash of these two plans, to see the following, barring complete collapse of the system or war, a world dominated by:

1. A World Federal Reserve Bank – mostly the IMF, which will be able to create its own currency,49 acting as the bank of last resort and incorporating the following institutions:

a. An aid-dispensing bank coordinating all aid through a central organ.

b. A bank to finance deep sea resource development.

c. A bank to guarantee international mining companies who will share profits and technology with poor nations.

d. A fund to support the prices of raw materials, using prices to regulate consumption.

2. A new world trade organization that will regulate corporate activities, trademarks and patents, as well as tariffs and rules for commodity sales.

3. An institutionalized economic parliament, much like the CIEC talks (North-South Dialogue) or like the EEC, that will set monetary and trade policy based on a world trade budget and world development budget. This economic summit will control national and international politics.

Through this institution, decisions on wealth, technology and trade will be made that control all economic activity and national resources. It will be controlled by technocrats.

Such an institution will dominate economics – and a new subject, the “economics of world order,” will begin.

4. Finally, we can expect to see a world state evolve possibly consisting of a merger of the U.S., the E.E.C., Japan and the USSR.

Notes

1 References to this era that might be helpful are:

a. Donald Schon, Technology and Change.

b. Christopher Freeman, The Economics of Industrial Innovation.

c. Brodus Mitchell, Ph.D., L.H.D., Postscripts to Economic History.

d. William A. Williams, The Contours of American History and The Tragedy of American Diplomacy.

e. Clark Kerr, et al, Industrialism and Industrial Man.

f. Joseph Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development.

g. Jacques Elul, Technological Society.

h. Christopher Hill, Reformation to Industrial Revolution.

i. Michael Barrat Brown, The Economics of Imperialism.

2 In addition to the above, see Geoffrey Barraclough’s Essays in Contemporary History.

3 See Michael Barrat Brown.

4

a. Roy Harrod, The Life of Keynes.

b. J.M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace.

c. Henry Chamberlain, America’s Second Crusade.

d. Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz, The Great Contraction.

e. A.J.P. Taylor, English History 1914-1945.

f. Asher, et al, Bretton Woods Revisited.

g. Richard Gardner, Sterling Dollar Diplomacy.

5 See especially Sir Roy Harrod’s Life of Keynes for a description of this era.

6 Ibid, and the following:

a. Rollo Keynes, Essays on John Maynard Keynes.

b. Asher, et al, Bretton Woods Revisited.

c. Mason, et al, The World Bank.

d. Robert Solomon, IMF, 1943 thru 1976.

e. Robert Gardner and Max Milliken, Global Partnership.

f. Robert Gardner, Sterling Dollar Diplomacy.

7 Ernest Bevin, The Balance Sheet of the Future, p. 19.

8 J.M. Keynes, How We Must Pay for the War and The Economic Consequences of the Peace. “The existence of war debts is a menace to peace everywhere.”

9 Richard Gardner, Sterling Dollar Diplomacy.

10 Sir Roy Harrod, The Life of Keynes.

11 Gardner and Milliken, Global Partnership.

12 Richard Cooper, The Economics of Interdependence.

13 Z.A. Bhutto, The Myth of Independence.

14 Also see Jeremiah Novak, International Institutions and Third World Elites; Richard Stauffer, The Refeudalization of the Philippines; The works of Sarmin Ali.

15 Joyce Kolko, America and the Crisis of World Capitalism; Robert Solomin, The IMF 1945-1976; L.H. Officer, The International Monetary System; Robert V. Roosa, The Crisis of World Liquidity.

16 See William Safire, Before the Fall, for an interesting chapter on August 15.

17 See letter in Asia Mail, May 1977.

18 Arthur Burns’ speech to Columbia Business School, April 12, 1977.

19 Wall Street Journal, January 30 and 31; Washington Post, November 14, 1976; articles by Henry Fairlie, Hobart Rowan and editorial.

20 IMF Press releases 1 to 30, 1977.

21 Jeremiah Novak articles:

a. “The Tyrannical Majority,” Manichi Daily News, March 27, 1976, and after (7-part series).

b. Washington Post, 5 articles beginning May 1976.

c. “Third World Plank,” Asian Finance.

d. “Trilateralization,” Asia Mail, April 1977.

e. “Third World Reaction,” Christian Science Monitor, March 7, 1977.

f. “Third World,” February 16, 1977.

22 Jeremiah Novak articles:

a. “Trilateralism,” America Magazine, February 5, 1977.

b. “New World Order,” a paper given at University of Wisconsin, February 26, 1977.

c. “Trilateralism,” Christian Science Monitor, January 12, February 7, February 14, and 15, 1977.

d. “Trilateralism,” The Atlantic Monthly, July 1977.

e. “Trilateralism,” Asia Mail, May 1977.

23 See 14 Trilateral pamphlets available from the Trilateral Commission, Suite 7, 345 East 46th Street, New York, New York 10017. For the Group of 77’s position, see UNCTAD Documents T/D 183 to 195, May 1976, Nairobi.

24 See Crisis of Democracy, Triangle Press, 1976, by the Trilateral Commission and NYU Press; Speech by Gamani Corea, IVth UNCTAD Conference, Nairobi, May 1976.

25 See about-to-be-published letter in Commentary from Jeremiah Novak.

26 See Jeremiah Novak, “The Tyrannical Majority,” and Asia Finance, March 1976.

27 See the Lima Declaration, nonaligned nations publications.

28 Third World language is a combination of native ideologies, Muslim, Gandhian, Sukarnoian, Huseinian, which expresses a whole spectrum of beliefs. Not limited by narrow proxism and not controlled by the West, this language speaks a new message.

29 Based on conversations with Gamani Corea, Secretary General of UNCTAD; Alfredo Vargas, chief Commodity Negotiator of Venezuela; Domingo Saizon, Philippines representative at UNIDO. For some interesting outlooks on this concept, see Gunnar Myrdal, Beyond the Welfare State and An International Economy. Also see Richard Cooper, The Economics of Interdependence, and Jeremiah Novak, remarks in The Atlantic Monthly, July 1977.

30 Roul Prebish, “Toward a New International Order,” UNCTAD I, Geneva, 1964, and Jeremiah Novak, “The Tyrannical Majority.”

31 At UNCTAD IV in Nairobi last May, U.S. officials (Robert Ryan, Paul Bocher and Jacob Myerson) confessed that they had not read the Manila Declaration of January 1976, which was the most up-to-date statement of the Group. One man admitted that he had never read the agreement.

32 Jeremiah Novak in The Atlantic Monthly, July 1977.

33 See Sir Roy Harrod, International Economics and Life of Keynes. For a discussion of how the Tobin model works, see “International Institutions and Third World Elites” by Jeremiah Novak, a paper presented at the South Asia Institute at the University of Wisconsin, November 5, 1976; and see Jeremiah Novak, “The Silent Revolution in India,” Asia Mail, December and January, 1976 and 1977.

34 Harrod, Life of Keynes. Also see “Is Keynes Dead?” Wall Street Journal, January 31, 1976, and May 9, 1976.

35 T/D 190, UNCTAD IV, Nairobi.

36 All references to the Third World Plan are given above. See Jeremiah Novak, Asian Finance, and T/D 190 to 195, UNCTAD IV, Nairobi.

37 Larry Krause, International Politics and World Economics, and Richard Cooper, A Reordered World, as well as the Tripartite and Trilateral papers are relevant. Two journals, The Atlantic Community and Foreign Policy, are good places for beginners to check footnotes.

38 Jeremiah Novak, The Atlantic Monthly, July 1977. Carter’s connection to oil companies was written up in New Times, May 13, 1977, by Robert Shrum.

39 Richard Barnet, Global Reach, p. 209. See also Geoffrey Barraclough in New York Review of Books, 1974, 1975.

40 New York Times, p. 1, May 9, 1976.

41 IMF Press Release 77/31. See also Arthur Burns, April 12 speech on surveillance, noted above, and Fred Bergsten’s speech on April 15 at the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs.

42 For a discussion of this issue, see Congressional Record, April 5, HR 5662. For other political opinions of the Commission see Jeremiah Novak, America, February 5, 1977, and Atlantic Monthly. See also Bruce Teeple, “The Collegean,” an article not yet published.

43 Richard Cooper, testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 20 and before the House Banking Committee, April 1.

44 New York Times, London Communique, May 9, 1977, p. 12.

45 Arthur Burns, speech on April 12.

46 Jeremiah Novak, “Third World Debt,” to be published in Christian Science Monitor.

47 Leonard Silk, New York Times, May 9, 1977.

48 Daniel Moynihan, speech on April 12, 1977, in the garment area. See New York Times, April 13 and 14, 1977, for reports and debate on the 14 by J. Reston.

49 See Manila Declaration, T/D 183, UNCTAD, May 1976, Nairobi; and Richard Cooper, “Toward a Renovated International Monetary System.”