The politics dominate the economy, elements of a different theory of the power, Theory of the Political Supremacy

Aerial view of the Capitol Hill [1]
The economics is not an autonomous discipline. It is subordinated to the politics. The most important economic decisions ---in all the countries--- are adopted by the politicians, this means, by the governments and not by the economists neither the economic sectors.
For example, the basic economic decision, that is the type of economic model that each society choose ---Free Market, Mixed Economy, Socialism or Communism--- is decided by the political factors of the countries. Obviously, they are influenced by the economic factors but these do not determine the definitive course of the economic policy.
The political factors ---governments and political parties-- represent the most powerful sectors of each society; they are the first power followed by the armed forces, the economic sectors, the mass media and the workers. Those are the real power of the society. They determine the composition of the formal powers.
After the political factors, the military power is the most important in all the societies: in the democratic advanced countries and in the rest of the political systems. It is hypocrisy to say other thing. In a first impression this seems not be true but in the reality that is the true. The following example illustrates very well this appreciation.
I remember to have read how ---in the days before the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941--- Washington warned to the Pacific Ocean Fleet about the imminence of the war. In the final days of November of that year the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, said to the Secretary of War, Stimson that he had abandoned the negotiations with Japan and that since that moment the situation would be in the hands of the military forces. [2]
What means this? This means that Hull recognized that the time of the politics and the diplomacy had ended and the time of war was beginning.
In the democratic societies normally the armed forces do not participate in the politics. But an opinion of the armed forces in regard to any important affair is something that the structure of power can not disdain.
How the politics dominate the economy?
The laws of the economy are intellectual abstractions because in the reality the politics determines all the economic behavior in all the types of economic regimes.
The politicians, it means, the political parties and governments, are who decide the big economic policies; those are:
- The monetary policy (the value of the currency and the amount of liquidity in the economy)
- The financial policy (rates of interest)
- The fiscal policy (taxes, exemptions, including the bailouts to the banks)
- The commercial policy (regime of imports and exports)
- Wages Policy (minimum salary)
- Policy of prices (control or not)
- Agricultural policy
- Industrial policy
- Energetic policy
- Environment policy
The question is: what does really decide the private economy?
All the laws and rules that determine the economic behavior are decided by the governments. In consequence, the economy is a dependent discipline which laws and action in last instance depends of the politics factors.
Conclusion: these concepts might be the elements of a different theory of the power: the Theory of the Political Supremacy.
[1] Photo source: Commons.wikimedia.org/Wiki/file:aerial_view_o…
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms ofTitle 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code. See Copyright.

[2] Daniel Yergin. La Historia del Petróleo. Page 428. Javier Vergara Editor. Buenos Aires 1992.

Difference between underdevelopment and poverty, how the mass media can promote the development

This is a common scene in the undeveloped countries. You can observe the different kind of cars; it reveals that that is not a poor community.

The poverty is the material scarcity; essentially, the lack of money, infrastructure, employment and natural resources.

The underdevelopment is other thing. The underdevelopment is the lack of basic education, but not of scholarly or academic education, no. It is the absence of the education that come from the family, the moral and the religion; the ignorance of the basic norms of life.

The development is an attitude toward the life. A poor nation is not necessarily an undeveloped nation. The poverty does not mean underdevelopment. There are poor but developed nations. In change, there are rich ---in terms of money-- but undeveloped countries. The difference between both is the concepts previously expressed.

In all the nations coexists developed and undeveloped sectors of the population. But in the undeveloped countries the last one is the majority. I would like to illustrate with some concrete examples the difference between one and other.

The main characteristic of the undeveloped societies is the ignorance or disdain for the basic rules of life.

For example, they do not respect the environment. It is common to see how the people walk and lead its dogs by the streets without chains, muzzles and the worse is that they do not pick up the excrement of its pets. You can appreciate this type of situations in many streets in many undeveloped nations.

Neither, they do not know or do not respect the essentials norms of health. It is also often to observe how the people sneeze or cough and do not cover its mouth; spite in any place; do not wash its hands with regularity, do not maintain the restrooms clean and do not follow the rules of food hygiene. The consequence is a high level o infectious illness.

The aggression to the environment is ever present. For example, in the undeveloped societies the peasants cut down the trees and burn the agricultural lands because they think that in this form they can obtain best harvests. The outcome is the contrary.

In the cities the controls regarding the autos and trucks contamination are very weak and the authorities do not make serious efforts to impose it.

The garbage is the other great problem. Usually you can appreciate it in the streets because the people throw the waste and, moreover, the systems of recollection are not effective. The garbage is not selected in plastics, glass or organic.

The industries throw their pollutants to the atmosphere or direct to the rivers, lakes and seas.

The deforestation is something ordinary and the people cut the trees without restrictions.

These situations happen exclusively not only in the undeveloped nations. Some of them also occur in the developed countries. For example, the industrial countries are the main generators of the dioxide of carbon emissions, principal cause of the climatic change. Other nations as China have the world record of the waters contamination.

The concepts previously mentioned reveals two aspects:

a) That the underdevelopment is not only an economic problem but essentially a cultural and educative challenge.

b) That for tackle the underdevelopment problem it is necessary to carry out a deep process of change in some negative custom that survive in the countries population. The mass media, and especially the radio and television, are the adequate channels for reaching the objectives of the development. They may be used for promoting a new culture of respect to the environment and in the promotion of habits of health, among other priorities. This is a form of creating a best world.

The responsibility in the creation of this kind of projects is essentially of the international agencies of development, as United Nations and the World Bank. Of course the governments of the countries has too a responsibility but it is necessary that an international institution assume the responsibility of coordinating the initiative.

In the next article I will explain what type of campaigns might be realized through the world mass media for promoting the development, protect the environment and create new habits of health.

Economic dimension of the ecological employments, a way for fighting against the poverty and the climate change

The creative capacity, the imagination, is the most important. Through the imagination, man has conceived all the changes for building the modern society. A clear example of the creative capacity effects is the science and technology advance.
So far, in spite of the great progress reached in the science and the technology, man has been not able of achieving two important goals for the world population welfare: eradicate the poverty and preserving the environment.
The world population majority lives with less of $2 per day. The water is draining in many regions of the world; the petroleum too. The climate change has become a real threat. While everyday a portion of the forests are destroyed.
What to do?
The problem is that any program of economic expansion requires two scarce elements: money and natural resources. The additional problem is that the economic expansion requires a major use of energy and this imply an augment of the contamination.
Man can resolve the scarcity of financial resources. But he can not resolve the natural resources scarcity. He has to work with the existents resources. But ---with imagination--- man can diminish the contamination.
How?
The ecological employments are a way; it can resolve a good part of the unemployment problem without increase the pollution. And, on the contrary, to create an effective solution to weaken the climate change.
The creation of al Global Program of Ecological Employments divided in stages is a solution. In the first stage might be developed a Global Program of Reforestation. In the second, a Global Program of Preservation of the Water Resources.
Those initiatives would generate millions of new ecological employments worldwide. The main benefits will be for the poor population of the different world countries. The programs will give a salary and will increase the purchase capacity of millions of people. In consequence, it will produce an economic expansion phenomenon that will help the global economy recovery.
The financial resources for carry out the programs might come from the World Bank and the most developed countries. The rich countries will receive too a benefit because of the international commercial expansion that the mass of financial resources invested will cause.
Compared with other forms of jobs creation, the ecological employments are the cheapest. The investments for the creation of a job in other economic activities surpass several times the cost of an environment job creation.
The other great advantage is that these programs do not require an important increase of the fossil energy use.
In synthesis we can say that the programs would promote the global economy recovery, would create millions of new ecological jobs, increase the welfare of millions of families and contribute to diminish the global warming and the natural resources preservation.

The Ban Ki Moon and Robert Zoellick main challenges are combating the world poverty and preserving the environment

They are the leaders of the two most important political and development institutions, United Nations and the World Bank. And the mission of both is helping to build a best World.

The poverty and the destruction of the environment are the two great threats for the humanity.

I think that there is an effective form for helping the world to diminish the poverty and advancing in the preservation of the environment. The creation of a Global Program of Ecological Employments is a way. The first activity of that initiative should be to create a Global Program of Reforestation.

Which will be the benefits?

a) The creation of millions of new ecological employments that will help to millions of poor people worldwide and

b) The conservation of the environment, because of the positive effects of the reforestation on the climate change.

There are other alternatives for creating jobs. But the majority of them require a great amount of energy use, petroleum and/or coal. The effects of the use of fossil energy are well known.

In change, the reforestation does not need to employ great amounts of energy sources to be developed; that is one of its great advantages.

The reforestation is an efficient ecological way for combating the poverty and preserving the planet.

In the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009, Mr. Ban Ki Moon and Mr. Robert Zoellick, have the possibility of developing concretes actions for helping the humanity. The Global Program of Reforestation is one opportunity for the world.

The ecological employments are an effective road for combating the world poverty

The environment crisis because of the contamination and the overexploitation of the natural resources is a reality. The extreme poverty of the world population majority is the other sad situation.
The environment crisis and the poverty are closely tied. A solution for both situations might be possible. The unique manner of resolving the poverty is by mean of the employment. Without employment and just salaries the welfare is not possible.
But the creation of new jobs require three conditions: a) financial support b) natural resources and c) know how (technology). The modern world has scarcity of the two first mentioned resources and a concentration of the third (know how) in the most developed countries.
Which might be the solution?
I think that the creation of millions of green, ecological new jobs is possible in the world. (In this point it is necessary highlight that for achieving this goal we do not need more petroleum.)
How?
First of all it would be necessary to create a Global Program of Employment and Protection of the Environment. This kind of program only can be developed by the international agencies, the United Nations, World Bank and the IMF.
The first action of a program like this must be:
a) To create and to carry out ---with the support of the national governments--- a Global Program of Reforestation. The benefits for humanity of this activity in terms of employment and protection of nature it does not have limits. The creation of millions of new jobs and a great advance in the control of the global warming would be, among other, the results.
b) In a second stage, the Program of Employment and Protection of the Environment might develop other activities, as the developing of new jobs for protecting the water resources and managing the garbage.

The mentioned programs would generate millions of new jobs worldwide; protect the environment and diminishing the world poverty.
I would like that this idea might be considered as a contribution to the next Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009.

How the United Kingdom and Norway has exhausted its petroleum

To hide the true does not change the reality. And the true is that the petroleum of the United Kingdom and Norway is in its final stage. The words do not matter; the figures are the most important. And these are the official figures. Make your own conclusion.
As may be appreciated in the table, the oil reserves of the United Kingdom diminished in almost 20% between the year 2000 and the year 2005, confirming the trend of the previous years.
You can see also the important reduction of the Norway oil reserves, -26.3% between the year 2000 and the year 2005. This means that very soon the North Sea will exhaust its petroleum.

Mathematical demonstration of the petroleum depletion

The figures speak by themselves. The oil crisis is very near. The mentioned countries are consuming the end of their reserves. How much time will be necessary for to build the substitute infrastructure of the oil? Will be it possible at medium term?
The book Running Out: How Global Shortages Change the Economic Paradigm (Algora Publishing, New York, 2008) presents a complete vision of the natural resources situation.