There is one achievement the capitalist mode of production can count on making a good impression with, or at least commanding respect: unstoppable technological progress, seen in all kinds of consumer goods along with the means for producing them. It is popularly illustrated by sophisticated equipment in fashion at the moment. On suitable occasions it is measured in the few hours and minutes of working time required for producing a certain product nowadays as compared with the past. “Downsides” are not ignored: the oversized “footprint” left by the consumption of resources, destruction of the environment, loss of jobs due to “rationalization” — all this is recognized as problematic. But “rationalization” is still called by that name; and the solution of choice for the excessive load on “nature” is considered to be — alongside a personal willingness to do without things — more technological progress. Yet it is quite clear that neither free choice nor rationality is the reason for the unstoppable technological progress the capitalist mode of production impresses with. It is caused by a practical constraint that industrialists actually create for themselves.

In the market economy, growth is an officially and quite generally recognized necessity. It is taken for granted that the growth of the economy is the precondition for prosperity; when growth slows down or actually stops altogether, there is a risk of want and need. Those who warn that continuous economic growth is an absurdity go more or less unheard in the culture section. Critics who maintain that a growth geared solely to immediate economic performance is too narrow a focus for society’s well-being and who call for broader criteria and values to be included are suspected of being anti-consumerist or anti-progress, or accused of ultimately having no idea of human nature and inherent human needs. Even the most sober reference to “natural limits of growth” will face the accusation of being divorced from reality. And indeed it is — reality being that those in charge of business definitely do not know or recognize any ‘natural limit’ that could thwart the economic purpose that is in effect and being practiced: a market economy needs growth. The only question is why? Where does this absolute necessity come from?

President Trump's “America first!” targets the whole world. But the degree to which the US is affected by the politics in other states comes down to more than the differences in numbers that the President loves to read from the figures of America’s negative bilateral trade balance. There is one rival above all others — actually just about the only one — that is ultimately incompatible with “America first!”: the People's Republic of China.

America's president has never left any doubt that he means what he says and does what he means. He has announced ad nauseam that the guiding principle of his presidency, “America first,” will mark the start of political offensives on several fronts. He wants to give a boost to domestic capital growth, not just out of cronyism with the rich and super-rich in the country, but for strategic reasons:

“A growing and innovative economy allows the United States to maintain the world’s most powerful military and protect our homeland.”

To this end, he wants free but above all fair world trade; by this he means a substantial correction to the global flow of goods and money, to the effect that the heaps of money other nations have one-sidedly earned in and on the USA and have accumulated in the form of American debt to such an extent that on balance America actually has no money at all, flow back to their country of origin and true homeland. This includes recovering from its partners and allies funds that America has spent protecting them militarily. The strategic goal pursued by the President is rather clearly stated in the strategy paper quoted by his government: the United States has to remain the most powerful military power in the world.

While the American espionage and subversion agency, the CIA, announced just last week that, on the basis of their information, it would be unlikely that Iran is working on a nuclear weapon, President Obama used the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the occasion for an overt threat of war, which he garnished with a promise: “I do not bluff!”

Since its beginnings in the markets for American mortgages, the great financial crisis has gone on for over three years now, and for the moment, those in charge are rather satisfied with themselves. A number of bankruptcies have been wound down or prevented by the state. Masses of worthless financial assets have been stowed away in bad banks or carefully written off, with state license and assistance. The ultimate powers have boldly intervened, preventing a massive financial meltdown by having their central banks provide liquidity and by granting loans from special government funds. Speculation against particularly heavily indebted eurozone countries and their common currency has been averted. After the deep recession of 2009, good money is being made again in the financial industry and the real economy — at least as far as German exports are concerned.

On the other hand, that mustn’t fool anybody into thinking that the crisis is “already” over. Experts are warning against announcing prematurely that all is clear and interpret “market signals” this way: from the money markets, which speculate on and then against the dollar and the euro; from the capital markets, which spurred on Greek bankruptcy while at the same time buying low-yield German bonds; from the global commodity markets, on which German firms are enjoying unexpected export success while America is failing as an “economic locomotive”; from the Chinese market, too, whose welcome boom is now suspected of crumbling soon. These are all reasons to worry — but about what exactly? Is inflation looming because of the masses of state-created liquidity? Or is deflation to be feared instead because of the weak U.S. economy, a lack of economic growth in Japan, and austerity policies in Europe? Will the crisis be followed by another bubble inflated by state credit, cheap money, and dyed-in-the-wool speculators? Or should one brace for longer-term stagnation and, at best, a dual-speed world economy? What kind of a risk does rapidly rising government debt pose? Or is there still too little of it to promote a sustained economic upturn? Is the speculation against Greece and the euro a scandal? Or do the speculators only bring up a painful subject, exposing the common currency as a misconstruction that cannot cope with the crisis? Is the credit guarantee for over-indebted eurozone countries a step toward regaining fiscal stability — or toward abandoning it once and for all? And so on, and so forth.

A. Conflicting ways out of the recession

I. Culture War in America

II. Obama’s economic and financial therapy for the nation’s ailing economic base

III. The Republicans’ counterplans

IV. Worries and warnings about the catastrophic consequences of the political dispute help to intensify it

B. The U.S. has to be concerned about its money

I. The U.S. economy is the major exception in global capitalism

II. The identity between America’s national credit and the world’s capitalistic wealth has a price that has fallen due in the wake of the recent financial crisis

III. And the competitors are no longer the same either

Conclusion: New steps in implementing the crisis through the states’ crisis policies

The leaders of the Western world are caught off-guard by a people: even though the West did not order it, the Egyptian people refuses loyalty to its authorities! Wherever the ruling friends of freedom call for a refusal of obedience that leads to an overthrow of a regime, they themselves get the appropriate “revolutions” with their pretty nicknames underway. But no one in the political centers from which the free world is ruled reckoned that the masses in a country whose established, sovereign, domestic affairs are exceedingly interesting for a number of reasons would, on their own initiative, get out of hand in such a way. Hence, forming an opinion about the national uprising in Egypt takes a while, but then turns out to be all the more clear. The unanimous commentary is that it is a great thing that — and in particular how peacefully — the people on the Nile have initiated a “movement for freedom and democracy” (Guido Westerwelle, Germany’s foreign secretary); and the patrons of these high values are by no means content with a mere message of greeting to the freedom fighters. They intercede by making use of the political influence they have for the good cause that they see the Egyptians having brought under way. First, they strongly advise the ruler to practice “non-aggression” towards his rebellious subjects — and shortly thereafter declare him to be as “intolerable” as does the crowd on the Tahrir Square. Admittedly, not for the same reasons. The protesters had hardly begun to somewhat destabilize the prevailing forces of power and already the ruling friends of freedom in the capitals of the world interpreted their distress as a desire to “return to stability.” And why this return is necessary is not kept a secret: the range of interests for which the Egyptian people has functioned so well and the reason why it definitely has to continue to function well in the future, too, stretches from its role in keeping peace in this well-known problematic “crisis region” to its secure supply of oil and car parts to the conservation of cultural goods and diving sites.

In the Gulf of Mexico, the Deepwater Horizon oil-rig explodes. For months, huge amounts of oil flow out of the borehole into the sea, reaching the American coast and in effect ruining the environment in several states, together with the livelihoods of large parts of the population. According to experts, this is the biggest environmental catastrophe in American history — and in view of this occasion, the country’s president, in his speech to the nation, draws attention to the importance of what is happening on the Gulf coast.

Caution is in order when world leaders find an idealistic motto for their plans for world politics, announcing a dream for a better world or a mission for humanity. The submissive habit of checking the leading personalities for credibility — whether they honestly mean what they say and have the means to keep their fine promises — doesn’t do. However hopeful or skeptical, however quickly or deeply disappointed civic-minded souls may be, they are all credulous.