In my past life I was an executive at a great entertainment retail company. The people at the top of the company never viewed themselves as executives, really. The company ran with records guys and gals, books guys and gals, videos guys and gals, advertising guys and gals, warehouse people, accountants, supervisors, and clerks of all stripes who all shared a passion for music, reading, art and film. Most in-house conversations were about selling more of what we had experienced, either very recently, or at some juncture of our peculiar life's time-line. Shared diverse experiences in the stores and head offices were shared with an eager and intelligent growing vendor and consumer base, which made it a perfect fit for two decades of commercial and personal success.
Those days are gone. Not only within the former industry where I worked, but in so many other industries throughout the world of commerce. At the end, the company, like so many others in a few short years time, had become overwhelmed by global forces too powerful to withstand. Size, and the subsequent scales of efficiency,became all that mattered in the business world. Small companies went bye-bye.
For years, I spent useless hours wondering what actions I might have taken to save my little business world and those that inhabited it, but finally realized immutable forces at such a high level were busy transforming business into something not seen since the the end of the 19th Century. Globalism, under the benign term, free market, had reduced the multitude to the handful, and had brought about the same horrific factory working conditions to the labor force that existed a century ago.
Globalism is simply a new word for Colonialism. The only difference is that conglomerate corporations now dominate the world markets instead of the imperial dynasties that ruled governments in the past. However, many of the same families who ruled nations as sovereigns in that age now simply rule through corporate boards of directors within a labyrinth of shell organizations, trusts, foundations, banks and businesses. I must say one has to really tip one's hat to the remarkable change of guise that the ruling class has made for itself these last sixty years, and particularly these last three decades.
In my former life, I used to watch every movie I could lay my hands on. It was my job, and I was up to the challenge. I have seen the same plots reworked, the same explosions filmed, and the same obligatory music interlude to promote the latest soundtrack entrant more times than I have made keystrokes on all the keyboards I have ever pounded on in my lifetime. I don't watch that many commercial movies these days, and those that I do view need to be pretty special in there own quirky or spectacular way. I do, however, watch as many documentaries from small independent or publicly funded film-makers as I can get my hands on.
Recently, I watched a tremendously informative PBS documentary called Commanding Heights: The Battle For The World Economy. This documentary is based on a book by Pulitzer Prize winning authors Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw. This film gives the viewer great background information on the struggles of economic ideas, movements and history while providing startling detailed accounts of our current financial crisis and the warning signs of how this collapse came to happen. It is a very pro-capitalist pro-globalist look with a late 1990s view, although the film does include a brief 9/11 account and the potential financial impact this would have on the markets.
The title for the book and this filmed translation and update comes from a famous line Vladimir Lenin delivered on his "New Economic Policy" for post war Russia. Commanding heights refer to those segments of the economy that dominate the field, much like any good commander will utilize the high ground for advantage on the battlefield.
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