Capitalism's 'think Tank'

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The most publicised "achievement" of a rather shadowy organisation known as the Trilateral Commission is that it groomed and prepared Jimmy Carter for the American presidency.

That, however, was only a part of a much broader plan which emerges from the fears experienced by "enlightened" grasp of the ruling class for the future power and cohesion of imperialism.

The formation of the T.C.

came directly out of the sharpening inter-imperialist rivalries to which the capitalist crisis began to give rise in the early 1970s.

More specifically it arose out of the crisis of leadership experienced by the American ruling class as a result of the discrediting of President Johnson, the ignominious US defeat in Vietnam, the exposure and resignation of Nixon and Angew, and the incompetence of Ford.

Multi-millionaire

The initiative for the setting up of the T.C. came from a group of leading American capitalists headed millionaire head of the massive Chase Manhattan Bank and director of enough companies to fill an issue of the Socialist Press.

Rockefeller's aim was to create an organisation which -despite superficial resemblances to the secret societies for world domination found in James Bond novels-is a high-powered medical team devoted to saving the life of ailing imperialism.

It was from the American capitalist class that the initial nucleus of the T.C. was recruited in 1973. But it then looked in a number of directions for its expansion.

First, because it is based on fears of growing fratricidal struggles between the imperialist nations it looked for representatives of the capitalist class of Western Europe and Japan (hence the title "Trilateral').

Heads of many of the major Japanese corporations, and rather fewer of the European ones, joined.

Anti-communist

The next task was to bring in a number of leading antiCommunist academics.

Chief among these was Zhigniew Brzezinski, America's leading "KremlinJogist" who was appointed the Fixecutive Director of the Other economists and political "scientists" either joined the Commission or undertook research on its behalf.

Finally the Commission needed to get the co-operaten of leading representatives o: the labour movement.

In the LSA it was not Brzezinski Joseph difficult to recruit some of the leading pro-imperialists at the head of America's trade unions. Woodcock of the Auto workers and I.W. Abel of the Steel workers are both members.

Miserable

In Europe and Japan though approaches were made, it was impossible, with a few exceptions, to get trade union bureaucrats to participate in such an openly capitalist and reactionary body.

In Britain the T.C. has had to be content with three miserable right-wing Labour MPs whose connection with the Labour movement is so weak it could snap on the slightest pressure.

They are Evan Luard (Oxford), John Roper (Farnworth) and one MacFarquhas. • Carter's presidency has been central to the work of the Trilateral Commission.

Its members systematically "educated" Carter on international and economic affairs during the primaries and presidential campaign.

And now sixteen I.C. members hold major posts in the Carter administration.

Gold They include Secretary of State Vance, Treasury Secretary Blumenthal and UN representative Andrew Young, as well as Vice-President Luard Mondale.

Some of the principal policies of the Carter administration naturally coincide with ideas which have been aired in T.C. discussions and reports.

In the economic sphere these include the plan to demonetise gold and restore US dominance of the monetary system 1 via the strengthening of the IMF and the development of a new world system of paper money.

Future of democracy

Also there are Carter's efforts to avoid a direct open trade war by means of international "voluntary" agreements to limit trade on the part of the countries in surplus (Japan and West Germany).

But the most interesting and sinister feature of the reports so far commissioned and discussed by the T.C. has been its fears for the future of what it calls "democracy" -by which it means the capitalist state and social peace.

The most important of these reports was written by Michael Grozier (right-wing intellectual from the Institute of Conflict Studies) and Samuel P. Huntington (US academic who was a leading political strategist of the Vietnam war).

Rights

In 1975 they wrote a report on 'The Governability of Democracies" concluding that this was becoming more and more difficult.

The problem, they concluded, was an excess of demands' being placed on the "democratic" countries leading to a crisis of political authority and ungovernability.

Increasingly, the authers lament the mass of the population expect not only to possess democratic rights but actually to excercise them.

Yet, they conclude:

"the effective operation of a democratic political system usually requires some measure of anathv and nonMaudling involvement on the part of some individuals and groups"

They say that the main task is:

"to restore the prestige and authority of central government institutions, and to grapple with the immediate economic challenges"

In an earlier publication the T.C. had written:

"The international system which depended heavily upon UC leadership and sustenance now requires a truly common management to which North America, the European Community and Japan must in view of their large economic power make a special contribution"

In this veiled and diplomatic language the T.C.

expresses its two major fears -that imperialism is threatened by the breakdown of the social order within the imperialist nations and 'chaotic national competition' between them.

Third World These are the T.C.'s main concerns. And its answers (often more implicit than explicit) are the imposition of limitations on democratic rights and a shift from a leadership system to one of genuine collective management' These have been the two main concerns of the T.C. eve even though it has also given some attention to the 'Third World' which it plans to incorporate into a more controlled international economic system in which the semi-colonial countries would remain producers of raw materials.

Less space in the T.C.'s publications is devoted to the Sovict Union and China.

This is partly because Buzezinski used to take the view, publicly at least, that the USSR was a declining threat to imperialism.

This is a view he can scarcely hold any longer in view of the capitalist crisis in the USA and the continuing advance of production in the Soviet Union.

This is leading to a revereal of the halanna. of