Is Globalization the Answer or Culprit?

[Dayuhan]

2. As you say, insurgency is politics. Agreed. But not all armed rebellions are politics. Some are for power, some are for money; both of which will affect politics, but neither of which are politically driven.

How is the pursuit of power anything but politics?

Ahh, but empire-like controls help corporations to prosper. Prosperous corporations have powerful lobbies, as do the governments that prosper from these same corporations.

Capital may well be a coward, but it loves a good dictatorship.

True enough in the 60s and 70s, far less true today. The corporate side has evolved a good deal, though it would be most un-American to give them credit for it. Certainly they'll work with dictators where they must, but the illusion that dictatorship = stability is long gone. You see this often in oil-producing dictatorships, where western companies prefer to work on service contracts rather than owning resources or physical plant, even where that means lower profits. Basic risk mitigation: everyone now knows that dictatorships are a risk and you have to consider what happens when some colonel decides that Allah desires that the dictator meet with a bullet or the population rises in the streets.

If the government and the corporation are both prospering, that sounds pretty much win-win and a desirable situation. Of course the government may elect to stash its prosperity in the Cayman Islands, but that's hardly something the corporation can control.

As to economics, I don't ignore them, they are a critical part of the equation. But people will tolerate crushing poverty if they believe that it is fair. But even the wealthy rise up in rebellion when the conditions of insurgency reach a certain point.

Varies from case to case, but it is possible to buy off a populace. We see it today: both China and Saudi Arabia could be considered ripe for insurgency, but I doubt you'll see either hit critical mass unless there's a serious economic upheaval.

We also can't forget fear as a motivating factor pressing populaces to reject insurgency. The Chinese, for example, have a quite vivid national memory of what happened when a nominally progressive movement toppled a fading government in 1911, but lacked the capacity to govern themselves. The result was devastating. They also have memories of what happened when Chiang Kai-Shek's fading effort at despotism was toppled by a group who did have the capacity to govern. They look at current conditions and know they aren't great, but they know too well what the alternative can be. In Saudi Arabia desire for change is balanced against an acute awareness that they sit on something lots of people want, and an overwhelming fear that if change brings weakness and division they may simply be swallowed up by some larger outside force. I can't count how many time I've been told, in the Gulf, that "America wants us to be democratic and tolerate opposition so the CIA can rig our elections and manipulate the opposition and take over". Conspiracy theory perhaps, but powerful nonetheless.