What makes and motivates a ‘globalist’? Several books have been published on the phenomenon of global leaders – people who have changed the world for better or worse. Ian Kershaw’s Personality and Power selected twelve famous figures, while Henry Kissinger chose six for his book Leadership. An interesting character study is From Silk to Silicon: the Story of Globalization Through Ten Extraordinary Lives, by economic policy journalist Jeffrey Garten. Only one person is featured in all three books – can you guess? (answer below). .
Garten’s ten catalysts of globalisation begin and end in the East, with Genghis Khan and the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, but let’s begin in Frankfurt in the late eighteenth century. A cramped ghetto street named Judengasse was the humble home of Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812), founder of the global banking empire. With his mastery of accounting and accrual, and ability to form relationships with powerful people, Rothschild established himself as an intermediary between Gernan princes and London banks. Amidst wars and uprisings, he devised win-win situations by secretly supporting both sides in a conflict .Rothschild transcended borders and trading barriers, undermining the jealously guarded control of kings and emperors He thus began the process of overriding national autonomy with supranational finance.
While not whitewashing his chosen characters, in discussing the Rothschild legacy Garten omits legitimate criticisms of the dynasty and its disruptive influence on hitherto stable societies. For example; the American Civil War is a suspected case of the bankers’ divide-and-rule strategy: agitation between North and South was provoked for a preferred settlement of incorporating the northern states in Canada, then a financial fiefdom of Lionel Rothschild (while his brother had controlling interests in the Confederacy).
The Rothschilds are often mentioned alongside the Rockefeller family as shadow governors of the modern world. John D Rockefeller (1839-1937) had modest background in a Baptist family in New York state. He joined the oil rush in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and went on to buy all the major refineries in Cleveland, Philadelphia and West Virginia. He steadily built the Standard Oil company, using his purchasing power to quash competitors, and he manipulated the railways for his commercial ends. His predatory practices eventually got him in trouble, and in 1911 his firm was broken up by a federal court ruling.
His reputation tarnished, Rockefeller turned to social causes, using his massive wealth to fund educational reform. In 1901 the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research was founded. At that time (before mass motoring), medicine was a potential market for petroleum. His father was literally a snake-oil salesman, but under Rockefeller’s direction the American medical profession banished natural remedies, The seed was sown for the Big Pharma takeover. Half of the training schools closed, as funding concentrated on prestigious institutes lubricated by Rockefeller grants....<<<Read More>>>...