From State And State Power To Man And Social - National ...

Our work on “Economic Diplomacy and National Interest” already reviewed above, shows thatwhat Ike Nwachwukwu and Ibrahim Babangida dubbed “economic diplomacy” was really adiplomacy in support of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). Its major achievementwas the re-scheduling of the external debt imposed on Nigeria by the profligacy, debauchery,robbery, and mismanagement of the economy, by the Nigerian ruling class. We found that thatdubious achievement was recorded at great cost to the interests and welfare of majority ofNigerians who had to endure great deprivations while members of the ruling class stashed away,in foreign lands and foreign banks, billions of dollars of Nigerian people’s wealth. We alsodemonstrated, with our study on the “Influences of Multinational Corporations on theManagement of Public Enterprises in Nigeria” that the systematic impoverishment of Nigeriaand pauperization of the Nigerian people was, and remains, a joint venture between members ofthe Nigerian ruling class, and members of the ruling class in several other states of the world,operating under the rubric of multinational corporations. We demonstrated how members of theruling class in Nigeria are inducted into the culture of corruption by the multinationalcorporations which enter into partnership agreements with public enterprises in Nigeria,ostensibly for the development of the Nigerian economy.The story of multinationals as critical actors in the international system is the same in many othercountries of the world. Let us take the United States of America as an example. Here, too, I willdraw from my own research. In October, 2002, six months before the American and allied forcesinvaded Iraq, I made a public presentation of a study, which the Academic Staff Union ofUniversities (ASUU) had commissioned me to undertake. The topic was “InternationalRelations, Foreign Policy and Prospects and Problems of Globalization”. I argued, in the paper,that the foreign policy of the United States of America, as pursued by George W. Bush, wasconducted essentially for the benefit of the ruling class in America; and that globalization wasthe current American ideology for the promotion of the interest of American capital, inparticular, and global capital, in general. In a few paragraphs below, I hereby proceed to present,in more details, my position on this matter in 2002.There is a deep contradiction between the foreign policy of the United States of America, asarticulated by George W. Bush, at the rhetorical level, and that country’s foreign policy, asimplemented at the operational level. In fact, like most capitalist countries, the United States ofAmerica has two foreign policies: the people’s foreign policy, spoken of, but hardlyimplemented; and the foreign policy of the corporate world, or the dominant class, seldomarticulated but actually implemented.To illustrate, the United States of America is, at the rhetorical level, a foremost advocate ofglobal free trade. But, it has taken more significant measures than any other country to scuttle themovement towards free trade. Similarly, the US government is, in theory, a champion of free,unhindered and unassisted free flow of global capital. But, in practice, it is currently doingeverything possible to assist American capital to penetrate those areas of the world, includingIraq, where, hitherto, it has not been able to penetrate unassisted.The government of the United States of America preaches free trade abroad, but practicesprotectionism at home. Mr. George W. Bush, the American President, projects himself to the36