CAPITALISM'S ACHILLES HEEL Dirty Money and How to

CHAPTER 11
CAPITALISM’S
ACHILLES HEEL
FOR MORE than 300 pages I’ve talked about issues along the continuum
threatening to global capitalism. We’ve covered a lot of ground—law,
business, banking, economics, and philosophy, illustrated with country
studies plus the yakuza and Al Qaeda. Hopefully, it’s been an informative
and entertaining read.
Illegality, inequality, and philosophy exist along a continuum because
actions are linked to consequences, consequences are linked to rationalizations,
and rationalizations are linked back to actions. At the intersections
along this continuum there is overlap, as one part bleeds into another.
I’m reminded of a statement made by Anton Allahar, a sociologist: “The
‘generalist’ lives in constant fear of the ‘specialist.’” 1 In order to assure that
what you are reading is as accurate and correct as possible, I’ve sought the
wisdom and advice of many specialists—lawyers, economists, and philosophers.
In addition, others have advised on particular aspects of drugs, criminal
groups, country studies, and government regulations.
On the contributions of generalists—those of us who ponder connections—Tom
Friedman in The Lexus and the Olive Tree quoted Murray
Gell-Mann, the Nobel Prize physicist, as follows: “[W]e human beings are
now confronted with immensely complex . . . political, economic and social
problems. ... With a complex . . . system you have to break it up into
pieces and then study each aspect, and then study the very strong interaction
between them all. Only this way can you describe the whole
system. ... We have to learn not only to have specialists but also people
whose specialty is to spot the strong interactions and entanglements of the
337