Introduction: A Question of Power, Not Politics

Few things are more dangerous than unquestioned power—especially when it’s wrapped in the polite language of “economic stability” and “global security” while quietly pulling the strings of everyday life. In global economics, power isn’t just about who has the biggest military, the largest economy, or the most influential institutions—it’s about who gets to make the rules and who is forced to live by them.

And make no mistake: these rules shape your daily reality. They decide whether your paycheck actually covers your bills, whether your homeownership dream stays a fantasy, and whether you get to enjoy life—or just run faster on an economic treadmill that never stops. They determine how many hours of your life you must trade for a currency that is being manipulated, inflated, and devalued without your consent.

For decades, the global financial system has been meticulously structured to favour a handful of dominant players—primarily the United States and its affiliated institutions. This is not a controversial claim, nor is it some wild-eyed conspiracy—it is a well-documented reality, examined not only through an economic lens by some of the world’s most respected economists and thinkers, including Milton Friedman, Joseph Stiglitz, Kate Raworth, and Noam Chomsky but also from a deeper philosophical perspective that questions the very foundations of power, control, and economic sovereignty.

But let’s get one thing straight: this is not about choosing sides. This article is not a cheer for one empire over another, nor a nostalgic lament for a system that never truly worked for the majority. It does not seek to pit one country against another, nor does it advocate for revolution. Instead, it asks a fundamental question about control:

Do we actually believe in democracy, economic fairness, and sovereignty? Or are we just arguing over who gets to pull the levers of control?

The issue at hand isn’t about defending nations like China, Russia, Iran, or even Canada—yes, even Canada has found itself in the economic crosshairs when necessary—nor is it about condemning the United States. It’s about something far deeper: the principles of self-determination, human dignity, and the need for economic systems that don’t demand constant intervention, manipulation, and coercion just to keep functioning.

Because here’s the real question: If a system requires constant intervention, monopolisation, and economic strong-arming just to survive, is it really ‘stable’? Or is it just really good at pretending everything is fine while duct-taping the cracks together? If the system won’t last, then why are we still pretending this house of cards can withstand the wind?

The Three Pillars of Financial Control

1. The U.S. Dollar: A Currency That Commands Obedience

The global reserve currency system ensures that if you want to participate in world trade, you’ll be doing it in U.S. dollars—because nothing says ‘free market’ like a system where your currency choice is already made for you.
The petrodollar system ensures that oil—one of the world’s most vital commodities—must be purchased in U.S. dollars, making energy security dependent on American financial institutions.
SWIFT banking control allows the U.S. to sanction, exclude, or economically isolate any country at will, turning financial systems into a tool of geopolitical coercion.

2. Trade as a Weapon: The IMF, World Bank, and Sanctions Regime

Economic sanctions have been sold as a diplomatic tool to contain rogue states for decades. The reality? They are an economic weapon, selectively used to enforce obedience.

While ostensibly neutral, the IMF and World Bank have been used to impose economic conditions that benefit dominant financial powers while keeping developing nations in financial dependency.
Economic sanctions, often framed as tools of diplomacy, cripple nations by cutting off access to global trade and finance, enforcing obedience through economic deprivation.
When countries attempt to move away from the dollar system, their economies mysteriously find themselves in turmoil, or their leaders are suddenly seen as global threats (Libya, Iraq, Venezuela).

However, it’s no longer just the usual suspects like Russia, China, and Iran who are being hit with economic restrictions. Even long-standing allies such as Canada and the EU are beginning to feel the squeeze. Meanwhile, countries like Pakistan, Turkey, India, and Argentina—while not facing the same level of sanctions—have experienced financial coercion through trade pressures, IMF-imposed economic conditions, and monetary interventions whenever their policies diverge from dominant financial interests.

Canada, a long-standing U.S. ally, was recently hit with tariffs on steel and aluminium under the ever-versatile justification of 'national security concerns.' Because, of course, when we think of existential threats to American sovereignty, we think... Canadian metal.
The EU faced trade pressure under Trump and is still navigating U.S. protectionist policies that undercut European economic independence.
Australia may soon face similar economic manoeuvres, significantly as U.S. economic struggles deepen, turning every partner into an expendable bargaining chip.

This shift reveals an uncomfortable truth: The global financial system isn’t just about punishing adversaries—it’s about controlling everyone.

3. Military Might: The Unspoken Enforcer

Over 800 U.S. military bases worldwide act as a physical reminder that economic rules are backed by force when necessary.
There’s a well-documented pattern where countries that try to shift away from dominant Western financial systems mysteriously find themselves in a series of ‘unfortunate events’—currency crises, sudden social unrest, maybe even a surprise military intervention. Pure coincidence, of course. Just bad luck, really.
This pattern suggests that economic control and military intervention are not separate forces but two sides of the same coin.

The Irony of ‘Sustainability’ That Can’t Sustain Itself

And just when you thought the system’s crumbling foundations couldn’t get any more ironic, enter the United Nations’ Sustainability Goals and the World Economic Forum’s grand plans to fix it all—through more mandates, more control, and more top-down enforcement.

Because, of course, what better way to create a truly “sustainable” world than by ensuring it needs to be constantly, manually, and artificially maintained through never-ending policy interventions?

See, the word “sustainable” should, by definition, mean something that sustains itself—that regenerates, functions autonomously, or at least doesn’t require continuous recalibration by global bureaucracies. And yet, here we are, with a sustainability agenda that requires perpetual micromanagement, economic penalties, trade restrictions, carbon credit markets, social governance scores, and regulatory mandates just to keep it from collapsing on itself.

So, let’s get this straight: The very sustainability that’s supposed to secure humanity’s future is entirely dependent on rigid structures of forced compliance, economic adjustments, and top-down policy corrections? How… sustainable is that, exactly?

It’s like building a perpetual motion machine that only works if someone keeps cranking the handle. Or calling something a self-driving car while needing an army of bureaucrats in the backseat constantly pulling the levers and rewriting the rulebook. And yet, these organisations assure us that this model of centralised control, restriction, and artificial maintenance is somehow the pathway to long-term sustainability.

Maybe they’ve simply redefined the word “sustainable” to mean “requiring constant intervention to stop it from imploding.”

And speaking of sustainability, nothing quite captures the spirit of the movement like a parade of billionaires, politicians, and corporate executives flying their private jets to the World Economic Forum to discuss how to cut carbon footprints—for everyone else, of course.

Because, let’s be honest—reducing emissions is for the peasants. The elite are far too busy saving the planet one champagne-fueled conference at a time to be bothered with trivialities like commercial flights.

Naturally, you driving your old sedan to work is the real climate problem—not the fleets of private aircraft burning more fuel in a day than most people do in a year. But don’t worry—they’ll be sure to offset their emissions by introducing new global regulations that make your life more expensive. After all, sacrifices must be made—for the greater good.

Because if a system needs to be permanently “maintained,” how exactly is it supposed to “sustain” anything at all?

Addressing Concerns: Where This Article Stands

A critique of the current global financial system will naturally provoke a range of reactions. However, clarity is essential: this is not a rejection of any particular nation or ideology, nor is it an endorsement of an alternative economic hegemony. The concern is not about who holds power, but how financial power is structured, monopolised, and imposed on others.

“This is just anti-Western sentiment.”

Challenging dysfunction, coercion, and monopolisation is not an attack on the West—it is a challenge to any system that concentrates power at the expense of sovereignty and economic fairness. Some of the most incisive critiques of global financial control come from within the West itself, from leading economists, historians, and policy analysts who recognise the structural imbalances at play.

Milton Friedman, a free-market advocate, warned that artificially controlled economies always collapse under their own inefficiencies.
Joseph Stiglitz, former Chief Economist of the World Bank, openly stated that “the rules of globalisation have been written to serve corporate and financial interests, not the majority of the world.”
Friedrich Hayek argued that true economic freedom cannot exist when financial systems are dictated by a small elite.
Kate Raworth, in her critique of traditional economics, pointed out that our financial models are designed for endless growth, yet they completely ignore ecological and social boundaries—creating a system that is both unstable and unsustainable.

The issue is not about geography or ideology—it is about centralisation and control. If the EU, China, or any other major power behaved the same way, the critique would remain valid. The focus is not on blaming any single nation, but on questioning a structure that sustains global economic dependency and coercion.

“This is a left-wing critique of capitalism.”

It is neither exclusively left-wing nor an attack on capitalism itself. In fact, libertarians, conservatives, and free-market economists have long warned about the dangers of centralised banking control and financial institutions being used as tools of coercion rather than free exchange.

Milton Friedman was highly critical of how government-backed economic control leads to inefficiencies and coercion.
Austrian economists have argued for decades that the global financial order is artificially sustained and structurally fragile, dependent on continuous intervention and regulation.
Even proponents of free markets acknowledge that monopolisation—whether by states or private financial entities—inevitably leads to distortion and collapse.

This is not a debate about capitalism vs. socialism. The real question is: do we value decentralisation, economic sovereignty, and transparency, or do we accept an economic system where financial power is consolidated in a way that dictates the fate of nations and individuals?

“But this is still the best system we have.”

That depends on what metrics we use. Is it “the best” for nations constantly under the threat of sanctions? Is it “the best” for countries forced to operate under financial coercion? Is it “the best” for Australia, Canada, and even the EU, when they are increasingly being treated as assets rather than sovereign partners?

This article is not advocating for revolution—it is raising questions about whether we should passively accept a system that requires artificial interventions, economic monopolisation, and financial exclusion to remain functional.

As Kate Raworth suggests in Doughnut Economics, economies should be not only sustainable but self-sustaining—regenerative rather than extractive, decentralised rather than monopolised.

Financial Coercive Control: When Allies Become Assets

The term "economic sanctions" usually brings to mind nations like Russia, Iran, or China, but a new trend is emerging—one where even long-term allies are subject to financial coercion when they act outside Washington’s economic interests.

We’ve already seen Canada endure punitive tariffs, despite its supposed “special relationship” with the U.S. But let’s be clear—this isn’t just about Trump-era trade wars. The new normal is economic compliance through pressure, regardless of who sits in the Oval Office.

The European Union, too, has faced trade restrictions, economic penalties, and pressure to align with U.S. policies that don’t necessarily serve its own economic interests.
The message is clear: Allies will be treated like adversaries if they don't play along.

This isn’t some wild conspiracy theory—it’s just good old-fashioned financial coercion, dressed up as ‘strategic partnerships.’ Think of it like a toxic relationship where one partner holds the purse strings, monitors every expense, and occasionally ‘forgets’ to give the other access to their own bank account—for their own good, of course. Allies in this system aren’t really partners; they’re like those ‘financially dependent’ spouses who get a pat on the head and an allowance, as long as they remember who’s really in charge.

Australia, Canada, and the EU need to wake up to this reality—not as an act of defiance but as a step toward genuine economic sovereignty.

The Big Picture: What Needs to Change?

This system is running on borrowed time—not because of some external threat, but because monopolised, coercive economic structures always collapse under the weight of their own contradictions. You can only hold the strings for so long before the puppet realises it’s being controlled.

What needs to change?

Polarisation isn’t the answer—pluralism is. A truly multipolar economic world is needed, where no single entity can unilaterally dictate the terms of global finance.
Nations must build economic resilience—not through forced dependencies, but by diversifying trade, adopting alternative financial systems, and strengthening technological sovereignty.
The assumption that coercion and monopolisation are necessary for stability must be challenged. Control doesn’t equal order—it just prolongs dysfunction.
Human dignity, sovereignty, and genuine economic freedom must come first. Financial coercion should never be the price of participation in the global economy.

Because if we claim to stand for freedom, democracy, and self-determination, then we must ask: Are we actually building economies that serve people—or just sophisticated systems of control?

The Real Cost: How This System Affects Everyday People

But Is This Just Geopolitical Jargon? No, It’s About How You Live Your Life.

Think this is just abstract geopolitics? It’s not. It’s about how you live, work, and survive every single day. Global financial control isn’t just a topic for economists—it determines how much of your life you have to trade just to keep up.

How does this system impact you?

It controls your financial security. It dictates whether you can pay your bills, how much tax you owe, and whether your paycheck actually keeps up with inflation—or just shrinks in real value.
It forces you into endless work. Two incomes per household used to be a luxury—now, it’s a necessity just to stay afloat. The system ensures that no matter how hard you work, the finish line keeps moving.
It determines how much freedom you actually have. Financial independence is what allows people to spend time with their families, pursue passions, and build fulfilling lives. When money is artificially devalued and controlled, your ability to truly live is also restricted.
It turns time—the only finite resource you have—into a manipulated commodity. You exchange hours of your life for a currency that is inflated, devalued, and distorted by financial institutions beyond your control. The real injustice isn’t just economic—it’s existential.

This isn’t just happening in sanctioned countries like Iran or Venezuela. Whether you’re in the U.S., Canada, Australia, or anywhere else, you are part of a system designed to extract more from you while giving you less. The question is—how much of your life are you willing to trade before realising the game is rigged?

Living in the United States: The Illusion of Prosperity

The U.S. is the heart of this financial empire, and while that gives it unparalleled influence, it doesn’t mean its own citizens are thriving. In fact, many Americans are trapped in an economic model that increasingly feels rigged against them.

Inflation keeps eroding real wages. Despite all the talk of “strong GDP growth,” Americans find their salaries aren’t keeping up with the cost of rent, healthcare, and other essentials.
Taxes are poured into military and corporate bailouts rather than infrastructure, education, or social support. While Wall Street gets trillion-dollar safety nets at the first sign of distress, the average American is kindly given ‘thoughts and prayers’ when they’re one missed paycheck away from financial ruin. Ah yes, capitalism at its most compassionate.
The illusion of choice: You can work harder, get a second job, invest better—but why is it that no matter how smart you play, the system keeps demanding more?

This is what happens when an economy is built to sustain itself through artificial intervention rather than actual wealth creation. The American middle class is shrinking, and the same financial monopolies controlling global markets also dominate domestic policies, leaving citizens with less control over their economic futures.

Living in Canada or Australia: Allies or Economic Assets?

Canadians and Australians live in two of the wealthiest nations in the world, yet increasingly find themselves struggling like never before. Why? Because their nations are not fully sovereign in financial terms—they are deeply tied to U.S. economic policies, often suffering the consequences of decisions made in Washington.

Australia and Canada experience inflation that isn’t entirely their fault. When the U.S. prints money, raises interest rates, or applies economic pressure on trading partners, both nations feel the ripple effects—higher costs, squeezed wages, and housing bubbles that make homeownership a pipe dream for younger generations.
Tariffs, trade wars, and strategic dependency mean that these countries are economically “punished” when they don’t align perfectly with U.S. financial interests.
Resource exploitation without long-term benefit: The U.S. treats Australian and Canadian resources as part of its own economic stability plan—without ensuring long-term prosperity for the people actually living there.

For an average Australian or Canadian, this means working harder, paying higher taxes, and dealing with a cost of living crisis that doesn’t seem to improve because the system isn’t designed to serve them.

Living in a Sanctioned Country: The Unseen Human Toll

And then there are the millions of people living in countries subjected to economic sanctions—whether in Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Cuba, or elsewhere. Unlike Canadians or Australians, they face economic survival and not just inflation or financial insecurity.

Essential medicines are out of reach. Sanctions don’t just stop governments—they block life-saving treatments, medical equipment, and humanitarian aid.
Small businesses are crushed before they even begin. Entrepreneurs who try to create jobs and prosperity in their own countries are economically suffocated because they can’t access global banking, trade, or funding.
Ordinary people, not governments, pay the price. While officials in sanctioned countries often find ways around economic blockades, it’s the ordinary worker, the elderly, the students, and the parents raising children who suffer under economic restrictions designed to "change regimes."

Imagine a world where your bank account is frozen, your grocery store runs out of basics, and your electricity is unreliable—not because your country lacks resources but because someone far away decided to pull the plug on your economy. This is what financial coercion does.

The Bigger Picture: What’s in It for All of Us?

At the heart of all of this is a fundamental question about the world we want to live in.

Do we want a system where prosperity is a game of survival, where people are told to “just work harder” while the rules are being rewritten to keep them struggling?
Do we believe in democracy and economic freedom or just in choosing who gets to monopolise control?
Should people have to spend their entire lives chasing money that evaporates in real value—never having the time or stability to experience life fully?

We are not talking about some distant, abstract problem. This system affects us, our neighbours, our families, and our future generations.

Sure, you can learn to ‘play the game’ better—invest smartly, climb the corporate ladder, work yourself into an early grave. But what if the game was never meant to be won? What if it was designed, from the start, to keep you just tired enough to never question it?

The problem is not just individual responsibility—systemic dysfunction forces individuals into perpetual financial insecurity.

It is not about which country or ideology should control the system—it is about whether we should allow economic systems to function in a way that perpetuates power imbalances, coercion, and unnecessary suffering.

Because at its core, money is supposed to be a medium of exchange, a tool of economic freedom—not a mechanism for control. But when money is artificially manipulated, when inflation and interest rates are designed to extract more of your life’s energy without your consent, then the system is no longer about value—it’s about domination.

The Deepest Layer of Control—Beyond Systems, Into Being

At its core, this is not just a financial problem or an issue of who holds economic power. The real crisis is how we perceive, interpret, and respond to the systems that govern our lives—and this is precisely where our sense-making, our Being, and our Metacontent come into play.

Because if we are trapped in an economic model that is unsustainable, coercive, and monopolised, the real question isn’t just “how do we change it?” but “how have we come to accept it in the first place?”

This is where the Nested Theory of Sense-Making becomes essential. Our economic reality is not just a set of policies and trade agreements—it is a constructed narrative, reinforced through layers of metacontent that shape what we believe to be true, inevitable, or even desirable.

But how do we make sense of these narratives? How do we systematically map out the very structures that shape our perception of economic “truths” and “necessities” without even realising it?

The Nested Theory of Sense-Making provides the structured model for precisely that. Developed as part of a broader intellectual framework, it enables us to identify and analyse the layers of metacontent—the intellectual substrates that underpin economic beliefs, global power structures, and financial assumptions.

For example:

We are told that growth at all costs is necessary, yet the system is collapsing under its own contradictions—why?
We are sold the idea that “sustainability” can be engineered through coercion, yet it needs permanent intervention to function—why?
We are conditioned to believe that financial freedom means playing within a rigged system rather than questioning it altogether—why?

These are not just economic contradictions—they are rooted in metacontent.

Because before we even engage in economic meaning-making—before we debate financial models, policies, or reforms—our sense-making is already shaped by the structures of knowledge, assumptions, and epistemologies that we have absorbed.

This isn’t just about economics—it’s about how we are being.

The Being Framework, as a foundational model in understanding human and systemic performance, provides a lens through which we can examine not just economic functionality, but human functionality—our decisions, values, and capacity to create meaningful, self-sustaining systems rather than perpetuating dysfunctional ones.

Metacontent is the invisible foundation beneath every economic ideology, financial institution, and policy decision—the unconscious assumptions, historical narratives, and epistemological structures that dictate how financial power is structured and legitimised.

This is why the Nested Theory of Sense-Making is indispensable—it systematically maps out the layers of metacontent, making the hidden foundations of economic thought visible, and allowing us to question not just the economic constructs we operate within, but the very intellectual scaffolding upon which they are built.

If we are serious about real, regenerative change, we need more than just policy shifts or alternative financial models. We need a transformation in how we understand, relate to, and construct economic systems in the first place.

Because without a radical shift in sense-making, we’ll only keep replacing one broken empire with another.

Conclusion: What Kind of World Do We Want, and What Happens Next?

The core question is not who should control the system—it’s whether anyone should have unilateral control at all. Why would we accept dictatorship in financial and economic systems if we oppose it in political structures?

History has shown that no coercive financial system lasts forever. The question isn’t if this financial empire will collapse but when—and whether nations, institutions, and individuals will be prepared when it does. Because when enough people realise the system is rigged against them, the system itself loses legitimacy.

That’s when real change—structural, economic, and philosophical—becomes inevitable. The earthquake of change is not a matter of ideology, nationalism, or partisanship—it is a matter of systems collapsing under their own contradictions.

And when that moment arrives, the constructs, institutions, and economic models that align with human dignity, sustainability, and true sovereignty will endure. The rest will crumble.

The choice is ours: continue running in circles or start designing something better.

References

Global Financial Control & Economic Coercion

Eichengreen, B. (2011). Exorbitant privilege: The rise and fall of the dollar and the future of the international monetary system. Oxford University Press.
Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalism and freedom. University of Chicago Press.
Galtung, J. (1971). A structural theory of imperialism. Journal of Peace Research, 8(2), 81-117. https://doi.org/10.1177/002234337100800201
Hayek, F. A. (1944). The road to serfdom. Routledge.
Hudson, M. (2018). …And forgive them their debts. ISLET-Verlag.
Stiglitz, J. E. (2002). Globalization and its discontents. W.W. Norton & Company.

The Dollar’s Hegemony & Sanctions as Economic Warfare

Blanchard, E., & Bown, C. (2019). The WTO and US-China trade war. Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Perkins, J. (2004). Confessions of an economic hitman. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Schmelzer, M. (2016). The hegemony of growth: The OECD and the making of the economic growth paradigm. Cambridge University Press.

Critique of Sustainability Narratives & WEF Hypocrisy

Hickel, J. (2020). Less is more: How degrowth will save the world. Penguin Random House.
Raworth, K. (2017). Doughnut economics: Seven ways to think like a 21st-century economist. Random House.
World Economic Forum. (Various Years). Annual reports & agendas. https://www.weforum.org

Military & Financial Enforcement

Johnson, C. (2004). The sorrows of empire: Militarism, secrecy, and the end of the republic. Metropolitan Books.
Parenti, M. (1995). Against empire. City Lights Publishers.

Philosophical & Structural Perspectives on Control and Sense-Making

Baudrillard, J. (1981). Simulacra and simulation. University of Michigan Press.
Foucault, M. (1975). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Pantheon Books.

Tashvir’s Works

Tashvir, A. (2021). Being. Engenesis Publications.
Tashvir, A. (2022). Human being. Engenesis Publications.
Tashvir, A. (2024). Metacontent. Engenesis Publications.

The Empire’s Fragile Bedrock: Why The Global Economy Is Unsustainable and How It Holds Humanity Hostage