America's Secret Establishment

An Introduction to The Order of Skull and Bones (condensed edition)
-- by: Antony C. Sutton, 1986, source: Liberty House Press
MHP hypertext version for non-profit educational use only

3.1  Created Conflict and the Dialectic Process

Staged left/right conflict to consolidate power

Introduction

The operational history of The Order can only be understood within a framework of the Hegelian dialectic process. Quite simply, this is the notion that conflict creates history. From this axiom it follows that controlled conflict can create a predetermined history...

In Hegelian terms, an existing force (the thesis) generates a counterforce (the anti-thesis). Conflict between the two forces results in the forming of a synthesis... The synthesis sought by the Establishment is called a New World Order... And this is being done with the calculated, managed use of conflict... The "conflict" builds profits while pushing the world ever closer to One World Government.

The operations of The Order must be seen and explained in terms of the Hegelian dialectic process. Their operations cannot be explained in terms of any other philosophy... The Order cannot be described as "right" or "left", secular or religious, Marxist or Capitalist. The Order and its objectives is all of these and none of these.

Descriptive world history in [both Capitalist] and Marxist countries consists only of description and analysis within a political framework of "right" or "left"... However, there is another frame for historical analysis... [using] Hegelian logic to determine if those elites who control the State use the dialectic process to create a predetermined historical synthesis.

For example, President Woodrow Wilson made the revealing statement:

"Some of the biggest men in the U.S. in the fields of commerce and manufacturing know that there is a power so organized, so subtle, so complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."

Who or what is this power? And how is it used?

This series argues that the current world situation has been deliberately created by this elitist power more or less by manipulation of "right" and "left" elements. We argue that the most powerful of all world elites has, during the past 100 years or so, developed both right and left elements to bring about a New World Order.

The practice of "managing" crises to bring about a favorable outcome -- that is, favorable to the elite -- is freely admitted in the literature of, for example, the Trilateral Commission. Furthermore, there is no question that decision of war and peace are made by a few in the elite and not by the [public].

How the Dialectic Process Works

In Germany from the time of Kant, through Fitche and Hegel up to 1945, the root philosophy has been universal brotherhood, rejection of individualism, and general opposition to Western classical liberal thought in almost all its aspects. German idealism...was the philosophical basis for the work of Karl Marx and the "left" Hegelians, as well as Bismarck, Hitler and the "right" Hegelians.

The Hegelian system of political thought [asserts that] the State is also God, that the only duty of a citizen is to serve God by serving the State, that the State is Absolute Reason, [and] that a citizen can only find freedom by worship and utter obedience to the State. [These absurdities] have thoroughly penetrated the U.S. educational system under pressure from such organizations as the National Education Association and major foundations.

From this sysem of Hegelian philosophy comes the historical dialectic, that all historical events emerge from a conflict between opposing forces.

Karl Marx, in "Das Kapital", posed capitalism as thesis and communism as antithesis... [However] the clash of opposites must, in the Hegelian system, bring about a society neither capitalist or communist. Moreover...this new synthesis will reflect the concept of the State as God and the individual as totally subordinate to an all-powerful State.

What then is the function of a Parliament or Congress for Hegelians? These institutions are merely to allow individuals to feel that their opinions have some value... As Hegel puts it:

"By virtue of this participation, subjective liberty, and conceit with their general opinion, (individuals) can show themselves palpably efficacious and enjoy the satisfaction of feeling themselves to count for something."

War, the organized conflict of nations, for Hegelians is only the visible outcome of the clash between ideas. As John Dewey, the Hegelian darling of the modern educational system puts it:

"War is the most effective preacher of the vanity of all merely finite interests; it puts an end to that selfish egoism of the individual by which he would claim his life and his property as his own or as his family's."

-- "German Philosophy and Politics", p. 197

Above all, the Hegelian doctrine is the divine right of States rather than the divine right of kings. The State for Hegel and Hegelians is God on earth:

"The march of God in history is the cause of the existence of States; their foundation is the power of Reason realizing itself as will. Every state, whatever it be, participates in the divine essence. The State is not the work of human art, only Reason could produce it."

-- "Philosophy of Right"

For Hegel the individual is nothing, the individual has no rights, morality consists solely in following a leader... Compare this to the spirit and letter of the Constitution of the United States: "We the People" grant the state some powers and reserve all others to the people... For these elitists the State is supreme and a self-appointed elite running the State acts indeed as God on earth.

J.P. Morgan Uses the Dialectic Process

[An example] has been recorded by Professor Carroll Quigley in "Tragedy and Hope", a trade book based on documents of the Council on Foreign Relations. Quigley not only describes banker J.P. Morgan's use of the "right" and the "left" as competitive devices for political manipulation of society, but adds an eye-opening comment:

"Unfortunately we do not have space here for this great and untold story, but it must be remembered that what we do say is part of a much larger picture." (p. 945)

The only college attended by Morgan was 2-3 years in the mid 1850s at University of Gottingen, Germany, which was a center of Hegelian activism... German Hegelianism is apparent in J.P. Morgan's approach to political parties -- Morgan used them all. As Quigley comments:

"The associations between Wall Street and the Left...are really survivals of the associations between the Morgan Bank and the Left. To Morgan, all political parties were simply organizations to be used, and the firm always was careful to keep a foot in all camps... [The] multipartisan political views of the Morgan firm in domestic politics went back to the original founder of the firm, George Peabody (1795-1869). To this same seminal figure may be attributed the use of tax-exempt foundations for controlling these activities..."

Quigley did not know of the link between the Morgan firm, other New York financial interests and The Order. As we have noted before, Quigley did publish a valuable expose of the British Establishment known as " The Group". And we know from personal correspondence that Quigley suspected more than he published, but identification of an American elite was not part of Quigley's work. The names Harriman, Bush, Acheson, Whitney -- even Stimson -- do not appear in "The Anglo American Establishment".

Although Morgan himself was not a member of The Order, some of his partners were, and after Morgan's death the firm became Morgan, Stanley & Co.. The "Stanley" was Harold Stanley (The Order 1908). In Morgan's time the influence of The Order came through partner Henry P. Davison, whose son H.P. Davison Jr. was initiated in 1920. The elder Henry P. Davison brought Thomas Lamont and Willard Straight into the Morgan firm. These partners were instrumental in building the "left wing" of Morgan's dialectic, including the Communist Party U.S.A. (with Julius Hammer)... Morgan partner Thomas Cochran was initiated in 1904.

The practice by The Order of supporting both "right" and "left" persists down to the present day. We find in 1984, for example, that Averell Harriman (1913) is elder statesman of the Democratic party while George H.W. Bush (1949) is a Republican Vice President. (see note [E1])

The Creation of War and Revolution

This manipulation of "left" and "right" on the domestic front is duplicated in the international field where "left" and "right" political structures are artificially constructed and collapsed in the drive for a one-world synthesis. (see note [E2])

College textbooks present war and revolution as more or less accidental results of conflicting forces... Unfortunately, this is nonsense. War is always a deliberate creative act by [elitist] individuals.

Western textbooks also have gigantic gaps. For example, after World War II the Tribunals set up to investigate Nazi war crimininals were careful to censor any materials recording Western assistance to Hitler. By the same token, Western textbooks on Soviet economic development omit any description of the economic and financial aid given to the 1917 [Bolshevik] Revolution and subsequent economic development by Western firms and banks.

(For more, see "Wall St. and the Bolshevik Revolution" and "Wall St. and the Rise of Hitler" also by Prof. Sutton)

Revolution is always recorded as a spontaneous event by the politically or economically deprived against an autocratic state. Never in Western textbooks will you find the evidence that revolutions need finance and the source of the finance in many cases traces back to Wall Street.

Consequently it can be argued that our Western history is every bit as distorted, censored and largely useless as that of Hitler's Germany or the Soviet Union or Communist China. No Western foundation will award grants to investigate such topics, few Western academics can "survive" by researching such theses, and certainly no major publisher will easily accept manuscripts reflecting such arguments.

In fact, there is another largely unrecorded history and it tells a story quite different than our sanitized textbooks. It tells a story of the deliberate creation of war, the knowing finance of revolution to challenge governments, and the use of conflict to create a New World Order.

We will show that the purpose of The Order is to create a new synthesis, a New World Order along Hegelian lines, where the State is the Absolute and the individual can find freedom only in blind obedience to the State.