The Global Minotaur

A quick perusal of the ancient myth (see Box 1.1) confirms its suitability as a tale of unbalanced might stabilized and sustained by one-sided tribute; of a hegemonic power projecting its authority across the seas, and acting as custodian of far-reaching peace and international trade, in return for regular tribute that keep nourishing the beast within

Returning to the realm of myth, the eventual slaughter of the Minotaur by Theseus, son of King Aegeus of Athens, marked the emancipation of Athens from Cretan hegemony and the dawn of a new era.

symbol of a particular form of political and economic equilibrium straddling vastly different, faraway lands; a precarious geopolitical balance that collapsed with the beast’s slaughter, thus giving rise to a new era.

Minotaur: a creature half-human, half-bull

The Minotaur is a tragic mythological figure. Its story is packed with greed, divine retribution, revenge and much suffering.

the myth has it, a Pax Cretana was established across the known lands and seas on the basis of regular foreign tribute that kept the Minotaur well nourished.

The collapse of communism in 1991 saw the conclusion of a tragedy with classical overtones, a fatal inversion (a peripeteia, as Aristotle would have called it) which began when the noble intentions of revolutionary socialists were first usurped by power-hungry zealots, before giving way to an unsustainable industrial feudalism containing only victims and villains.

A stick half submerged in a river looks bent. As one moves around it, the angle changes and every different location yields a different perspective.

different viewpoints can all generate ‘true’ observations, yet fail to unveil the basic truth about the phenomenon under study.

In one fell swoop, it generated – with neither rhyme nor reason – wealth and crises, development and deprivation, progress and backwardness.