Neoliberalism or Anti-neoliberalism. Which side are you on?

[AP]

Poll question: Neoliberalism or Anti-neoliberalism. Which side are you on?

A simple question.

Are you for neoliberalism? Do you think think the wealth of nations (ownership of assets, like the water company, and the value of those assets, like the profit made from oil and agriculture) should flow to New York, Houston, Amesterdam and London?

Or are you against neoliberalism? Do you think that the rest of the world should be entitled to do what FDR did for America: build up their own middle classes through allowing their own wealth to cycle within the country before it flows BY CHOICE outside their borders?

[corporatewhore]

1. Arundhati Roy-Neoliberalism is the economic wing of Neoimperalism

[ulysses]

9. I've heard a version of that attributed to Granny D

:)

[trotsky]

2. A little from Column A, a little from Column B?

Local economies in all countries can benefit greatly from trade with the large financial capitals of the world. Yes, the danger for exploitation is there, but if we could actually work to ensure that democracies are established instead of puppet regimes friendly to US business interests, I believe things could balance out.

[AP]

4. That philosophy died with JFK. Greed has taken over.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

3. Can I just say I'm a Social-Democrat please? (nt)

[AP]

5. You don't have that option. Bush is forcing us all to make

this choice by his actions in Haiti, Venezuela, Africa and everywhere else.

Bush is forcing us to take sides on this issue, and we don't have the luxury of ignoring it.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

19. Well put

the evil empire doesn't rest - thus we can't either

[RichardRay]

6. Horse puckie

The idea that the U.S. created its wealth in some sort of grand isolation is ridiculous on the face of it. We took raw materials from all over the world and sold our products in world markets. Other countries are now doing the same.

If we want to throw our weight around and prevent them from doing to us what we did to them we can certainly do that, but making it into some sort of a grand moral issue is, as I noted above, horse puckie. If you want to equate something to imperialism try the idea that other countries shouldn't be allowed to compete when they can.

[cprise]

7. Care to back that up with data?

U.S. and Japanese protectionism are prime examples of how to build a strong economy.

Would Japan have been competing with us if our automobile and electronics firms had setup shop there and forced their government to give no preference to their own budding industrialists? THANK GOD Japanese auto and electronics production isn't run by GM and RCA!!!

[redqueen]

8. Thanks for this poll

This is what it's come down to.

Just as we left-liberals must join with centrists to defeat bush, I'm not surprised to see that on a global stage, the different elements of anti-neoliberalism are joining forces as well.

I've always believed that this world was not long for unfettered capitalism. It's simply unsustainable. Are we about to see the tide start to turn against the oligarchs / plutocrats?

[arcos]

11. Are you glad to have Mugabe on your side?

A known human rights violator and virulent homophobe?

[redqueen]

17. They've been on America's side since before you were born

Are you glad of that?

This is a silly argument. As I said in the post you responded to, we must band together or lose the war.

[arcos]

20. I have no sympathy whatsoever to Mugabe...

And someone who believes I'm worse than "pigs and dogs" is definitely NOT on my side.

[dpibel]

23. Are you an equal opportunity hater?

Unless I misread you, your real beef with Mugabe is his homophobia.

You are, then, I assume, equally filled with rage and hatred at people like the Fierce Warrior Chieftain and his good buds who think a constitutional amendment to protect righteous Americans from gay marriage.

Did I get that right?

(BTW: If you fall back on "thug," just fill me in on who killed more innocent civilians last year.)

[noiretextatique]

41. seems more personal than that

perhaps his family had some interests in rhodesia.

[AP]

28. What's wrong with saying:

"This guy does just about everything wrong, but he's right about the most important thing"? That's pretty much true.

And you know what? The alternative is the MDC, a party financed by Europeans, which wants to give back the land to the corporations, and wants to maintain the status quo pre-land reform, which makes them wrong about EVERYTHING.

[arcos]

10. well, if being against Mugabe is being FOR neoliberalism...

I'm definitely for it...

This is a push poll... I'm very opposed to Mugabe for reasons other than neoliberalism/neocolonialism, and I think he is a major asshole. Does that make me a neoliberal? Does that mean I want "the wealth of the nations to flow to NY, Houston, Amsterdam and London"???

[K-W]

12. Im sensing othe rissues here, but

on the strict issue of the poll, i dont mind the push so much. Neoliberalism (being neither new nor liberal) is a horrible system even under its stated goals and actions. When you look at what really goes on behind it, you should be outraged.

[arcos]

14. believe me, I know...

I'm from a developing country, I know what neoliberalism is and what it causes. And yes, it outrages me...

Now... opposing Mugabe is being FOR neoliberalism??

[K-W]

15. I am not familar enough with that situation to really speak on it,

[seemslikeadream]

22. Mission Accomplished in Haiti. Onward to Venezuela?

In These Times.

For the Bushites, though, "loaded and angry" popular movements are not the problem; under brutal enough conditions, those movements can be stifled.

The problem is Hugo Chavez.

They blame him not only for the fall of Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, but also for funding Colombia's FARC and ELN. Moreover, they say Chavez is conspiring with Fidel Castro and offering sanctuary for "European leftists, retired East European intelligence officers and activists from countries on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism," as the AP hysterically reported in January. The Bush Ministry of Disinformation, U.S. News & World Report division, would have us believe "Middle Eastern terrorist groups" are operating "support cells" in Venezuela and elsewhere in the Andean region.

As investigative journalist Jeremy Bigwood discovered through an FIOA request, the National Endowment for Democracy, a well-documented CIA front, has backed anti-Chavez projects and recall referendums in Venezuela.

The documents Bigwood made public reveal ties between the US embassy in Caracas and Chavez's opposition, that is to say the ruling elite and business interests pushing Washington's neoliberal agenda. Add to this the CIA-esque training camps in Florida run by Rodolfo Frometa and Captain Luis Eduardo Garcia, and it becomes obvious what the game plan is -- ousting the democratically elected leader of Venezuela and installing an obsequious lackey, such as Carlos Andres Perez, a true-blue servant for neoliberalism and the Wall Street loan sharks.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1124

[bicentennial_baby]

13. Reading a good book on this right now

"Profit over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order" by Chomsky.

[lostnfound]

30. Nice short book, Chomsky gets the concepts across..

as always (though it was repetitive sometimes since it was really a collection of essays).

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

16. I wonder what thread started this poll

I predicted you'd start this poll by the end of the day. :toast:

[arcos]

18. "You are either with us, or against us"...

sounds familiar, huh?

I hate totalitarians...

[AP]

27. "Which side are you on," I believe, is from the labor rights movement.

And they weren't totalitarians.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

29. grow up

AP's views are more nuanced than that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. True. He does, after all, support Tony Blair

who is a leading neoliberal.

[AP]

34. Is Tony Blair a leading neoliberal? Let's look at the evidence.

- Jamaica took in Aristide, and I don't think they would have done that without clearing it with Blair.

- When the US was trying to punish PDVSA with strikes, British Petroleum was signing fair contracts with them.

- Britain, I understand, was instrumental in making sure Zimbabwe got the food aid they needed to avoid problems during the drought last summer, when he could have made the neoliberals very happy by letting the starve and then blame it on land reform (and remember, this was at the same time that the US would only offer GMO food, which Zimbabwe smartly refused to take).

- Tony isn't letting Bush cronies at Cairn Energy have access to Iraq. In fact, I haven't seen any allegations that the UK is using Iraq for the purposes that Bush is using in (ie, pass tons of wealth to corporate cronies).

I don't think Tony is anti-neoliberal. And I think that the system in the UK is institutionally conservative, and it would be next to impossible to keep the influence of capital totally out of policy making. However, the guy certainly appears to understand that there is a neoliberal line which he's not willing to cross. And that's unusual for a western politician today. He's also changing the system bit by bit in the UK to make it more democratic. Your best days are in the future, and Tony Blair is building that bridge. You're lucky. The US looks to be FUBAR.

[muriel_volestrangler]

36. Blair and neoliberalism

From the top hit in Google on 'neoliberalism':

A general characteristic of neoliberalism is the desire to intensify and expand the market, by increasing the number, frequency, repeatability, and formalisation of transactions. The ultimate (unreachable) goal of neoliberalism is a universe where every action of every being is a market transaction, conducted in competition with every other being and influencing every other transaction, with transactions occurring in an infinitely short time, and repeated at an infinitely fast rate.
...
The neoliberal ideology sees the nation primarily as a business firm, as explained above. The nation-firm is selling itself as an investment location, rather than simply selling export goods. If no-one in government believes in this ideology, it will have no consequences. If however, a neoliberal government is in power, it will pursue policies designed to make the nation more attractive as an investment location. These policies are generally pro-business, and are perceived as such by the opponents of the policies.

But remember that the ideology is neo-mercantilist: the policies are national policies, directed ultimately at the welfare of the nation and not of the market. Paradoxically, they are a form of protectionism: if there is a global market of investment locations, then it is 'unfair competition' for governments to artificially increase the attractiveness of their own country. Such governments are, strictly speaking, not good market liberals. Hard-line classic market liberals would shrug their shoulders at the election of an anti-business government. "Business will go elsewhere, the country will become poor, that's the way the global market works, leave the market alone", they would say. They would not waste their time trying to get a pro-business government elected there. In reality few liberals are so consistent, neoliberals certainly are not. But their rhetoric of 'national competitiveness' is a form of economic nationalism: it is a modern version of the old nationalist insistence, that the whole nation should work together. It revitalises jingoism, chauvinism, flag-waving and foreigner-bashing: Tony Blair is probably the best example.

Don't tell me that a country with our history and heritage, that today boasts six of the top ten businesses in the whole of Europe, with London the top business city in Europe, that is a world leader in technology and communication and the businesses of the future, that under us has overtaken France and Italy to become the fourth largest economy in the world, that has the language of the new economy, more brilliant artists, actors and directors than any comparable country in the world, some of the best scientists and inventors in the world, the best armed forces in the world, the best teachers and doctors and nurses, the best people any nation could wish for. Don't tell me with all that going for us that we do not have the spirit to meet all the challenges before us.
Blair conference speech, 26 September 2000

Now, a neoliberal government will almost certainly appeal to 'globalisation' as a justification and legitimisation of its policies - Tony Blair certainly does. By globalisation they mean, more or less, that the global market of investment locations now exists, and that it is an inevitable historical development. The opponents of the neoliberal government will, in turn, oppose this 'globalisation'. However, that does not mean that the global market of nations actually exists. The existence of neoliberal governments, pursuing neoliberal policies justified by an appeal to globalisation, does not mean that a new global order has superseded the order of nation states. The very fact, that it is still primarily the nation state which is being 'marketed' in this way, shows that the nation has not disappeared.



http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/neoliberalism.html

I'd add to that the keenness (almost an obsession) of Blair with the Private Finance Initiative, his wish to introduce competition into the National Health Service and education, and his strong support for the WTO.

As for your points:
I don't think that Jamaica would clear taking in Aristide with Blair, but I doubt either one of us will be able to prove it either way. But I don't think Blair is vindictive, and I don't particularly think he was trying to get Aristide out of Haiti (Haiti doesn't loom large in politics in the UK at all). But being a neoliberal isn't about ousting your opponents (I'd say that's a neo-conservative approach); it's about an attitude to markets and trade.

Fair contracts with PDVSA: that's what neoliberalism is all about. Doing things by trade. Whether Blair had any say in this, I couldn't say (BP was privatised long ago; since it's now genuinely multinational, I doubt Blair doesn't have enormous influence on it).

Zimbabwean food aid: yes, he sent this (he wouldn't send any GMO food, since Britain doesn't have any. Note that his government has now OKed GM maize in the UK; he doesn't have an ideological objection to it). I suppose a strict neoliberal would have let them starve or submit. But note that in 2001-02, UK aid was less than 15% of the total aid to Zimbabwe (see Zimbabwe graph here); it's not just the UK which donated, so Blair might not have been able to force the issue anyway. His preferred method is for a financial settlement inside Zimbabwe, and for it to earn foreign currency by trading externally with cash crops where that's profitable; this is a neoliberal approach.

Blair is lobbying on behalf of British companies for Iraq contracts:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/8209888.htm
Amec, who got the £278 million contract, is a major company in the PFI area ( http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/profiles/amec/amec4.html ) and rail and London Underground privatisation.

Now, I have some neoliberal tendencies myself (I'd say I'm closer to classical liberal - I don't have the amount of faith in markets that New Labour has), so I'm not saying all these things are necessarily wrong. But Blair looks distinctly neoliberal to me.

[AP]

37. My points:

- Jamaica. I'm picking up the pieces, turning them over, and putting them together. I can't prove anything, but I think it's perfectly obvious.

- Neoliberalism ISN"T about JUST markets. It's about unfair markets. Fair trade is the core of all human activity. Neoliberalism is the opposite of fair trade. When PDVSA signs fair contracts with China, Brazil, the UK, etc., that's NOT neoliberalism.

This is so obvious, I think it's demeans both of us for me to have to take this point any farther.

-Zimbabwe, I think, proves that Blair isn't a hardline neoliberal. Imagine what the tories would have done by now. Blair isn't exactly screaming to get the SAS guy back to the UK. Aren't bells going off?

- I'll add another piece of the puzzle that suggests Blair's government must be engaging in a commendable internal debate over these issues: Pinochet. Jack Straw is the biggest ass in Blair's government, and although he ultimately did the wrong thing with Pinochet, it was Straw who chose get that ball rolling by respecting the spanish arrest warrant. No Tory would EVER have done that, and it set a GREAT legal precendent.

I thought you wer a neoliberal, by the way (but I'm not sure if you really understand what you're saying if you think it's on the same scale as classical liberalism).

[muriel_volestrangler]

43. Try Wikipedia for articles on neoliberalism

and classical liberalism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism

Neoliberalism is not about unfair markets. It may sometimes force developing countries to trade when they'd be better off protecting their markets, as developed countries have done; but it regards any contract as a good thing.

[AP]

44. Try reading contemporary, respected public intellectuals and politicians.

I'm not confining my mind to the world of Wilkipedia. I'm trying to engage with ideas a little more sophisticated than Wilkipedia (and I hope you are too!).

Read Duggan's book. Read Chavez's speaches. Read Stiglitz.

[AP]

38. BTW, who the hell is Paul Treanor?

Date: Sun, 17 May 1998
From: Geert Lovink

> Who is Paul Treanor? I'm familiar with his site but expect that you know
> what is root identity is (where he lives, teaches etc.)

We have no idea, perhaps next door, a professional academic, unemployed... he represents the dark side of dutch digital culture sometimes in a good sense as an orginal critical negative thinker most of the time just poorly informed because he is a lonesome cyber jongetje, trying to make the maximum damage as possible. that's how we saw him operating on a couple of lists. Pit and I removed him quickly from nettime, but he still writes for telepolis, for instance.

> I tried to call and mail you

Sorry but I was in Germany

Ciao, Geert

(he is not in the amsterdam phone book)

http://www.alamut.com/proj/98/adam2/thread/possCities_Treanor.html

[muriel_volestrangler]

46. He's a political scientist

who seems to get referenced quite a lot in web articles. As far as I can tell he doesn't hold any position in an institution. At first glance, his writing might appeal to you. Try this:

http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/recolonisation.html

I think a colonial relationship is defined by two things: first, there is an inequality of power and administration, and secondly this inequality is along ethnic lines. Colonial territories are sharply distinct from the nation state, because they reject the classic nationalist principle that ethnic group, citizenship, state power, and state boundaries, should all coincide.

It is this fundamental colonial relationship which was so clearly visible in Timor during the Australian occupation. White Australian troops patrolled the streets of Dili, but the inhabitants of Timor were not allowed to send troops to patrol the streets of Canberra, and search white Australians for weapons. Timorese can not vote in Australian elections, or sit in the Australian parliament, or even permanently reside in Australia - but Australian electors took decisions affecting Timor. There is an asymmetric exercise of power in such protectorates, and the asymmetry is ethnic.

[AP]

47. muriel, are you a libertarian?

[muriel_volestrangler]

48. I wouldn't say so

My vote has always gone to the Liberal Democrats (or their predecessors) in Britain, except for one time when I voted for the Green Party.

For instance, I support their policy of creating a top income tax rate of 50% for those earning £100,000 or more, and a local income tax rather than the regressive council tax.

I do support free trade as a concept; I think the European, and other developed countries', agricultural tariffs need to be got rid of far faster than is happening. I think this would help developing countries in both decreasing imports and increasing exports.

[AP]

40. You should read this book:

The Twilight of Equality: Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy by Lisa Duggan

An analysis of the political and cultural agendas that have underpinned the success of neoliberalism

We've now all heard about the shocking redistribution of wealth—to the rich—that's occurred during the last thirty years, and particularly during the last decade. But economic changes like this don't occur in a vacuum; they're always linked to politics, to ideas about things like the proper role of government, what is natural and unnatural, good and bad, and what we imagine for our country and ourselves.

The Twilight of Equality searches out these links through an analysis of the politics of the 1990s, the decade when neoliberalism—free market economics—became gospel. Through a series of political case studies, Duggan shows how neoliberal goals have been pursued through racial codes, populist campaigns, culture wars, and sex panics—demonstrating conclusively that progressive arguments that separate identity politics and economic policy, cultural politics and affairs of state, can only fail.

This is a book for intellectuals and activists—feminist, lesbian and gay, antiracist, and antiwar—interested in how neoliberalism has functioned to increase global inequality and seeking a way to revitalize progressive politics in the U.S. today.



Lisa Duggan is associate professor of American studies and history at New York University. She is coeditor of Our Monica, Ourselves: The Clinton Affair and National Interest and author of Sapphic Slashers: Sex, Violence, and American Modernity, which won the John Boswell Prize of the American Historical Association in 2001.

http://www.beacon.org/catalogs/f03/duggan.html

[noiretextatique]

42. no...you just totally hate mugabe eom

[cprise]

21. A good way to present the issue

...is by asking whether Globalization will be for everyone, or if it will continue to empower only corporations and only for the sake of profit.

[AP]

26. It's not even good for most Americans. Concentrating so much wealth

and power in the hands of corporations, whether it's wealth stolen from foreign countries, or from American labor (and debt), is a huge threat to Democracy.

In fact, they go hand in glove. Multinationals are buying themselves complicit governments which give them laws exploiting Americans with the money they get from exploiting foreign governments.

[library_max]

24. This whole thread is an excellent case in point

against single-issue politics. Embrace single-issue politics and who knows what kind of monster you're going to end up embracing because, for one reason or another, he happens to be on your "side."

[AP]

25. Yet this is probably the single most important issue today. There is so

much wealth at stake, this issue drives all other issues. This is whay big business and the media wants Republicans in office. This is why the NED and the CIA are trying to overthrow governments all over the world. This is why we're lied to daily by the press.

Follow the money.

This is the issue that drives all others.

Democrats won't win until we address this issue.

[library_max]

32. Democrats won't win if we run against wealth per se.

The private sector is the engine that creates wealth, jobs, etc., or so it is almost universally perceived. A Democrat who runs against big business as such might as well be running as a Green. We can talk about reform, we can talk about enforcing the law, but if we talk about business like it's the enemy we're dead in the water.

[redqueen]

33. Not all businesses are equal

You're right of course that the huge multinationals weild so much power that to speak against them is to relegate yourself to the realm of Dennis Kucinich (ignored).

However, it's important to note that the main engine for job growth is SMALL businesses, which are NOT the enemy here. It's the huge multinationals, sucking up wealth way out of proportion to anything they return by way of jobs or wealth into the general economy, who are the ones we need to be VERY concerned with, as they are in the process of subverting democracy completely via the WTO and various FTA's.

[AP]

35. You can be for wealth and against inequitable concentrations of wealth.

In fact, inequitable distributions of wealth tend to produce less overall wealth. That's the idea behind anti-monopoly law. Fair competition on a level playing field creates the most wealth, and that's what Democrats need to run on.

[Zorra]

39. Subcomandante Marcos on Neo-liberalism:

IMO, this is an accurate and comprehensive discussion of neo-liberalism and it's destructive effects on human beings and national sovereignity.

"Modern globalization, neoliberalism as a global system, should be understood as a new war of conquest for territories."

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/1997/jigsaw.html

[AP]

45. But what about Wilkapedia?

Just kidding!