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Ch. 4: Securitization: The Insecurity of It All

#60: Jan. - Feb. 2009 (Non-Fiction)
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Grim

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Susan George, [url=http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/econ101/neoliberalism.html][u][i]A Short History of Neoliberalism: Twenty Years of Elite Economics and Emerging Opportunities for Structural Change[/i][/u][/url] wrote:"In 1945 or 1950, if you had seriously proposed any of the ideas and policies in today’s standard neo-liberal toolkit, you would have been laughed off the stage or sent off to the insane asylum. At least in the Western countries, at that time, everyone was a Keynesian, a social democrat or a social-Christian democrat or some shade of Marxist. The idea that the market should be allowed to make major social and political decisions; the idea that the State should voluntarily reduce its role in the economy, or that corporations should be given total freedom, that trade unions should be curbed and citizens given much less rather than more social protection — such ideas were utterly foreign to the spirit of the time. Even if someone actually agreed with these ideas, he or she would have hesitated to take such a position in public and would have had a hard time finding an audience."

"Alas, Polanyi's optimism was misplaced--the whole point of neo-liberalism is that the market mechanism should be allowed to direct the fate of human beings. The economy should dictate its rules to society, not the other way around. And just as Polanyi foresaw, this doctrine is leading us directly towards the 'demolition of society'."
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Yes, and this neosocialist dominance after the war is what gave Keynes a strangle hold on the British economy, resulting in its steady decline until the election of Margaret Thatcher.
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Susan George, [url=http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/econ101/neoliberalism.html][u][i]A Short History of Neoliberalism: Twenty Years of Elite Economics and Emerging Opportunities for Structural Change[/i][/u][/url] wrote:"So what happened? Why have we reached this point half a century after the end of the Second World War? Or, as the organisers ask, "Why are we having this conference right now?" The short answer is "Because of the series of recent financial crises, especially in Asia". But this begs the question--the question they are really asking is "How did neo-liberalism ever emerge from its ultra-minoritarian ghetto to become the dominant doctrine in the world today?" Why can the IMF and the Bank intervene at will and force countries to participate in the world economy on basically unfavourable terms. Why is the Welfare State under threat in all the countries where it was established? Why is the environment on the edge of collapse and why are there so many poor people in both the rich and the poor countries at a time when there has never existed such great wealth? Those are the questions that need to be answered from an historical perspective.'
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Susan George, [url=http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/econ101/neoliberalism.html][u][i]A Short History of Neoliberalism: Twenty Years of Elite Economics and Emerging Opportunities for Structural Change[/i][/u][/url] wrote:" As I've argued in detail in the US quarterly journal Dissent, one explanation for this triumph of neo-liberalism and the economic, political, social and ecological disasters that go with it is that neo-liberals have bought and paid for their own vicious and regressive "Great Transformation". They have understood, as progressives have not, that ideas have consequences. Starting from a tiny embryo at the University of Chicago with the philosopher-economist Friedrich von Hayek and his students like Milton Friedman at its nucleus, the neo-liberals and their funders have created a huge international network of foundations, institutes, research centers, publications, scholars, writers and public relations hacks to develop, package and push their ideas and doctrine relentlessly.

They have built this highly efficient ideological cadre because they understand what the Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci was talking about when he developed the concept of cultural hegemony. If you can occupy peoples' heads, their hearts and their hands will follow. I do not have time to give you details here, but believe me, the ideological and promotional work of the right has been absolutely brilliant. They have spent hundreds of millions of dollars, but the result has been worth every penny to them because they have made neo-liberalism seem as if it were the natural and normal condition of humankind. No matter how many disasters of all kinds the neo-liberal system has visibly created, no matter what financial crises it may engender, no matter how many losers and outcasts it may create, it is still made to seem inevitable, like an act of God, the only possible economic and social order available to us."
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I Die a Little Inside...

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Hi Robert,

I thank you for your frank and calm reply. I am sorry that I left out a really important piece of information in my thread. I have not read effectively "bad money" yet and I assumed "securitization," the subject of this thread, meant the "privatization" of social security. Also, I have not delved deeply into Milton Friedman's work, although I would love to. He does sound like he really has reason in his studies, and it is my mistake for assuming him to be part of the neoliberlist policies. I must remember that the neoliberalist people that have been in power for a while now pick and choose what "theories" work for them and justify their policies. Of course, they will leave out the rest of Friedman's teachings if it doesn't work for them.

About globalization, I agree with you that globalization is the right way to help the poor IF it is done the right way. What if you could look at it from a different point of view?? What if what is really going on is the "framing" and "selling" of globalization by "a certain nation" and what they are really doing is making all-out war to KEEP their domination of resources, Keep their domination of global-world hegemony, and KEEP third-world nations poor just because it benefits them? There are MANY case studies that PROVE this "certain" nation does NOT want other countries to thrive because that would not just mean a new "rival" for power, that would also mean that other third-world countries would have new hope that they could change the way things are (which is domination by U.S. interests in a new economic-colonial way) into a country that thrives and many U.S. officials call this a "virus!". What if things are that cynical and that evil in the world today??? I HATE the fact this might be true. It makes me SICK to my stomach to think that reality is this way. I DONT LIKE it this way but EVERYWHERE I LOOK, everytime I go after the truth honestly and without blinding myself to my emotions and past perspectives, I see proof of reality this way and I shake my head and I die a little more inside...
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Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, in 1919 wrote:"Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused."
This is no controversial perception but something that has been recognized at the highest levels since at least the early 20th century.

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Wow!

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Wow! Thanks for the quote because that honestly helps me with MANY of my arguments. Out of curiosity, where did you find this quote? From another book?
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Grim

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Noam Chomsky, On Power and Ideology

I'm not sure in this case if I should have quoted Chomsky, I don't think I necessarily had to as the quote is originally from a third party of sorts. Great book worth the read.

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Thanks. I am halfway through my second Noam Chomsky book "Hegemony or Survival." The first was "Necessary Illusions." Chomsky really punches you hard with the realism in his books. It's excruciating pain sometimes!!
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Grim wrote:
Susan George, [url=http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/econ101/neoliberalism.html][u][i]A Short History of Neoliberalism: Twenty Years of Elite Economics and Emerging Opportunities for Structural Change[/i][/u][/url] wrote:"So what happened? Why have we reached this point half a century after the end of the Second World War? Or, as the organisers ask, "Why are we having this conference right now?" The short answer is "Because of the series of recent financial crises, especially in Asia". But this begs the question--the question they are really asking is "How did neo-liberalism ever emerge from its ultra-minoritarian ghetto to become the dominant doctrine in the world today?" Why can the IMF and the Bank intervene at will and force countries to participate in the world economy on basically unfavourable terms. Why is the Welfare State under threat in all the countries where it was established? Why is the environment on the edge of collapse and why are there so many poor people in both the rich and the poor countries at a time when there has never existed such great wealth? Those are the questions that need to be answered from an historical perspective.'
:book:
Grim, the reason why the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank so-called “force countries to participate in the world economy” is that those countries themselves wish to have access to financial credit, but their credit ratings are so bad that they cannot borrow except on Bank/Fund terms, which typically require basic standards of governance as lenders of last resort. Countries only go to the Bank and the Fund when they have previously stupidly borrowed large amounts of money and then wasted it or allowed their rulers to steal it. It is the "responsibility" that goes with the "rights" of sovereignty. I agree the World Bank is somewhat culpable though, in that over the years it has believed the lies that governments have told it when they said they would use their loans productively.
The welfare state is under threat because it is paid for by the taxes of the private sector, and is often unaffordable. As well, giving people unearned money reduces their incentive to work. The reason why there are so many poor people is that capitalism has enabled population growth through its development of modern scientific health and agriculture.
Susan George has no proposals with any practical merit as far as I have seen.
bobby408 wrote: Milton Friedman... does sound like he really has reason in his studies, and it is my mistake for assuming him to be part of the neoliberalist policies. I must remember that the neoliberalist people that have been in power for a while now pick and choose what "theories" work for them and justify their policies. Of course, they will leave out the rest of Friedman's teachings if it doesn't work for them.
Thanks Bobby. Your comment illustrates the difference between the theory and practice of neoliberalism. The theory, for which Friedman was largely responsible, is a sound way to generate sustainable economic growth, but the practice, through the Reagan-Bush era, has been to take those elements of the theory that immediately benefit the extreme rich and ignore the rest. It is hardly surprising that people assume the practice applies the theory.
About globalization, I agree with you that globalization is the right way to help the poor IF it is done the right way. What if you could look at it from a different point of view?? What if what is really going on is the "framing" and "selling" of globalization by "a certain nation" and what they are really doing is making all-out war to KEEP their domination of resources, Keep their domination of global-world hegemony, and KEEP third-world nations poor just because it benefits them? There are MANY case studies that PROVE this "certain" nation does NOT want other countries to thrive because that would not just mean a new "rival" for power, that would also mean that other third-world countries would have new hope that they could change the way things are (which is domination by U.S. interests in a new economic-colonial way) into a country that thrives and many U.S. officials call this a "virus!". What if things are that cynical and that evil in the world today??? I HATE the fact this might be true. It makes me SICK to my stomach to think that reality is this way. I DONT LIKE it this way but EVERYWHERE I LOOK, everytime I go after the truth honestly and without blinding myself to my emotions and past perspectives, I see proof of reality this way and I shake my head and I die a little more inside...
I don’t believe the USA is so venal. A good counter-example is South Korea, which in the 1950s was as poor as Africa but is now a member of the OECD, the world rich club. The US supported South Korea because South Korea supported the US capitalist approach. Just think, if Vietnam had taken the same view as South Korea it would now also be a rich country. Unfortunately Vietnam lacked leaders like Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew with a vision of capitalist progress.
I don't believe your implication that the US wants to keep countries poor. However, this general support for economic growth does get tied up in politics, with the prime example of Israel, who I think do want to keep Palestine poor. Unfortunately the politics of hatred and mistrust overwhelms the potential for security through mutual prosperity.
The trouble is that the poor countries need to come to the party by implementing policies that will generate sustainable growth.
RT
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