Home » Posts tagged 'neoliberalism'

Tag Archives: neoliberalism

Backing Up Macro Alf, & Showcasing Ravel, in 11 plots and two averages

The macro commentator Alfonso Peccatiello, who writes as @MacroAlf on Twitter/X and publishes the Macro Compass newsletter, recently posted an excellent thread on private debt that cited my work:

Let me show you one of the most underrated and yet crucial long-term macro variables in the world. Debt. But not government debt: people should stop obsessing it! The government can print money in its own currency. Of course, this has limitations: capacity constraints, inflation, credibility…but there is much more vulnerable source of debt out there. Private sector debt levels and trends are by far a more important macro variable to follow.

Let me explain why. The private sector doesn’t have the luxury to print money: if you get indebted to your eyeballs and you lose your ability to generate income, the pain is real. This amazing chart from my friend @darioperkins proves the point quite eloquently…

Figure 1: Alf’s chart of private debt to GDP bubble for 4 key economies

This post follows up on Alf’s lead by producing a private debt-focused profile of all the major economies in the OECD whose debt levels are also recorded by the Bank of International Settlements. It combines data on inflation and unemployment rates from the OECD with private and government debt and house price data from the BIS.

The plots in this post run in reverse alphabetical order from the United States (see Figure 2) to Australia. Their message is the same that Alf made in his tweet stream (x-stream?): private debt matters, and the fact that conventional Neoclassical economics ignores it is a major reason why it has failed as a guide to economic theory and policy.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Noam Chomsky: “We’re on the Road to a Form of Neofascism”

December 9, 2022

Noam Chomsky: “We’re on the Road to a Form of Neofascism”

The ground is well prepared for neofascism to fill the void left by class war wrought by neoliberalism, says Chomsky.

Trump supporters near the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

Neoliberalism has reigned supreme as an economic philosophy for nearly half a century. But neoliberal policies have wreaked havoc around the world, reversing most gains made under managed capitalism after the end of the Second World War. Neoliberalism works only for the rich and the huge corporations. But the failures of neoliberalism extend beyond economics. They spread into politics as the processes of social collapse bring into play menacing forces with promises of a return to lost glory. This is the basic thrust of neofascist movements and parties in today’s world, and it is neoliberalism that has created the conditions for the resurgence of right-wing extremism, as Noam Chomsky explains in the exclusive interview below for Truthout. Meanwhile, protests have become far more widespread in the era of late capitalism, so the struggle for an alternative world is very much alive indeed!

Chomsky is institute professor emeritus in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT and laureate professor of linguistics and Agnese Nelms Haury Chair in the Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona. One of the world’s most-cited scholars and a public intellectual regarded by millions of people as a national and international treasure, Chomsky has published more than 150 books in linguistics, political and social thought, political economy, media studies, U.S. foreign policy and world affairs…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The world on the brink of the abyss. Looking at the real danger

March 29, 2022

The world on the brink of the abyss. Looking at the real danger

The neoliberal ideology of unrestrained markets has led to a global crisis. Humanity now faces an existential threat as the result of global dominance by corporations, whose ultimate goal is at odds with human flourishing

Back in 1947, as the world was rebuilding from the destruction of the Second World War, a few dozen free-market ideologues met in a luxury Swiss resort to form the Mont Pelerin Society—an organization devoted to spreading the ideology of neoliberalism throughout the world. Their ideas—that the free market should dominate virtually all aspects of society, that regulations should be dismantled, and that individual liberty should eclipse all other considerations of fairness, equity, or community welfare—were considered fanatical at the time. Over three decades, though, financed by wealthy donors, they assiduously established networks of academics, businessmen, economists, journalists, and politicians in global centers of power.

When the stagflation crisis of the 1970s threw classic Keynesian economics into disrepute, their moment of opportunity arrived. By 1985, with free market disciples Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher entrenched in power, they initiated a campaign to systematically transform virtually all aspects of life into an unrestrained marketplace, where everything could be bought and sold to the highest bidder, subject to no moral scruple. They crippled trade unions, tore up social safety nets, reduced tax rates for the wealthy, eliminated regulations, and instituted a massive transfer of wealth from society at large to the uber-elite.

*Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher helped initiate the neoliberal takeover of global politics, economics, and media. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)*

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Neoliberal War on Dissent in the West

February 24, 2022

The Neoliberal War on Dissent in the West

Those who most flamboyantly proclaim that they are fighting fascists continue to embrace and wield the defining weapons of despotism.

Police in Canada deployed to dislodge the final truckers and protesters from downtown Ottawa, aimed at bringing an end to three weeks of demonstrations over Covid-19 health rules. (Photo by Dave Chan / AFP) (Photo by DAVE CHAN/AFP via Getty Images)

When it comes to distant and adversarial countries, we are taught to recognize tyranny through the use of telltale tactics of repression. Dissent from orthodoxies is censored. Protests against the state are outlawed. Dissenters are harshly punished with no due process. Long prison terms are doled out for political transgressions rather than crimes of violence. Journalists are treated as criminals and spies. Opposition to the policies of political leaders are recast as crimes against the state.

When a government that is adverse to the West engages in such conduct, it is not just easy but obligatory to malign it as despotic. Thus can one find, on a virtually daily basis, articles in the Western press citing the government’s use of those tactics in Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela and whatever other countries the West has an interest in disparaging (articles about identical tactics from regimes supported by the West — from Riyadh to Cairo — are much rarer). That the use of these repressive tactics render these countries and their populations subject to autocratic regimes is considered undebatable.

But when these weapons are wielded by Western governments, the precise opposite framework is imposed: describing them as despotic is no longer obligatory but virtually prohibited. That tyranny exists only in Western adversaries but never in the West itself is treated as a permanent axiom of international affairs, as if Western democracies are divinely shielded from the temptations of genuine repression…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘The Big Stall’ details how neoliberal think tanks blocked action on climate change

December 15, 2021

‘The Big Stall’ details how neoliberal think tanks blocked action on climate change

Donald Gutstein’s well-researched new book is a deep dive into the strategies that Canadian oil companies and their friends have implemented to prevent political action and reverse catastrophe.

The Bill Stall: How Big Oil and Think Tanks are Blocking Action on Climate Change in Canada

The world’s biggest oil companies knew for years that climate change was real, but they did all they could to derail government action to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Donald Gutstein’s latest book, The Big Stall: How Big Oil and Think Tanks are Blocking Action on Climate Change in Canada is a deep dive into the strategies that Canadian oil companies and their friends have implemented to prevent political action to slow and reverse catastrophic climate change.

The author, a former communications professor and co-director of the media-monitoring project NewsWatch Canada at Simon Fraser University, follows the individuals and organizations that have shaped Canada’s energy and environmental policy over the last four decades.

Gutstein doesn’t neglect the politicians (he devotes a chapter to Alberta NDP leader and just-defeated Premier Rachel Notley), but he spends more time on the players who fly slightly under the public radar or whose impact is felt long after they’ve fallen from view. People like Maurice Strong, appointed the first head of Petro-Canada by Pierre Trudeau and the secretary-general of the UN Conference on the Human Environment, who said in his opening speech that “There is no fundamental conflict between development and the environment.”

That this position, articulated in 1972, could sum up current official Canadian climate change policy, wasn’t inevitable, argues Gutstein. Justin Trudeau’s “clean growth economy” — a mix of investing in ‘green’ technologies and “getting our oil to new markets,” — can be traced to the rise of neoliberalism in the 1970s…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Hogwash

November 23, 2021

Hogwash

In the early 1980s, to Margaret Thatcher’s annoyance, union reps and managers at the steelworks in Port Talbot agreed a strategy to save the plant. As a result, Port Talbot was spared the post-industrial blight visited upon most of Britain’s ex-industrial towns. Now in private hands, and despite periodic crises, the steelworks employs some 4,000 people – a big drop from the 20,000 workers during the plant’s heyday in the 1960s. Nevertheless, those 4,000 jobs are supplemented by hundreds more sub-contractors, and together these provide the demand for local small and medium businesses.

What saved the Port Talbot plant was an agreement to implement neoliberal efficiency savings. Key among these was the sub-contracting of what we might think of as efficiency buffers – redundant capacity to cope with emergencies. For example, prior to the agreement, the steelworks employed a small army of fitters, electricians, welders and other skilled workers whose skills were only required when something went wrong. Instead of being paid a full wage – often for sitting around playing cards and drinking tea – they would be paid a retainer together with a set fee every time they were called out.

Similar arrangements were in place in the railway industry in those days too. And I personally spent shifts playing cards and drinking tea as part of the spare train crews kept on standby for sickness cover and unforeseen emergencies.

Whatever else neoliberalism was about, cutting out these “inefficiencies” lay at its heart. Companies were losing money paying people like me to sometimes sit around all day. And so, the redundancy process was enlisted to cut the workforce down to its bare minimum…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why the Global Economy Is Unraveling

August 17, 2021

Why the Global Economy Is Unraveling

Global supply chain logjams and global credit/financial crises aren’t bugs, they’re intrinsic features of Neoliberalism’s fully financialized global economy.

To understand why the global economy is unraveling, we have to look past the headlines to the primary dynamic of globalization: Neoliberalism, the ideological orthodoxy which holds that introducing market dynamics to sectors that were closed to global markets generates prosperity for all.

This is known as Neoliberalism, as liberalizing markets means opening up sectors that had previously been restricted. Neoliberalism holds that global market forces introduce efficiencies and opportunities that then pave the way for growth. Global market forces include not just new buyers and sellers of goods and services but the introduction of vast new markets for credit and risk that far exceed what was available in local marketplaces.

So far so good: opening markets creates efficiencies and prosperity, blah blah blah. But the real dynamic behind this happy-story shuck-and-jive is unprecedented prosperity for those with access to low-cost credit generated out of thin air by central banks.

In other words, introducing market forces leads to the dominance of those who control those forces –banks and corporations. Once a local economy is exposed to global capital, those with the most expansive access to the lowest-cost credit can outbid local buyers, snapping up the most productive assets and dominating the local economy to their own benefit.

Since the core mechanism of Neoliberalism is access to low-cost credit, Neoliberalism concentrates financial power and risk in a handful of financial nodes which every market participant unknowingly becomes dependent on. When a developing-nation village was largely self-sustaining and not exposed to global markets, it was largely unaffected by global financial crises.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Has the IMF become a Fascist Organization?

March 16, 2021

Has the IMF become a Fascist Organization?

The entire world of economics has been abandoned without actually admitting it has failed. Even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is throwing in the towel without actually admitting its policies have totally failed. The IMF was the bastion of Keynesianism, supporting economic Neoliberalism. Of course, the head of the IMF is on the board of the World Economic Forum and is fully onboard with Schwab’s Great Reset. Previously, if you asked if the IMF was a Neoliberal-Keynesian it would have been like asking if the Pope if he was a Catholic.

The complete reversal of the IMF has been at the direction of the World Economic Forum who endorses really a one-world government and economic dictatorship. The old Neoliberalism ideology of free markets, free trade, and small government, are gone. This is part of Schwab’s attempt to control the Fourth Industrial Revolution, yet when we have the ONLY fully functional AI system in the world that writes over 1,000 reports on the state of the financial world, they wanted to shut it down because it also forecasts that they will fail. The current and previous head of the IMF has been a board member of Schwab’s WEF. There is no more independence. The IMF is fully occupied by Schwab.

The IMF has been pushing Schwab’s digital agenda for several years once Christine Legard got a hold of the IMF. What makes this reversal in economic policy so shocking is that the IMF even put out a piece entitled: “Neoliberalism: Oversold?” They are now questioning the entire world of free trade and are advocating more of a fascist state with control by a central authority.

World Economic Forum Outlines Its ‘Great Reset’ to End Traditional Capitalism

October 15, 2020

World Economic Forum Outlines Its ‘Great Reset’ to End Traditional Capitalism

AP Photo/Michel Euler

The coronavirus crisis presents an opportunity for a “new kind of capitalism” and “great reset” of global economies, politics, and societies, according to World Economic Forum (WEF) founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab.

In an article published Monday by the WEF, an impatient Schwab claims neo-liberalism is dead and with it traditional notions of economic capitalism.

In their place is a set of “Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics” the WEF says enables the world to progress under one set of overarching rules as drawn up by it, with “social justice” a key component of this brave new world.

This restructure of the way we do business is the new model for the “great reset” Schwab argues, adding he foresees the coronavirus crisis as too good an opportunity not to “re-evaluate sacred cows of the pre-pandemic system.”

He outlines his argument by pointing to just how serious the epidemic has been to the way we live now: Schwab writes:

No event since World War II’s end has had as profound a global impact as COVID-19. The pandemic has triggered a public health and economic crisis on a scale unseen in generations and has exacerbated systemic problems such as inequality and great-power posturing.

The only acceptable response to such a crisis is to pursue a “Great Reset” of our economies, politics, and societies. Indeed, this is a moment to re-evaluate the sacred cows of the pre-pandemic system, but also to defend certain long-held values. The task we face is to preserve the accomplishments of the past 75 years in a more sustainable form.

Schwab believes that if the Chinese coronavirus crisis has shown us anything, it is “that governments, businesses, or civil-society groups acting alone cannot meet systemic global challenges.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Coal Curse – A Review

August 25, 2020

The Coal Curse – A Review

Governments are abrogating their first responsibility, which is to safeguard the people and their future well-being.

The first part of historian Judith Brett’s Quarterly Essay, The Coal Curse – Resources, Climate and Australia’s Future, is a masterly dissection of Australian economic history since WW2.

Credit – Unsplash

It brings into sharp focus the divide between the protectionist – primary producer and manufacturing – forces of the immediate post-war period and the gradual shift to a neoliberal globalist model which favoured the mining sector. The transition was marked by the Hawke/Keating 1983 decision to float the dollar, and Paul Keating’s “Banana Republic” outburst three years later as commodity prices and the exchange rate fell, illustrating the dangers of an overly rigid economic system being left too late to reinvent itself in a rapidly globalising world.

Luckily, economic expansion in Asia in the 1970s, 80s and 90s provided relief as demand for primary products soared – agriculture as before, but increasingly minerals and fossil fuels, notably coal and most recently gas.

The essay documents how the mining industry – minerals and fossil fuels – came together in the 1970s to convince a sceptical polity and community of its value to the nation. Initially through: “—the Australian New Right, a loose network of conservative men – and a few women – in high places, who combined a zeal for free-market economics with opposition to the progressive causes of the 1970s, including land rights and environmentalism.” – working through think tanks such as the Institute of Public Affairs and the Centre for Independent Studies.

The network honed their teeth in opposing indigenous land rights and native title, and gradually accrued political influence as the economic importance of mining exports increased. Then, when the need to address climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels became obvious in the 1990s, the network swung into action to oppose anything which would constrain growth in fossil fuel use – namely reducing carbon emissions.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Democracy and the Illusion of Choice

July 13, 2020

Democracy and the Illusion of Choice

Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair

The neoliberal logic of everything for the rich is now so deeply embedded in American political economy that its base assumptions appear untouchable, except in rare and extraordinary circumstances. With the Covid pandemic exacerbating the current crisis of capitalism, political and economic defense mechanisms make restoring the people and institutions that created the crisis appear to be the only alternative (once again) to solving it. And from the potential victory of a social democratic program five months ago, electoral choice is now between a right-wing demagogue and the chief architect of the carceral state, militarization of the police and liberal obeisance to capital.

There is a connection between the Democrats three-plus years spent pushing the un / disproven Russiagate story and Joe Biden’s miraculous ascent as the establishment candidate in 2020. The Russiagate allegations shifted attention away from rejection of the Democrat’s political program in 2016 so that they could run the same program again in 2020. Amongst the political variables open for ‘discussion,’ the choice of candidate is all there is. The political program is determined at the intersection of campaign contributions, the needs and desires of capital, and the ids of oligarchs freed from public accountability. Democracy has nothing to do with it.

Graph: the ‘racist backlash’ theory of Donald Trump’s election effectively divided the victims of neoliberal economic policies by race. The actual number of white racist and neo-Nazi groups has been declining since 2012. And before rococo explanations for this decline are sought, the rise and fall of hate groups tracks unemployment quite closely (graph below). Whatever the nature of Mr. Trump’s appeals, when Black Separatist groups are excluded from the ‘hate group’ data, the number of white racist and neo-Nazi hate groups followed the unemployment rate lower. Source: SPLC.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Coronavirus Spells the End of the Neoliberal Era. What’s Next?

April 3, 2020

Coronavirus Spells the End of the Neoliberal Era. What’s Next?

Coronavirus is a political crucible, melting down and reshaping current norms. Will the new era be a “Fortress Earth” or a harbinger of a transformed society based on a new set of values?

Think Bigger

Whatever you might be thinking about the long-term impacts of the coronavirus epidemic, you’re probably not thinking big enough.

Our lives have already been reshaped so dramatically in the past few weeks that it’s difficult to see beyond the next news cycle. We’re bracing for the recession we all know is here, wondering how long the lockdown will last, and praying that our loved ones will all make it through alive.

But, in the same way that Covid-19 is spreading at an exponential rate, we also need to think exponentially about its long-term impact on our culture and society. A year or two from now, the virus itself will likely have become a manageable part of our lives—effective treatments will have emerged; a vaccine will be available. But the impact of coronavirus on our global civilization will only just be unfolding. The massive disruptions we’re already seeing in our lives are just the first heralds of a historic transformation in political and societal norms.

If Covid-19 were spreading across a stable and resilient world, its impact could be abrupt but contained. Leaders would consult together; economies disrupted temporarily; people would make do for a while with changed circumstances—and then, after the shock, look forward to getting back to normal. That’s not, however, the world in which we live. Instead, this coronavirus is revealing the structural faults of a system that have been papered over for decades as they’ve been steadily worsening. Gaping economic inequalities, rampant ecological destruction, and pervasive political corruption are all results of unbalanced systems relying on each other to remain precariously poised. Now, as one system destabilizes, expect others to tumble down in tandem in a cascade known by researchers as “synchronous failure.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

PEPE ESCOBAR: The Age of Anger Exploding in Serial Geysers

October 30, 2019

PEPE ESCOBAR: The Age of Anger Exploding in Serial Geysers

The presidential election in Argentina pitted the people against neoliberalism and the people won. What happens next will have a tremendous impact all over Latin America and serve as a blueprint for assorted Global South struggles.

South America, Again, Leads Fight Against Neoliberalism

Alberto Fernandez supporters celebrating his presidential victory in Argentina. (Screen shot/YouTube)

The presidential election in Argentina was no less than a game-changer and a graphic lesson for the whole Global South. It pitted, in a nutshell, the people versus neoliberalism. The people won – with new President Alberto Fernandez and former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK) as his VP.

Neoliberalism was represented by Mauricio Macri: a marketing product, former millionaire playboy, president of football legends Boca Juniors, fanatic of New Age superstitions, and CEO obsessed with spending cuts, who was unanimously sold by Western mainstream media as the new paradigm of a post-modern, efficient politician.

Well, the paradigm will soon be evacuated, leaving behind a wasteland: $250 billion in foreign debt; less than $50 billion in reserves; inflation at 55 percent; the U.S. dollar at over 60 pesos (a family needs roughly $500 to spend in a month; 35.4 percent of Argentine homes can’t make it); and, incredible as it may seem in a self-sufficient nation, a food emergency.

“The Head of Macri: How the First President of ‘No Politics’ Thinks, Lives and Leads.”

Macri, in fact the president of so-called Anti-Politics, No- Politics in Argentina, was a full IMF baby, enjoying total “support” (and gifted with a humongous $58 billion loan). New lines of credit, for the moment, are suspended. Fernandez is going to have a really hard time trying to preserve sovereignty while negotiating with foreign creditors, or “vultures,” as masses of Argentines define them.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Over 1 Million Chileans Take to the Streets to Demand Political Reforms, Change to Country’s Neoliberal Economic System

October 27, 2019

Over 1 Million Chileans Take to the Streets to Demand Political Reforms, Change to Country’s Neoliberal Economic System

“Chile is not the same as it was yesterday.”

Protesters wave a Chilean flag during the eighth day of protests against President Sebastian Piñera's government on October 25, 2019 in Santiago, Chile. — Protesters wave a Chilean flag during the eighth day of protests against President Sebastian Piñera’s government on October 25, 2019 in Santiago, Chile. (Photo: Marcelo Hernandez/Getty Images)

Chilean President Sebastián Piñera on Saturday said he would reshuffle his cabinet after over 1 million Chileans poured into city streets across the country Friday to demand structural reforms to the country’s government and economic system.

The move by Piñera came as the protest movement mobilized people in the captial Santiago and beyond.

“We’re asking for justice, honesty, ethical government,” protester Francisco Anguitar told AFP Friday.

Piñera made the announcement late Saturday morning.

✔

BREAKING: Chile’s President
Piñera has asked his ministers to resign, in the most dramatic move since protests began a week ago. The military also announced an end to the curfew. Yesterday’s protest, by more than 1 million Chileans, is forcing change.

The timeline and plan for the replacement of ministers remains unclear. On Saturday, Reuters reported that a document obtained by the news agency “suggested Piñera was considering replacing the heads of at least nine ministries, including the ministries of interior, defense, economy, transportation and environment.”

Chilean senator Felipe Kast on Twitter credited the Friday protests with prompting Piñera’s decision.

“A peaceful day that will leave its mark on our history,” said Kast. “Chile is not the same as it was yesterday.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Elites “Going Rogue” Suggests The Global Neoliberal Architecture Is Collapsing

August 29, 2019

Elites “Going Rogue” Suggests The Global Neoliberal Architecture Is Collapsing

Listen carefully. That is the sound of going rogue – and bond yields further through the floor.

Yesterday UK PM Boris Johnson announced he is going to prorogue–or close–Parliament, meaning that when MPs come back to sit next week they will only do so briefly, and will then not return until 14 October, when there will be a new Queen’s Speech to launch BoJo’s slate of legislation as the new PM. So far, so technical. Yet what this effectively means is that there will be a very narrow window next week, and then a slightly larger one in the final two weeks of October, for Parliament to act to prevent Hard Brexit on Halloween.

This is explosive and unprecedented stuff, politically. The British constitution is largely unwritten and so allows wiggle room, and the government insists they have checked the legality of all they are proposing; nonetheless, as the press and opposition note, it smells awful. This is clearly a case of Erskine May (the ‘parliamentary bible’ that looks and sounds like it belongs in a Harry Potter tale) turning into Erskine Maybe or Erskine Might.

Indeed, BoJo is being accused of a “coup”, a “constitutional outrage”, an “abomination”, and of being a “tinpot dictator”, though this being the UK, perhaps that should be “teapot”; but there is not just tea but a genuinely revolutionary atmosphere brewing. Bob Kerslake, former head of the civil service, is quoted in the Guardian as stating:

“We are reaching the point where the civil service must consider putting its stewardship of the country ahead of service to the government of the day.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: neoliberalism

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

The Bill Stall: How Big Oil and Think Tanks are Blocking Action on Climate Change in Canada

South America, Again, Leads Fight Against Neoliberalism

Post navigation

Latest Posts