{"id":13029,"date":"2015-10-05T06:31:50","date_gmt":"2015-10-05T11:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=13029"},"modified":"2015-10-05T06:31:50","modified_gmt":"2015-10-05T11:31:50","slug":"parasites-in-the-body-economic-the-disasters-of-neoliberalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=13029","title":{"rendered":"Parasites in the Body Economic: the Disasters of Neoliberalism"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"headline\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2015\/10\/05\/parasites-in-the-body-economic-the-disasters-of-neoliberalism\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Parasites in the Body Economic: the Disasters of Neoliberalism<\/a><\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2015\/10\/Protesters-gesture-and-wa-004.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-75053\" src=\"http:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2015\/10\/Protesters-gesture-and-wa-004-510x321.jpg\" alt=\"Protesters-gesture-and-wa-004\" width=\"510\" height=\"321\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>The following is a transcript of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/store.counterpunch.org\/michael-hudson-episode-19-2\/\">CounterPunch Radio \u2013 Episode 19<\/a>(originally aired September 21, 2015). Eric Draitser interviews Michael Hudson.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Eric Draitser<\/em><\/strong><em>: Today I have the privilege of introducing Michael Hudson to the program. Doctor Hudson is the author of the new book\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/store.counterpunch.org\/product\/killing-the-host-digital-book\/\">Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy<\/a>, available in print on\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B014IAV9MK\/counterpunchmaga\">Amazon<\/a>\u00a0and an e-version on CounterPunch. Michael Hudson, welcome to CounterPunch Radio.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Michael Hudson<\/strong>: It\u2019s good to be here.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>ED<\/em><\/strong><em>: Thanks so much for coming on. As I mentioned already, the title of your book \u2013\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/store.counterpunch.org\/product\/killing-the-host-digital-book\/\">Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 is an apt metaphor. So parasitic finance capital is really what you\u2019re writing about. You explain that it essentially survives by feeding off what we might call the real economy. Could you draw out that analogy a little bit? What does that mean? How does finance behave like a parasite toward the rest of the economy?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>MH<\/strong>: Economists for the last 50 years have used the term \u201chost economy\u201d for a country that lets in foreign investment. This term appears in most mainstream textbooks. A host implies a parasite. The term parasitism has been applied to finance by Martin Luther and others, but usually in the sense that you just talked about: simply taking something from the host.<\/p>\n<p>But that\u2019s not how biological parasites work in nature. Biological parasitism is more complex, and precisely for that reason it\u2019s a better and more sophisticated metaphor for economics. The key is how a parasite takes over a host. It has enzymes that numb the host\u2019s nervous system and brain. So if it stings or gets its claws into it, there\u2019s a soporific anesthetic to block the host from realizing that it\u2019s being taken over. Then the parasite sends enzymes into the brain. A parasite cannot take anything from the host\u00a0<em>unless<\/em>\u00a0it takes over the brain.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Parasites in the Body Economic: the Disasters of Neoliberalism The following is a transcript of\u00a0CounterPunch Radio \u2013 Episode 19(originally aired September 21, 2015). Eric Draitser interviews Michael Hudson. Eric Draitser: Today I have the privilege of introducing Michael Hudson to the program. Doctor Hudson is the author of the new book\u00a0Killing the Host: How Financial [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5493,195,366,6279,6996,9605,4320],"class_list":["post-13029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-counterpunch","tag-debt","tag-global-economy","tag-michael-hudson","tag-neoliberalism","tag-parasitic-finance-capital","tag-real-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13030,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13029\/revisions\/13030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}