Several related strands have come together in the last week of work and thinking. Today (September 11, 2023), of course, is a massive day in history and I am not referring to the year 2001. Today marks the 50th anniversary of the overthrow of the Salvatore Allende’s democratically-elected government in Chile by the US CIA and there local puppets under the leadership of General – Augusto Pinochet. I have also been following a trail of the antecedents of the Powell Manifesto (thanks to Jonathan for a tip), which helps understand how the neoliberals infested every institution in the US and beyond. And the Chilean coup d’état in 1973 was followed by – Operation Condor – which together with the coup demonstrated the principle terrorist organisation in the world has been the US government and its agencies. Tracking the Powell trail also took me to old research about the so-called ‘Manne Programs in Economics for Federal Judges’ – which was a program mostly taught by Chicago School economists that indoctrinated US judges into free market economic thinking and has distorted US judicial decisions ever since. And the circle closes when we investigate the role played by the so-called – Chicago Boys – who were Chilean PhD graduates from that school, who went back to Chile and ravaged the prosperity of the people with their extreme neoliberal ideas. All interlinked events on the path to global neoliberal domination. History is worth studying and it is striking how interrelated all these things are that have come together in my work the last week or so.
Not exactly MMT, but crucial for appreciating the dynamics of the world system and the role of politicized ideological economics in it. This post is about the role of neoliberalism. Presently, both the so-called left and right in the US are deeply entrenched in neoliberal ideology, although this post is about the right.
William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
The Chilean coup just one link in a complicated right-wing economics agenda to empower capitalBill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia
“Presently, both the so-called left and right in the US are deeply entrenched in neoliberal ideology, although this post is about the right.”
ReplyDeleteYes. William Mitchell tends to be an old-style populist liberal, although woke depravity sometimes seeps into his comments. I skip over those parts.
In his article above, Mitchell describes how, in the past, the West used the “communist threat” as a bogeyman to mask the class divide. “In other words, there was no inherent class conflict in America, just evil, manipulative external forces intent on creating trouble to further their own ends.
Today our rulers mask the class divide by pushing wokery – i.e. they shove LGBTQ(P) supremacy and anti-whitism down everyone’s throats. This keeps the peasants fighting each other, instead of uniting against their rich owners.
William Mitchell: ” Far from creating a ‘free market’, the Chicago Boys transferred control of capital into the hands of a few corporations and so-called ‘magnates’.”
Yes. That’s neoliberalism. It’s essentially neo-feudalism, in which the 1% own everything and everyone, while the 99% are serfs.
Mitchell: In the 1961 book The Voice of Latin America, William Benton argued that the poverty in the rural areas of Latin America coupled with the movement of the poor into the cities in search of work, not only reduced agricultural output but added to the unviable urban slums, had created conditions ripe for exploitation by Communists, or as he called it ‘Fidelismo’.”
That’s what happened with Venezuela and the so-called “Dutch disease,” wherein an economy becomes overly dependent on the production and export of only one resource (e.g. oil).
Because of Venezuela’s oil boom, millions of people moved from agricultural areas to the cities, creating vast slums of poverty. As a result, more than 70% of Venezuela's food is imported, and the import process is controlled by oligarchs. This, combined with U.S. and European sanctions, has made life difficult.
This is like rehashing WW1 during the height of the Vietnam War… 🤔
ReplyDeleteWhat is this fetish of slapping 'neo' on everything?
ReplyDeleteThere has been a ruling class since the agricultural revolution. Their methods haven't changed.
Pretending to be good guys isn't new, it's the oldest trick in the handbook of power.
Because of Venezuela’s oil boom, millions of people moved from agricultural areas to the cities, creating vast slums of poverty. As a result, more than 70% of Venezuela's food is imported, and the import process is controlled by oligarchs. This, combined with U.S. and European sanctions, has made life difficult.
ReplyDeleteStill waiting for these 21st century "socialists" to institute land reform and incentivize their farmers so that Venezuela can become self-sufficient in food. Or are they going to wait until the oil runs out?
“Still waiting for these 21st century ‘socialists’ to institute land reform and incentivize their farmers so that Venezuela can become self-sufficient in food. Or are they going to wait until the oil runs out?”
ReplyDeleteYour question is legitimate. U.S. and European sanctions against Venezuela are very harsh (almost a blockade) but we can’t blame all of Venezuela’s problems on the sanctions. We must also acknowledge the role of corruption and bureaucracy.
All governments consist of people who spend most of their energy protecting their jobs. This causes mass inertia and paralysis. The U.S. government is no exception to this. Democrat and establishment Republican politicians keep each other in office by helping each other to rig their elections, and keep out challengers. The leadership of both parties cooperate to crush the popular will, in order to "protect our democracy."
In Venezuela this especially became a problem after Hugo Chávez died (5 March 2013).
Today, average Venezuelans know that half of their problems are caused by Western sanctions, and half by government bureaucracy. This leads some Venezuelans to imagine that life would be better if Venezuela fully submitted to U.S. dictates, and went back to living under the oligarchs' heel.
This is an illusion. Venezuela has always had bureaucracy, and it was even worse before Hugo Chávez became president (14 April 2022). Before Chávez, government workers showed up for their jobs only one or two days a week, and they stayed for only three or four hours a day, during which time they did as little work as possible. Nothing ever happened unless the lazy bureaucrats were bribed. Their laziness and bureaucracy caused a national paralysis that led to a partial collapse, which opened the door for the rise of Chávez.
Chávez instituted many reforms that eased severe poverty, but he was never very popular with the middle class, and he was always despised by the rich. He was also opposed by Venezuela’s Communist Party, who felt that his reforms didn’t go far enough. Yes, Chávez nationalized some firms, and he kept the oligarchs from raping the citizenry, but he didn’t get rid of the oligarchs altogether. (Chávez felt that the oligarchs’ managerial abilities were useful as long as the oligarchs were not allowed to completely take over.)
However we have still not answered your question.
Why is Venezuela not self-sufficient in food? Is Venezuela still too dependent on revenue from oil exports? Chávez tried to encourage self-efficiency -- e.g. he sponsored and funded many farmers’ cooperatives.
But what’s the bigger picture? I do not know. I intend to study this.
If a national leader wants to boost his nation’s power and prosperity, then the most effective thing he can do is to boost his nation’s self-sufficiency -- but this is the hardest task of all. Obviously self-sufficiency makes the U.S. Empire attack you as a “threat," but self-sufficiency also makes you enemies domestically. Why?
I do not fully understand this. I intend to read up on it.
Misprint.
ReplyDeleteHugo Chávez became president on 14 April 2002.
“What is this fetish of slapping 'neo' on everything?”
ReplyDeleteYou seem to have a fetish for labeling everything a “fetish.” The purpose of “neo” is to avoid confusion.
For example, classical economists (e.g. Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Jean-Baptiste Say, and so on) favored “Liberalism,” meaning a genuinely free market not controlled by monopolies, monarchs, oligarchs, feudal landowners, or political bribery.
In the early 1900s the oligarchs sought to re-establish their tyranny. To seduce the masses they too praised “liberalism,” but for them it meant freedom from government control, from environmental concerns, from social consciousness, and from everything else that stood in the way of naked merciless profit. Freedom from genuinely free markets. The oligarchs and their toadies used all the old terminology, but they twisted all terms into their perverse opposites. Hence we call their lies ”neo-liberalism.”
This political twisting of definitions into their opposites is almost universal in society. Hence we use terms like “neo” and “pre” and “post” to resist the b.s. and to call things by their proper names. For instance, the USA is no longer a republic, and no longer has any real democracy. We might call it a “post-republic,” with “post democracy.”
Or more simply, a dying state.
Define "liberalism" according to policy. You'll discover that not much has changed over time.
ReplyDeleteWhat is your definition of genuinely free markets?