Quote:
Originally Posted by roachboy
|
You don't even use the concept of neo-liberalism in the proper context of the author you cite.
Quote:
By DAVID HARVEY
Does this crisis signal the end of neo-liberalism? My answer is that it depends what you mean by neo-liberalism. My interpretation is that it’s a class project, masked by a lot of neo-liberal rhetoric about individual freedom, liberty, personal responsibility, privatisation and the free market. These were means, however, towards the restoration and consolidation of class power, and that neo-liberal project has been fairly successful.
One of the basic principles that was set up in the 1970s was that state power should protect financial institutions at all costs. This is the principle that was worked out in New York City crisis in the mid-1970s, and was first defined internationally when Mexico threatened to go bankrupt in 1982. This would have destroyed the New York investment banks, so the US Treasury and the IMF combined to bail Mexico out. But in so doing they mandated austerity for the Mexican population. In other words they protected the banks and destroyed the people, and this has been the standard practice in the IMF ever since. The current bailout is the same old story, one more time, except bigger.
|
David Harvey: Is This Really the End of Neoliberalism?
Free market capitalists nor I supported the protection of financial institution through government bailouts, the most recent ones or those done in the past. True free market capitalists would have allowed financial institutors who took excessive highly leveraged risk fail. True free market capitalists would have allowed big corporate operations like GM fail, there would not have been any bailouts.
Your mixed use of the concept of neo-liberalism is confused and you confuse others. I hold the belief that you do this purposefully. Because I call you on it, you find my posts intolerable.