Tag Archives: Neoliberalism

Globalization has led to a rise in global income inequality, not a reduction.Income doesn’t trickle down.Policy – not trade or technology – is most responsible for inequality. Demand lagging capability to supply due to hoarding at the top end. Contrary to the assumptions of neoclassical economics, distribution counts. This should be obvious since in a capitalistic system distribution is through markets where goods are rationed by price and ability to pay. But the "laws of economics" seem to...

The British Labour Party is currently leading the Tories in the latest YouGov opinion polls (February 19-20, Tories 40 per cent (and declining), Labour 42 per cent (and rising). They should be further in front, given the disarray of the Conservatives as they try to negotiate within their own party something remotely acceptable about Brexit. When there is this degree of political capital available, in this case for the Labour Party, a party should use it to redefine policy agendas that have...

Theotônio dos Santos, one of the main authors of the Latin American Dependency School, has passed away. I had some minimal contact with him, seeing some of his talks as an undergraduate, and then at a few conferences were we could talk a bit more, including after I had published this paper.When I was a student, I might add, I was basically taught that there were two dependency school traditions, and often the Marxist one, in which Theotônio and André Gunder Frank were the key figures,...

It is amazing how frequently we hear people asserting that the massive inequality we are now seeing in the United States is the result of an unfettered market. I realize that this is a convenient view for those who are on the upside of things, but it also happens to be nonsense.The latest nonsense-pusher is Amy Chua, who warns in a New York Times column (2/20/18) about the destructive path the United States is now on, where a disaffected white population takes out its wrath on economic...

A few things came up late last week which demonstrate the neoliberal Groupthink is alive an well at the highest levels of policy in Australia (and elsewhere). First, there was a story that a report from an Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) journalist on the Australian government’s corporate tax cuts was withdrawn after publication by the ABC after receiving several complaints from senior government ministers including the Treasurer and the Prime Minister. The story was not even...

Despite an organized and active grassroots movement, Honduran politics have been repeatedly steamrolled by the self-interests of international ruling elites, as journalist and filmmaker Jesse Freeston explained to Dennis J. Bernstein.  Consortium NewsHonduras Nearing Ten Years of Stolen Elections, Neo-Colonial Rule Dennis J. BernsteinRegime Change Fails: Is A Military Coup or Invasion of Venezuela Next? Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

Nice post on trade, citing Joan Robinson and Nicholas Kaldor.The Case for Concerted ActionMore Free Trade OrthodoxiesV. Ramanan

Prof. Atilio Boron analyzes the situation in Argentina, where President Macri is pushing drastic neoliberal reforms against widespread resistance from unions and social movements. Sec. of State Rex Tillerson visits to give Macri backing and to urge anti-Venezuela sanctions.... Misleading title. The MO of the neoliberals is to push ahead as hard as possible, then pause when resistance rises, and push ahead again when it dies down. Well, you know, the Macri government is very...proxy of the...

Some years ago, I started collecting information about the so-called Maghreb countries, which typically refers to the region spanned by Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, although sometimes Libya and Mauritania are also included in the aggregation. You will find it referred to as the Barbary Coast in English literature. I was interested (as a long-term project when I get old :-)) to write a book about how nations broke away from the yoke of colonialism only to fall into the hands of the IMF and...

Neoliberal union-busting in full swing.CounterpunchEU Imposes Anti-Union Law on GreeceWill Podmore