Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 11:59:12 +0100
Subject: Re: AUT: Neo-Keynsian Globalism?


>A spectre is haunting world economists, the spectre of Keynsianism...
>
>To name but a few anecdotal sightings George Soros, international forex
speculator extraordinaire denounces the debilitating effects of
unrestricted capital flows into (and out of) "underdeveloped" economies -
releases book entitled "The Crisis of Global Capitalism" with an apparently
straight face; the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer (Minister for Economy)
delivers under-reported speech in New York expressing opinion that some
degree of restraint must be exercised on the global market "that explicitly
refers to the best of the tradition of Keynes" - in the context of an EU in
which now 13 out of 15 governments are headed by parties nominally in the
social-democrat tradition, this is not as "against the current" as it would
have been three years ago; even John "Isn't-he-dead-yet?" Paul II gets in
on the act denouncing global liberal capitalism as a force for evil.

To add just another anecdote about economists and governments, German
finance minister Lafontaine has ordered his ministry's official view which
has been "orthodox" supply side over the last number of years to be
complemented by demand side economics.

>
>Of course words are cheap and the whole affair so far doesn't amount to a
heap of beans. Nonetheless those of us in the anti-capitalist camp who have
seen the slogan of "resistance against neoliberalism" rise to be embraced
by much of the contestationary movements that have spent the last two
decades fighting the strategies of monetarism, austerity and deregulation
adopted by the IMF, GATT/WTO, and OECD governments in the 70s, have to
wonder if the neo-Keynsians are not considering the possibility of
recuperating some of the anti-neoliberalism movement for the purposes of
stabilising global capitalism.

I completely agree with you, Paul. All this shows the fundamental weakness
of anti-neoliberal ideology. It's impossible to have a critique of
capitalism without a critique of Keynesianism. Leaving aside the question
of course whether some in the anti-neoliberal movement would not very much
like to be "recuperated".

ATB
Jan




     --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---