File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1997/marxism-thaxis.9710, message 241


Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 10:54:27 -0500
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: M-TH: New Zealand "reforms"?


Robert Malecki wrote:

>See what I mean. I don't know nuthin bout this shit..

Indeed.

>You could have at least tried to tell us something about the "teir" wage
>system which seems to be the instrument the bougeoisie with their social
>democratic partners want to use to drive diown wages these days. I mean all
>these social democrats swore on the Keynesian bibel not to long ago...

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. The bourgeoisie has
completely rejected social democracy as a political philosophy, though lots
of social democratic parties have become thoroughly bourgeois. In fact, as
no less an authority than Milton Friedman pointed out in his 1992
quasi-endorsment of Clinton, the social democrats have been much more
successful at promoting laissez-faire policies than many traditional
conservative parties. Friedman pointed to Spain and New Zealand as
examples; Blair and Clinton are more recent examples (not that the U.S.
Democratic party is all that social democratic, but it's the closest thing
we have to one).

My book is actually quite critical of Keynes, but you'd never know that
from reading WV. WV thrives on inventing enemies as proof of their own
purity. For all my disagreements with it, I used to read the paper quite
avidly when Jan Norden was editing it, because it was pretty damn
intelligent and informative. Now it's pure birdcage material - so it's not
surprising to see it embraced by the editor of a zine named after a
primitive disease-bearing organism.

Doug





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