The megadeaths of Liberalism

[camouflage]

Do we count the TRIPS bodycount of people in the 3rd world that could have been saved by cheaper pharmaceuticals?

 

[camouflage]

This from chomsky has stuck in my mind for years:





http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/ChomOdon_ElSalvador.html

History is a tsunami of unspeakable horrors best forgotten again and again again.

 

[Streathamite]

Sorry, nothing pre 20th century. No offence.

beg pardon,but why?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

There's a lot of specific stuff about the IMF causing widespread death that looks reasonably solid e.g. International Monetary Fund Programs and Tuberculosis Outcomes in Post-Communist Countries

The problem is getting to a more general picture from all the specific studies like the TB one above.

There are indications that such work has been done, but I'm still trying to source something I'd trust. For example, I found this Pilger quote:

By any measure, this is a war of the rich against the poor. Look at the casualty figures. The toll, says the World Resources Institute, is more than 13 million children every year; or 12 million under the age of five, according to United Nations estimates. "If 100 million have been killed in the formal wars of the 20th century," wrote Michael McKinley, "why are they to be privileged in comprehension over the annual [death] toll of children from structural adjustment programmes since 1982?"

http://www.newstatesman.com/200112170007

... which in the version that appears in his book 'The New Rulers of the World' apparently is referenced, only Google Books doesn't have the references page.

 

[Yossarian]

When did 'liberalism' become a synonym for 'capitalism' and 'colonialism?'

 

[Idris2002]

Since about 1847.

 

[Blagsta]

When did 'liberalism' become a synonym for 'capitalism' and 'colonialism?'

liberalism as in classical liberalism, i.e. belief in free markets and the abstract individual as basis of society

 

[Dillinger4]

well, monarchistic then. I was also thinking about the spanish in south america- monarchy again.

you well hate catholicism.

 

[audiotech]

Not really fair to blame all the death on liberals there.Unless you feel the Kaisers mob and the Nazis were liberal democracies.(Though some tea party loon probably would argue Hitler was a socialist so any things possible).

Didn't the liberals refuse to support the Republican forces in Spain against Franco? Fascism could have been stopped in its tracks if it wasn't for liberal fence-sitters here, in France, Germany itself and elsewhere in Europe.

Herbert Henry Asquith (Liberal) was the PM from the start of the First World War until he resigned on 5 December 1916. David Lloyd George (Liberal) became the Prime Minister two days later and served as such for the rest of the War.

'Lions led by donkeys' as the saying goes.

 

[Yossarian]

Since about 1847.

In the US, ultra-conservative gasbags like Rush Limbaugh are using the word 'liberalism' as shorthand for any ideology to the left of theirs.

 

[Idris2002]

So therefore we shouldn't criticise actual classical liberalism in any way, shape, or form.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Well, if you're going to use the same criteria that the anti-communists use, like in the Black Book of Communism, then you can pretty much include anyone who has died no matter what the cause in any liberal democracy or war any liberal democracy has engaged in ever.

 

[TruXta]

So therefore we shouldn't criticise actual classical liberalism in any way, shape, or form.

No, it means that liberalism is not synonymous with capitalism, colonialism, neo-liberalism and plenty other terms.

 

[Yossarian]

So therefore we shouldn't criticise actual classical liberalism in any way, shape, or form.

So maybe we should use language a little more precisely when trying to sum up centuries of history.

 

[Blagsta]

In the US, ultra-conservative gasbags like Rush Limbaugh are using the word 'liberalism' as shorthand for any ideology to the left of theirs.

it does have a slightly different meaning in US

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

300 000 Indian farmer suicides over the last few decades - direct result of neo-liberalism.

I didn't realize that 'neo liberalism' had been around for decades.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Several times that iirc. Plus millions in korea

Is Kim Jong Il a neo liberal?

 

[butchersapron]

I didn't realize that 'neo liberalism' had been around for decades.

Well it has.

 

[Blagsta]

I didn't realize that 'neo liberalism' had been around for decades.

Since 1970s.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Well it has.

So: when did 'liberalism' end, and 'neo liberalism' begin?

 

[Idris2002]

I didn't realize that 'neo liberalism' had been around for decades.

Neo-liberalism has in fact been around for decades, depending on whether you date it from the publication of Hayek's Road to Serfdom in 1944, the first meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in 1948, or the capture of western goverments and international financial institutions by that ideology in the 1970s and 1980s.

 

[Blagsta]

So: when did 'liberalism' end, and 'neo liberalism' begin?

Keynes and the New Deal arguably ended liberalism.

 

[Idris2002]

So: when did 'liberalism' end, and 'neo liberalism' begin?

1979/1980

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Wikipedia defines 'neoliberalism thusly:

Neoliberalism describes a market-driven[1] approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that stresses the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the political and economic priorities of the state.

That sounds a lot like 'capitalism'. Does it really need a new name?

 

[butchersapron]

So: when did 'liberalism' end, and 'neo liberalism' begin?

What makes you think there was a liberal phase that then passed over directly into neo-liberalism? Neo-liberalism as a material/organising force (as opposed to a minority theory amongst far right academic types) developed out of the end of post war social democracy, not classical liberalism.

 

[Blagsta]

Wikipedia defines 'neoliberalism thusly:



That sounds a lot like 'capitalism'. Does it really need a new name?

Maybe you should read some economic history? Great depression, response to that, crises of 1970s, response to that, sort of thing

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Keynes and the New Deal arguably ended liberalism.

This definition from wikipedia

Neoliberalism describes a market-driven[1] approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that stresses the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the political and economic priorities of the state.

is pretty much the antithesis of Keynsianism.

 

[Blagsta]

This definition from wikipedia



is pretty much the antithesis of Keynsianism.

Yes. Well done.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Maybe you should read some economic history? Great depression, response to that, crises of 1970s, response to that, sort of thing

I've read a little of it, also lived the past few decades. It's the rebranding of old concepts with new terminology that perplexes me.

 

[butchersapron]

Wikipedia defines 'neoliberalism thusly:



That sounds a lot like 'capitalism'. Does it really need a new name?

There's nothing wrong with a handy name for an approach within capitalism that is based on new conditions and new tactics. What point do you think you're making?