the neoliberal vision of the future

[Jeff Robinson]

Neoliberalism on the high seas:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...e-navy-to-take-on-somali-pirates-2091298.html

 

[nino_savatte]

They've been talking about more flexible armed forces for some time. Perhaps this is just the beginning.

 

[DotCommunist]

ah, privateers. Back to the old school.

 

[camouflage]

Interesting bit of Chomsky on neoliberalism...

The very design of neo-liberal principles is a direct attack on democracy. One component is privatization. You take something out of the public domain, put it into the hands of totalitarian systems, which is what corporations are, and obviously that reduces democracy. Let’s move on to the current primary theme, what is called “trade in services.” It has nothing to do with trade in the usual sense. It’s privatization of services. It’s called “trade” so they can fit it into the trade agreement. It just means selling off services.

What are services? Well, services are anything that a human being could be interested in—education, health, water, air, energy, and so on. “Trade in services” now means putting all of these into the hands of unaccountable totalitarian institutions. If that is achieved, you can have formal democracy quite openly—clean elections, etc.—but it doesn’t matter much because there is nothing for people to have any decisions about, nothing that matters, at least. It’s somewhere else in the hands of unaccountable institutions under the name of “General Agreement on Trade in Services.” That is the leading theme of the current trade negotiations.

 

[camouflage]

And furthermore...

Financial Liberalization

A nother component of the neo-liberal package is financial liberalization. It means governments, for example, can’t control capital flight, currencies aren’t regulated, and so on. It’s very well understood by economists what that leads to. Financial liberalization creates what some international economists have called a “virtual senate” of investors and lenders who carry out a “moment-by-moment referendum” on social and economic policies. If they don’t like those policies, they destroy the economy by capital flight, by attacks on currencies, by selling bonds, and so on. The policies that the virtual senate doesn’t like are anything that is “irrational.” “Irrational” means it’s helpful to people, not to profits, and the virtual senate keeps an eye on this second by second. If the government makes the mistake of being irrational, you get huge capital flight, attacks on currency, and so on. It happens all the time and it keeps the countries in line. It means that governments have what is sometimes called a “dual constituency,” one of them is the voters and the other is the virtual senate. You can guess who wins.

A neoliberal last week, figuring out where to 'invest' next. Fuckit, it's "The End of History" afterall.

 

[camouflage]

i hereby promise to now leave the 'mad max' analogies alone.

 

[Dillinger4]

Offshore banking and the ongoing threat of capital flight is something that bothers me quite a lot.

I think though, that in a lot of ways, the weakness is also strength. The City of London might try and make the economy scream if they don't get their way, but it could never truly leave. It would never find all of the advantages it has here anywhere else in the world. Anywhere. They might threaten to leave, and they can move money offshore, but they can never really leave.

The problem of offshore banking is one that we have to start figuring out some solutions to though, because it is what ties it all together.

 

[camouflage]

Offshore banking and the ongoing threat of capital flight is something that bothers me quite a lot.

I think though, that in a lot of ways, the weakness is also strength. The City of London might try and make the economy scream if they don't get their way, but it could never truly leave. It would never find all of the advantages it has here anywhere else in the world. Anywhere. They might threaten to leave, and they can move money offshore, but they can never really leave.

The problem of offshore banking is one that we have to start figurinjg out some solutions to though, because it is what ties it all together.

Economic geography. The 'end of geography' is a myth. Space amd time are always relevant, location and history, past investments and aggregate economies of scope. Or words along those lines anyway. Marauding-capital would have everyone beleive they can come and go as they please.

 

[trabant]

Economic geography. The 'end of geography' is a myth. Space amd time are always relevant, location and history, past investments and aggregate economies of scope. Or words along those lines anyway. Marauding-capital would have everyone beleive they can come and go as they please.

Yep, the national and regional differences in economic and social policies are a thorn in the side of the neolibs who in theory want a global hegemony. In practice though it seems that the biggest gains come from the (historically) manufactured disparities.

 

[ohmyliver]

I think though, that in a lot of ways, the weakness is also strength. The City of London might try and make the economy scream if they don't get their way, but it could never truly leave. It would never find all of the advantages it has here anywhere else in the world. Anywhere. They might threaten to leave, and they can move money offshore, but they can never really leave.

have you seen this from the Economist? "Bored and frustrated traders are homesick for grimy, high-tax London" http://www.economist.com/node/18289282 it sort of agrees with you

 

[Santino]

There was an episode of Sliders when everyone lived in sort of shopping centre cities and you worked for vouchers which had to be spent in the shops belonging to the company you worked for.


Like that, I reckon.

 

[DotCommunist]

funny how the sliders crew never managed to hit a home reality that differed by a single four clover in ireland 2000 years ago- or a mislaid cobblestone in the dark ages. They always managed to hit on worlds that were fucked up and end up sliding on. Some worlds they could easily have stayed on but were to obsessed with the idea of getting home. Wankers

 

[Steel Icarus]

funny how the sliders crew never managed to hit a home reality that differed by a single four clover in ireland 2000 years ago- or a mislaid cobblestone in the dark ages. They always managed to hit on worlds that were fucked up and end up sliding on. Some worlds they could easily have stayed on but were to obsessed with the idea of getting home. Wankers

Like Homer and his perfect world where it rained doughnuts but he'd left before he found out.

 

[Santino]

I've just read the very entertaining history of Sliders and its numerous cast changes and how Fox bollocksed it up.

 

[Santino]

I was annoyed by that episode when Gimli stood for election in a woman-dominated world and ended up winning but everyone thought he didn't. I hate shit like that.

 

[Steel Icarus]

I was flabbergasted when I found out that bloke in Sliders was the fat kid in Stand By Me. Will Wheaton was obvious, cos he looked no different, but Vern? Noooooooo!

 

[LLETSA]

There was an episode of Sliders when everyone lived in sort of shopping centre cities and you worked for vouchers which had to be spent in the shops belonging to the company you worked for.


Like that, I reckon.

Nothing like that. The neo-liberal/neo-conservative ideal is a worldwide market economy and democratic states everywhere. As with most ideals, the reality turns out to be somewhat different. But they think they're liberating us, not enslaving us.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Interesting article by William I. Robinson entitled "The global capital leviathan":

The austerity sweeping across Europe is particularly revealing; it represents an
acceleration of the process of the ‘Third-Worldization’ of the ‘First World’, in which
the wealth concentrated at some poles of accumulation in the world is no longer
redistributed downward locally towards First World labour aristocracies. Regardless
of the outcome of financial crisis in each individual country case, capital wins in
both the short and the long term. In the short term, investors cash in on a would-be
defaulter with higher bond rates and/or through state bailouts that are channelled into
their coffers. In the long run, austerity intensifies the processes of regressive taxation,
privatization and the dismantling of the social wage. Behind massive cuts in education
and increases in tuition in both Europe and the United States, for instance, is the steady
march of the privatization and commodification of public education. In short, the toxic
mixture of public finance and private transnational finance capital in this age of global
capitalism constitutes a new battlefield in which the global rich are waging a war
against the global poor and working classes.

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/threads/345064-the-neoliberal-vision-of-the-future/page6

 

[Dillinger4]

Interesting article by William I. Robinson entitled "The global capital leviathan":



http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/threads/345064-the-neoliberal-vision-of-the-future/page6

That is really interesting. I have had a vague idea for some time that there is something to the process of 'colonization' (for want of a better term) in the 'first world' countries.

Just going off the very brief definition given by wikipedia:

Colonialism is a process whereby sovereignty over the colony is claimed by the metropole and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by colonists - people from the metropole. Colonialism is a set of unequal relationships: between the metropole and the colony, and between the colonists and the indigenous population.

Marxism views colonialism as a form of capitalism, enforcing exploitation and social change. Working within the global capitalist system, colonialism is closely associated with uneven development, he thought. It is an “instrument of wholesale destruction, dependency and systematic exploitation producing distorted economies, socio-psychological disorientation, massive poverty and neocolonial dependency.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism

I think there is an argument to made for that, somewhere.

 

[yield]

I've not read it yet, but I've heard Global Slump by David McNally is meant to one of the best books on the subject.

Looks good thanks for that. Preview available on google books.

The ultimate purpose of all this is to preserve capitalism and the wealth and power of its elites. And so far the baulouts and their aftermath have decidely served that end.

As a columnist with the Times of London observes, "The rich have come through with the recession with flying colours... The rest of the country is going to face spending cuts, but it has little effect on the rich because they don't consume public services."

The candidness of this statement is appreciated. But there is one error in this passage. These cuts do in fact have an effect on the rich: they help them.

After all, they are essential to the massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich that funded the rescue of the world banking system, the bailout of corporations, and the salvage of the investment portfolios of the wealthy.

So, when one US economist observes that we have today "a statistical recovery and a human recession" we need to add, as one California teacher put it to me, that there is a statistical recovery because there is a human recesssion.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

I could easily kick this guy to death. I could really pound my boot into the stupid cunt's face over and over again.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Both of these people should be beaten up with hammers. Then hacked to pieces with sickles:

 

[camouflage]

I could easily kick this guy to death. I could really pound my boot into the stupid cunt's face over and over again.

Wow. What an absolute cock. I'm sure he has no idea how creepy he has allowed himself to become.

A disturbing splash of bottle holding Neo-cockism to be sure..

 

[Dillinger4]

I could easily kick this guy to death. I could really pound my boot into the stupid cunt's face over and over again.

Wow. I am normally pretty pacific, but I would definitely give that man a neckshot. He is the enemy.

 

[camouflage]

http://freestateinitiative.org/

Some kind of nightmarish super free trade zone. lol.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

http://freestateinitiative.org/

Some kind of nightmarish super free trade zone. lol.

The Free State Initiative is a Norwegian non-profit organization. It was founded by Onar Åm, Norwegian author and blogger in the Enlightenment tradition who has written extensively on the topic of peaceful cooperation for many years.

A total fucking nobody in other words. Bedroom dwelling Randiod twat in the "enlightenment tradition" lol

 

[Jeff Robinson]

.

 

[TruXta]

He's a pseudo-conspiraloon, climate "skeptic" and all around fuck-spud that no-one, least of all in Norway, take seriously.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

I love the fact that the picture below is under the heading "A likely scenario"!

 

[camouflage]

I love the fact that the picture below is under the heading "A likely scenario"!

The inane rants of the bedroom Randian aside, that image represents a rather clever idea called the Seawater Greenhouse (with solar power array thrown in). This artists impression is for a concept called The Sahara Forest...

The objective of the Sahara Forest Project Team is to develop and deploy an integrated, large-scale system for production of freshwater, energy, biomass and ecosystem services on a significant scale.

The inputs are simple: Nutrients, sunlight and seawater.

The first stage of the project is to establish a Sahara Forest Demonstration Centre in order to provide a platform for international coorporation on innovation and development and pave the way for a large-scale roll-out of restorative agriculture and security of energy supply.

The processes integrated into the Sahara Forest Project will work optimally under sunny and arid conditions. The unique benefit of the system arises synergistically from the integration of proven technologies, such as: The Seawater Greenhouse, Concentrated Solar Power and the extraction of nutrients from seawater.

I had went through Mr Åm's site (for a laugh like) and on to this one http://www.seawatergreenhouse.com/

They have projects built in Australia and the Middle East, imagine clever engineering producing fresh-water, energy, agricultural produce and even a bit of table-salt with little or no industrial foot-print (well, except the manufacture of the materials from which these operations would initially be constructed and maintained).

I do like the idea, but suspect generaly the Sahara desert is happier not being useful to more than a few Berbers/Tauregs/Bedoins etc. Contrary to popular beleif, deserts are full of life.

Anyway, more power to em I'd say, Seawater Greenhouse operations don't look to me like they would cause much of an impact on the local environment if done well. Mind you they would require transprot infrastructre to construct and then transport their produce... roads and ports... bad for wilds... all of which is prolly best left for discussion in that Sciencey forum.