[lit-ideas] Re: A World on Fire
- From: Teemu Pyyluoma <teme17@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 00:44:36 -0800 (PST)
This is all well and fine, but somehow I suspect that
free markets implemented without brains have more to
do with power relations than any theoretical short
comings. That is we don't give a damn what the natives
need and want, and as such the natives end up with
something your average American or European would
never sign up to.
Or as Durito (a beetle) explains to Subcommandante
Marcos:
[...]
- pay attention. Your problem is the same one many
have. You refer to the economic and social doctrine
known as "neoliberalism"...
"Just what I needed... now classes in political
economy," I thought.
It seems like Durito heard what I was thinking because
he chided me: - Ssshh! This isn't just any class! It
is the Chair [as in university] par excellence.
That about the "Chair par excellence" seemed
exaggerated to me, but I got ready to listen to it.
Durito continued after some "mmmh, mmmh"s.
- It is a metatheoretical problem! Yes, you start from
the idea that "neoliberalism" is a doctrine. And by
"you," I am referring to those who insist on
frameworks that are rigid and square like your head.
You think that "neoliberalism" is a capitalist
doctrine to confront the economic crises that
capitalism itself attributes to "populism." Right?
Durito didn't let me answer.
- Of course right! Well, it turns out that
"neoliberalism" is not a theory to confront or explain
the crisis. It is the crisis itself made theory and
economic doctrine! That is, "neoliberalism" hasn't the
least coherence; it has no plans nor historic
perspective. In the end, pure theoretical shit.
- How strange... I've never heard or read that
interpretation - I said with surprise.
- Of course! How, if it just occured to me in this
moment! - says Durito with pride.
- And what has that got to do with our running
away, excuse me, with our withdrawal? - I asked,
doubting such a novel theory.
- Ah! Ah! Elementary, my dear Watson Sup! There are no
plans, there are no perspectives, only
i-m-p-r-o-v-i-s-a-t-i-o-n. The government has no
consistency: one day we're rich, another day we're
poor, one day they want peace, another day they want
war, one day fasting, another day stuffed, and so on.
Am I clear? - Durito inquires.
- Almost... - I hesitate, and scratch my head.
- And so? - I ask, seeing that Durito isn't
continuing with his dissertation.
- It's going to explode. Boom! Like a balloon blown up
too far. It has no future. We're going to win - says
Durito as he puts his papers away.
- We? - I ask maliciously.
- Of course, "we"! It's clear that you won't be able
to without my help. No, don't try to raise objections.
You need a superadvisor. I'm already learning French,
for continuity's sake.
I stayed quiet. I don't know what is worse:
discovering that we're governed by improvisation, or
imagining Durito as a supersecretary in the cabinet of
an improbable transition government.
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/marcos_ecuador_peru_mar95.html
Cheers,
Teemu
Helsinki, Finland
--- John McCreery <mccreery@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> This note is to call your attention to a remarkable
> book I picked up in
> Washington during the last DNC meeting.
>
> The book in question is Amy Chua (2002), World on
> Fire: How Exporting
> Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and
> Global Instability.
>
> The Publisher's Weekly review on Amazon.com reads as
> follows:
>
> > A professor at Yale Law School, Chua eloquently
> fuses expert analysis
> > with personal recollections to assert that
> globalization has created a
> > volatile concoction of free markets and democracy
> that has incited
> > economic devastation, ethnic hatred and genocidal
> violence throughout
> > the developing world. Chua illustrates the
> disastrous consequences
> > arising when an accumulation of wealth by "market
> dominant minorities"
> > combines with an increase of political power by a
> disenfranchised
> > majority. Chua refutes the "powerful assumption
> that markets and
> > democracy go hand in hand" by citing specific
> examples of the
> > turbulent conditions within countries such as
> Indonesia, Russia,
> > Sierra Leone, Bolivia and in the Middle East. In
> Indonesia, Chua
> > contends, market liberalization policies favoring
> wealthy Chinese
> > elites instigated a vicious wave of anti-Chinese
> violence from the
> > suppressed indigenous majority. Chua describes how
> "terrified Chinese
> > shop owners huddled behind locked doors while
> screaming Muslim mobs
> > smashed windows, looted shops and gang-raped over
> 150 women, almost
> > all of them ethnic Chinese." Chua blames the West
> for promoting a
> > version of capitalism and democracy that
> Westerners have never adopted
> > themselves. Western capitalism wisely implemented
> redistributive
> > mechanisms to offset potential ethnic hostilities,
> a practice that has
> > not accompanied the political and economic
> transitions in the
> > developing world. As a result, Chua explains, we
> will continue to
> > witness violence and bloodshed within the
> developing nations
> > struggling to adopt the free markets and
> democratic policies exported
> > by the West.
>
> My take away was two key arguments:
>
> (1) What advocates of exporting free market
> democracy are typically
> trying to export are highly idealized, purified
> forms of both free
> markets and democracy: forms never in fact
> implemented in any Western
> or other OECD country, where both are tempered by
> legal systems and
> regulations that moderate their effects.
>
> (2) Exported to parts of the world where class
> divisions parallel
> ethnic divisions with the economically dominant
> minority ethnically
> distinct from the economically subordinate majority,
> the compound free
> market + democracy is highly unstable and likely to
> trigger explosive,
> even genocidal, conflict. Why, because the
> economically dominant
> minority profits enormously from free markets,
> radically increasing the
> gap between its wealth and the poverty of the
> economically subordinate
> majority. The economically subordinate majority
> embrace democracy in
> extreme populist forms promoted by charismatic
> demagogues. Typical
> outcomes are either (1) the economically dominant
> minority's
> abandonment of democracy and support of
> authoritarian regimes that
> protect them and their property or (2) violent
> insurrections in which
> the subordinate majority massacres members of the
> ethnic other who are
> portrayed and perceived in diabolical terms.
>
> What is missing when this happens is the rules and
> institutions that
> temper free markets on the one hand (the welfare
> state/social safety
> nets) and one-man, one-vote majority rule on the
> other (protections for
> minorities as embodied, for example, in the US Bill
> of Rights). That
> both represent the outcomes of decades of
> negotiation (and sometimes
> civil wars) is not good news for those who believe
> that free markets
> and democracy are instant and sovereign panaceas for
> all of the world's
> ills. To neglect this historical fact, however, may
> be to ignite
> conflagrations of which our current troubles are
> only minor precursors.
>
> I do not advocate this conclusion. I do feel
> challenged by it. Any and
> all comments are welcome.
>
>
>
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