Posted June 16, 2016  

​     “This Is Our Neoliberal Nightmare: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Why the Market and the Wealthy Win Every Time,” by Anis Shivani, was published on Alternet on June 8, 2016.  

      Shivani maintains that neoliberalism has not been well defined, even though it has been the dominant ideology of the last forty-five years.  He offers the following definition.

     Neoliberalism, in Shivani’s view, believes that the market can resolve all problems, including climate change, educational inequality, unequal access to health care, racial injustice, and police violence.  In the neoliberal perspective, education is treated not as a right, but as a consumer good; accordingly, all persons should invest in their own education, as a form of investing in their own future earning potential. Neoliberalism cannot fathom education, health care, child care, and a minimum wage as human rights, nor can it grasp the responsibility of the state to ensure such rights.  

      Shivani maintains that neoliberalism seeks to transform everything. “Neoliberalism expects . . . that economic decision-making will be applied to all areas of life (parenthood, intimacy, sexuality, and identity in any of its forms), and that those who do not do so will be subject to discipline. Everyone must invest in their own future, and not pose a burden to the state or anyone else, otherwise they will be refused recognition as human beings.”

     Shivani rejects, however, the description of neoliberalism as “market fundamentalism.”  He maintains that neoliberalism is different from classical liberalism, which idealized a free market, untethered by states, as it pretended that states were and should be neutral.  In contrast, neoliberalism, he argues, makes no pretense to state neutrality; it advocates for a strong state that interferes in the market to defend the interests of the wealthy, as it seeks to reduce state intervention in the market in defense of the needs of the people.

     Shivani observes that neoliberalism became the prevailing paradigm in the 1970s, replacing Keynesianism, which had been the dominant economic theory since the 1930s.  He notes that since the adoption of neoliberalism, inequality has exploded, undermining the principal ideological claim of neoliberalism, namely, that it promotes the general welfare.  Shivani maintains that neoliberalism must therefore turn to multiculturalism as a form of social recognition.

     Shivani’s description of the neoliberal project rightfully focuses on its emphasis on the reduction of market regulation, except to defend the interests of the capitalist class.  And the article insightfully sees neoliberalism not only as an economic policy but as a project that shapes our philosophical and cultural assumptions and that pervades all aspects of life.

     However, in my view, Shivani describes neoliberalism as it has unfolded in the core nations of the world-economy, and not as an economic package imposed on peripheral and semi-peripheral regions of the capitalist world-economy by the core.  Not describing neoliberalism from a global perspective, the articles does not point to an understanding of neoliberalism as a new phase of imperialism. This omission is related to the article’s insufficient analysis of the origin of the neoliberal project, a theme that I will discuss in the next post.

      For a description of the characteristics of neoliberalism, when it is understood as a core project imposed on peripheral and semi-peripheral regions and as a stage in the continuous application in imperialist policies, see “Imperialism as neoliberalism” 10/7/2013.


Key words: neoliberal, Shivani

Posted June 17, 2016  

     In our last post (“Neoliberalism” 6/15/2016), we looked at the definition and description of neoliberalism offered by Asin Shivani in “This Is Our Neoliberal Nightmare: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Why the Market and the Wealthy Win Every Time” (Alternet, June 8, 2016).  I maintained that Shivani’s description focuses on the dynamics of neoliberalism in the core nations, and it lacks an historical and global perspective.  This limitation is evident with respect to Shiyani’s speculation concerning the origin of neoliberalism.  He writes:

     Let us seek to address the question of the origins of neoliberalism with an historical and global perspective.  

     The modern world-system and the capitalist world-economy were constructed on a foundation of colonial domination of the world by seven Western European nations from the beginning of the sixteenth to the beginning of the twentieth centuries.  The conquered regions of Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia (excepting China and Japan) were converted into suppliers of the raw materials of the nations of the core, on a base of forced labor.  In addition, with their traditional economies destroyed, the conquered regions provided markets for the surplus industrial and agricultural goods of the core (see various posts on the origin and development of the modern world-system).  

     The conquered peoples resisted.  At first, the resistance was military.  Those initially conquered were no match for the politically concentrated and more militarily advanced emerging nation-states of Western Europe.  As the Western European states were able to accumulate more power through the emerging colonial systems, the empires of China, India and the Islamic World ultimately would have to make significant concession to the new global powers of Western Europe.  Later, the resistance of the conquered peoples took the form of anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial social movements, seeking to transform colonies into independent nations, and seeking to form an interstate system based on the principles of the equality and sovereignty of all nations.  However, the European nations-states were able to contain the Third World movements through the development of a neocolonial world-system, characterized by formal political independence of the nations of the world, and by imperialist economic and financial penetration of the peripheralized zones, in practice maintaining inequality among nations and negating true sovereignty for the formerly colonized nations (see “The characteristics of neocolonialism” 9/16/2013).

     In addition to managing the anti-colonial movements in the colonized regions, the world-system was able to contain popular movements in the core.  These movements, formed by workers, artisans, peasants, farmers and the middle class, were a constant threat to take control of the core states from the capitalist class.   However, the elite was able to undermine the revolutionary potential of the popular classes through the granting of material concessions and the development of a consumer society.  The concessions to popular demands in the core were financed by the superexploitation of the peripheral and semi-peripheral regions and by government deficit spending.

      The world-system provided a relatively high standard of living for the popular sectors of the European colonial nations and of the ascending European settler societies, such as the United States and Canada.  Thus, the world-system worked fairly well for those who were strategically positioned to benefit from colonial and neocolonial domination of vast regions of the world.  However, in the middle of the twentieth century, the world-system began to reach its geographical and ecological limits, in that had run out of lands and peoples to conquer, thus losing the principal motor that drove its expansion.  And this was occurring just as the Third World national liberation movements were reaching their zenith, demanding more and more political and economic concessions from the global powers.  At the same time, the deficit spending strategy in order to satisfy popular demands in the core had reached its limits, as core government debts exceeded sustainable levels.  

      In modern capitalism that have been periodic crises of overproduction, giving rise to economic recession or repression.  And there have been other periodic crises, such as the Mexican debt crisis, the Third World debt crisis, and the financial crisis of 2008.  But in the 1970s, the world-system was beginning to see signs of a more profound type of crisis: a fundamental structural crisis of the world-system, which was rooted its basic contradictions.  There was, on the one hand, the contradiction between the economic system and the environment, in that it is a system that economically expands by conquering more lands and peoples, yet it pertains to a planet with a finite amount of land and peoples.  Secondly, there is the contradiction between the democratic ideology, which proclaims the equality of persons and nations, that has been the dominant ideology of the system since the late eighteenth century; and the logic of colonial and neocolonial domination and the exploitation and superexploitation of labor, which provides the economic foundations of the system.  The contradiction between democratic values and domination/exploitation had the consequence that popular movements were invoking democratic values as an arm of struggle, compelling the elite to continually make concessions to anti-colonial movements in the Third World as well as popular sectors in the core, concessions that were beyond the capacity of the system to sustain.  

     Thus, by the 1970s, the system had reached its limits.  Corporate profits were stagnating.  Economic stagnation was combined with inflation.  Global production has surpassed ecological limits.  Peoples all over the world, in core and peripheral zones, were in movement, demanding concessions and/or structural change.  The hegemonic neocolonial power was overextended, with balance of payments and government deficits, which compelled it to eliminate the gold standard for the US dollar.

      It would not have been unreasonable for global elites to respond to this situation by the taking of an enlightened turn, recognizing that the world-system had reached its limits, and that it would be necessary to change the logic of the system from domination to cooperation, and to search for mutually beneficial forms of international trade and ecologically sustainable forms of production.  It would have been reasonable, given objective conditions, but it would have been inconsistent with the previous comportment of the elite, which had persistently pursued its interests at the expense of the common good. During the second half the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, it had turned to monopoly capitalism, imperialism, consumerism, and war, seeking to maximize production and profits. Following World War II, rather than reconverting to a peacetime economy and seeking to develop peace and cooperation among nations, as Franklin Roosevelt had envisioned, the US power elite led the world in the development of a military-industrial complex, a permanent war economy, ecologically unsustainable forms of production and consumption, military intervention in the Third World, and new forms of imperialism.  The neoliberal turn of the global elite in 1980, provoked by a fundamental structural crisis of the system, was fully predictable.

     Consistent with its past behavior, perhaps true to its nature, the global elite, rather than taking a reasonable and enlightened turn, took an aggressive turn, driven by the pursuit of short-term particular interests.  It sought to reassert its control over the world-system, reversing forty-five years of concessions.  It imposed the neoliberal program on the neocolonies, using the debt of Third World governments as leverage, thus rolling back concessions that had been made to the Third World during the course of the twentieth century.  At the same time, it turned to an economic war on the popular sectors of the core, rolling back programs that had been developed in response to popular demands.

     As applied in the Third World, neoliberal policies had direct short-term benefits to core corporations.  The neoliberal project required Third World governments to eliminate government protection of national currencies and to permit the trading of currency at a free market rate, thus greatly increasing the purchasing power of the US dollar in Third World nations, reducing the costs of labor.  The neoliberal project compelled privatization of government-owned enterprises, thus making economic enterprises available for purchase at devalued prices.  Neoliberal policies required Third World governments to reduce protection for their national industries, reducing or eliminating tariffs and taxes on imported goods, thus expanding the market for the goods of core corporations.  Neoliberal policies facilitated the free flow of capital into and out of countries, thus making possible enormous profits through financial speculation.  And neoliberal policies reduced or eliminated union restrictions, thus increasing profits to core corporations through the exploitation and superexploitation of labor in the Third World (Prieto 2009:108-11).  

     Thus, the neoliberal project of the core powers was an aggressive response by the global elite to the structural crisis of the world-system, and it had a certain logic to it.  But the logic pertained only to the short-term.  In dismissing the needs of the humble people who form the majority of humanity, the neoliberal project provoked popular indignation, giving rise to a renewal of popular movements that seek structural transformation of the world-system.

     The origins of neoliberalism cannot be treated as a mystery or the subject of mere speculation.  We intellectuals of the North have the duty to understand it, and to explain it to our people, so that our options can be more fully understood.  We must be clear on two issues.  First, the world-system, based on neocolonial domination and the superexploitation of labor, has overextended its ecological and political limits, and it cannot be sustained.  Humanity must seek to develop an alternative world-system based on cooperation and mutually beneficial trade, if it hopes to avoid chaos and/or extinction. Second, the mainstream and established political-economic actors of the nations of the core have demonstrated that they are morally and politically unprepared to rule the world in anything approaching a necessary and responsible form.  They must be removed from power by the people in movement.  

      If we intellectuals of the North were observing with a more open attitude what has been occurring in the Third World since the 1990s, we would see that there has begun a process of peoples in movement seeking to develop an alternative world-system.  We intellectuals of the North must discern not only the unreasonable and morally irresponsible behavior of those in power, but also the dignified behavior of the world’s humble.  We must call our peoples in the North to participation in the movement that has been formed by humanity in defense of itself.

​ 
Reference
 
Prieto Rozos, Alberto.  2009.  Evolución de América Latina Contemporánea: De la Revolución Cubana a la actualidad.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.
 
 
Key words: neoliberalism, Shivani, crisis

Posted June 23, 2016  

     An important insight in Asin Shivani’s article, “This Is Our Neoliberal Nightmare: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Why the Market and the Wealthy Win Every Time” (Alternet, June 8, 2016), is that neoliberalism is more than economic policy.  It is a philosophy of life that interprets everything from the perspective of the market.  And as result of the fact that neoliberal policy and philosophy have dominated the public discourse of the nation since 1980, it has arrived to influence the beliefs and assumptions of many.  But not all.  Many people in US society are ill at ease with neoliberal philosophy and its cultural implications, without having the capacity to articulate their discomfort.

      Shivani maintains that the unarticulated divide among the people of the United States with respect to neoliberalism is playing itself out as a basic factor in the US presidential elections, without it being formulated as such.  Among the candidates, Hillary Clinton has been the fullest expression of neoliberalism.  Shivani writes:

In Clinton’s view, education and health care are not conceived as rights that ought to be ensured by the state, but as consumer goods. Accordingly, one should invest in education in order to guarantee future capacity to provide education for children, health care, housing, transportation, and other consumer goods.  

     Bernie Sanders, in contrast, rejects neoliberal assumptions.  Sanders endorses the conventional progressive affirmation of the responsibility of the state to guarantee the social and economic rights of the people, such as education, health care, nutrition, and housing. Shivani writes:

Sanders’ rejection of neoliberalism, however, is not formulated as such.  “Although Sanders doesn’t specify ‘neoliberalism’ as the antagonist, his entire discourse presumes it.”

     Donald Trump also rejects neoliberalism, but in a manner different from Sanders.  Shivani maintains that “Trump is an authoritarian figure whose conceptions of the state and of human beings within the state are inconsistent with the surface frictionlessness neoliberalism desires.”  And he asserts: “while Trump supporters want to take their rebellion in a fascist direction, their discomfort with the logic of the market is as pervasive as the Sanders camp.”  Trump represents an inhumane rejection of neoliberalism, in contrast to Sanders, who expresses a humane alternative to neoliberalism.

      Shivani interprets the emergence Sanders and Trump as an indication of the “breakdown of both major political parties.”  He attributes the breakdown to the frustration of the people, which has been caused by the fact that “there was no sustained intellectual movement to question the myth of the market” following the crash of 2008.    

     I submit that the failure of progressives to offer an alternative paradigm to the neoliberal myth was evident long before 2008.  It dates to 1980, when the nation took the neoliberal turn, and the Left failed to draw upon the insights of the various popular movements to formulate a comprehensive analysis and plan of action, delegitimizing the ahistorical and superficial discourse of neoliberalism.  The period of 1955 to 1972 was a revolutionary period in the United States, during which the fundamentals for an alternative progressive paradigm were formulated by popular movements.  The African-American movement had proposed: full political and civil rights for persons of color (NAACP, SCLC, SNCC); a coalition of the poor of all colors, including whites, for the attainment of social and economic justice (Dr. King’s Poor People’s Campaign); black control of black community institutions, including economic, political, educational, criminal justice, and cultural institutions (Malcolm’s formulation of black nationalism); and an end to imperialist policies with respect to the Third World (King and Malcolm). For its part, the student/anti-war movement: rejected the classical Marxist class analysis as not applicable to the United States; cast aside the anti-communism of American liberalism; and formulated an anti-imperialist perspective with respect to US foreign policy (SDS). Meanwhile, the women’s movement emerged with a gender consciousness that named patriarchy as a central dynamic of domination in human history and that called for full citizenship rights for women.  And the ecology movement emerged to defend the rights of the earth and to critique unsustainable forms of production and consumption.  All of these movements assumed a central role of the state in addressing issues of racial, gender, income, educational and health inequality as well as questions of global inequality and the ecological balance of the earth. None believed that these problems could be addressed by the market.  All possessed historical consciousness and a fundamentally accurate reading of contemporary national and global dynamics.  All appreciated the democratic heritage of the nation and were indignant at policies that intended to dominate and exploit in the name of democracy.

      Thus, all of the elements necessary for the formulation of an alternative paradigm were present in US political culture in 1980.  But we intellectuals and activists of the Left failed to formulate an alternative paradigm.  Academics have been trapped by the bureaucratization of the university and distorted assumptions with respect to scientific objectivity, and they have been unable to formulate an alternative interdisciplinary paradigm tied to political practice. Activists have been disconnected from intellectual work and have been unable to formulate an alternative comprehensive paradigm, and they have moved from issue to issue in the organization of protests. Intellectuals and activists of the Left have been unable to move forward with the revolutionary thinking and proposals of the period 1955 to 1972 in order to present to the people an alternative to the neoliberal paradigm, an alternative rooted in the historic struggles of the people for the attainment of full democracy.  Jesse Jackson pointed us in the right direction with his presidential campaigns of 1984 and 1988, but his project was rejected by white society (he received only 12% of white votes in the presidential primaries of 1988, as against 95% of the black vote and 67% of the Latino vote), and Rev. Jackson himself was not committed to the development of the Rainbow Coalition as a mass organization following the 1988 elections.

     Thus, the failure to seize upon the crash of 2008, converting it into an event that could galvanize the people into new ways of thinking and political action, was predictable, reflecting an historic failure that was rooted in the inability of the Left to build sustained popular movements in the post-1972 period.  

      We intellectuals and activists of the Left have the duty to offer an alternative understanding of national and international issues to our people, thus tapping into what Shivani has described as the unarticulated frustrations of our people.  Drawing upon the historic popular struggles in the United States, and also learning from revolutions in other lands, we have the capacity to formulate a progressive alternative that is more advanced and developed than that offered by Sanders.  A more comprehensive historical and global understanding, tied to concrete popular needs and to political action, could be more attractive to our people that what Sanders has offered, and it could eclipse the potential for fascism that Trump represents. This is the challenge and the duty that we intellectuals and activists of the Left confront in the years ahead.

     Please take a look at an earlier post, “Presidential primaries in USA” 8/25/2015.  I maintained that the unexpected success of Sanders and Trump in the presidential primaries is an indication that the people of the United States are not satisfied with the two mainstream political parties and established politicians.  And I argued that the emergence of Sanders and Trump suggests that intellectuals and activists should reflect on the possibility of an alternative political party of the Left, giving consideration to the characteristics that such an alternative political party ought to have.

​Key words: neoliberalism, presidential elections, Clinton, Sanders, Trump, Shivani

Posted June 24, 2016  

​     In “This Is Our Neoliberal Nightmare: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Why the Market and the Wealthy Win Every Time” (Alternet, June 8, 2016), Asin Shivani sees neoliberalism as promoting multiculturalism and identity politics, in a form that severs identity politics from a class foundation.  He considers multiculturalism to be the dark side of neoliberal ideology, implying a form of exclusion and intolerance: “This is the dark side of neoliberalism’s ideological arm (a multiculturalism founded on human beings as capital), which is why this project has become increasingly associated with suppression of free speech and intolerance of those who refuse to go along with the kind of identity politics neoliberalism promotes.”  He maintains that neoliberal multiculturalism ostracizes and excludes working-class whites who are uncomfortable with neoliberal conversion of the self into a market commodity, and that such alienated working-class whites form the basis of support for Trump.  He writes that from the neoliberal point of view, “those who fail to come within the purview of neoliberalism should be rigorously ostracized, punished, and excluded.”  And further: “It is not surprising to find neoliberal multiculturalists—comfortably established in the academy—likewise demonizing, or othering, not Muslims, Mexicans, or African Americans, but working-class whites (the quintessential Trump proletariat) who have a difficult time accepting the fluidity of self-definition that goes well with neoliberalism, something that we might call the market capitalization of the self.”  He views neoliberal multiculturalism as an elitist discourse that reinforces the neoliberal glorification of the market: “neoliberal multiculturalism, operating in the academy, is so insidious, because at the elite level it functions to validate market discourse, it does not step outside it.”

     Thus, Shivani suggests that the progressive discourse that emerged during the 1960s has evolved into a pejorative dismissal of the white-working class, invoking a language that is exclusive and that offends, alienating working-class whites from progressive causes, even as the progressive message seeks to speak on their behalf.  At the same time, it is a discourse that does not really offer an alternative to neoliberal policy and philosophy.  

     Shivani writes in a tone that appears to not appreciate that multiculturalism emerged as a progressive response to the systemic exclusion of ethnic and cultural minorities.  Nevertheless, I think he points to a problem with the progressive discourse.  The Left seeks to promote a nation characterized by cultural pluralism, in which racial and ethnic groups with distinct cultures, languages and identities have social and political space; and rightly so.  But the Left does so in a way that fosters white resentment.  This suggests the need for a reconstruction of the discourse of the Left.  

      Please see various posts in the category Race in the United States: “Black community control” 5/10/2015; “The unresolved issue of race in the USA” 6/23/2015; “The abandonment of the black lower class” 6/24/2015; “On racism and affirmative action” 6/26/2015; “The need for a popular coalition” 6/27/2015; “Race and Revolution” 1/19/2016; and “Race, the university and revolution” 1/25/2016.  The posts explain and affirm the historic goals of the African-American movement.  At the same time, they suggest strategies and a discourse with respect to race that is oriented to building a popular coalition.

     We intellectuals and activists of the Left need to return to our roots in popular movements, recalling the discourses of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, and seeking to forge a popular coalition based on an inclusive calling of all our people.


Key words: neoliberalism, multiculturalism, identity politics, Shivani

Posted June 27, 2016 

     We have seen that Asin Shivani’s, in “This Is Our Neoliberal Nightmare: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Why the Market and the Wealthy Win Every Time” (Alternet, June 8, 2016), sees the candidacy of Hillary Clinton as the full expression of neoliberalism, understood as the reshaping of everything in accordance with market principles.  In contrast, Bernie Sanders (like Ralph Nader and Howard Dean before him) formulates a humane alternative to neoliberalism, whereas the discourse of Donald Trump suggests an authoritarian alternative (“Neoliberalism and presidential elections” 6/23/2016).  

     Shivani would like us to consider what will happen after the Sanders campaign: “It is existentially imperative to ponder what happens beyond Sanders, because neoliberalism has its end-game in sight, letting inequality continue to escalate past the crash point (meaning the point where the economy works for most people), past any tolerable degradation of the planet (which is being reconceptualized in the shape of the market).”  He believes that a much will depend on the extent to which the people will be capable of thinking outside the neoliberal perspective.  He writes: “What remains to be seen is the extent to which the millennial generation might be capable of thinking outside the neoliberal paradigm, i.e., they don’t just want more of what neoliberal promises to give them yet fails to deliver, but want things that neoliberalism does not or cannot promise. On this rests the near-term future of the neoliberal project.”  He asks: “to what extent will Americans continue to believe that the self must be entrepreneurially leveraged toward maximum market gains, molded into mobile human capital ever ready to serve the highest bidder?”

      I believe that in reflecting on the future of neoliberalism, we must begin with consciousness of the fact that neoliberal policy and philosophy is unsustainable in the long term.  This is the conclusion to which we arrive if we understand what neoliberalism is and how it came to be.  Neoliberalism emerged in the 1970s as a desperate response by a global elite that was experiencing stagnating profits and was losing political control of the world-system.  The neoliberal project is a war against the formerly colonized nations as well as the popular sectors of all regions, developed in response to the unresolved contradictions of the world-system, particularly the contradiction implied by the fact that it must expand by conquering new lands and peoples on a planet with finite limits.  It was intended to restore profit margins and to reestablish political control.  Its benefits to the elite were short-term.  In the long run, it has functioned to deepen the economic financial, political, and ecological crisis of the system. Placing the market and profits above all else, it can resolve none of the problems that humanity confronts, such as climate change and other symptoms of ecological imbalance, high levels of poverty in vast regions of the world, uncontrolled migration, criminal gangs, trafficking in drugs and persons, and the delegitimation of the political system of representative democracy.  The neoliberal czars can only conceive of wars, the imposition of policies, and economic sanctions, cynically proclaiming that its actions in defense of its particular interests are defending democracy in the world.  Neoliberalism has resolved nothing, and it cannot.  It can only lead to either a continuing spiral of disorder and chaos, including the possibility for the extinction of the human species; or to the continuing mobilization of the people in the construction from below of an alternative, more just, democratic and sustainable world-system.  Either scenario would involve the end of the neoliberal project, which seeks to preserve the exploitative structures of the neocolonial world-system through aggressive actions against the governments and peoples of the world (“What are the origins of neoliberalism?” 6/17/2016). 

     Fully exposing the unsustainability of the neoliberal project necessarily would involve delegitimizing the global elites who have created and defended it, including the directors of corporations and their representatives in the executive and legislative branches of governments, the conservative think tanks, and the mainstream mass media.  All who have forged careers in these institutions have fostered and have benefitted from the neoliberal project, and their immoral conduct would stand exposed by a thorough analysis of the neoliberal project.  

     Our people must come to understand not only that the neoliberal project will resolve none of the problems that humanity confronts, for it was not intended to do so; but also that those who occupy positions of leadership and responsibility, who have formulated and implemented the neoliberal project, have demonstrated their moral and intellectual unpreparedness to lead the nation in this time of global crisis.  Such “leaders” must be cast aside by the people; and others with alternative life trajectories, dedicated to understanding the true and doing the right, must be lifted up by the people to occupy positions of responsibility in the institutions of the nation

      How can the people come to such an understanding, which implies recognition of themselves as a revolutionary subject, seeking to place their delegates in power, replacing those who have represented the particular short-term interests of the powerful?  We can be assured that the people will not come to understand it by themselves, without help.  They tend to live in the world of day-to-day concrete problems, and they are manipulated and confused by an educational system that fragments and news reporting that ideologically distorts.  Thus, it must be the role of the intellectual to formulate the comprehensive historical and global understanding that the people need to grasp in order to liberate themselves from domination.

     Accordingly, intellectuals and activists must liberate themselves from the pervasive ideological distortions, attaining their liberation through sustained encounter with the movements that have been formed by the peoples of the world.  Intellectuals and activists must work together to present an alternative to the people, explaining to the people the sources of their rejection and exclusion, and calling them to act in their own defense.

      Sanders points in the right direction, but his humanist discourse is not enough.  More of an historical and global analysis, beyond what he has offered, is needed, including an anti-imperialist component. Moreover, what is needed is not a presidential candidate, but an alternative political party that educates and organizes the people and that seeks to capture, as a long term plan, the executive and legislative branches of the government.  For a fuller formulation of the characteristics of a future revolutionary party of the people, see “Presidential primaries in USA” 8/25/2015.

​Key words: neoliberalism, Clinton, Sanders, Trump, Shivani, third party, revolution

Posted October 7, 2013

     The first steps toward the neoliberal project had been taken by the Reagan administration, with the rejection of Keynesian policies, cutbacks in domestic programs, and the first steps toward international financial deregulation.  More systematic application of neoliberal policies on a global level was adopted by the administration of George H. W. Bush (1989-93), which sought to restructure the Inter-American system of domination on a foundation of three pillars.  The first is support for representative and parliamentary democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean, replacing the military dictatorships of national security.  This so-called “transition to democracy” was necessary, given the popular struggles against the military dictatorships and their total lack of legitimacy.   And the transition was possible, given the increasing concentration of capital, greater dependency of the Latin American elite, declining autonomy of Latin American governments as a result of external debt, and the limited organizational capacity of the popular movements as a result of repression by military dictatorships.  The second pillar is the economic, characterized by the imposition of neoliberal polices, efforts to impose a Free Trade Area of the Americas, and the signing of Free Trade Agreements with various nations.  The third is the military pillar, in which the United States seeks to establish a greater military presence in the region, using the “war against drugs” and the“war against terrorism” as pretexts (Regalado 2010).

     Neoliberal economic theory is a recasting of classical liberal economic theory formulated by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations in 1776.  Smith had maintained that in order to maximize the possibilities for economic development, rather than protecting the markets and industries of the colonial powers, it would be better to follow a principle of international free trade.  Although liberalism or free trade was the dominant economic theory from 1776 to 1929, it was not followed in practice by the global powers. Throughout the nineteenth century, Britain, Germany and other European nations as well as the United States for the most part practiced protection of their industries.  The notion that the period prior to the Great Depression of the 1930s was an era of free trade is a myth, even though it is a myth perpetuated by most economists (Bairoch 1993:1-55; Raffer 1987:1-3; Hayami 233, 238-39).

     The neoliberal project of the 1980s and 1990s was developed on the basis of the economic theory proposed by Milton Freidman and others at the School of Economics of the University of Chicago.  Its premises are: (1) the state should not distort the natural and spontaneous economic order; (2) governmental policy should be based on the principle of the unlimited supremacy of the market; (3) states should not interfere with the free play of supply and demand; and (4) governmental interference in the economy ought to be eliminated.  Specific neoliberal policies include: the elimination of government protection of national currency and the trading of currency at a free market rate; privatization of government-owned enterprises; reduction of protection for national industry, reducing or eliminating tariffs and taxes on imported goods; facilitation of the free flow of capital into and out of the country; and the elimination of union restrictions on the free play of supply and demand (Prieto 2009:108-11).  
 
     The administration of Bill Clinton (1993-2001) continued to develop the three pillars of the restructured Inter-American system of domination that had been established by the Bush administration.  However, the Clinton administration encountered opposition.  On the domestic front, labor organizations were opposed to free trade agreements, concerned with their implications for the job security of US workers.  At the same time, there emerged in Latin America during the period of 1994 to 1998 popular mass demonstrations in opposition to free trade agreements and the neoliberal project.  This stage of the Latin American popular struggle was inaugurated with the Zapatista rebellion in Mexico in 1994, launched on the day that the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect.   After 1998, beginning with the election of Hugo Chávez as president of Venezuela, the popular struggle would pass to a more advanced stage, a phenomenon that we will discuss in future posts (Regalado 2010).

     Osvaldo Martínez, Director of the Center for the Study of the World Economy in Cuba, sees neoliberalism as a strategy of imperialist domination.  He maintains that “free trade” is a rhetorical phrase that is an integral part of a coherent package that expresses the interests of the transnational corporations and the governments that represent them.  He maintains that neoliberalism is full of contradictions, inconsistencies and myths, and as a result, it is in crisis (Martínez 1999; 2005; 2006).


References

Bairoch, Paul.  1993.  Economics and World History: Myths and Paradoxes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hayami, Yujiro. 2001.  Development Economics: From the Poverty to the Wealth of Nations, 2ndedition.  NY: Oxford University Press.

Martínez Martínez, Osvaldo.  1999.  Neoliberalismo en Crisis.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

__________.  2005.  Neoliberalismo, ALCA y libre comercio.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

__________.  2006. “El libre comercio: zorro libre entre gallinas libres,” in Libre Comercio y subdesarrollo.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Prieto Rozos, Alberto.  2009.  Evolución de América Latina Contemporánea: De la Revolución Cubana a la actualidad.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Raffer, Kunibert.  1987.  Unequal Exchange and the Evolution of the World System: Reconsidering the Impact of trade on North-South Relations.  NY:  St. Martin’s Press.

Regalado, Roberto.  2010.  “Gobierno y poder en América Latina hoy,” Curso de actualización: América Latina: entre el cambio y la restauración conservadora, Centro de Investigaciones de Política Internacional, La Habana, Cuba, 22 de noviembre de 2010.   
 

Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, neoliberal, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, FTAA