[A-List] Re: Economic vs. political freedom: Antithetical?

[Lynn Yost <lynn@xxxxxxxx>]

Both are very interesting. But, can you play it both ways? Can economic freedom be based on lack of indebtedness?

Lynn

At 12:55 PM -0500 1/16/07, Michael Hudson wrote:
>            A striking irony has arisen in the concept of economic freedom
>as compared to debt peonage. The Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal
>2007 Index of Economic Freedom was released on January 16, 2007 ranking of
>157 countries is in inverse proportion to their degree of indebtedness. Thus
>North Korea is at the bottom, followed by Cuba, Libya, Zimbabwe and Burma.
>Thanks to their political exclusion from the global economy, these are the
>nations with a minimum of debt. Heading the list are Hong Kong, Singapore,
>Australia, the United States, New Zealand and the United Kingdom which lead
>the world economy in debt. (The domestic and international debt Australia
>and New Zealand soared after they adopted neoliberal policies in the early
>1980s.) *(Mary Anastasia O'Grady, Tim Kane and Kim R. Holmes, The 2007 Index
>of Economic Freedom.)
>
>            There are two ways to interpret this ranking. One is that
>nations rejecting the neoliberal Washington Consensus and IMF/World Bank
>planning of their economies find themselves excluded from international bond
>markets, while there is little private domestic banking to extend credit
>(and little to use credit for, given existing security of residential,
>agricultural and commercial land tenure). The other interpretation is that
>only strong governments can protect their populations from the extractive
>strategy of global finance.
>    Any views as to which interpretation is more interesting? Or both?
>
>Michael Hudson