[fla-left] Fw: Dying for Growth (fwd)

[Michael Hoover <hoov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

forwarded by Michael Hoover

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> >Thursday June 8, 2000
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> >=== Dying for Growth ===
> >
> >  The ideology most responsible for promoting a vision of economic growth
> >as good in and of itself has also shaped development discourse and policy
> >choices among key international institutions since the late 1970s.
> >Historically, this ideology has been known under various names:
> >"neoliberalism," "the Washington consensus," "Reaganism," "the New Right
> >Agenda," and "corporate-led economic globalization," to name a few. This
> >view asserts that economic growth is by definition good for everyone and
> >that economic performance is optimized when governments refrain from
> >interfering in markets. Thus, for the good of all citizens, governments
> >should grant the greatest possible autonomy to individual market
> >actors--companies in particular. Unsurprisingly, the main advocates of
> >neoliberal policies--governments of wealthy countries, banks,
> >corporations, and investors--are those who have profited most handsomely
> >from their application.
> >
> >The proponents of neoliberal principles argue that economic growth
> >promoted in this way will eventually "trickle down" to improve the lives
> >of the poor. Increasingly, however, such predictions have proved hollow.
> >In many cases, economic policies guided by neoliberal agendas have
> >worsened the economic situation of the middle classes and the poor. Today,
> >per capita income in more than 100 countries is lower than it was 15 years
> >ago. At the close of two decades of neoliberal dominance in international
> >finance and development, more than 1.6 billion people are worse off
> >economically in the late 1990s than they were in the early 1980s. While
> >most of the worlds's poor are dying--in the sense of yearning--to reap
> >some of the benefits of this growth, others are literally dying from the
> >austerity measures imposed to promote it.
> >
> >--From "Dying for Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor,"
> >edited Jim Young Kim, Joyce V. Millen, Alec Irwin, and John Gershman
> >http://www.commoncouragepress.com/kim_growth.html
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