Re: Biel and Stiglitz

[d.stijnoosterlynck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Louis wrote:
> So when Stiglitz and company use their op-ed columns to persuade Washington 
> to straighten up and fly right, it is like advising Hitler to implement a 
> minimum wage for Polish workers. US politics has shifted far too the right. 
> The only party that has a vision of what it wants and will fight for it is 
> the Republican Party. The Democrats are Republican Light. The only way that 
> Stiglitzian meliorist policies to take effect is for some huge upsurge in the 
> labor movement to pose such a threat that some section of the ruling class 
> figures out that it is necessary to reverse course. However, given the 25 
> years or so of reactionary dynamics in the USA, it is more likely that this 
> ruling 
> class will have to be removed by revolutionary violence. The sooner the 
> better as far as I am concerned.



Dear Louis,

Thanks for your enlightening response.  Maybe, my hypothesis about Stiglitz was
too much grounded in my European experience.  Living in the US might give you 
another take on where our world and neoliberalism is heading. 

Basically, following Gramsci there are two possible directions: towards more 
hegemony (in the sense of governing through civil society or intellectual and 
moral direction of society) or towards more coercion and repression (governing 
through political society).  Stiglitz, Krugman and others prefer the former 
path, whereas Bush is currently implementing and practicing the latter option.
Revolutionary violence as Louis and most people on this list is yet another  
option, that is building counterhegemony.

I frankly do not know which direction we are going (although I am afraid that 
for the moment Louis is quite right to assert that the repression and coercion 
option seems the most dominant).  Anyway, I want to elaborate on the 'civil 
society' path a bit more because I think people on this list tend to have a too 
one-sided take on what it might mean (I do not mean this in a normative way but 
just to recognize the complexity of the social world and the manifold 
directions in which it can evolve).

Although Stiglitz is certainly a capitalist and also a neoliberal, from a 
Foucauldian governmentality as well as from a neo-Gramscian IPE approach, 
his option may be path-dependent (or have some consequences he may not intend 
at the outset and is unable to control).  I explain.  Neoliberalism has been 
understood as a way of governing without governing society (cfr. Tatcher?s 
famous dictum ?there is no such thing as society?).  The question remains if 
there are not inherent limits to governing without governing society.  Dean 
argues that the genealogy of the social suggests ?the necessity of a sphere of 
practices and rationalities that adress such questions of poverty, inequality 
and need within a liberal political community of equal and autonomous 
individuals? (Dean, M. (1999) Governmentality.  Power and rule in modern 
society.  London: Sage Publications Ltd.  Quote from pp.193).  The welfare 
state can be seen as an outgrowth of the social government that emerged as a 
set of problematisations of the liberal governmental economy.  

Stiglitz?s move beyond narrow technological economic concerns to include social 
and political factors can thus be interpreted as an ? unconscious ? 
acknowledgement of the limits of neoliberal governance and a re-introduction, 
however limited, of social government.  This return  out of the cold of the 
social may well prove to be path-dependent.  Although he clearly aims at a 
reflexive social government, that is social government that takes the form of 
markets, the ?social threatens and ultimately does take liberal government 
beyond its founding images of society: those of the contract and atomistically 
conceived rational and autonomous individuals? (Dean, 1999, pp.53). 

Obviously, this is only a possibility and the evolution of the underlying power 
structure of the contemporary world will decide which path will be taken.
Coming from Belgium, a strong welfare state where it is still virtually 
impossible for political leaders to ignore social concerns, I might 
overestimate the likelihood of the latter happening.  

Agency will be of crucial importance for the direction in which our world will 
go in the future.  Louis is abviously right to say that the US has shifted to 
the far right and to see an upsurge of left-wing protest such as in Palestine, 
South Africa or antiglobalisation protests and the question is to what impact 
it will have on US power and policies.  I disagree however with his saying that 
only revolutionary violence can do something to change this.  As far as Europe 
and the West in general is concerned building a powerful counterhegemony 
through civil society will in my opinion proove to be far more effective.
As to Palestine and other suppressed developing nations, a degree of violence 
seems to be necessary (although bombing campaigns are largely counter-effective 
in the long run - this is a war that cannot be won by either side), although 
building counterhegemony through global civil society remains important.
An example of this is the dynamic of the World Social Fora, which will probably 
result in a Palestine Social Forum in the near future.  In this way global 
civil society can be mobilized against US imperialism.   

Finally, a question to Louis with regard to his last sentence about 
revolutionary violence 'The sooner the better as far as I am concerned.' 
In my opinion Marxism has a great deal to offer to emancipatory movements.
However, Marxist theory of power tends to be one-sided and ignores the way 
power is all pervasive in human relations (anarchists are far more 
sophisticated in dealing with these issues).  This helps to declare why the 
real existing socialist countries tended to be authoritarian.  To me, more work 
needs to be done in dealing with these issues and finding ways to deal with 
them, otherwise revolutionary violence may well end up in the same failed 
experiments as we have seen in the twentieth century.  What would be your 
response to this?  

Best regards,
Stijn Oosterlynck

~~~~~~~
PLEASE clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.