Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Keeping focus after the WTO

["Patrick Bond" <pbond@xxxxxxxxxx>]

And are these phenomena not somehow related -- particularly
neoliberalism's creation and nurture of a yet more venal, corrupt,
ideal-less, comprador class than existed previously? That is the
southern Africa experience, mainly.

I always liked Franz Fanon on this kind of relationship:
"In its beginnings, the national bourgeoisie of the colonial
country identifies itself with the decadence of the bourgeoisie
of the West. We need not think that it is jumping ahead; it is
in fact beginning at the end. It is already senile before it has
come to know the petulance, the fearlessness, or the will to
succeed of youth."

On 13 Dec 99, at 10:13, Peter Dorman wrote:
> This confirms my hunch.  What has underpinned the rise of neoliberalism in
> intellectual circles is not so much faith in the market, or the belief
> that market failure is not significant, but the conviction that political
> failure is even more debilitating.  To put it differently, neoliberalism
> fills up the vacuum left by the disappearance of political idealism--the
> belief in the feasibility and power of democratic collective action.
>
> Peter
>
> Brad De Long wrote:
>
> > But as best as I can tell, only in a relatively few "developmental
> > states" have trade restrictions been rational from the standpoint of
> > economic development: too much of the rest of the time import
> > restrictions are not a way to funnel scarce foreign exchange into
> > purchasing technology-transferring capital goods, but a way to funnel
> > scarce foreign exchange into the bank account of the brother-in-law of
> > the vice-minister of finance.
> >
> > As Lant Pritchett likes to say, there is nothing worse than state-led
> > development carried out by an anti-developmental state. Until you can
> > solve the political problem of shaping trade policy shaped into a
> > rational form, I think that you are better off making the neoliberal bet
> > on free trade...
> >
> > Brad DeLong
>