Re: Speaking of volatility

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

Michael Perelman says:

> On Fri, Jul 13, 2001 at 01:53:01PM -0400, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> >  Michael Perelman says:
> >
> >  >Doug, I don't entirely disagree with you, but part of the problem w/ the
> >  >Asian crisis was that it was localized -- leaving the neoliberal
> >  >juggernaut relatively unaffected.  It was the worst of both worlds -- a
> >  >crisis with a neoliberal solution.
> >
> >  The 70s was a period of general crisis, so to speak, general enough
> >  to affect both the West & the USSR, in response to which
> >  neoliberalism arose.  So, a general crisis isn't necessarily in the
> >  interest of the Left.  The next general crisis, which should come out
> >  of the contradictions of neoliberal capitalism (including
> >  contradiction between accumulation and social conditions for
> >  accumulation [like infrastructure investment]), may put an end to
> >  neoliberalism without ending capitalism, especially if the only
> >  proposal on which a large number of leftists can agree is global
> >  Keynesianism of sorts.
>  > Yoshie
>
> The 70s were interpreted as a failure of the "left," opening the way for a
> move to the right as a solution.  The failure of this decade will be seen
> as the responsibility of the right.

You think so?  I believe it is not just coincidence that the second
wave of neoliberalism has been generally implemented by the electoral
"Left" -- the Third Way in the core &
post-dictatorship/post-apartheid democrats in the periphery.  "Left"
& "Right" after all are just relative terms in the dominant political
discourse, so it won't surprise me if the failure of neoliberalism
too gets interpreted as the failure of the "Left."

In the USA, recession may become blamed on Bush, but that doesn't
necessarily help us here, if folks just look to the Dems.

If we are to exploit any crisis, what we need is a political program
that goes beyond capitalism & the organizational wherewithal to bring
about it in reality, independent of the electoral "Left."

Yoshie