Re: [Pen-l] Current Economic Crisis

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Sam Webb:
> Reaganites: main agents of neoliberalism 
> At the ideological level, the Reaganites said that government is best
> that governs least, that markets are self-correcting and efficient,
> that wealth is distributed according to work performed, that income
> inequality is a good thing, that deregulation and privatization are
> the best cures for what ails the private and public sectors, and that tax
> cuts for the rich and wealthy trickle down to working people, thereby
> lifting all boats. 

You can count on CP leader Sam Webb to obfuscate the rise of 
"neoliberalism" in accord with his party's long-term orientation to the 
Democratic Party. In fact, neoliberalism got started under Jimmy Carter 
just as another viciously reactionary policy--McCarthyism--got started 
under Harry Truman.

The article blathers on about the evil Paul Volcker but does not 
acknowledge that he was put in charge of the Federal Reserve by Jimmy 
Carter.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/volc-n29.shtml

Democratic President Jimmy Carter nominated Volckerâa former Chase 
Manhattan Bank executiveâto head the Federal Reserve in August 1979, at 
a turning point for the American ruling class and world capitalism as a 
whole. The coming to power of Margaret Thatcher in Britain three months 
earlier first signaled the drastic shift to the right internationally on 
the part of big business. The selection of Volcker initiated a similar 
shift within the United States, which culminated in November 1980 when 
Ronald Reagan defeated Carter for reelection.

Runaway price inflation had sparked a series of bitter strikes by 
workers seeking to defend their living standards, and the Carter 
administration had suffered a humiliating defeat when more than 100,000 
coal miners struck for 111 days in 1977-78 in defiance of a presidential 
no-strike order under the Taft-Hartley Law. The White House had been 
unable to cow the miners into submissionâthey publicly burned copies of 
the president's back-to-work order on the picket lineâand Carter was 
compelled to rely on the leadership of the United Mine Workers union to 
deprive the rank-and-file of any gains from their struggle.

Volcker was brought in to initiate policies that would suppress 
inflationâand the wages movement in the working classâby driving up the 
rate of unemployment. Under his leadership, the Federal Reserve rapidly 
raised interest rates to an unprecedented 20 percent, choking off 
home-buying and purchases of cars and other durable goods and triggering 
a series of corporate bankruptcies.

The economic turmoil contributed heavily to Carter's defeat in the 
presidential contest, but that prospect did not faze Volcker, whose 
loyalty to the Democratic Party and the president who nominated him took 
a distant second place to his devotion to the long-term interests of 
American capitalism, which required the most draconian methods.

(clip)
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