Re: Anti-keynesianism and extremism in Europe

[Trond Andresen <trond.andresen@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 06:04 PM 2/10/00 -0500, J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. wrote:

>     I think there are more serious issues here for folks on
>this list.  In particular, a lot of us have argued that "incomes
>policies" are Post Keynesian policies.  Well, Davidson may
>favor TIP, and Colander may favor MAP, neither of which has
>been seriously tried anywhere.  But the most serious and long
>lasting form of incomes policies have been the corporatist
>economy-wide bargaining systems that have been in many
>economies, and perhaps most prominently in Scandinavia
>and Austria during the post-WW II period.  So, I hate to say it,
>folks, but this Haider business is arguably a breakdown of the
>political economy of a hitherto reasonably successful Post
>Keynesian economic system of sorts.

Barkley,
speaking from Norway, I would rather say that what has happened is NOT a
"breakdown", in the sense that this was unavoidable, like a "natural force". It
was instead a *deliberate choice* of the right-wing part of the ruling social
democracies to *abandon* policies that still were feasible. There was never
any great social pressure from below for cutbacks in public schools and
hospitals, for privatization, for abolishing capital controls, for increased
wage diffentials etc.

There was and is, however, strong and persistent campaigning from the right,
from the well-paid careerist emerging class of "elite" social democrats, and
from the pundits in the big media. Not to mention most university academics.

This deliberate and chosen eroding of the welfare state and the social
contract has led to and immense resignation, disillusionment and cynicism
among ordinary working people. This is the main reason that the right-wing
populists now have a fair amount of success.

Trond Andresen

--
Trond Andresen <trond.andresen@xxxxxxxxxxx>
http://www.itk.ntnu.no/ansatte/Andresen_Trond

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Department of Engineering Cybernetics
N-7491 Trondheim, NORWAY

phone  +47-73-594358, --4376 (secr.). --4399 (fax)
+47-73-530823 (home), +47-9189-7045 (mobile)