Re: Globalization and its Discontents

["J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb@xxxxxxx>]

     With regard to _The Commanding Heights_, I
have read the book and read two reviews of the
TV series (both wildly fawning), but have not seen
the series.  The book certainly does a good job
of describing the general trend to neoliberalism
and deregulation and privatization around the world.
But it way overdoes its virtues and is very journalistic.
      I was especially annoyed to read the reviews of
the TV series that seem to indicate that the faults of
the book are magnified manyfold in the TV series,
although I gather it has some interesting tidbit details.
In particular for this list, one review claimed that the series
lumps Keynes in with Marx and Lenin as an advocate
of central planning, to be contrasted with Hayek and
Friedman, the great heroes of the series.  There is some
of this in the book, but it is not quite that extreme.  Apparently
in the series Keynes is simply presented as being wrong
(along with Marx and Lenin, of course) while Hayek and
Friedman are right, wowie zowie.
     It is true that in _The End of Laissez Faire_ Keynes
became the first person to suggest the possibility of indicative
planning.  But, to my knowledge, that is the only place he
suggested that and he clearly always opposed both command
central planning of the Soviet type as well as general nationalization
(he was actually politically a Liberal and not a Labor Socialist),
although he supported nationalizing some industries such as
utilities that he viewed as natural monopolies, along with the
vague possibilities left by his famous remarks about
"socializing investment."  But the idea that his views resembled
those of either Marx or Lenin are fairly ridiculous in general,
although much of his analytical framework can be found in
Marx, not a point recognized openly by Keynes himself.  And,
given the strong evidence that the spread of Keynesian policies
of various sorts has played a major role in stabilizing somewhat
macroeconomies in the post WW II era, the general thesis
of the series (and the book) that "Keynes was wrong and
Hayek and Friedman are right" is way overdone.
Barkley Rosser
James Madison University
Editor, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Gelles" <johng@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Victory Over Want" <vow@xxxxxxxxxx>; "Cyberspace Society"
<Cyber-Soc@xxxxxxxxxx>; "Post Keynesian Thought" <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, April 19, 2002 12:11 AM
Subject: Globalization and its Discontents


>         In "The Commanding Heights" series on political economy
>         in the 20th Century, on PBS, just concluded, the President
>         defined "globalization" as "trade, investment and friendship".
>
>         The Vice President, in the same series, defined the problems
>         and solutions that globalization brings to all of us a "evolving--
>         with no one person or party holding all the right answers."
>
>         We learn elsewhere that in the Monterey conference on
>         global trade's problems and solutions, concluded not long
>         ago, that Stiglitz, formerly top economist with the World
>         Bank, suggests global greenbacks as a new reserve currency
>         to help finance nations in need through loans whose original
>         capital will be created when nations increase their reserves of
>         foreign currency by buying the greenbacks instead of dollars.
>
>         It seems to me that the President, Vice President and
>         Stiglitz all have good ideas:  We need to emphasize
>         "friendship" as a vital element of invitations to trade and
>         to allow foreign ownership iinvestment. We need to admit
>         the open mind behind Cheney's call to find answers from
>         more than one source.  And we need to see global
>         greenbacks as a good approach to global unsold surplus
>         commodities and temporary overcapacity.
>
>         As the President wages war he will soon come up against
>         the need for higher spending than revenues will suggest.
>         It may yet occur to him that we can invent programs that
>         spend but do not tax. The anti-inflation force such programs
>         need can be developed by a government determined to
>         employ every person, produce every need, and use
>         money as a tool not an excuse for failure.
>
>         In "The Commanding Heights" series our current beliefs
>         were said to be limited to two options only: (1) Motivate
>         work with scarce money and fear of unemnplolymen; or
>         (2) motivate work with a gun in the hands of a slave-
>         driver aimed at the head of every worker.
>
>         There are many other possibilites -- including (3) motivate
>         work with lots of money that people earn but do not
>         intend to spend until production is high and the price is
>         right.  This last method depends on lots of freedom and
>         lots of free information so that workers trust the system.
>
>         It would be foolish to ignore the possibility that government
>         can spend far ahead of the time that people who do the work
>         will finally collect their fair share of an economy that has
>         grown its output many times over.
>
>         But to do this, we cannot refuse to try new and innovative
>         ways to loosen the ties that today make it hard for profits
>         and wages to reflect a great growth of future output at
>         affordable prices. The wages  get in the way of the profits.
>
>         Much of our finance and acounting is too tied to the past,
>         too useless to suggest production aimed at sales for global
>         greenbacks (of one type or another)..
>
>             John Gelles
>
>
>
>