What is 'Neo-Liberalism'

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Fri Jun 22 09:33:10 PDT 2001


At 11:41 AM 6/22/01 -0400, Doug asks:
>Brad, I don't like it when people bait you as some sort of
>crypto-fascist, but really - do you think rounding up people in
>soccer stadiums and killing them is a good foundational economic
>development strategy?

It is feasible. From a dialectical perspective, democracy was good for capitalism when bourgeoisie had to struggle against vestiges of feudalism to assert its dominant positionin society. In those heroic times, "rule of the people" was attractive to bourgeoise because bourgeisie was a part of "the people."

Today, otoh, bourgeoise has the rank of aristocracy, and democracy has become the integument to the economic system that gives it its class power.

Hence authoritarianism is a good development strategy as long as development is defined as implementation of a superior (in terms of its productive potential) economic system, and as long as the challengers to the current financial/industrial aristocracy cannot come up with a better alternative to capitalism which will again give the 'rule of the people" some economic teeth.

wojtek



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list