Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>
> >On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote
> >
> >> ... China, which is anything but neoliberal.
> >
> >Is that quite clear, mutatis mutandis? The transformation
> >under Deng ("Let some people get rich first") included such
> >things as the confiscation of social services (e.g., medical
> >care) characteristic of neoliberalism.
>
> Yes, but the state's hand has been very strong, capital flows
> severely restricted, the financial sector "repressed," the exchange
> rate fixed, and state enterprise kept going as a floor under the
> economy. Aside from screwing the working class, you'd have to mut a
> lot of mut's to make the whole package neoliberal.
Neoliberalism seems itself too hazy a term to be haggled over. But for any nation with a large rural population (counting urban residents who have moved from the countryside), I would call it part of the neoliberal system if more than half of that (rural/recently rural) population had suffered a significant loss of living standards in the last 20 years.
Carrol
>
> Doug
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