[lbo-talk] post analytical Marxist era/ post liberal era

Mike Ballard swillsqueal at yahoo.com.au
Thu Sep 27 21:10:30 PDT 2007



>
> On 9/26/07, andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>> Well, I am a socialist as well as a liberal, so I
>> agree that the best _social order_ involves a right to
>> a job or income. You can call that a political right
>> if you want, there are arguments to be made for doing
>> so, although I don't call it political but social and
>> economic myself; but whatever terms you use we agree
>> that a right to a job or income is a real right. Btw,
>> Milton Friedman thought it was, if not a right, then

Yes but Milton also believed in the nonsensical concept of a natural rate of unemployment. That undermines the right to a job more than just a little. Keeping the unemployment rate high enough to drive down wages sounds crass so better we should disguise that idea with an scientifically objective sounding name. Who can object to the 'natural' rate of something except cranks, right?

John Thornton ****************

Uncle Milty co-designer with Pinochet of today's version of bourgeois democracy in Chile. I'm not painting anybody on this list with the conservative brush; but please do remember September 11, 1973. ***** The Chicago School of Economics got that chance for 16 years in Chile, under near-laboratory conditions. Between 1973 and 1989, a government team of economists trained at the University of Chicago dismantled or decentralized the Chilean state as far as was humanly possible. Their program included privatizing welfare and social programs, deregulating the market, liberalizing trade, rolling back trade unions, and rewriting its constitution and laws. And they did all this in the absence of the far-right's most hated institution: democracy.

The results were exactly what liberals predicted. Chile's economy became more unstable than any other in Latin America, alternately experiencing deep plunges and soaring growth. Once all this erratic behavior was averaged out, however, Chile's growth during this 16-year period was one of the slowest of any Latin American country. Worse, income inequality grew severe. The majority of workers actually earned less in 1989 than in 1973 (after adjusting for inflation), while the incomes of the rich skyrocketed. In the absence of market regulations, Chile also became one of the most polluted countries in Latin America. And Chile's lack of democracy was only possible by suppressing political opposition and labor unions under a reign of terror and widespread human rights abuses.

Conservatives have developed an apologist literature defending Chile as a huge success story. In 1982, Milton Friedman enthusiastically praised General Pinochet (the Chilean dictator) because he "has supported a fully free-market economy as a matter of principle. Chile is an economic miracle." (1) However, the statistics below show this to be untrue. Chile is a tragic failure of right-wing economics, and its people are still paying the price for it today.

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-chichile.htm

Mike B)

Macht kaputt, was euch kaputt macht! http://www.iww.org/culture/official/preamble.shtml

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