[lbo-talk] Neoliberalism RIP

Max Sawicky sawicky at verizon.net
Mon Nov 24 11:14:55 PST 2008


I've raised this before, so my question, not completely rhetorical, is what do they sell that anybody outside the country wants to buy, aside from energy? I guess they export skilled workers that others will hire, but any manufactures?

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 12:16 PM, <dredmond at efn.org> wrote:
> On Mon, November 24, 2008 7:43 am, Max Sawicky wrote:
>
>> what's the Russian model of industrialization?
>
> Here's the short list:
>
> 1. Default on your foreign debt and avoid dependence on external loans
> thereafter.
> 2. Expropriate the worst of the speculator-comprador elites running the
> place into the ground, force the rest to become ordinary CEOs.
> 3. Nationalize your leading industries (in Russia's case, gas, oil,
> metals) and force the rest to pay their taxes.
> 4. Get state banks (Sberbank etc.) to lend and create sovereign wealth
> funds to save export earnings.
> 5. Channel domestic savings into science and technology (Russtech,
> nanotech, aerospace), education and infrastructure (social projects, Sochi
> Olympics), rural sector (agribiz) and a nascent welfare state.
>
> None of this is theoretical. It's already happened, and offers a powerful
> model to other middle-income countries with some history of urbanization
> and industrialization, e.g. Latin America, Central Asia and SE Asia.
> (Conversely, lightly urbanized peripheries like rural India and Nigeria
> should look at China 1979-1990 and Vietnam 1985-2000 for useful models).
>
> This is why the mainstream neolib press (what Peter Lavelle dubbed the
> commentariat) has demonized Putin and demeaned Medvedev. In their own
> narrow way, the commentariat understand that the semi-periphery is
> breaking its neocolonial chains.
>
> -- DRR
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list