On Aug 31, 2009, at 4:42 PM, Alan Rudy wrote:
> I think the key is to start somewhere else. As always, the "de-
> regulatory"
> nature of neoliberalism is simply crap, and it is so in two ways.
> On the
> one hand, the idea was not to de-regulate markets, it was to re-
> regulate
> them so that different interests were favored - as often as possible
> this
> was to be capital over labor and otherwise banking, infotech and
> services
> over industrial, infrastructural and mom-and-pop shops.
Well not really. Barriers to entry were reduced and freedom to set prices and routes without gov approval were what airline and trucking dereg were about. Ditto telecoms. With finance, banks and other players were given liberty to do whatever the fuck they wanted - though of course the gov came and rescued them whenever things went bad. This line that there was no marketization after the 1970s is a strange fixation I hear from a lot of Marxists and other leftists, but it makes no sense to me.
Doug