The point is that the commitment to neoliberalism is disconnected from reality almost entirely. It is impervious to argument or refutation. It only hits speed bumps when its practitioners take the economy off a cliff. Sometimes not even then, maybe take the economy off a cliff two or three times in a way serious enough to make the likelihood of rapid recovery probable. Jeff Sachs ruined the economies of three countries with neoliberal nostrums, each one (Russia being the last) worse than before, and his previous failures had no effect on his enthusiasm for the idea. Now he's doing the sackcloth and ashes routine at Columbia. It's like NL's little sister (Raymond Chandler fans will get the allusion), the efficient market hypothesis -- a ludicrous idea to start with, repeatedly refuted by experience, and yet, like Rasputin, it will not die.
--- On Mon, 9/28/09, andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> From: andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Univ of Calif contemplates privatizing itself
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 9:48 PM
> It's like Richard Nixon. I'll believe
> it's dead when they cut off its dead and drive a stake
> through its heart. Andie
>
> --- On Mon, 9/28/09, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> wrote:
>
> > From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> > Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Univ of Calif contemplates
> privatizing itself
> > To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> > Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 9:38 PM
> >
> > On Sep 28, 2009, at 10:05 PM, John Gulick wrote:
> >
> > > Did you not make the same argument in the waning
> > months of 2008, qualified by the remark that
> > > neo-liberalism's successor was yet to be born
> (you
> > nominated green Keynesianism as one possibility)?
> > > Nature abhors a vacuum I guess.
> >
> > Yeah, I thought that for a while. I don't anymore.
> Though
> > circs can always change. Still, I'm amazed by the
> > ideological and financial resilience of the thing.
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
>
>
>
>