> SA wrote:
>> ... He and Robert Zoellick may be the twin guardians of global
>> "neoliberalism" but they are miles and miles apart politically.
>
> Isn't it true, though, that if you put neocon characters like
> Wolfowitz and Zoellick (my little bio of the latter is here:
> www.counterpunch.org/bond03192010.html ) into neolib institutions,
> they manage a neocon-neolib fusion without much strain. That fusion is
> so strong that the anticipated fracturing, e.g. between Euro and US
> ruling blocs from 2001 onwards, simply didn't happen.
>
> And the anticipated turn of the IMF to globo-Keynesianism under
> Strauss-Kahn (which I fear even fooled someone as sharp as Mark
> Weisbrot) has been reversed just as soon as the financial markets
> required austerity, once the panic had subsided. Aren't Strauss-Kahn
> and Zoellick working in perfect harmony at the moment? I'm not close
> enough, sitting in South Africa, but I certainly don't see any gap of
> miles and miles.
>
> So we should look at the balance of forces that affect institutions,
> not the personalities, surely?
Definitely. I'm saying DSK and RZ are miles apart on their respective domestic politics, not necessarily on the way they govern the IFIs. In DSK's case, I think he was chosen deliberately to shift the IMF a bit to the left. In his personal politics he was a (mainstream) Keynesian long before coming to the IMF. He often criticizes the ECB and the Stability and Growth Pact. Opposing the tightness of the ECB is not a particularly daring position in French politics, unlike in northern Europe.
SA