[lbo-talk] NYT's hearts Iran's new austerity measures

[Wojtek S]

[WS:] "Participation in the market" can mean very different things to
different people, for example:
- availability of goods in the market (as opposed to their absence or
rationing)
- being paid "market wages" (as opposed to "below market" ones)
- being able to obtain employment (as opposed working in subsistence
economy)
- being subjected to "market discipline" (as opposed to being protected from
market ups and downs)
- earning "market wages" (as opposed to wages determined by administrative
fiat)
- use market price mechanism to allocate resources (as opposed to
administrative allocation)
- and so on.

I do not think most of them are necessarily bad things, after all they are
based on some form of rationality.  My problem with "participation in the
market" is not the empirical meaning of the term but its political usage as
a code word for policies of surplus distribution that favor elites over
everyone else.  By the same logic, "socialist economy" was not necessarily a
bad thing, but in Eastern Europe it was a code word for policies that, guess
what, favored policies giving political power to elites at the expense of
everyone else.

In other words, debating intellectual constructs ("markets," "capitalism"
"democracy" "socialism" etc.) may be an interesting academic exercise, but
its political implications are close to nil.  What matters is exposing and
fighting the power of elites.

Wojtek

On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 2:33 PM, <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:


> Countries participate in the world market in different ways. Perhaps I'm
> being thick and misreading "participate in world market" as a euphemism for
> the neoliberal globalization project.
>
> It just seems like the participation of some countries....say Eastern
> Europe...means sudden immiseration and a drop in life expectancy. I dunno.
>
> Joanna
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 11:20:27 AM
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] NYT's hearts Iran's new austerity measures
>
>
> On Jan 18, 2011, at 2:08 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
>
> > OK. But so far as the hoi polloi are concerned, being included in the
> world market seems to go hand in hand with deprivation. What am I missing
> here?
>
> How do you figure that? Japan, Western Europe, Canada, China, S Korea are
> all part of the world market. Are they deprived?
>
> Doug
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>