[lbo-talk] Against “Neoliberalism”by Michael Dawson, former LBO-talk list member

David Green davegreen84 at yahoo.com
Sun Nov 30 18:26:59 PST 2014


Marv: "It’s a way of reassuring your audience that you are not opposed to capitalism as such and its replacement by a socialist system based on public ownership of the major means of production, especially as that system is now widely seen, including on the left, as having been discredited by the experience of “command economy” central planning in the Soviet Union and China. Critics of “neoliberalism” typically target individuals and elites within the system rather than the system itself - specifically, contemporary politicians who collude with greedy bankers and other bad capitalists aiming to dismantle the regulatory framework and social programs introduced during the so-called golden age of capitalism. There is an implicit yearning to revive the social contract between social democratic trade unionists and enlightened capitalists which is presumed to have prevailed during that period." To the contrary, I've found the term neoliberalism as defined and elaborated in the context of capitalism to be quite helpful in the works of Panitch & Gindin, The Making of Global Capitalism; and Costas Lapavitsas, Profiting Without Producing; and elsewhere, such as Dumenil and Levy's analysis of the role of the managerial class post 1975. They incorporate financialization, globalization, and the role of the state; as socialists/Marxists/unionists, they propose radical measures. David Green



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