Robert Kurz
The stupidity of the winners
Since the end of socialism to the crisis of neoliberalism
The historic Barbara Tuchman wrote a famous book about the stupidity of the rulers. It 's probably true that power makes stupid and that, consequently, a lot of power makes it particularly stupid. Therefore, the height of stupidity might join him the big winners as soon as they achieved an outright victory and their intelligence is no longer stimulated by the existence of a counterparty. Those wishing to keep his mind on the winners should also recognize the arguments of the adversary of the past, transform them and make them his own, to avoid becoming hostile to themselves and then self-destruct. In this sense capitalism is really the most stupid of the big winners that world history has thus far known. The West has not developed any self-critical reflection about his victory over socialism and the South East the other hand has tried to present it as the panacea for all ills, the ideology of the total market, which has never been a reality in its history as a model of its hegemony and to export it by every means in regions of the global crisis. What really happened? The beginning of the 80s was marked by low growth and recession, rising unemployment and overflowing government borrowing in the West, factors which led to the collapse of all the political-economic paradigms. The conversion from Keynesian to the monetarist doctrine was like that, initially, an attempt by the West to react to his "crisis at the highest level." Around the mid-80s became acute "crisis at the lowest level" of the Union Soviet Union, its suburbs and many Third World countries. Even there they tried to find a new direction with "more market economy." In the late 80s we have noted not only the end of any socialist system but also a wave of civil wars in many parts of the world, the emergence of forms of "economy based on looting" and the growing of boss criminal gangs.
Meanwhile Soviet collapse under the pressure of the economic neo-liberalism continued its triumphal march. Analyzing the situation of the last twenty five years together, we arrive at two conclusions: first, we are dealing with a global crisis that has been articulated across through the systems and that probably has its epicenter just in the West, and second, any further surge of this crisis is increased the dose of neo-liberal medicine. We should ask ourselves the question about the effectiveness of the medication. If it is true that, ultimately, are not ideologies but only the facts to decide, then it's time to make a first synthesis. Where would the success of neoliberalism? None of the phenomena that, at the beginning of the 80s caused the monetarist turn in Western countries has been removed. On the contrary all the above factors have worsened the crisis. The U.S. President Reagan took office promising to clear the budget deficit, but already during the his first term he had set a new world record for power nell'indebitamento state finance its colossal military equipment. The annual U.S. deficit in 1980 amounted to about $ 60 billion in saliva during the era of neoliberal economic policies to more than $ 200 billion (203.4 billion in 1994). Even in Europe the new doctrine has failed in this goal: by 1980 despite the dismantling of social benefits the government deficit in Germany alone has more than quadrupled. The real growth rates in the Western world neo-liberal era were not raised at all, but they even lowered, the economic recovery from cycle to cycle becomes increasingly weak like the breath of a dying man. After the defeat of socialism in the West fell into the deepest recession of the '90s after World War II: U.S. poverty has grown so much over the past 15 years that even large sections of the middle class Caucasians are not remained immune. The income gap between high and low is extremely enlarged many jobs are so poorly paid that the "occupied" can not even afford a house and have to sleep in parks or in underground tunnels closed. Meanwhile in Europe, unemployment rates have doubled, in the first half of 1995 is around 11% in some countries is even worse (the 23% in Spain). Everywhere in the Western centers since 1980 have extended the real "slums" as in the Third World. In the rest of the world the supposed "models of success" of neoliberalism on closer inspection turn out to be illusory. The growing markets in Asia are pursuing a strategy of export-oriented industrialization ", and their relative success can not be attributed to neo-liberalism because so far, in stark contrast to the monetarist doctrine, developed only through the massive intervention of State and under its full control. Even apart from that is not all that glitters is gold in Asia. The land of the alleged miracle, Japan, sees before him, at least since 1992, the "limits to growth." Although the Japanese government crank out a contingency plan and simulation after the other core areas of the economy stagnated, exports decline, industrial production drops. Unemployment has reached the beginning of 1995, the highest level of the last 42 years, only half of the graduates find employment. In every major city in the meantime rise slums and the number of homeless (in Japanese men in a box "because they live in cardboard boxes) is growing steadily. The Japanese expansion was halted because the base effect historically used only for a time Limited has now been exhausted. E 'logically necessary that starting from a very low initial level, in both relative and absolute terms, there may be high growth rates at the beginning of the economic expansion that have to fall sharply because the investment costs go up exponentially while income decrease. Unlimited growth, as required by the law of capitalism is practically impossible. So it's absurd that today some optimists professional esteem of the market economy that the high growth rates of the "little tigers" of Southeast Asian swing in the mid 90s between 6.1% and Taiwan 9% of Singapore remain so high even in the 21st century. Even the Soviet Union in the '30s and '70s in Brazil showed a high growth as it is known that is not a guarantee of lasting success. Indeed, the absolute volume growth in Asia is now far too small to be able to drag like a locomotive the sluggish global economy. In 1994 the total production of South Korean cars, rose by about 13% over the previous year, amounted to 2.3 million units of two-thirds of the production of the Volkswagen (3.3 million) that is a only major European car manufacturer. The newcomers are Asian This brings even more quickly to the limits of ' effect basic compared to Japan because the capital intensity required for structures to withstand the competition is greater in the mid-90s than it was in the mid- 70s. The advance is based primarily Asian sull'indiscriminata environmental destruction and excessive use of infrastructure in poor condition. According to the Bank for Development in East Asian economic miracle will eventually collapse if you do not arrange for the frightening lack of infrastructure. But for this purpose should be invested only in the next five years more than a thousand billion dollars, a sum that far exceeds the output capacity of industrialization for export. In Taiwan, 70% of water resources and water has now dried up "drinking" even begins to corrode machinery, and the remediation of environmental damage now would cost five times the financial reserves of Taiwan. The same applies to claims "pupil" of neoliberalism in Latin America. The successes, exalted above measure, in Mexico, Chile and Argentina have even less substance of progress in Asia. In early 1995, the Mexican economic miracle has dissolved in a cloud of smoke. As in other Latin American countries during an overvalued exchange rate and artificially against stability of the dollar had a fruity port. Reducing the budget deficit and inflation was only possible at the price of a rapid increase in the budget deficit on the current account since 1988, which had stoked the fire of straw of a consumer boom. When the dollar convertibility of the growing mass of Tesobonos (bills of State indexed to the dollar) because of the outflow of currency reserves could no longer be guaranteed, the house of cards fell into ruin. Within a few weeks, the production fell to its lowest, hundreds of thousands of jobs disappeared and inflation exceeded believed reappeared. Apart from the fact that the debacle Mexico could be repeated twice more, even the export success of the "paper tigers" in Latin America appears as Asian. In Mexico there are only a "screwdriver factories" U.S. and Japan without its own industrial base. The Argentina heals its budget by selling the best state-owned enterprises and starving its retirees. But such results can have such a policy? Foreign capital enters as a counterweight but more for speculative purposes, as in Mexico, which for real industrial investment. Chile has still not a light industry that can export a lasting manufactured goods such as South Korea of \u200b\u200bthe '70s, as its textile industries and leather are in crisis because of harsh international competition. The export is not cars, color televisions and microchips or software, but despite diversification, always depends largely on copper mining. I assume that overall success in exporting the exploitation of natural resources, are limited to natural materials, wood and cellulose, fruit, fish meal and seafood. But beyond all the Latin American miracle is a mirage. This is because the high rates of growth are to be charged at a base that was the result of the "lost decade" of a brutal and de-industrialization. Of "successes" we can only speak if the statistics do not go further than the 1988 or the 1985 maximum. On a longer time interval, there was no success, but only because the stagnant growth at best offset the loss of the 80 basic secondary and this effect was quickly exhausted. According to a report by the Inter-American Development Bank in November 1994 Latin America has not solved even one of its most pressing problems while poverty is rampant. Even more massive is the statistical deception in Eastern Europe. Even in countries that are the pride of neoliberalism that Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic the reforms imposed by the economy market after 1989 have led to the reduction of approximately 40% of manufacturing (industrial and artisanal). The apparently high growth after the 1993-1994 is defined as the "turning point", is such only in relation to the new starting point that is the result of a violent de-industrialization. You could say by analogy that a corpse is on the mend because his nails are continuing to grow a little. In Eastern Europe national economy to the deceased, nor even those no longer grow. In Russia, where the hero-worship towards the market economy is already a decade old, industrial production after 1989 was reduced more than 50%. In Romania, the poverty of the population has increased so after the first sign of a market economy reforms in the men destroyed by hunger burst in slaughter animals for zoos. We spread a veil over Africa. The total budget of neo-liberalism and market reforms so far has only been a disaster. He once said that socialism was certainly a noble idea but inadequate for real men. The globalized market economy is not even a noble idea. It does not work and is totally unsatisfactory for the life of the vast majority of men. The neoliberal era will not last so long as the era of socialism and Keynesianism. The neoliberal ideology was just a passing fashion for the stupidity of the winners in a historical moment of terror. When the neo-liberal dose of medicine will no longer be weighed in then we can write the final report: "Operation successful, patient died." Of course it is not even possible to return to the old state economy. Humanity has not yet fully understood that with the end of an era both parties in the old conflict have become completely obsolete and that we must come up with something completely new.
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