12160

By Marklar

March 04, 2011

Recently 12160 member Ron Goodman posted an old blog from Washington's Blog originally posted on November 9, 2008. While the blog did make some good points it is surprisingly inaccurate in describing the nature of neo-liberalism. I say surprisingly because in the past I have always found Washington's Blog to be a top notch source of both accurate information and insightful commentary and I would still highly recommend it.

On several occasions during political discussions I have been asked what a neo-liberal is by those who felt (usually mistakenly) that they had some idea but were interested in gaining a better understanding of the term. This being the case I can certainly understand that there is a lot of confusion in regards to the term.

The easy assumption, of course, is that neo-liberalism is at least close to being the polar opposite of the term neo-conservatism. This is not the case. While neo-conservatives, as pointed out in Washington's blog, bear some resemblance to political and social conservatism, neo-liberalism bears almost no resemblance whatsoever to social or political liberalism. Quite to the contrary neo-liberalism is the sort of 'free market' conservatism with a gun in your face that is often shunned by true conservatives as not being truly free market since it often depends on the application of coercion or even downright force such as the kidnapping of Haiti's former president Jean Bertrand Aristide by U.S. Marines after he committed the heinous crime against the free market of raising the Haitian minimum wage to a greedy $5.50/day.

The liberal part of neo-liberalism refers to Adam Smith style free market economic liberalism which is, of course, the exact opposite of what most people would think of when they hear the word liberal. I can only assume that the 'neo' came to be used in order to differentiate it from classical liberalism. Considering the confusion that continues to surround the term for so many people, it doesn't seem like this way of differentiating the term from classical liberalism was very effective however.

Now, some may still be a bit confused at this point in the article as to what the exact definition of neo-liberal is and I can understand that but this should fix you right up. The best real world example of neo-liberalism that one could possibly bring to mind is IMF/World Bank austerity programs more formally known as structural adjustment agreements. Most of you, I'm sure, will be familiar with this subject, but for anybody who is not, the whole thing normally goes down something like this:

1. Third world cess pit takes out loans from the World Bank via the IMF (which perversely claims to help alleviate poverty in developing nations).

2. Dictator of the aforementioned third world cess pit blows IMF loan money on hookers, a Rolls Royce Limo, a diamond studded bust of Jerry Lewis (hey, he's a genius in France), and lots and lots of guns and armed thugs to shoot anybody who might try to depose his worthless ass.

3. Dictator admits he can't possibly repay the loan because his people are too poor to cover the debt in taxes even at gun point and a diamond studded bust of Jerry Lewis just doesn't fetch what he thought it would on eBay (c'mon people, the man is a genius in France!).

4. The dictator is coerced with threats of decreased foreign aide, military action, or even (very real) threats of assasination (see Confessions of an Economic Hitman) into signing an IMF structural readjustment agreement which demands he -

• Open his country's financial markets to unfettered foreign investment.
• Do away with any financial regulations especially those designed to prevent capital flight (see step #6).
• Open his country's natural resources for exploitation by foreign corporations in return for a consideration that will earn his country hundredths or thousandths of a cent on the dollar which he can use to help repay that loan (yeah!).
• Privatize any and all utilities so foreign free market investors can make them more efficient by quadrupling what people who make a dollar a day pay for the privilege of being able to drink a glass of clean(ish) water.
• Gut any environmental regulations that might interfere with business.
• End or drastically reduce any government spending on luxury items such as food, education, roads (unless the road leads to a foreign investor owned Starbucks), or anything that smells even vaguely of a social program.
• Take that damned bust of Jerry Lewis off of eBay before some poor U.S. banker's daughter gets all Paris Hilton with daddy's credit card.

5. Third world cess pit degrades to 9th circle of economic hell as foreign investors suck every last grain of rice out of the mouths of the impoverished masses over the course of a decade or so.

6. Capital flees from an economy in shambles.

7. The neo-liberal vampires bide their time while sucking another carcass dry and wait for the country to recover enough so that it will be worth their necrotic attentions once again.

And that my friends is the neo-liberal shuffle.

Of course while supposedly liberal politicians can and most often are neo-liberals, that which makes them neo-liberals has nothing whatsoever to do with classical liberalism which would be diametrically opposed to this sort of neo-liberal corporate pillaging.

All of this shares rather obvious ties to globalism, the NWO, and the elite agenda of both wings (as presented to us in the U.S.) of the international fascist party and one could easily write a book or two examining the nuances and intricacies thereof. My goal however was merely to clear up a bit of the confusion on what neo-liberalism actually is and I hope this does the job. If not all I can do is to once again point you towards the excellent book Confessions of an Economic Hitman, or if you prefer just wait for the global economic collapse and rampant national debt to bring your own country down to third world status as it inevitably will. When the IMF comes knocking on your door you'll learn all you ever needed to know about neo-liberalism, close up and personal.