But....
In reference to my last post - that wealth was not for everyone:
The failure of political Keynesianism, and then monetarist policies to ressurect rate of profit dovetailed with a 'we don't know what to do so lets try 19th c laissez-faire on a world scale' set of policies demanded by the U.S., given voice by Reagan and Thatcher in her famous statement: 'There Is No Alternative [to a worldwide free market]', or TINA.
Borders to capital flow in all its manifestations had to be everywhere broken; state owned industries had to be privatized; poor fiscal management had to be tightened and almost everywhere on the backs of the working class and poor as needed social services were cut and cut again. Debt payments, no matter how great a percentage of export earnings, had to be made if a government were to expect future access to IMF and World Bank funds.
Neoclassical economists and their theories provided ideological justification; a sort of 'we are all neoliberals now' attitude infected world leaders until, in 1989, John Williamson coined the term 'Washington Consensus', which was very much not the consensus of those most subject to the various 'shock therapies'.
So, how did the world do under this set of misguided fundamentalisms?
"Real global GDP growth averaged 4.9%a year in the Golden Age years from 1950 through 1973, but dropped to 3.4% annually in the unstable period between 1974 and1979. Dissatisfied with the instability, inflation, low profits and falling financial asset prices of the 1970s, advanced country elites pushed hard for a switch to a more business friendly political-economic system; global Neoliberalism was the result. World GDP growth averaged 3.3% a year in the early Neoliberal period of the 1980s, then slowed dramatically to 2.3% from 1990-99 as Neoliberalism strengthened, making the 1990s by far the slowest growth decade of the post war era." (James Crotty)
The failure of political Keynesianism, and then monetarist policies to ressurect rate of profit dovetailed with a 'we don't know what to do so lets try 19th c laissez-faire on a world scale' set of policies demanded by the U.S., given voice by Reagan and Thatcher in her famous statement: 'There Is No Alternative [to a worldwide free market]', or TINA.
Borders to capital flow in all its manifestations had to be everywhere broken; state owned industries had to be privatized; poor fiscal management had to be tightened and almost everywhere on the backs of the working class and poor as needed social services were cut and cut again. Debt payments, no matter how great a percentage of export earnings, had to be made if a government were to expect future access to IMF and World Bank funds.
Neoclassical economists and their theories provided ideological justification; a sort of 'we are all neoliberals now' attitude infected world leaders until, in 1989, John Williamson coined the term 'Washington Consensus', which was very much not the consensus of those most subject to the various 'shock therapies'.
So, how did the world do under this set of misguided fundamentalisms?
"Real global GDP growth averaged 4.9%a year in the Golden Age years from 1950 through 1973, but dropped to 3.4% annually in the unstable period between 1974 and1979. Dissatisfied with the instability, inflation, low profits and falling financial asset prices of the 1970s, advanced country elites pushed hard for a switch to a more business friendly political-economic system; global Neoliberalism was the result. World GDP growth averaged 3.3% a year in the early Neoliberal period of the 1980s, then slowed dramatically to 2.3% from 1990-99 as Neoliberalism strengthened, making the 1990s by far the slowest growth decade of the post war era." (James Crotty)
posted by John Liberty at 6:57 PM
2 Comments:
Average weekly earnings, constant 1982 dollars, for all private nonfarm workers in the U.S. peaked in 1972 at $331.59, falling to $257.95 in 1992 until 'recovering' to $277.57 in 2004 and likely having faltered again since then.
Meanwhile, the cult of models has become so extreme that banks have believed them even when this collides with common sense. Yet, as any Latin scholar knows, the word "credit" hails from credere: "to trust". It is, in other words, also a social construct.
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