Libelarism evil?

[Younes]

This thought was mainly sparked by Laz' comment saying

Quote:Planned, democratic economies will always triumph over an economy on conflict and oppression.

Now I ain't reaching out for Laz, if anything I only got love for Laz and admire his dedication and so on, now if he said this during the heat of the debate I don't know, but I feel that it's a normal consensus amongst left wingers to view liberalism or liberal economies in such a manner, demonizing it by claiming it to be a bourgeois oppressive economy and etc.

Well as some of you know, I had a big project about the Age of Enlightenment which sparked great thinkers, amongst them Adam Smith and so on who developed the foundations for Liberalism, now as far as I understood, the intellectual movement during the Age of Enlightenment was alot about removing the control of the Church, Monarchy and the Noble over the public, and people tried to achieve this within various areas of the society, Religion, Administration and Economy.
As far as I understood, the idea of free market was developed on the idea of not having an authority such as the noble or the monarchy deciding and controlling your production, how much you are allowed to sell and buy for etc. and also stimulate great economic progression for all business people.

That's how it was presented to me when I read through some books and articles here and there, it was not developed as a tool for oppression, but rather to liberate people economically.

This is not my conclusion, but rather a train of thought, and I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on this, remember it isn't about weather Liberalism is wrong or right, but with which intentions it was created and if it has been misused.

[Djoser]

I disagree with such ideas because they do not allow equality to me. I prefer something that offers no inequality or the least of it.

[1871]

What was the question again?

[shakur420]

It's just that things are getting mashed together here. Liberalism in the classic sense was like that. Freedom, liberty, that kind of shit, in various aspects like social relations and economics with protections in the law for it. Like "conservative", the terms are not so accurate anymore when you look at who's considered a "liberal" (Christopher Hitchens, for example). So like "liberal" today really means progressive. Social democrats, whatever you wanna call it. Insignificant actions that can maybe bring about a few superficial changes while maintaining the status quo, like the economic system or means of production. Like kicking Mubarak out and leaving the military in charge of Egypt.

Liberal economies, again it's a pretty fucked up term if you look at what is considered a "liberal economy". It can mean loosening of restrictions, deregulation in certain sectors, while at the same time, severe protections and regulations. It depends on which economy you're talking about. When you liberalize the economy of a powerful country, they're free to enforce capital controls which will prevent a free market but can ensure a healthy economy. A good balance of growth, inflation, etc. Whatever the fuck they look at, GDP, unemployment, whatever, they have their factors, indicators and formulas and shit.

Now, if you're Haiti and you try to implement capital controls, you know, so you can control things like investment, capital flight, production, growth, unemployment, etc., all the things that matter in an economy, you get kidnapped and exiled for a decade or so. You're not allowed to liberalize and regulate at the same time if you're a country designated for rape. "Liberalization" for places like Haiti mean getting rid of barriers for rich countries, their exports, capital, labor and companies. You gotta "liberalize", but not like the rich countries do. The rich/powerful countries will liberalize what they want, and restrict what they want, manage interest rates, exchange rates, inflation and production depending on what they wanna do with the economy (literally a command economy, though don't know if you wanna go down that road, you can check this thread for a discussion on it). Poor countries are forced to crack open their markets, open their shit up to foreign interests and are not allowed to have any meaningful protections. IMF/World Bank conditions on loans and "free trade agreements" like NAFTA are blatant examples of this

In it's severe form, say like the "Washington consensus", they call it "neoliberalism". Imperialism without all the soldiers. You just extract all the profits through economic policies. If you do need to use force, it's usually just to kidnap a president or something, but usually, you'll just have the domestic strongmen and collaborating politicians do the dirty work. It's absolutely opposite to the ideals behind free markets - what you mentioned, intended to provide physical freedom which it's proponents say comes from the freedom to make economic choices - which you can find if you read Smith. He's not a proponent of free markets, he was proposing regulation left right and center in "Wealth...", but his thesis was that the closer you move to deregulation, as close as possible without fucking things up, the better the economy will be. But he was always talking about the threat of certain interests and how regulation on certain things is crucial in order to protect the "free" nature of the economy. lol, it doesn't make sense to me, it's like saying I gotta kill you to save your life, but people call it a "free market" economy either way.

When we consider the power that wealth has over things like politics, regulation, production, shit like that, we see that a country like the US is really closer to a command economy than a free market economy, whether a truly free market or the type that Smith was talking about. Honest economic descriptions call it a "mixed economy", with aspects of market and command economies. Add in the government subsidization of private profits - say like university development of technology before it's patented by private companies, or bailing out companies instead of nationalizing or redistributing them - and it really starts to look like a command economy. One good example is the threat of exporting production that is used by companies. We just had an example of this in Canada where plans to shut down a plant around London, Ont. and move it to the US, were baited. So companies threaten cities, provinces, states, etc. with this type of move if they don't get the right tax policies, zoning permits, etc., etc. My company actually dealt with a development company that builds up urban centers with bars, restaurants, malls, etc. They use tactics like this to secure subsidization and lower taxes.

Other examples I've heard about is car companies who have surplus production capacity in their overseas plants. If their American union workers are asking for raises, and will not except the meager, less-than-inflation options the company throws down to them, they can just close the plant and increase production in another plant. If they can secure the proper import regulation, like tariffs, levies, whatever they're called and however they're used, it can become cheaper, or just as profitable to move production like this. Now, it's probably not that simple, they might have to retrofit, modify or update those other plants so they can produce cars that they're planning on importing now, but the way money is used this way is one of the main arguments against what people call "globalization". That's one of the major reasons why there's been a big movement against it. What they're not happy about is this "corporate globalization", the way profits are maximized this way, leaving local economies to rot, whither and die, or live under the constant threat of capital flight and the outsourcing/exporting labor. But things like facebook, youtube, international unions, etc., these aren't a problem. So people don't really have a problem with globalization, but instead with the corporate access to profits across state lines that makes companies more powerful than governments.

I know this is running long, but there's another good example of neoliberal, or liberalization of economies and the difference between when you use this term for powerful countries vs weak countries. I've been reading a bit on Lula and Brazil the last 2 days. So like when he was running his first campaign, people were going crazy. Investors and shit. They started pulling money outta the country and stuff as a warning. He had to come out and "reassure" them, foreign investors and companies, that he was going to follow the neoliberal policies of governments past. He would focus on poverty and shit, but investments would be safe, creditors would be paid on time, growth, inflation, all that good shit would be kept on track.

I've heard this called the "virtual senate". It's like the people who are holding European bonds right now, Greek, Spanish, etc., all the ones that need to be "swapped". Part of keeping an economy like Greece afloat, on top of the bailouts, is to extend deadlines on bond payments. This is why a lot of (rich) people are afraid, all over the world, cause if Greece starts defaulting on it's loans and shit, it will also start defaulting on other things like bonds and stuff. Because all different kinds of companies, investment funds, etc., banks and other countries are holding Greek bonds or other loans, if they start defaulting, it spells trouble for everyone. When your company or investment fund has "accounts receivable", when you're a creditor, part of your stock price, net worth, dividends, etc., are based off what is owed to you and expected to be collected over certain periods. When these payments stop coming, and it becomes clear that future payments will not be collected, it not only starts deflating your stock price, but kills your ability to pay stockholders and creates panic. People start pulling their money from your company, killing your stock price even more. What happened with Nortel is a good example of this cycle of panic and stock deflation.

So with Greece and shit, the point of the bailouts is to pay these creditors on time, have money to "stimulate" their economy, handle their payrolls, keep some sort of government functionality, etc. and make bond payments. The bond swaps (credit default swaps, there's different kinds, different terms, like whether you're swapping country or company bonds) are meant to push the deadlines for bond payments. Bonds usually have fixed terms. So every year, there will be dates on which countries have to pay out a bunch of these bonds. By negotiating swaps, they trade your old bond for a new one. If it's people like me, you and some dude's grandmother, coming to collect our bond payments, we might get shafted. We might just be told that the government defaulted on our bonds. Investments aren't guaranteed, right? Or, we may get swaps, we may get new bonds with new dates for payment, maybe another 3 years or whatever till they have to pay out again. If we're big investors though, say like a bank or multibillion dollar investment firm, we'll get a sweet deal. We'll be given a better rate on the new bonds, maybe a payout right now, a bonus or whatever for accepting the swaps, there's different ways they make it enticing. They don't want us to get bitter and pull our capital from other areas of the country, other companies or whatever. They want us to keep investing, they don't want us to dump their currency, stocks in their companies or have large scale capital flight. If investors start pulling their money, it can snowball and your shit will tank. Just like stocks with a company, capital within an economy can have the same effect.

Anyways, these are very clear ways where the theory that "economic freedom will provide liberty" just doesn't hold up. The more wealth is consolidated and concentrated, the more economies consist of financial transactions and the less power the government has to control and manage these things, the easier it is to circumvent whatever superficial excuse for Democracy you have in your country. It's what reigned in Lula, he was only able to go so far because he had to retain certain economic policies. On some things, he's been defiant. Like Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, but on things like economic policy which directly affect US profits, he's pretty normal, centrist. Concerned with growth, healthy inflation, investment and development. He might be a little more concerned with the poor than the average politician, but that's seen on the surface a lot of the time with liberals. He's with a workers' party, how left, I'm not really sure, but I do know there's a huge grassroots organization called MST which represents the poor, workers, etc. They're pretty left. Dudes like Lula who pretty much stay in the center, are kinda what can be considered "liberal" today. At least in their actions. The labels they get just might not be good ones. Liberals know their policies support the status quo, nothing they do is meant to radically alter the systems, or replace them with new ones (lol, unless they're taking over communist ones), but they figure if a few more people can eat, meh, might as well. It's the best they can do and things will work themselves out over time.

I'd be more comfortable using the term "technocrat" to describe most liberals, they don't really care much about the human aspect, they act with a level of what they call objectivity maybe, trying not to consider the children that will die because of their policies, but to think about GDP, campaign funds and "national" interests instead. All the "pragmatic" things that are gonna bring about "change". Is it evil? Yeah, some of the shit I described, I can't see how it's anything but evil, these types of policies. But at the same time, we have these abilities and opportunities. We can bring about some minor changes, or some less minor ones, within these systems sometimes, if we get our shit together. While we plan to smash the system as a whole and replace it in the future, we should also be concerned about what we can do to help people today as well. If our goal is to make things better for more people, ignoring the real changes you could possibly achieve within a progressive, liberal, social democratic system, is not the smart move. You're ignoring an asset. Might as well use it while you're working towards your main goal. Unlike people who live in Saudi Arabia, for example, who don't even have progressives, liberals, social democrats or whatever, we at least have this extra tool at our disposal. It's a near useless tool, it does almost nothing and even with enormous amounts of pressure, change is still minor and it takes a lot of time to see anything significant from it, but is it not still worth it? Consider the numbers. Going to the streets, taking beatings and arrests, emailing, posting, yelling, screaming and fighting to raise the minimum wage by like 10% might seem inefficient, a waste of your time. But an extra $100 for people who make like $1200/month is a huge fucking difference. Those small changes can mean big differences for enough people, so we should try to make those changes while we're stuck with this system. That's something I see now, that I didn't for a long time. I was one of those "don't vote, and tell people not to otherwise you're just participating in the system, validating it, etc.". My priorities were set straight though. I'd rather sacrifice my 20 min every year and look like a collaborator, a progressive or liberal, and maybe that way some people can get raises, or better healthcare or some shit. Maybe we can prevent a little bit of social spending cuts that way. That's more important than looking like some rebel who doesn't vote cause he doesn't wanna "participate" in the system. There's people who depend on that system today. Kids and shit. Parents who got kids to feed. Weakening that system, undermining it or trying to smash it overnight means fucking those people over.

What's evil, is telling people that this is what we should be proud of, what we should be standing up and saluting, parading our shit around as "free", "democratic" or whatever the fuck. That's evil cause it's an obvious false framework, meant to keep you complacent. Pretending that it functions well is evil. But pimping that shit, going to vote for a liberal instead of letting the right winger win, and then voting for a leftie in the next election, that kinda shit makes sense to me as a tactic.