The one thing that all these misconceptions have in common,
we will find, is that they tend to reduce all human relations to
exchange, as if our ties to society, even to the cosmos itself, can be
imagined in the same terms as a business deal. This leads to another
question: If not exchange, then what?"
"The one thing that all these misconceptions have in common,
we will find, is that they tend to reduce all human relations to
exchange, as if our ties to society, even to the cosmos itself, can be
imagined in the same terms as a business deal. This leads to another
question: If not exchange, then what?""
democracy has not solved the most pressing of our own social contradictions, they have become worse.
it is very hard to keep
But for a democratic surplus, that is, and the procedural rights and freedoms South Africans enjoy, such as assembly and to vote for whom we choose among contesting elites. It is the absence of an out-and-out dictator, it seems, that keeps South Africa’s poor and discontented in their place.
an actual, not merely branded by a well-meaning Al Jazeera, ‘day of rage’.
A riot releases a qualitatively different element of political alchemy. It makes no demand. It constitutes itself as power rather than asking for stuff from the state. People in this mode have a burst to them that ranks and ranks of police cannot hold.
The top two of these historically are bread prices and repression. It seems that Arab politics has added a third distinct motive to revolt, one flowing from the form of state that has arisen in a privatized, globalised, late capitalist and kleptocractic era
Egypt is also an example of a country that decolonized very early and whose nationalist leaders enjoyed much prestige for their role in winning independence and keeping sovereignty. These struggle credentials and symbologies, such as they are, do not last
A second wave of post-nationalist, Arab liberation struggles are patently taking place now with a coherent and infectious set of ideas informing them.
a critique of these financial packages needs to be seen as much more than just a further illustration of Western hypocrisy
a sustained effort to restrain the revolution within the bounds of an ‘orderly transition’
Egypt is, in many ways, shaping up as the perfect laboratory of the so-called post-Washington Consensus, in which a liberal-sounding ‘pro poor’ rhetoric – principally linked to the discourse of democratization – is used to deepen the neoliberal trajectory of the Mubarak-era
“As momentous as the current security and political restructuring challenges may be, it is absolutely critical that the transition authorities … place a high priority on deepening and accelerating structural economic reforms … transition and subsequent governments must articulate a credible medium-term reform and stabilization framework … [and] need to focus on creating the legal and institutional environment for fostering entrepreneurship, investment, and market-driven growth.”
The IIF went on to bluntly identify this acceleration of structural adjustment as the “context” in which aid to Egypt would be provided
designed to ensure greater legitimacy for neoliberalism
By limiting democracy to the ‘political’ sphere and expanding the notion of freedom to include ‘markets’, they obfuscate the necessary relations of power within the market, and explicitly block the ability of states to determine the use, ownership and distribution of their economic resources. Democratic control of the economy is thus precluded as a violation of ‘good governance’.
In the case of Egypt, the discourse of institutional reform has allowed neoliberal structural adjustment to be presented not just as a technocratic necessity – but as the actual fulfillment of the demands innervating the uprisings
emphasized by US and European spokespeople over the last weeks: this was not a revolt against several decades of neoliberalism – but rather a movement against an intrusive state that had obstructed the pursuit of individual self-interest through the market
Perhaps the starkest example of this discursive shift was the statement made by World Bank President Robert Zoellick at the opening of a World Bank meeting on the Middle East in mid-April. Referring to Mohammed Bouazizi, the young peddler from a Tunisian market place who set himself on fire and became the catalyst for the uprising in Tunisia, Zoellick remarked “the key point I have also been emphasizing and I emphasized in this speech is that it is not just a question of money. It is a question of policy … keep in mind, the late Mr. Bouazizi was basically driven to burn himself alive because he was harassed with red tape … one starting point is to quit harassing those people and let them have a chance to start some small businesses.”
Western loans act to extract wealth from Egypt’s poor and redistribute it to the richest banks in North America and Europe.
Contrary to what has been widely reported in the media, this was not a forgiveness of Egypt’s debt. It is actually a debt-swap – a promise to reduce Egypt’s debt service by $1 billion, provided that money is used in a manner in which the US government approves.
dependent upon a continuous stream of new loans in order to service previously accumulated long-term debt
A PPP is a means of encouraging the outsourcing of previously state-run utilities and services to private companies
“a useful phrase because it avoids the inflammatory effect of “privatization” on those ideologically opposed
“The EBRD was created in 1991 to promote democracy and market economy, and the historic developments in Egypt strike a deep chord at this bank."
A research institute that tracks the activity of the EBRD, Bank Watch, noted in 2008 that a country cannot achieve top marks in the EBRD assessment without the implementation of PPPs in the water and road sectors.
The current Egyptian government has given its open consent to this process
“the current transition government remains committed to the open market approach, which Egypt will further pursue at an accelerated rate following upcoming election.”
While this debate is crucial, it should not distract us from the urgent need to reform our financial system, whose dysfunctionality lies at the heart of this crisis
why not simply ban products whose safety cannot be convincingly demonstrated, as we do with drugs
There is a lot of talk about better regulation and supervision of the financial system but the financial industry is back to business as usual -- rebuilding leverage, engaging in prop trading and other risky behaviour, compensating bankers and traders with indecent bonuses -- and is lobbying against better regulation and supervision
By effectively nationalising a good chunk of the debts accumulated by the private sector, western governments have now raised concerns about their own solvency