Black_Rose
13th December 2011, 21:14
For any neo-liberal or self-described capitalist, could one provide a litany of "successful" countries that adopted neo-liberal economic policies (let's just use the Washington Consensus as a quick definition for neo-liberal economic policies or outsource it to the Frasier Institute or Heritage Foundation for a quantitative evaluation of a country's neo-liberalism through their "Index of Economic Freedom")? Now, as for the definition of successful, we'll simply use standard welfare economic statistics that emphasize distribution of wealth and standard of living such as life-expectancy, GDP-PPP, economic growth rate, and economic inequality (gini coefficient).
The reason why I am soliciting this request is because I believe that neo-liberal globalization has been a calamitous failure (especially without the presence of global communism to moderate capitalism) through the last decade and this could be illustrative quantitatively. For instance, most people in Romania believe that life under Ceaucescu was better than contemporary capitalism, Hong Kong has no democracy and high economic inequality, and the Baltic States are mired in an economic depression. More fundamentally and from a moral facet*, this limns the absence of mercy (especially for the economically disenfranchised) in capitalistic ideology, practice, and policy, except of course, when such mercy emanates from a display of ostentatious charity or serves the utilitarian purpose of providing material subsistence (but not dignity) to stave of revolution from the hungry, restive masses. If this is an accurate description of the moral dimension of capitalism, it is unlikely that under a capitalist economy, economic resources will be apportioned "fairly" in the sense that it will provide most people with a dignified standard of living within the context of a given society and culture. I just want someone to post some empirical evidence (preferably quantitative) against my contention by a capitalist apologist or even a revolutionary leftist who merely wants to challenge me to see how I can response to neo-liberal/reactionary apologia.
* Yes, I am a moralistic socialist.
The reason why I am soliciting this request is because I believe that neo-liberal globalization has been a calamitous failure (especially without the presence of global communism to moderate capitalism) through the last decade and this could be illustrative quantitatively. For instance, most people in Romania believe that life under Ceaucescu was better than contemporary capitalism, Hong Kong has no democracy and high economic inequality, and the Baltic States are mired in an economic depression. More fundamentally and from a moral facet*, this limns the absence of mercy (especially for the economically disenfranchised) in capitalistic ideology, practice, and policy, except of course, when such mercy emanates from a display of ostentatious charity or serves the utilitarian purpose of providing material subsistence (but not dignity) to stave of revolution from the hungry, restive masses. If this is an accurate description of the moral dimension of capitalism, it is unlikely that under a capitalist economy, economic resources will be apportioned "fairly" in the sense that it will provide most people with a dignified standard of living within the context of a given society and culture. I just want someone to post some empirical evidence (preferably quantitative) against my contention by a capitalist apologist or even a revolutionary leftist who merely wants to challenge me to see how I can response to neo-liberal/reactionary apologia.
* Yes, I am a moralistic socialist.