Neo-liberalism appears to be at an end. What will follow?

[GPDP]

Will we see a return to prominence of Keynesian ideas? Or will the bourgeois come up with something more sinister (i.e. corporatism)?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Actually, corporatism employs TONS of Keynesian ideas (the foremost of these ideas being deficit spending in bad times and cutting spending in good times, barring political reluctance to do the latter). Keynes said that his economic conclusions would be carried out best by authoritarian states like Nazi Germany. Some propertarian on Lew Rockwell's website said that "Hitler found the cure before..." Keynes theorized it.

[GPDP]

Well, perhaps I should've worded it better. By Keynesianism, I meant New Deal/Social Democracy and the like, while with corporatism, I meant it in a more orthodox fascist sense. I am well aware of the Keynesian/corporatist connection.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Hehe, New Deal/Social Democracy lacks the political will to cut spending in good times because of tying deficit spending to GDP growth ("as long as GDP grows by such and such, we can have this much of a deficit"). ;)

[Robespierre2.0]

Err... social democracy and fascism are actually pretty similar. In fact, I'd say that fascism is social-democracy that rejects multi-party elections. Both basically have the same economic formula- lots of government spending and social programs which are intended to 'fix' capitalism's flaws and encourage collaboration betwwen the workers and bosses. Roosevelt's New Deal really wasn't anything different from what Mussolini did in Italy, except Mussolini didn't have to deal with liberal democracy, giving him more of a free hand to enact the reforms he wanted.

[GPDP]

Alright, then, let's forget about social democracy.

Back on topic: what kind of politico-economic paradigm can we expect to take the place of neo-liberalism in the absence of a strong leftist opposition?

[Raúl Duke]

Maybe there will be a return to social democracy/corporatism (although I suspect more "corporatism"; more specifically government handing money or running companies/financial institutions/etc then social programs for people.) but the imperialistic aspect that follows neo-liberalism doesn't seem to have gone away.

After the shit goes away, if it does, the calls of "free trade, deregulation of markets, etc" will likely return and probably take us back to this all over again.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2008/09/free-market-ideology-far-finished

[Raúl Duke]

I kind of agree with the article, specifically the first 2 paragraphs...

but the last one seems somewhat wrong.

The last paragraph implies subtly that we should do direct action...but so to usher another era of New Deal. I don't see Klein connecting the dots and seeing that even if another era of New Deal could be evoked it would probably return back to this situation we are having now.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

unfortunately, class politics is a foreign concept to Naomi Klein, Chomsky, and other "great" Western intellectuals who do manage to make thorough and critical analyses of capitalism

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

kudos to house Republicans

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7641733.stm

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

lol at the GOP
Republican: "It's the Dems' fault it didn't pass. Nancy's a *****."
In other words: we wanted it to pass, but didn't want to vote for it

[Guerrilla22]

Actually I think we are far from seeing the end of neo liberalism, in fact many will and are blaming the current crisis on too many market restrictions, which of course is bullshit, but when an ideology appears to fail denial is usually the first thing that follows.

As far as a return to Keynesian ideas, I don't think the US government ever really stepped away from them. There always have been certain people and agencies like the FDIC behind the scenes trying to manipulate the market to keep it from going through extremes. If advocates of a liberal market place really practiced what they preached they'd allow these companies to crash and burn, accept the subsequent hit to the economy and allow the market to make adjustments on its own to recover. Of course, this won't and really never does happen.

[Lenin's Law]

lol at the GOP
Republican: "It's the Dems' fault it didn't pass. Nancy's a *****."
In other words: we wanted it to pass, but didn't want to vote for it

It was the ultra-right so called "libertarian" Republicans who largely voted against this bailout as they regarded any government interference as "socialism" One Republican even compared the bailout to a Bolshevik Revolution!! :lol:

Once again, the Dems were primarily the ones working on behalf of Wall Street and Bush's plans in pushing this through.

As for social democracy, its epoch is long gone and most likely not coming back. The bourgeoisie no longer sees a revolutionary threat instead it will demand more social cutbacks, union-busting, attacks on living standards, what remains of the welfare state (social security, medicare, medicaid, unemployment insurance) and in essence make the working class pay for capitalist greed and speculation.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

It was the ultra-right so called "libertarian" Republicans who largely voted against this bailout as they regarded any government interference as "socialism" One Republican even compared the bailout to a Bolshevik Revolution!! :lol:

I don't think anyone in the US congress is naive enough to actually believe in "libertarianism". The Republicans and Democrats who voted against this didn't want their names attached to a bill widely denominated by the media as bailout for irresponsible millionaire investors. They wanna get re-elected, ya know.


Once again, the Dems were primarily the ones working on behalf of Wall Street and Bush's plans in pushing this through.Some of the democrats, that is. It's always in the best interest of Washington in general that the financial sector be doing well. Like I said, they all wanted this to pass, but they didn't wanna vote for it. They like to keep up the illusion that the Republican Party is against interventionist governments. They're all working on behalf of Wall Street. Wall Street are the ones who promote "libertarianism" to ignorant fools, because they didn't want the government imposing the kinds of regulations that would have averted this crisis. Read the article I posted.