As I mentioned last week, I'm currently reading a very interesting book Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, by Phillip Mirowski, a book which sets itself the task to explain how Neoliberalism not only survived the Crisis of 2008 but has emerged stronger than ever.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/08/never-let-serious-crisis-go-to-waste.html
To be sure, the very premise of the book can be argued-for one thing has Neoliberlism really emerged unscathed and even stronger? As Mirkowski righltly suggests an actual Neoliberal's reaction would likely be to deny that there is in fact any such thing as a Neoliberal. An important point to grasp is that this book is not primarly a claim about Neoclassical economics-as I initially had misread myself-but rather what he calls Neoliberalism. He's obviously far from the first-and he's very unlikely to be the last-to use this loaded term. However, he does as good a job as I've seen in trying to define it in a rigorous way that isn't so all-encompassing and diffuse-basically a curse word applied to anyone that you may think is too Right of Center-as to tell us very little.
He speaks of nothing less than a Neoliberal Thought Collective (NTC) which he ascribes largely to the MPS Perelin Society starting with its first meeting in the late 40s-with founding members Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, and Ludwig Von Mises. Neoliberals are defined as those both MPS and those associated with it and he assures us that this gives us a manageable number to start with.
Whether you choose to buy into it or not-I'm certainly intrigued as I would argue that conspiracies do happen-it's a fascinating piece and here yet again, in looking through today's stories you again seem to see some examples of the NTC in action. First we have a conservative tv editor blaming the loss of conservatives on the animated tv show Family Guy.
"Unable to take responsibility for their own shortcomings and terrible policy positions, a conservative speaker is blaming a cartoon show as the real reason why the GOP has been losing elections.
While I don't see the connection between FG and the conservatives losing elections I already was a big fan of FG and am now perhaps a bigger one. I think his cultural theorizing is rather simplistic-'Superman as our hero means we love our country; family guy means we've given up on America'-in fact the impact of that loaded thing called culture is a lot more complex than his qualms here would suggest.
However, this story about Louisiana Republicans is a real feather in the NTC cap. It recalls all these previous great watersheds like when that Tea Party woman demanded that you 'take your government hands off of my Medicare' or when a majority of Americans thought that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11 even after W. Bush himself admitted otherwise. Turns out on the matter of Obama's complicity with Hurricane Katrina 'opinions differ' as Krugman would say. A lot believe he deserves blame for Katrina, even more than Bush, even though it happend 4 years before he was sworn into office. r
"A significant chunk of Louisiana Republicans evidently believe that President Barack Obama is to blame for the poor response to the hurricane that ravaged their state more than three years before he took office.
The latest survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, provided exclusively to TPM, showed an eye-popping divide among Republicans in the Bayou State when it comes to accountability for the government's post-Katrina blunders."
"Twenty-eight percent said they think former President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time, was more responsible for the poor federal response while 29 percent said Obama, who was still a freshman U.S. Senator when the storm battered the Gulf Coast in 2005, was more responsible. Nearly half of Louisiana Republicans — 44 percent — said they aren't sure who to blame."
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/poll-louisiana-gopers-unsure-if-katrina-response-was
Yep, it's just too close to call.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/08/never-let-serious-crisis-go-to-waste.html
To be sure, the very premise of the book can be argued-for one thing has Neoliberlism really emerged unscathed and even stronger? As Mirkowski righltly suggests an actual Neoliberal's reaction would likely be to deny that there is in fact any such thing as a Neoliberal. An important point to grasp is that this book is not primarly a claim about Neoclassical economics-as I initially had misread myself-but rather what he calls Neoliberalism. He's obviously far from the first-and he's very unlikely to be the last-to use this loaded term. However, he does as good a job as I've seen in trying to define it in a rigorous way that isn't so all-encompassing and diffuse-basically a curse word applied to anyone that you may think is too Right of Center-as to tell us very little.
He speaks of nothing less than a Neoliberal Thought Collective (NTC) which he ascribes largely to the MPS Perelin Society starting with its first meeting in the late 40s-with founding members Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, and Ludwig Von Mises. Neoliberals are defined as those both MPS and those associated with it and he assures us that this gives us a manageable number to start with.
Whether you choose to buy into it or not-I'm certainly intrigued as I would argue that conspiracies do happen-it's a fascinating piece and here yet again, in looking through today's stories you again seem to see some examples of the NTC in action. First we have a conservative tv editor blaming the loss of conservatives on the animated tv show Family Guy.
"Unable to take responsibility for their own shortcomings and terrible policy positions, a conservative speaker is blaming a cartoon show as the real reason why the GOP has been losing elections.
While I don't see the connection between FG and the conservatives losing elections I already was a big fan of FG and am now perhaps a bigger one. I think his cultural theorizing is rather simplistic-'Superman as our hero means we love our country; family guy means we've given up on America'-in fact the impact of that loaded thing called culture is a lot more complex than his qualms here would suggest.
However, this story about Louisiana Republicans is a real feather in the NTC cap. It recalls all these previous great watersheds like when that Tea Party woman demanded that you 'take your government hands off of my Medicare' or when a majority of Americans thought that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11 even after W. Bush himself admitted otherwise. Turns out on the matter of Obama's complicity with Hurricane Katrina 'opinions differ' as Krugman would say. A lot believe he deserves blame for Katrina, even more than Bush, even though it happend 4 years before he was sworn into office. r
"A significant chunk of Louisiana Republicans evidently believe that President Barack Obama is to blame for the poor response to the hurricane that ravaged their state more than three years before he took office.
The latest survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, provided exclusively to TPM, showed an eye-popping divide among Republicans in the Bayou State when it comes to accountability for the government's post-Katrina blunders."
"Twenty-eight percent said they think former President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time, was more responsible for the poor federal response while 29 percent said Obama, who was still a freshman U.S. Senator when the storm battered the Gulf Coast in 2005, was more responsible. Nearly half of Louisiana Republicans — 44 percent — said they aren't sure who to blame."
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/poll-louisiana-gopers-unsure-if-katrina-response-was
Yep, it's just too close to call.
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ReplyDeleteAh... Mike, it looked like one slipped through the spam filter (above).
ReplyDelete