In the United States the word socialism is used as a synonym for satanism. For example, John McCain hinted in an interview yesterday that his Democratic opponent Barack Obama might be a socialist, the moral equivalent of a child molester. For in the US socialism is a great evil – unless you happen to be the CEO of a large investment bank. For the fundamental truth of the American economy is this: profits are privatized, while losses are socialized. As the United States enters its second year of the greatest economic crisis in many decades, we are seeing massive taxpayer-funded bailouts of our largest financial institutions.
If there is a silver lining in the all the economic misery, it is that the gospel of free-market fundamentalism – neo-liberalism- has been discredited forever. The roots of the subprime mortgage crisis can be traced back to the movement to deregulate the financial markets in the 1980s and 1990s. The Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz – author of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict – announces the death of the neo-liberalism in an illuminating interview in the Financial Times Deutschland:
Die Welt hat es nicht gut gemeint mit dem Neoliberalismus – dieser
Wundertüte an Konzepten, die auf der Vorstellung beruhen, dass die
Märkte sich selbst regulieren, Ressourcen effizient verteilen und den
Interessen der Öffentlichkeit dienen. ("The world was not kind to neo-liberalism –
that concoction of concepts based on the notion that markets can regulate
themselves, distribute resources efficiently and serve the interests of the
general public. .)Nach über einem Vierteljahrhundert des Wettbewerbs unter den
Entwicklungsländern stehen die Verlierer fest: Länder, die einen
neoliberalen Kurs verfolgten, verloren ihre Wachstumsgewinne. Und wenn
sie Wachstum verzeichnen konnten, profitierten davon in
überproportionaler Weise die Eliten.(After over a quarter of a century of competition
between the developing countries it is now clear who the losers are: the
countries that pursued a neo-liberal course failed to profit from growth. And
if they did register growth, it was the elites who benefited disproportionately
from that growth. …)Heute herrscht ein Ungleichgewicht zwischen sozialen und privaten
Erträgen. Werden diese nicht einander angeglichen, kann das Marktsystem
nicht gut funktionieren.
Der neoliberale Marktfundamentalismus war immer eine
politische Doktrin, die gewissen Interessen diente. Sie wurde nie von
ökonomischer Theorie gestützt, ebenso wenig von historischen
Erfahrungen. Wenn diese Lektion jetzt gelernt wird, wäre das ein
Hoffnungsschimmer hinter der dunklen Wolke, die momentan über der
Weltwirtschaft hängt. (Today a general imbalance between
social and private yields is prevalent. If this imbalance goes unaddressed, the
market system cannot function properly. The neo-liberal market fundamentalism
was always a political doctrine conceived to serve certain interests. It was
never supported by economic theory or by historical experience. If we learn
this lesson now it would represent a shimmer of hope behind the dark clouds
that are currently hanging over the global economy.)
