[OPE] Stiglitz interview, The Philosophies of Deregulation and Neoliberalism are Dead in the West"

I think that Mr Stiglitz and leftists enamoured with his liberalism are wrong, he misses the wood for the trees as usual. True, neoliberal ideology has taken an intellectual blow - it is not so easy anymore to justify intellectually the idea that free markets will spontaneously ensure the best allocation of resources - but, in reality, business carries on more or less the same way as it did before anyhow.

In other words, we should distinguish between actual business activity and the ideological rationalization for why people are in business. Ideological rationalizations can obviously change, but Marxian scholars have to look at what people actually do. All that is really happening is that capitalists are realizing that they need more active support from the state to insure the value of their capital.

All over the world, the ideologists are hastily proclaiming the end of an era, but that is too hasty. If governments securitize the financial sector, all that means is greater collusion between the two; it does not mean that the marketization drive will abate, because that would mean the rich and the powerful would act against their interests, and they are not usually known to do so.

Jurriaan

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Received on Sun Oct 19 08:36:27 2008