Thursday, September 20, 2007

When Is The Best Time To Open A Consignment Shop

Socialist Economy - Politics: Neoliberalism and Globalization

Capitalism. Capitalism, as well as the competitive market based on which has not always existed. Its origins can be traced to the fifteenth century Europe and its imposition always found social resistance. National states, the capitalist model and way of thinking that we call modernity defined a way of organization that needed scraping by large population groups to enjoyed a privileged minority of social life.

Behind the capitalist way of life will always be a small group of men and women accumulate material wealth here and now, leveraging the work of a most exploited. Without the use of force, capitalism would never have been hegemonic.

The representative democracy has worked on many occasions as an illusion behind which lies the profound absence of social democracy. The increasing importance of abstinence signals the exhaustion of this model. While it is true that the parliaments born revolutionary, the subsequent development becomes a substitute for democracy. Parliamentarisation social conflicts in the early twentieth century was transformed into a "Vote and stay out of politics", which concludes the enormous feeling of remoteness of the population to the parliaments and, even more, political parties these fields. If instead of "parliament" and discussion, the Assembly became places of agreement, spokesmen for the "Thinking" and the only alternatives are to each other colas. 13 Today, after centuries of domination, the logic of capital has penetrated every corner of social life in the world. But do not forget that it was not always so. Economic dependence and the use of force to secure obedience make capitalism play unlike previous modes of production.

The history of capitalism can not be understood without putting it next to the history of slavery, imperialist wars, labor repression, prohibition of political parties and trade unions, the deterioration of nature and the constant manipulation of consciences . When the pressure was very strong labor, capitalism responded briefly to the welfare state and increased advertising. When the pressure ceased, began dismantling the welfare state but remained and intensified propaganda.
can not forget that there where there is capitalism, there are humans who are not diminished but part of the fruit of their labor, just as there are other, always a minority, benefit from the efforts of those who work for them. Capitalism is an economic system that is defined mainly by three features:
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    1) Everything can take the form of goods (including human beings, nature, what does not yet exist or feelings).
    2) prices of goods are defined in a market driven only by profit and structured hierarchically to ensure value creation. This applies to any
    goods, because capitalism does not differentiate between public and private property, between people and beans, including material resources and human lives.
    3) The main means of production are privately owned and serving the immediate benefit of its owners, supported by the structure of the state.

    "A capitalist business grows and destroys what remains elusive. Need to transform and assimilate everything in its way: sooner or later all of the available power will become part of its mechanism. The factory subjected to forces far, proletarians, representatives, administrators, technical, but ignoring men as possible. No communication link affect those who are prisoners in their gear: a company by a greed move without passion, uses a work without enthusiasm, acknowledges no god but their growth. In times of prosperity, the work of no avail excess profit. But if the benefit goes down, the employer to the employee leaves: a glorious absence of end-exactly in the absence of human ends, men can not recognize solidarity can not exist among men more than the greed for the goods, that separates them. Charity is just a parody remedy for this separation is just a comedy of solidarity.
    A industrial society is a crowd composed of isolated stocks. The very aspect of life changes completely: instead of proud cities, reflecting the sky and the earth in form, we buried cities bland neighborhoods with a sadness that is heartbreaking. Depressing prosperity and poverty coincide violence " 14 why capitalism is always set in search of those benefits that must necessarily be increased (or more expensive the final price offered and will be out of game) . The adjustment, as has been said a thousand times, takes place at the weakest link in the chain, where it was not heard complaints and the same may be silenced, unorganized workers, women, children, environment, other people with less ability to protect military or economic.

    And for that matter, as expressed by leading economists, capitalism is a system necessarily myopic, attentive only to short-term and pressure from other capitalists, organized hierarchically on the reproduction of exploitation and subject to recurring crises only are solved in a vacuum to a growing number of human beings 15.

    economic conditions that brought capitalism requires radical implications in the human condition:
    1) Capitalism promotes individualism, ie, put the individual interest of a few above the collective good, while condemning the broad masses to suffer exploitation and prevents them from developing full human beings.

    2) exalts selfishness, which aims to transform into a virtue, and defames the solidarity. The capitalist, the more you have more needs (as a means to social capital as a ratio referenced to other capital), regardless of the side that can not meet basic needs (is the momentum of the so-called expanded reproduction of capital, real engine of the system.)

    3) inevitably leads the destruction of nature, resulting from the maelstrom of ambition, and war is their horizon necessary for its structural need for growth.

    Globalization and Neoliberalism
    "The only historical path by which they can destroy and transform the contradictions of a historical form of production is the development of these same contradictions" Karl Marx, Capital.
    In the 70
    capitalism entered one of its regular crisis. This time, the crisis was related to a plurality of factors: the exhaustion of economic (not yet reached for software innovation, while the automobile and petrochemical sector showed signs of exhaustion), the rise in oil prices prompted by the Yom Kippur War and OPEC's new strategy, the war in Vietnam (spending exorbitant military for the United States), the crisis of Bretton Woods monetary model which fixed the dollar coins at a stable price, and strong public pressure demanding wage increases, workers' management and the end of imperialism.

    belongs to the heart of Marxian thought to understand that the crisis of capitalism are structural and not passengers or pendular movements. By expanding destroying regularly suffer adjustment problems are increasingly narrowing their responsiveness. We can not confirm, as has historically failed, the next crisis of capitalism will be the final (in the eighties, one of these alleged crisis determinants, was the USSR disappeared from the scene), but it can be argued that play spaces in the rate of gain is exponentially less than half a century ago (just think of the ecological crisis). The Marxist analysis is not left to the service of false optimism.

    Despite this certainty (there is no solution to the crisis of capitalism within capitalism itself) mutated and the hegemonic model, following the logic of decline, the conclusion was the crisis of state interventionist model (known as Keynesianism) and its replacement by the neoliberal model, guided by monetarist economic theory exclusively on inflation alert and inattentive the growth and employment.

    is not surprising that capitalism managed to articulate points with reactionary military, which, following bloody coups, economic ministries handed over to "experts" trained in the Chicago School. neoliberalism had its real baptism in the Chile of Pinochet hand of Milton Friedman and Chicago School. The road opened by Chile was continued by the military junta in Argentina, but also followed the political path of social democracy or Christian democracy, Venezuelan, Colombian, Brazilian, Peruvian, Ecuadorian, etc.. After a quarter century, the cycle somehow began to close with a set of changes: the defeat of puntofijismo in Venezuela, the defeat of Menem, responsible for the looting of Argentina, also against the Peronist Kirchner's victory Lula in front of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, or the triumphant victory of Evo Morales against Jorge Quiroga, curiously reviled all candidates (a) or supported (others) by the United States.

    neoliberal globalization is a process that flows leads to social, economic, political, legal and cultural, which previously took place within nation states, now move beyond the borders.

    While it is true that technological development allows globalization, it has not been deployed not be necessary to recover the capital gain rate and in line with this, there had been no political will to promote it. Finally, do not forget that this is a process that takes place under U.S. hegemony. All these are reasons that explain why there are behind this process globalizing and globalizados.16
    arises then, the "global competence" of the producers in those countries with a high-tech development and extensive production capacity in international relations, will have a favorable situation, as may be due to its great capacity to invade any market. If this were not enough, the states of their parent companies continue to pressure resources (enough to remember the protests following the government compliance election of President Evo Morales' nationalization of hydrocarbons). Meanwhile, smaller employers will be in a minority position, which will propel you to join this large market homogenized by big international producers, ie, by the great powers.

    therefore countries so-called Third World, with an uncompetitive manufacturing sector, are at the mercy of the big multinationals that are invading the market with "cheap products." Inevitably, the national productive sectors are forced to close down, with the subsequent loss of national sovereignty.

    As a result of all this, laid the foundations of the current landscape of capital dominated international monetary policies, the pressure of the gain pushed down wages and working hours to high; the State sold its assets in highly favorable terms to private, labor protections were dismantled, and was a call for open borders (FTA model) that left the way open to the powerful countries and condemned to the economically weak to be parts subordinated to the strategies of the countries promoters of neoliberalism.
    But as in any other time in human history, society builds antibodies against threats. The ravages of neoliberalism led, little by little, overcome the paralysis that affected the thinking and practice alternative after the proclamation of the end of history and ideologies. This time the response came from the South.

    Countries like Venezuela, Brazil and Uruguay voted in leftist forces. Europe mobilized against the imperialist war in Iraq. The World Social Forum met to critical thinking and alternative social movements on five continents. There was no clear alternative model, but there was a clear list of what was not acceptable. Since the twentieth century socialism is not an acceptable model, began to think of a socialism that was valid for the XXI century.

    Neoliberalism, as is already evident today, is the utopia of capitalism left to its free articulaciĆ³n17. In that dream of transnational capital establishing a global market, not bound by any principle of social responsibility, which returns to the State the condition of the board of the joint interests of the bourgeoisie. But the neoliberal dream, when it happens, is the nightmare of the people . 18

    To understand the tenets of neoliberalism, remember some of the major policies that accompany this ideology:
    1) Little or no state intervention from a social perspective. Ie absolute freedom of markets under the general equilibrium economist metaphysical self-regulated. The state does not regulate prices and control trade or make changes, etc. By contrast, under the group involved in controlling the state at the time (well, to defend the interests of transnational capital abroad, to promote protectionism, to promote the energy sector, to support the military-industrial sector to subsidize agribusiness, etc.).

    2) Minimum State social investment in health, education, sports, culture, etc. That is, the state does not invest in schools, hospitals, courts for sports, cultural centers, social missions, etc. By commercializing these sectors.

    3) environmental devastation. Abandonment of criteria for ecological sustainability criteria profitability. Regardless of the fate of future generations, it is prioritized private property linked to the extraction of mineral resources, desertification and agro-product of mining and global warming through carbon dioxide emissions.

    4) Privatization and / or liquidation of the services and / or state monopolies. That is, in the case of Venezuela, that would privatize PDVSA, basic industries, hospitals, schools, roads, utilities, water supply, etc.

    5) freeze salaries (including minimum wages) in search of international competitiveness. That is, acceptance of the maquila and the excessive exploitation of man by man. In line with this, industrial relocation in search of savings in labor costs.

    6) Increase in indirect taxes, mainly on consumption (VAT) and direct reduction of high income. It is therefore more expensive food, medicines and commodities (precisely those that consume millions of citizens).

    7) Promotion of export-oriented trade (It occurs to compete in the global market). Ie dependence on external (port economy) and abandonment of production for to satisfy national needs.

    8) Promote fiscal policies attractive to international speculative financial capital. That is, no taxes or low taxes for transnationals, with aid and concessions to attract foreign investment.

    9) Intervention on macroeconomic variables from the side of the offer exclusive to avoid budget and trade deficits. That is, high international reserves placed on the northern banks, high interest rates, low wages to lower inflation and so on.

    10) Disqualification of the welfare state. Ie, attribution to State all liability to the phenomena of corruption and inefficiency. Apology about transparency and market efficiency. On the contrary, strengthening repressive and militaristic tasks of the state.

    11) Handling and alienation of the population through the media. Construction of a popular imagination where the market and neoliberalism are treated uncritically, while linking them to dismiss protests about mild forms of terrorism. The concept of governance (where the responsibility lies with the protesters) is used to avoid using the concept of legitimacy (where the respondents are governments).

    12) Settlement of all thought and all forms of alternative liberating and revolutionary thought. Paradoxically, information hiding in mountains of information. Disqualification of proposals for a better world (as utopian, outdated, outmoded, archaic).

    13) Fragmentation. That is, denial to the poor and excluded the possibility of organizing to overcome their situation. Cooptation of unions cartelized (complying with the rules) and disqualification of critics accusing unions of the enemies of development and competitiveness. 14) Seeding a sense of defeatism among
    left groups and the general population. In other words, proclaiming the end of ideology and enhancement of the single thought (neo-liberal pragmatism.) Rise of centrist ideologies, characterized by his resignation to the conflict (the lower the demand and the blurring of the conflict, the greater the status centrist who operate that way.)

    15) Construction of artificial paradises and promotion of live and virtual consumption. Through television and Internet, among the major media-created false needs that need to be remedied through impulse purchases to meet in large shopping centers or through online purchases.

    policy Bolivarian revolution + mixed resources goods wealth distribution wages