The modern free market came into existence primarily because liberalism demanded its existence. This demand was a political demand, and it was enforced through the state.

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http://web.inter.NL.net/users/Paul.Treanor/neoliberalism.html

Neoliberalism: origins, theory, definition
Since the 1990's activists use the word 'neoliberalism' for global
market-liberalism ('capitalism') and for free-trade policies. In this
sense, it is widely used in South America. 'Neoliberalism' is often
used interchangeably with 'globalisation'. But free markets and global
free trade are not new, and this use of the word ignores developments
in the advanced economies. The analysis here compares neoliberalism
with its historical predecessors. Neoliberalism is not just economics:
it is a social and moral philosophy, in some aspects qualitatively
different from liberalism. Last changes 02 December 2005.

You may republish and reproduce the content this webpage, for
non-commercial and academic purposes.

Neoliberalism inadequately defined?
The definition of neoliberalism presented here is more abstract than
usual - but it also suggests that neoliberalism has been
underestimated. A widely quoted example of those 'usual definitions' is
What is "Neo-Liberalism"? by Elizabeth Martinez and Arnoldo García:

Neo-liberalism is a set of economic policies that have become
widespread during the last 25 years or so. Although the word is rarely
heard in the United States, you can clearly see the effects of
neo-liberalism here as the rich grow richer and the poor grow
poorer....Around the world, neo-liberalism has been imposed by powerful
financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the
World Bank and the Inter- American Development Bank....the capitalist
crisis over the last 25 years, with its shrinking profit rates,
inspired the corporate elite to revive economic liberalism. That's what
makes it 'neo' or new.

This sense of the word 'neoliberalism' is widely used in Latin America.
However, neoliberalism is more a phenomenon of the rich western market
democracies, than of poor regions. That is why I emphasise the
historical development of liberalism, in those western market
democracies. The IMF and the World Bank are not the right places to
look, to see the essence of neoliberalism. And the WTO ideology - free
trade and 'competitive advantage' - is 200 years old. There is nothing
'neo' in their liberalism.

Seattle and Genoa?
The image of 'neoliberalism' has been heavily influenced by the
protests against it: people think of the violent protests at Seattle
and Genoa, and the associated social movements. If you only thought
about that, then neoliberalism would be an ideology of the riot police,
and that's not accurate.

It's true that the Genoa G8 summit was intended as a show of force. The
organisers knew that violent demonstrations were probable in an Italian
city, but chose to confront them. Democratically elected leaders
"should not run from demonstrators", said Tony Blair. (However, when it
was Britain's turn to organise the G8 summit, the hypocrite choose the
isolated Gleneagles hotel in Scotland). 20 000 police and soldiers were
deployed at the Genoa G8 summit - NATO used 42 500 troops to occupy
Kosovo. This show of force was out of all proportion to the political
strength of anti-market forces, but it emphasised the legitimacy of the
market-democratic states.

It is possible for 'the state' to suppress 'the market', but also to
promote it. In fact, the free market emerged in Europe under the
protection of the state, and the market needs the state, more than the
other way around. The market needs internal regulation, in order to
function: the state, in the form of the legal system, ensures contracts
are enforced. In the form of the police, it prevents theft and fraud.
It establishes uniform systems of weights and measures, and a uniform
currency. Without these things there would be no free market, no market
forces, and no resulting market society. Bill Gates disputes the US
Government's authority over his business - but if there was no
government at all, the poor would soon steal his wealth. The attack on
the World Trade Center provided some images of this dependency - the
reopening of the New York Stock Exchange by police and firefighters,
for instance. (In turn, at least in the United States, the market is
integrated in the national identity: the NYSE reopening was seen as an
act of national defiance).

The free market is itself a form of social organisation: it is neither
spontaneous nor endemic to humans. If no-one ever promoted or enforced
it, there would be no free market on this planet. For thousands of
years, there was none. The modern free market came into existence
primarily because liberalism demanded its existence. This demand was a
a political demand, and it was enforced through the state.

The general functionalist starting premise is only modified to the
extent that the "system" is comprehended as capitalist, in a specific
way "form-determined". The state and the political system function as a
form of an 'ideal all-around capitalist', who must uphold not just the
society as such, but the 'capitalist element'. The different forms of
state interventionism are explained both as an expression of functional
needs of the accumulation and reproduction process of capital. The
general requirements of capital accumulation such as basic
infrastructure, functioning law systems and legitimization mechanisms
are tasks that cannot be carried out by individual capitalists due to
the competition relations, but instead systemically require a "fictive
all-around-capitalist". This "capitalist referee" must guarantee the
fulfilment of these tasks in the interest of maintaining the system of
capitalist society..
Business and the State: Mapping the Theoretical Landscape
Volker Schneider and Marc Tenbuecken, 2002.

If everyone on this planet was a liberal, an enthusiastic supporter of
the free market, then that would be the end of the matter. But of
course some people oppose the market, and its effects - especially the
resulting inequality. The market is a political and social regime, and
like any other regime, it must be enforced against opposition. That is
true even of democracies: democrats overthrow dictators, and dictators
overthrow democracies. If either side wants to avoid their own
overthrow, they must use force. Democrats do use democratic force, and
do fight democratic wars, as they know in Iraq.

The relationship between supporters and opponents of the free market,
is similar to that between democrats and anti-democrats. They are
enemies, inherently. On the very existence of the market, no compromise
is possible. The free market either exists, or it does not exist. It
can disappear by consent - which is absurdly unlikely - or without
consent. Any attempt to end the free market is, by definition, an
attempt to overthrow a fundamental social structure. Certainly, in the
long-established western market democracies, it would mean a collapse
of the existing social structures. The effect would be dramatic -
comparable to occupation by a foreign power.

So it is not surprising that force is used in the face of a threat, and
it is not surprising that it is the force of the state. That is after
all, a typical task of the state - the preservation of the regime
itself, the preservation of the nature of the state. Anarchist
propaganda speaks of "the State", as if all states were
interchangeable, but they are not. A market democracy is not
interchangeable with a Bolshevik regime, simply because they both have
a government, an army, and a police force. A market democracy will use
force, state force, against an attempt to overthrow either democracy or
the market. That is what the riot police did: defend the state, and
defend the market - without contradiction between them.

In historical perspective 'Genoa' was an absurd over-reaction. The
western market democracies are the most stable and successful societies
in history. The principle of the free market is accepted by well over
90% of their population, probably closer to 99% in western Europe. The
tensions can be explained by the underlying sense of threat, but they
are not specifically related to neoliberalism, and they certainly do
not explain it. For that, a long-term and ideological perspective is
necessary.

Liberalism
Liberalism as a coherent social philosophy dates from the late 18th
century. At first there was no distinction between political and
economic liberalism (economics was not considered a separate discipline
until about 1850). Classic liberal political philosophy has continued
to develop - after 1900 as a purely conservative philosophy. The basic
principles of all liberal philosophy are:

· Liberals believe that the form of society should be the outcome of
processes. These processes should be interactive and involve all
members of society. The market is an example, probably the best
example, of what liberals mean by process. Liberals are generally
hostile to any 'interference with process'. Specifically, liberals
claim that the distribution of wealth as a result of the market is, in
itself, just. Liberals reject the idea of redistribution of wealth as a
goal in itself.

· Liberals therefore reject any design or plan for society -
religious, utopian, or ethical. Liberals feel that society and state
should not have fixed goals, but that 'process should determine
outcome'. This anti-utopianism became increasingly important in liberal
philosophy, in reaction to the Communist centrally-planned economies:
it anticipated the extreme deregulation-ism of later neoliberalism.

· Liberalism is therefore inherently hostile to competing non-liberal
societies - which it sees not simply as different, but as wrong. In the
last 10 years, Islamic society has replaced the Communist state, as the
perceived 'opposite' to a liberal society.

· Nevertheless liberalism has compromised with one specific form of
non-liberal ideology: nationalism, in the ethno-national form which
underlies most present nation states. A political community based on
common origin, history and language is not liberal, but liberals never
tried to form the voluntarist, contractual, non-historical state -
which liberalism would logically imply. The nation state was simply
taken for granted, as the political and economic arena for liberal
process.

· Liberals define liberalism itself as 'freedom', so they rarely
think consent is required for the imposition of a liberal society. In
fact, most would say it can not be imposed, inherently. After the Cold
War this belief has acquired a geostrategic significance: many western
liberal-democrats now believe, that a war to impose a
liberal-democratic society is inherently just. This belief influences
interventionist policy, but as yet no war for the sole purpose of
liberalisation has been fought.

· Classic political liberals reject the idea that there are any
external moral values: they say that there are only opinions. They feel
that these opinions should be 'expressed' in public, and that in some
way this 'market of opinions' will favour the truth. (The idea that
truth can be revealed by discourse is much older than liberalism).

· The liberal rejection of external moral values is formally
expressed in the liberal idea of human rights: both good and evil
humans have equal rights, which apply equally when they facilitate good
or evil actions. Classic liberal philosophy advocated 'liberty' as a
value, even if they did not call it a value. In effect it places
liberty as a value above good (and evil).

· Liberals believe in formal equality among participants in a liberal
society, but almost all liberals also believe in inequality of talent.
Many liberals were therefore sympathetic to biological theories of
inequality. (Theories of hereditary racial differences in intelligence
are now popular among US neoliberals).

Liberalism is a universal ideology, and in principle liberals seek to
apply it to the entire planet, and the entire human population. Most
liberals have supported the expansion of liberal society, although in
the 19th century that meant among the 'civilised nations'. For a long
time the free market was considered the only cross-cultural and
'exportable' element of liberalism. Only recently have liberals
advocated, that African and Asian societies should become 100%
liberal-democratic societies. 'Liberal missionaries', such as George
Soros, were unknown or marginal in the 19th century.

Market liberalism
The free market is not simply 'exchange' or 'trade'. Two people who
exchange products can not form a free market in the liberal sense, even
if their transactions are monetarised. The element of competition is
missing in this two-person society.

A minimal liberal free market needs at least three parties, with two of
them in competition - for instance, two competing sellers and one
buyer. The resultant pressure on the two sellers to lower prices, is
the simplest type of 'market force'. Such a force comes into existence
without any conscious action on the part of the three parties. In
modern markets there are millions of parties, and complex market
forces. Market-liberals value this characteristic of the market. Their
belief in the moral necessity of market forces in the economy, is
probably the first defining feature of market liberalism. The second is
the belief in entrepreneurs themselves, as a good and necessary social
group. To summarise:

· For all liberals, interactive process legitimises outcome: in
market liberalism, the market is the primary process, and market
transactions are the interaction.

· Market liberals believe that economic transactions should take
place in a framework which maximises the effect of each transaction on
every other transaction. (That is an abstract definition of the free
market, but it makes the later transition from liberalism to
neoliberalism easier to understand).

· Liberals see the market as good, and often as semi-sacred. They
want the market to be as large as possible, involving all of society.
In modern liberal-democratic states almost all adults participate in
the market. A private club in a Communist state, where members can hold
a closed free market, would satisfy no liberal.

· Liberals are hostile to economic self-sufficiency - so strongly,
that they believed in war to 'open up markets'. The most famous example
is the Opium War, when Britain forced the Chinese Empire to allow the
import of opium. This liberal belief in market expansionism has revived
after the end of the Cold War.

· Market liberals are hostile to trade barriers: "free trade" is a
classic slogan of market liberalism. That meant traditionally, the free
flow of goods and capital: neoliberalism later developed a more diffuse
version, where 'flow' and 'interaction' are treated as quasi-ethical
values.

· Market liberals believe that important aspects of society should be
determined by the market, certainly the distribution of income and
wealth. Neoliberalism later extended this belief, claiming that all
social life should be determined by the market.

· All market liberals are hostile to interference in the market, by
church, state or others - although since the 19th century only the
state has sufficient power to interfere. Market liberals are clearly
anti-utopian, in the sense of opposing economic planning, especially
centralised state control of the entire economy. They believe that the
market produces the best 'design for society', and that is is wrong to
substitute any other design.

· However, market liberalism is itself a utopia, despite its
anti-utopianism. In the 'ideal world' of market liberalism, no goods or
services exist which are not the product of market forces, but all
goods or services which are market-responsive do exist. This is in
itself a utopian project, implying a total structuring of society.
Neoliberalism goes even further - extending the market principle beyond
the production of goods and services.

· The social institution of the entrepreneur is central to market
liberalism. An entrepreneur is a person whose profession is, to respond
to market forces. In the 19th century most entrepreneurs were still
private individuals, later the business firm took over this function.
The enterprise/firm is a permanent organisation, structured to respond
to market forces. An entrepreneur is not a farmer, or a manufacturer,
or a consultant: in theory an entrepreneur changes activities in
accordance with the market. In reality most entrepreneurs retained a
specialisation for some specific products or services: but
neoliberalism now demands, that the theoretical flexibility should
become standard practice.

· Without the entrepreneur there is no free market, therefore market
liberals demand a privileged social status for the entrepreneur. The
early liberal theorists were hostile to the urban guild economy of
mediaeval Europe: they saw it, in effect, as a conspiracy not to
compete. In their historical vision, the entrepreneur rescued Europe
from the poverty of the Middle Ages. (This vision was shared by Karl
Marx, who admired the cultural dynamism of the free market). Not just
mediaeval Europe, but all societies without an entrepreneurial caste,
were seen as failures.

A central but rarely explicit political demand of market liberals is
therefore, that entrepreneurs should have control of the economy. This
has not only been accepted, but has become so incorporated into the
culture of western liberal-democratic societies, that few people ever
think about it. But it would not be any less logical, to hand the
economy to engineers, or priests - or not to privilege any one group.
The choice depends on underlying values, and liberals value the
entrepreneur. This value preference of liberals, and its widespread
acceptance, has created what in the US is called 'the business
community'. That is a real and identifiable social elite - with
specific cultural preferences, specific clothing, and often a specific
form of language (sociolect). It does in fact control the economy, in
liberal-democratic states. Although this was probably not foreseen by
early liberals, market liberalism has become an ideology in support of
this elite. Their culture, attitudes, and ethics have greatly
influenced neoliberalism.

Neoliberalism
If Adam Smith returned and saw the more extreme aspects of
neoliberalism, he would probably find them bizarre. Nevertheless, they
derive from the ideas of early liberalism. The belief in the market, in
market forces, has separated from the factual production of goods and
services. It has become an end in itself, and this is one reason to
speak of neoliberalism and not of liberalism.

A general characteristic of neoliberalism is the desire to intensify
and expand the market, by increasing the number, frequency,
repeatability, and formalisation of transactions. The ultimate
(unreachable) goal of neoliberalism is a universe where every action of
every being is a market transaction, conducted in competition with
every other being and influencing every other transaction, with
transactions occurring in an infinitely short time, and repeated at an
infinitely fast rate. It is no surprise that extreme forms of
neoliberalism, and especially cyberliberalism, overlap with
semi-religious beliefs in the interconnectedness of the cosmos.

Some specific aspects of neoliberalism are:

· A new expansion in time and space of the market: although there has
been a global-scale market economy for centuries, neoliberals find new
areas of marketisation. This illustrates how neoliberalism differs from
classic market liberalism. Adam Smith would not have believed that a
free market was less of a free market, because the shops are closed in
the middle of the night: expansion of trading hours is a typically
neoliberal policy. For neoliberals a 23-hours economy is already
unjustifiable: nothing less than 24-hours economy will satisfy them.
They constantly expand the market at its margins.

· The emphasis on property, in classic and market liberalism, has
been replaced by an emphasis on contract. In the time of Adam Smith,
property conferred status in itself: he would find it strange that
entrepreneurs sometimes own no fixed assets, and lease the means of
production.

· Contract maximalisation is typically neoliberal: the privatisation
of the British railway network, formerly run by one state-owned
company, led to 30 000 new contracts. Most of these were probably
generated by splitting services, which could have been included in
block contracts. (A fanatic neoliberal would prefer not to buy a cup of
coffee, but negotiate separately for each microlitre).

· The contract period is reduced, especially on the labour market,
and so the frequency of contract is increased. A service contract, for
instance for office cleaning, might be reduced from a one-year to a
three-month contract, then to a one-month contract. Contracts of
employment are shorter and shorter, in effect forcing the employee to
re-apply for the job. This flexibilisation means a qualitatively
different working life: many more job applications, spread throughout
the working life. This was historically the norm in agriculture - day
labour - but long-term labour contracts became standard after
industrialisation.

· Market forces are also intensified by intensifying assessment, a
development especially visible on the labour market. Even within a
contract period, an employee will be subject to continuous assessment.
The use of specialised software in call centres has provided some
extreme examples: the time employees spend at the toilet is measured in
seconds: this information is used to pressure the employee to spend
less time away from the terminal. Firms with contracts are also
increasingly subject to continuous assessment procedures, made possible
by information technology. For instance, courier services use tracking
software and GPS technology, to allow customers to locate their
packages in transit. This is a typical example of the new
hyper-provision of business information, in neoliberal economies.

· New transaction-intensive markets are created on the model of the
stock exchanges - electricity exchanges, telephone-minute exchanges.
Typical for neoliberalism: there is no relationship between the growth
in the number of transactions, and the underlying production.

· New forms of auction are another method of creating
transaction-intensive markets. Radio frequency auctions, such as those
for UMTS frequencies, are an example. They replaced previous methods of
allocation, especially licensing - a traditional method of allocating
access to scarce goods with no clear private owner. The complex forms
of frequency spectrum auctions have only been developed in the last few
years. Neoliberals now see them as the only valid method of making such
allocations: they dismiss all other methods as 'beauty contests'.

· Artificial transactions are created, to increase the number and
intensity of transactions. Large-scale derivative trading is a
typically neoliberal phenomenon, although financial derivatives have
existed for centuries. It is possible to trade options on shares: but
it is also possible to create options on these options. This
accumulation of transaction on transaction, is characteristic of
neoliberalism. New derivatives are created, to be traded on the new
exchanges - such as 'electricity futures'. There is no limit to this
expansion, except computer power, which grows rapidly anyway.

· Automated trading, and the creation of virtual market-like
structures, are neoliberal in the sense that they are an
intensification of "transaction for transaction's sake". However, a
world in which all entrepreneurial activity was automated would not be
neoliberal, or liberal.

· This expansion of interactivity means that neoliberal societies are
network societies, rather than the 'open societies', of classic
liberals. Formal equality and 'access' are not enough for neoliberals:
they must be used to create links to other members of the society. This
attitude has been accurately labelled 'connectionist'.

· Because of contract expansionism, transaction costs play an
increasing role in the neoliberal economy. All those 30 000 contracts
at British Rail had to be drafted by lawyers, all the assessments have
to be done by assessors. There is always some cost of competition,
which increases as the intensity of transactions increases.
Neoliberalism has reached the point where these costs threaten to
overwhelm the existing economy, destroying any economic gains from
technological change.

· The growth of the financial services sector is related to these
neoliberal characteristics, rather than to any inherent shift to
service economies. The entire sector is itself a transaction cost: it
was almost non-existent in the centrally planned economies. In turn, it
has created a huge demand for office space in the world's financial
centres. The expansion of the sector and its office employment are in
direct contradiction of propaganda about 'more efficiency and less
bureaucracy' in the free market.

· The speed of trading is increased. Online market data is expensive,
yet it is now available free with a 15-minute delay. The markets move
so fast, that the data is worthless after 15 minutes: the companies can
then give it away, as a form of advertising. Day-traders buy and sell
shares in minutes. Automated trading programmes, where the computer is
linked direct to the stock exchange system, do it in seconds, or less.
It is this increased speed which has led to the huge nominal trading
volumes on the international currency markets, many times the Gross
World Product on a yearly basis.

· Certain functions arise which only exist inside a neoliberal free
market - 'derivative professions'. A good example is the profession of
psychological-test coach. The intensity of assessment has increased,
and firms now regularly use psychological tests to select candidates,
even for intermediate level jobs. So ambitious candidates pay for
training, in how to pass these psychological tests. Competition in the
neoliberal labour market itself creates the market for this service.

· The creation of sub-markets, typically within an enterprise.
Sub-contracting is itself an old market practice, but was usually
outside the firm. It is now standard practice for large companies to
create competition among their constituent units. This practice is also
capable of quasi-infinite extension, and its promotion is
characteristic of neoliberalism. A few companies even required each
individual employee to register as a business, and to compete with each
other at the place of work. A large company can form literally millions
of holdings, alliances and joint ventures, using such one-person firms
as building blocks.

· Supplier maximalisation: this extends the range of enterprises that
compete for each contract. The ideal would be that every enterprise
competes for every contract offered, maximising competition and market
forces. In the case of the labour market, the neoliberal ideal is the
absolutely flexible and employable employee, who can (and does apply)
for every vacancy. In reality, an individual can not perform every kind
of work - but there is a real development towards non-specialised
enterprises, especially in the producer services sector. In
neoliberalism, instead of the traditional 'steel tycoon' or 'newspaper
baron' there are enterprises which "globally link people and knowledge,
and cultures" or "advise and implement solutions to management issues".
(In fact these are quotes from the accountants Price Waterhouse, but
you can not guess this from the descriptions).

Neoliberalism is not simply an economic structure, it is a philosophy.
This is most visible in attitudes to society, the individual and
employment. Neo-liberals tend to see the world in term of market
metaphors. Referring to nations as companies is typically neoliberal,
rather than liberal. In such a view Deutschland GmbH competes with
Great Britain Ltd, BV Nederland, and USA Inc. However, when this is a
view of nation states, it is as much a form of neo-nationalism as
neoliberalism. It also looks back to the pre-liberal economic theory -
mercantilism - which saw the countries of Europe as competing units.
The mercantilists treated those kingdoms as large-scale versions of a
private household, rather than as firms. Nevertheless, their view of
world trade as a competition between nation-sized units, would be
acceptable to modern neoliberals.

Competition for inward investment, on the other hand, was generally
unknown until the late 19th century. This competition is often seen by
activists as the core doctrine of neoliberalism, especially since the
neo-mercantilist policies are easy to understand and very unpopular:
wage cuts, less money for public services, less tax on the rich. The
neo-mercantilist nation, in other words, behaves like a caricaturally
mean and nasty capitalist. It is not relevant either for these
policies, or for opposition to them, whether they have any effect at
all. Perhaps investment decisions are not made on this basis, perhaps
there is no real mobility of capital, perhaps no investor is interested
in Argentina, for instance. But so long as the Argentine government
believes that it should pursue certain polices to attract investors,
then it will do so. So long as it believes that the 'SA Argentina' is a
business firm, then it will run Argentina accordingly.

The market metaphor is not only applied among nations, but among cities
and regions as well. In neoliberal regional policy, cities are selling
themselves in a national and global marketplace of cities. They are
considered equivalent to an entrepreneur selling a product, but the
product is the city (or region) as a location for entrepreneurs. The
successful 'sale' of the product is the decision of an entrepreneur to
locate there, not simply the sale of land or factories. This view of
cities as sub-firms within the fictive 'national firm' parallels the
creation of sub-markets within real firms. The difference is, that
those sub-markets really exist - neoliberal city governments, on the
other hand, act primarily on a belief in a metaphor. Again, there is no
hard evidence that the global marketplace of cities exists: for most
economic sectors complete mobility of plant and labour is an illusion.
Most firms can not simply move from city to city, across continents and
ignoring language and cultural barriers, in pursuit of locational
advantage. Here too, the neoliberalism is a philosophy, an attitude -
rather than an economic reality. It has influenced European politics -
the fear of this neoliberalism dominated the French campaign against
the European Constitution. There is certainly a neoliberal lobby within
the EU, represented by the Lisbon Council, although it sees the world
in terms of competing trade blocks rather than competing cities or
regions. However, it is not clear how a continent could be run as a
business firm - even its inhabitants wanted that. (More on neoliberal
economic geography below).

A good example of the underlying attitudes is the basic policy document
of the city of Düsseldorf - the Leitbild, equivalent to a 'mission
statement' in English. It was adopted in 1997, and is no longer online
at the city website, but parts are quoted at St@ttbuch Düsseldorf...

Düsseldorf bekennt sich zum Prinzip des Wettbewerbs. Der Erfolg von
Städten entscheidet sich im Wettbewerb nach innen und aussen.
Düsseldorf will besser sein.
Wettbewerb ist treibende Kraft unseres gesellschaftlichen Systems. Im
zusammenwachsenden Europa gilt dies in hohem Masse auch für die
Beziehungen zwischen den Regionen, die als Wirtschaftsstandort, als
Lebensraum für die Bürgerinnen und Bürger und als Kulturstandort
miteinander konkurrieren. Sich hierzu bekennen heisst, den Wettbewerb
aufnehmen und aktiv gestalten zu wollen.
Im Wettbewerb besteht nur, wer gut ist. Düsseldorf will Wettbewerb. Im
Interesse der vielen Millionen Menschen des Lebens- und
Wirtschaftsraums: Düsseldorf will besser sein.
...
Düsseldorf is committed to the principle of competition. The success
of cities is decided by competition, internal and external. Düsseldorf
wants to be better. Competition is the driving force of our social
system. In a Europe which is becoming more integrated, this applies
increasingly to the relations between regions. They compete with each
other as investment location, as residential choice for the citizens,
and in cultural activity. Our commitment means that we will actively
and structurally enter into this competition. In a competitive world,
only the good can survive. Düsseldorf wants to compete! In the name of
the millions of people in our economic and residential region:
Düsseldorf wants to be the best!

The neoliberal urban vision was adopted, without debate, by many city
governments in the 1990's. At some point, a belief in 'competition by
population structure' was incorporated - the idea that a successful
city is inhabited only by successful people. This belief, nonsensical
or not, has had an effect in a negative sense: some cities now pursue
active policies aimed at relocating low-income households outside the
city. In the Netherlands, a new law allows large cities to legally ban
poor people, from certain areas, or from the entire city..

As you would expect from a complete philosophy, neoliberalism has
answers to stereotypical philosophical questions such as "Why are we
here" and "What should I do?". We are here for the market, and you
should compete. Neo-liberals tend to believe that humans exist for the
market, and not the other way around: certainly in the sense that it is
good to participate in the market, and that those who do not
participate have failed in some way. In personal ethics, the general
neoliberal vision is that every human being is an entrepreneur managing
their own life, and should act as such. Moral philosophers call this is
a virtue ethic, where human beings compare their actions to the way an
ideal type would act - in this case the ideal entrepreneur. Individuals
who choose their friends, hobbies, sports, and partners, to maximise
their status with future employers, are ethically neoliberal. This
attitude - not unusual among ambitious students - is unknown in any
pre-existing moral philosophy, and is absent from early liberalism.
Such social actions are not necessarily monetarised, but they represent
an extension of the market principle into non-economic area of life -
again typical for neoliberalism.

The idea of employability is characteristically neoliberal. It means
that neoliberals see it as a moral duty of human beings, to arrange
their lives to maximise their advantage on the labour market. Paying
for plastic surgery to improve employability (almost entirely by women)
is a typical neoliberal phenomenon - one of those which would surprise
Adam Smith.

Eileen Bradbury, a psychologist who advises surgeons at the Alexandra
Hospital in Cheadle, Cheshire, said she was particularly worried that
Jenna wanted the operation so that she could be successful. "That is a
very disturbing belief for a 15-year-old girl to have, and also a false
one," she said. "I have seen women coming for surgery who work in
television and they say they have to have it done or they won't get the
work. I usually go along with that because it is probably true".
Guardian: Parents defend breast implants for girl, 15.

In practice many 'workfare neoliberals' also believe that there is a
separate category of people, who can not participate fully in the
market. Workfare ideologies condemn this underclass to a service
function for those who are fully market-compatible. Note however, that
by recognising a non-market underclass, neoliberals undermine their own
claims about the universal applicability of market principles.

The general ethical precept of neoliberalism can be summarised
approximately as:

· "act in conformity with market forces"
· "within this limit, act also to maximise the opportunity for others
to conform to the market forces generated by your action"
· "hold no other goals"

If everyone lives by such entrepreneurial precepts, then a world will
come into existence in which not just goods and services, but all human
and social life, is the product of conformity to market forces. More
than traditional market liberals, neoliberals therefore have a
quasi-heroic attitude to the entrepreneur, and to engagement in the
market. A 1998 speech by German entrepreneur Jost Stollmann is typical:
his neoliberal ideas played a prominent role in the national elections
in Germany in that year. Stollmann includes his personal moral
philosophy, such as it is...

Ich möchte die Lust und Bewunderung unternehmerischen Erfolgs in den
Augen der jungen Menschen sehen. Ich möchte den Stolz und den Zuspruch
der Eltern spüren, wenn sich Sohn oder Tochter tatenvoll in das
Abenteuer Selbständigkeit stürzen.
....so gut sein, wie wir nur können - getreu der bewährten Formel,
die ich während meiner Zeit in Amerika verstehen gelernt habe: 'BE THE
BEST YOU CAN BE'
Jost Stollmann

The idea that everyone should be an entrepreneur is distinctly
neoliberal. Early liberals never expected the majority of the
population to own property, let alone run a business. (The
participation of the poor in the market was limited to accepting any
work they were offered). The practices on the flexibilised labour
market would seem strange to the early liberals. For instance,
individuals set up a one-person employment agency with one person on
the books, themselves - partly for tax reasons, but also to meet the
ideal of the entrepreneur. Policy to increase the number of
entrepreneurs is typically neoliberal, although ironically it must be
implemented by the State. A classic market-liberal would not say that a
free market is less of a free market, because only 10% of the
population are entrepreneurs. For neoliberals it is not sufficient that
there is a market: there must be nothing which is not market.

the neoliberalism joke
Marxist: "The workers have nothing to sell but their labour power"
Neoliberal: "I offer courses on How to Sell Your Labour Power Like A
Shark"

There is therefore no distinction between a market economy and a market
society in neoliberalism. With the attitudes and ethics set out above,
there is only market: market society, market culture, market values,
market persons marketing themselves to other market persons. In a sense
neoliberalism has returned to the position of early liberalism - which
also combined culture, values and ethics with economics. But
neoliberalism brings a far more intensive 'market' - replacing not only
traditional social forms, but also the concept of private life. At the
same time this 'market' is increasingly remote from the necessity of
production, which was so real for the early liberals - when there were
still regular famines in Europe. In fact it is so remote from the
existing cultural perception of a 'market', that it would perhaps be
better to use some other word.

Finally, neoliberalism has become associated with specific cultures
(especially US culture) and a specific language (English). This is not
surprising: Anglo-American liberalism had the most influence on
neoliberalism. Neoliberalism as ideology is not tied to any culture or
language. It is true that a single global language would facilitate
free trade - but that could be Esperanto, as well as English. In
practice, the promotion of the English language, neoliberal policies,
and pro-American foreign policy, usually go together: this was
especially true in Central and Eastern Europe.

Globalisation and neoliberalism
Often the terms 'globalisation' and 'neoliberalism' are used as if they
were interchangeable. That is only correct in a limited sense, for the
neo-mercantilist aspects of the neoliberal ideology. I will try to
clarify the perceived and actual relationship between the two -
especially for the South American use of the term 'neoliberalism'.

The neoliberal ideology sees the nation primarily as a business firm,
as explained above. The nation-firm is selling itself as an investment
location, rather than simply selling export goods. If no-one in
government believes in this ideology, it will have no consequences. If
however, a neoliberal government is in power, it will pursue policies
designed to make the nation more attractive as an investment location.
These policies are generally pro-business, and are perceived as such by
the opponents of the policies.

But remember that the ideology is neo-mercantilist: the policies are
national policies, directed ultimately at the welfare of the nation and
not of the market. Paradoxically, they are a form of protectionism: if
there is a global market of investment locations, then it is 'unfair
competition' for governments to artificially increase the
attractiveness of their own country. Such governments are, strictly
speaking, not good market liberals. Hard-line classic market liberals
would shrug their shoulders at the election of an anti-business
government. "Business will go elsewhere, the country will become poor,
that's the way the global market works, leave the market alone", they
would say. They would not waste their time trying to get a pro-business
government elected there. In reality few liberals are so consistent,
neoliberals certainly are not. But their rhetoric of 'national
competitiveness' is a form of economic nationalism: it is a modern
version of the old nationalist insistence, that the whole nation should
work together. It revitalises jingoism, chauvinism, flag-waving and
foreigner-bashing: Tony Blair is probably the best example.

Don't tell me that a country with our history and heritage, that today
boasts six of the top ten businesses in the whole of Europe, with
London the top business city in Europe, that is a world leader in
technology and communication and the businesses of the future, that
under us has overtaken France and Italy to become the fourth largest
economy in the world, that has the language of the new economy, more
brilliant artists, actors and directors than any comparable country in
the world, some of the best scientists and inventors in the world, the
best armed forces in the world, the best teachers and doctors and
nurses, the best people any nation could wish for. Don't tell me with
all that going for us that we do not have the spirit to meet all the
challenges before us.
Blair conference speech, 26 September 2000

Now, a neoliberal government will almost certainly appeal to
'globalisation' as a justification and legitimisation of its policies -
Tony Blair certainly does. By globalisation they mean, more or less,
that the global market of investment locations now exists, and that it
is an inevitable historical development. The opponents of the
neoliberal government will, in turn, oppose this 'globalisation'.
However, that does not mean that the global market of nations actually
exists. The existence of neoliberal governments, pursuing neoliberal
policies justified by an appeal to globalisation, does not mean that a
new global order has superseded the order of nation states. The very
fact, that it is still primarily the nation state which is being
'marketed' in this way, shows that the nation has not disappeared.

Before considering the reality of the global order, it is also
necessary to consider the beliefs of the opponents of such a neoliberal
government. Again paradoxically, many of them accept without question
the neoliberal claim that there is a long-term historical process of
'globalisation', transforming the nation into a business firm on a
global market of nation-firms. Worse, if the nation is a business then
it is often clearly weak - everyone can see that Argentina is
economically worse off than the United States. A neoliberal government
will therefore try to convert a nation such as Argentina into a 'strong
player', which means worsening the living conditions of much of the
population. Now here is the next paradox: the response of the opponents
is also an economic nationalism, this time with the emphasis on
protectionism. The opposition perception of globalisation differs in
one respect: for them it is a historical but not spontaneous
development. For them it is a policy imposed by a non-national global
elite, directed against the individual nations.

In their view, the international financial institutions are equivalent
to an imperial power, which has de facto colonised countries such as
Argentina. In caricatural form: they believe that a new and powerful
empire has come into existence, the Empire of IMF-ia, at an
indeterminate location. The neoliberal government, in this view, is a
traitorous elite acting as a colonial Viceroy for the IMF-ian Empire.
The opposition wants to replace it with a government which will
'liberate' the nation from the global market, from its colonial status.
That 'liberation' is generally understood as: withdrawal of the
nation-firm from the global market of nation-firms, protectionism,
economic nationalism, and self-sufficiency instead of trade. Here too
there is a paradox: the oppositional movements are not anti-business:
they generally see national business as a victim of global business.
(Local business in South America is in the comfortable position, that
both neoliberals and anti-neoliberals want to help it, for different
reasons).

The 'IMF-ia model' is partly correct: the global financial institutions
are indeed a bastion of neoliberal ideology, and they can bully some
poor countries into adopting neoliberal policies. But they can't do
that to the rich western powers, in fact they would not exist without
the support of these powers. They are not a force outside nations, they
are not an imperial power. The global financial institutions are, in
the simplest terms, an instrument of US policy - and if there is a
quasi-imperial power, it is the United States.

The point is, once again, that the truth of beliefs about globalisation
is itself irrelevant. If the government and people all believe that a
country is being attacked by fire-breathing dragons, then the
government might distribute asbestos suits to the population, and the
opposition might complain that there were not enough of them.
Ideologies and politics can operate on a completely fictive basis.
Millions of Europeans died to 'resolve' theological issues such as the
Virgin Birth of Mary, Mother of God.

So the perceptions have themselves generated a political reality: on
the basis of a belief in 'globalisation' some governments pursue
neoliberal policies, which are neo-mercantilist in their logic and
aims. In such circumstances opposition to globalisation and
neoliberalism coincides, rather than neoliberalism being identical or
synonymous with globalisation. Both sides share a common fallacy: that
trade and sovereignty are opposites, a zero-sum pair. The neoliberals
believe that national success - "in today's global market" - requires
the abandonment of national economic autonomy and sovereignty. Their
opponents believe that national welfare requires minimisation of trade
and external links: they believe that trade and invasion are
equivalent, although no-one will say that outright. Once again, the
equivalences and perceptions on both sides are false. Most of the Gross
Global Product is tied to individual nation states for technical,
climatic, logistical, and cultural reasons. For most investment
decisions, there is no global market of locations. And sovereignty is
not necessarily inverse to trade volume and trade regime. A powerful
country such as the United States can have a high trade volume relative
to GNP. Many colonies - by definition not sovereign - had a low trade
volume relative to GNP, because the bulk of 'GNP' consisted of peasant
agriculture. But even a fallacious belief can apparently support not
just one, but two competing forms of economic nationalism.

So what is the reality behind the perceived globalisation? One reality
is that nation states still dominate global social and economic
structures. However these nation states themselves form a specific
arrangement of a specific type of state. Globalisation claims appear
logical if you see nation states as isolated islands, but that is not
the historical reality. The very existence of a world of nation states,
indicates some form of global order of nation states. What these nation
states do - trade or no trade, capital flows or no capital flows - is
irrelevant to that issue. What is already global can not logically be
globalised: therefore there is no globalisation, in the widely used
sense. There is no transition underway, or recently completed, to a
fundamentally different global structure. Because the existing order of
nation states is already global, intensification of global flows, or
global trade, or global communication does not undermine it, or
fundamentally alter it. If some part of the world were to break with
this global order - for instance a future autarkic caliphate - that
would be a radical change. When nations trade with each other, that
simply indicates that the global order of nations is functioning as
expected.

The false premise in the globalisation thesis is in fact the standard
nationalist claim, that each nation is a separate and particular
entity. In reality nations collectively are a global and universalist
structure: the functional equivalent of a nationalist world state. The
world functions as if a nationalist world government had seized power
in the 19th century, led by Mazzini and Garibaldi and friends. Most
existing states were indeed established by nationalist groups.
Nationalists co-operate to maintain one (nationalist) world order and
exclude others. The nation state is not a particularity, existing by
itself in isolation, but part of a global design. Supporters of the
globalisation thesis claim, that a world of isolated nation states
existed in the recent past - before 1989, or more approximately before
1950. They claim that these isolated nation states are now being eroded
in a global process: it includes the formation of the neoliberals
claimed 'market of nations'.

Economic globalization represents a major transformation in the
territorial organization of economic activity and politico-economic
power....The sovereignty of the modern state was concentrated in
mutually exclusive territories and the concentration of sovereignty in
nations...economic globalization has contributed to a denationalizing
of national territory...
Saskia Sassen. Losing Control: Sovereignty in an Age of globalization
(1996).

But is the global order of nation states disappearing, anywhere? In
reality, there is no collapse of the nation state to be seen. Nation
states have not suffered anything comparable to the dissolution of the
Austro-Hungarian or Ottoman empires. All that remains of those empires
are oversized palaces in Vienna and Istanbul. The rest of their
institutions have completely disappeared: there is not a square metre
of Habsburg or Ottoman territory left in Europe. There is no longer an
Austro-Hungarian imperial army, or police, or courts, or parliament.
The nation states succeeded the multi-ethnic empires, seized all their
territory, and remodelled all society on that territory. The
replacement was total. Where is the equivalent 'collapse' of the nation
state? There are few places on earth without the institutions of a
nation state - perhaps Somalia, but that is not the result of
globalisation. If the world was truly 'globalised' then it would be
full of disused national parliament buildings - and not a national army
in sight. The world is not like that, and will not be like that in the
immediate future.

In other words, 'globalisation' remains a belief rather than a reality.
It is an instrumental belief with great political influence and effect.
It is appealed to by both neo-mercantilist neoliberals and their
economic-nationalist opponents. Nationalists have a tradition of
appealing to external threats to enforce national unity. The nation
must unite and work together, they said - to defeat the Hun, or the
Bolshevik threat, or the Yellow Peril, or the enemy within the gates,
or Osama bin Ladin. The instrumental use of 'globalisation' is in the
same dishonourable category.

Summarising neoliberalism
To conclude, here are summaries of neoliberalism in two forms. First a
list of key points in neoliberalism:

· transaction maximalisation
· maximalisation of volume of transactions ('global flows')
· contract maximalisation
· supplier/contractor maximalisation
· conversion of most social acts into market transactions
· artificial maximalisation of competition and stress
· creation of quasi-markets
· reduction of inter-transaction interval
· maximalisation of parties to each transaction
· maximalisation of reach and effect of each transaction
· maximalisation of hire/fire transactions in the labour market
(nominal turnover)
· maximalisation of assessment factors, by which compliance with a
contract is measured
· reduction of the inter-assessment interval
· creation of exaggerated or artificial assessment norms ('audit
society')

A final summary definition of neoliberalism as a philosophy is this:

Neoliberalism is a philosophy in which the existence and operation of a
market are valued in themselves, separately from any previous
relationship with the production of goods and services, and without any
attempt to justify them in terms of their effect on the production of
goods and services; and where the operation of a market or market-like
structure is seen as an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide
for all human action, and substituting for all previously existing
ethical beliefs.

[Robert Kolker]

Vid...@tcq.net wrote:
> A final summary definition of neoliberalism as a philosophy is this:
>
> Neoliberalism is a philosophy in which the existence and operation of a
> market are valued in themselves, separately from any previous
> relationship with the production of goods and services, and without any
> attempt to justify them in terms of their effect on the production of
> goods and services; and where the operation of a market or market-like
> structure is seen as an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide
> for all human action, and substituting for all previously existing
> ethical beliefs.

Markets are all about choices. People get to decide what to make, what
to sell and what to buy. They get to decide what they wish to do with
their lives in the context of availalbe alternatives. What is your
problem with that?

What would you propose. A central committee deciding what goodies will
be made and how they are to be doled out to the Unwashed?

Bob Kolker

[Nospam]

Robert Kolker wrote:

> Markets are all about choices. People get to decide what to make, what
> to sell and what to buy. They get to decide what they wish to do with
> their lives in the context of availalbe alternatives. What is your
> problem with that?

The problem is that the decision is not democratic in any way, and does not
reflect the will of the average population. The problem with the market is
that on the market everybody vote accordingly with his own pocket size.
The billionaire decision is billion times more powerfull than the decision
of the guy with 1 buck in his pocket. And since each decision increase the
wealth disparity, in the end a few will controll everything.

That is. Letting the free market to solve all the issues will result into
a plutocracy. Because the whole concept of free market is flawed from the
beginning.

> What would you propose. A central committee deciding what goodies will
> be made and how they are to be doled out to the Unwashed?

A central committee to keep the market really free.
I already explained to you in at least 3 posts up to now why the concept of
free market is funadmentally flawed and why a libertarian style free market
will end up destroying itself. Go back and read.
Your beloved free market it is pure mythology.
It will not exist in real live, EVER, but will degenerate in neo-feudalism.

[Day Brown]

Robert Kolker wrote:
> Markets are all about choices. People get to decide what to make, what
> to sell and what to buy. They get to decide what they wish to do with
> their lives in the context of availalbe alternatives. What is your
> problem with that?
>
> What would you propose. A central committee deciding what goodies will
> be made and how they are to be doled out to the Unwashed?

Well, the hominds evolved in small tribal groups that so highly valued
genetic diversity they kept some in the gene pool you would deem unfit.
But they are there, stupid and crazy as they are, because they had DNA
markers to fight dysentery, cholera, plague, Anthrax, malaria, etc.

And now they are still with us, and need intensive case management just
to survive. It aint upta me, but I'd support bribing the teen age girls
before they get pregnant, to have some kind of automatic birth control,
like an IUD or tubal. It mite be wise as well to collect sperm and eggs
for long term frozen storage; some new pandemic may emerge that some of
them may have the right DNA markers that can be passed on to the next
generation.

Another problem about market choices, is that you dont often know what
the ultimate value or cost of the product is. If cigarettes reflected
the cost of cancer treatment, they wouldda been over 3$/pack decades
ago. The free market delivers junkfood, which results in poor mental
development, and asinine voters at maturity; the cost of that to the
proper running of a republic remains to be seen.

[nini...@yahoo.com]

Day Brown wrote:
> Robert Kolker wrote:
> > Markets are all about choices. People get to decide what to make, what
> > to sell and what to buy. They get to decide what they wish to do with
> > their lives in the context of availalbe alternatives. What is your
> > problem with that?
> >
> > What would you propose. A central committee deciding what goodies will
> > be made and how they are to be doled out to the Unwashed?
> Well, the hominds evolved in small tribal groups that so highly valued
> genetic diversity they kept some in the gene pool you would deem unfit.
> But they are there, stupid and crazy as they are, because they had DNA
> markers to fight dysentery, cholera, plague, Anthrax, malaria, etc.
>
> And now they are still with us, and need intensive case management just
> to survive. It aint upta me, but I'd support bribing the teen age girls
> before they get pregnant, to have some kind of automatic birth control,
> like an IUD or tubal. It mite be wise as well to collect sperm and eggs
> for long term frozen storage; some new pandemic may emerge that some of
> them may have the right DNA markers that can be passed on to the next
> generation.
>

Not sure what the hell this is supposed to relate to.

> Another problem about market choices, is that you dont often know what
> the ultimate value or cost of the product is. If cigarettes reflected
> the cost of cancer treatment, they wouldda been over 3$/pack decades
> ago.

People have known the risks for decades and taken them.

> The free market delivers junkfood, which results in poor mental
> development, and asinine voters at maturity;

Err... no, that's the public school system.

[S. 'Trash' Ny Fui]

Nospam wrote:
> That is. Letting the free market to solve all the issues will result into
> a plutocracy. Because the whole concept of free market is flawed from the
> beginning.

http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html
May 9, 2006

"Every stock market bubble in history, starting with the South Sea and
Mississippi bubbles in the 1710s in Britain and France, has been
sponsored by government. The driving force has been the government's
attempt to cope with debt obligations beyond its foreseeable ability to
pay. Creating a bubble has been a way to solve their public debt
problem--and to pay off political insiders at the same time, thereby
killing two birds with one stone.

"Modern governments are not politically able to simply default on their
debts--at least, not debts owed to their own bondholders in their own
currency. The problem has to be solved through "the marketplace"."

[Nospam]

S. 'Trash' Ny Fui wrote:

> http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html
> May 9, 2006
>
> "Every stock market bubble in history, starting with the South Sea and
> Mississippi bubbles in the 1710s in Britain and France, has been
> sponsored by government.

He also saw Elvis into an UFO running after 21 flying pigs with dragon tail
and diamond eyes. Can you add this information in that blog ?

Will be in sync with the original claim :-)

[forbi...@msn.com]

nini...@yahoo.com wrote:

> Day Brown wrote:
> > Another problem about market choices, is that you dont often know what
> > the ultimate value or cost of the product is. If cigarettes reflected
> > the cost of cancer treatment, they wouldda been over 3$/pack decades
> > ago.
>
> People have known the risks for decades and taken them.

The costs are not borne just by the people deciding to take the risk.
Do you see any problem with recovering the costs in a per pack
assignment?

It seems to me that in general decisions are made based upon proximal
costs and not distal costs. Many rivers need cleaning because the
people
deciding to polute them don't have to bear the costs of cleaning them
up.

Our president has set aside many environmental laws for today's
economic benefit of those who would polute and not include the costs
of cleanup in their products.

[Robert Kolker]

Day Brown wrote:

>
> Another problem about market choices, is that you dont often know what
> the ultimate value or cost of the product is. If cigarettes reflected
> the cost of cancer treatment, they wouldda been over 3$/pack decades
> ago. The free market delivers junkfood, which results in poor mental
> development, and asinine voters at maturity; the cost of that to the
> proper running of a republic remains to be seen.

No one is compelled to either smoke or eat junk food. That is a matter
of choice. As long as there are some people making bad choices there
will always be pain and woe. One thing we don't have to do is enable bad
choice making.

Bob Kolker

[Straydog]

On Mon, 22 May 2006, Robert Kolker wrote:

> Day Brown wrote:
>
>>
>> Another problem about market choices, is that you dont often know what the
>> ultimate value or cost of the product is. If cigarettes reflected the cost
>> of cancer treatment, they wouldda been over 3$/pack decades ago. The free
>> market delivers junkfood, which results in poor mental development, and
>> asinine voters at maturity; the cost of that to the proper running of a
>> republic remains to be seen.
>
> No one is compelled to either smoke or eat junk food.

All the advertising out there pushes the junk food in everone's face.

That is a matter of
> choice. As long as there are some people making bad choices there will always
> be pain and woe. One thing we don't have to do is enable bad choice making.

Another one: All these state governments promoting lotteries (gambling) to
exploit all the people who become easily addicted (just like cigarettes,
now known to be carriers and delivery systems for nicotine).

Sure, why have speed limit signs on highways, too.

> Bob Kolker
>
>

[Robert Kolker]

Straydog wrote:
>
>
> All the advertising out there pushes the junk food in everone's face.

So what? No one is forcing anyone to eat junk food. That is done by
choice. Advertising can be ignored. In most cases it -should be- ignored.

>
> Sure, why have speed limit signs on highways, too.

To constrain the use of the public roads for the sake of safety.

Bob Kolker

[ccr]

"Robert Kolker" <now...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:d-ednaOK-vQxjO_Z...@comcast.com...

> Straydog wrote:
>>
>>
>> All the advertising out there pushes the junk food in everone's face.
>
> So what? No one is forcing anyone to eat junk food. That is done by
> choice. Advertising can be ignored. In most cases it -should be- ignored.

Your statement is classic nonsense. A great deal of junk food advertising is
aimed at children.

--
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of
fighting a foreign enemy." James Madison

[Peter Bjørn Perlsø]

Robert Kolker <now...@nowhere.com> wrote:

Don't feed the troll.

--
regards, Peter Bjørn Perlsø
http://haxor.dk - http://liberterran.org - http://haxor.dk/fanaticism/ -
http://planetarybillofrights.org/ - http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/

[Straydog]

On Mon, 22 May 2006, Peter Bjørn Perlsø wrote:

> Robert Kolker <now...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
>> Vid...@tcq.net wrote:
>>> A final summary definition of neoliberalism as a philosophy is this:
>>>
>>> Neoliberalism is a philosophy in which the existence and operation of a
>>> market are valued in themselves, separately from any previous
>>> relationship with the production of goods and services, and without any
>>> attempt to justify them in terms of their effect on the production of
>>> goods and services; and where the operation of a market or market-like
>>> structure is seen as an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide
>>> for all human action, and substituting for all previously existing
>>> ethical beliefs.
>>
>>
>> Markets are all about choices. People get to decide what to make, what
>> to sell and what to buy. They get to decide what they wish to do with
>> their lives in the context of availalbe alternatives. What is your
>> problem with that?
>>
>> What would you propose. A central committee deciding what goodies will
>> be made and how they are to be doled out to the Unwashed?
>>
>> Bob Kolker
>
> Don't feed the troll.

You mean the dumb troll?

[Straydog]

The following was passed around privately until I got it. It doesn't look
like good news to me.

----------
<http://www.canada.com/images/spacer.gif> canada, canadian search
engine, free email, canada
news<http://www.canada.com/images/headings/en_head_canadacom.gif>

Friday > May 19 > 2006

Iran eyes badges for Jews

Law would require non-Muslim insignia

Chris Wattie

National Post

Friday, May 19, 2006

<http://media.canada.com/canwest/149/star.jpg?size=l>

Jews were made to wear stars to identify them in Nazi Germany.

Human rights groups are raising alarms over a new law passed by the
Iranian parliament that would require the country's Jews and Christians
to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities
as non-Muslims.

"This is reminiscent of the Holocaust," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean
of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. "Iran is moving closer
and closer to the ideology of the Nazis."

Iranian expatriates living in Canada yesterday confirmed reports that
the Iranian parliament, called the Islamic Majlis, passed a law this
week setting a dress code for all Iranians, requiring them to wear
almost identical "standard Islamic garments."

The law, which must still be approved by Iran's "Supreme Guide" Ali
Khamenehi before being put into effect, also establishes special
insignia to be worn by non-Muslims.

Iran's roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on
the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and
Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.

"There's no reason to believe they won't pass this," said Rabbi Hier.
"It will certainly pass unless there's some sort of international outcry
over this."

Bernie Farber, the chief executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said
he was "stunned" by the measure. "We thought this had gone the way of
the dodo bird, but clearly in Iran everything old and bad is new again,"
he said. "It's state-sponsored religious discrimination."

Ali Behroozian, an Iranian exile living in Toronto, said the law could
come into force as early as next year.

It would make religious minorities immediately identifiable and allow
Muslims to avoid contact with non-Muslims.

Mr. Behroozian said it will make life even more difficult for Iran's
small pockets of Jewish, Christian and other religious minorities -- the
country is overwhelmingly Shi'ite Muslim. "They have all been persecuted
for a while, but these new dress rules are going to make things worse
for them," he said.

The new law was drafted two years ago, but was stuck in the Iranian
parliament until recently when it was revived at the behest of President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A spokesman for the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa refused to comment on the
measures. "This is nothing to do with anything here," said a press
secretary who identified himself as Mr. Gharmani.

"We are not here to answer such questions."

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre has written to Kofi Annan, the
Secretary-General of the United Nations, protesting the Iranian law and
calling on the international community to bring pressure on Iran to drop
the measure.

"The world should not ignore this," said Rabbi Hier. "The world ignored
Hitler for many years -- he was dismissed as a demagogue, they said he'd
never come to power -- and we were all wrong."

Mr. Farber said Canada and other nations should take action to isolate
Mr. Ahmadinejad in light of the new law, which he called "chilling," and
his previous string of anti-Semitic statements.

"There are some very frightening parallels here," he said. "It's time to
start considering how we're going to deal with this person."

Mr. Ahmadinejad has repeatedly described the Holocaust as a myth and
earlier this year announced Iran would host a conference to re-examine
the history of the Nazis' "Final Solution."

He has caused international outrage by publicly calling for Israel to be
"wiped off the map."

Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons, but Tehran believed by Western
nations to be developing its own nuclear military capability, in
defiance of international protocols and peace treaties.

The United States, France and Israel accuse Iran of using a civilian
nuclear program to secretly build a weapon. Iran denies this, saying its
program is confined to generating electricity.

cwa...@nationalpost.com

(c) National Post 2006

<http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=11fbf4a8-282a-4d18-954f-
546709b1240f&k=32073>

<http://www.canada.com/images/L_dashed.gif>

<http://www.canada.com/images/spacer.gif>

Copyright (c) 2006 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks
Publications, Inc. <http://www.canwestglobal.com/> . All rights
reserved.

[Old Pif]

Straydog wrote:
>
> Iran's roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on
> the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and
> Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.
>

I am very surprised that the Jews are living in Iran at all. I though
all of them have fled after the revolution. If the war with Iran breaks
up they would be the first victims. They would better leave as soon as
possible.

[Straydog]

Actually, from my readings of ancient history, many many countries not
only had small populations of Jews but small populations of many other
subgroups (religious, ethnic, etc), and well back to the beginings of
writen/recorded history, and there were often intermarriages and children,
among members of these different groups, too. That only in modern
times were "liberal" attitudes about tollerance common is not true; kings
and emperors went through cycles of tollerance to intollerance and back
again all through history.

[Robert Kolker]

ccr wrote:
>
> Your statement is classic nonsense. A great deal of junk food advertising is
> aimed at children.

Parents ought to control what their children get.

Bob Kolker

>

[Nospam]

Robert Kolker wrote:

Why ? As far as I understood, libertarian doctrina oppose any intervention
of a person into another person life :-)

[Michael Scheltgen]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/717935.html

[Straydog]

I tried that URL a few minutes ago and it gave me a "404", (I may have
copied it wrong, or something) but I looked around the home page (looks
like an Israeli website) and didn't find anything that hinted at a
Canada's Nat Post retraction or the Iranian color code stuff. Anyone else
have any info on this business?

===== no change to below, included for reference and context =====

[Vid...@tcq.net]

what we are witnessing today is the begiinings of the great free market
empire meltdowm. its unavoidable, and it was built into the system.
greed never works.

[Robert Kolker]

Vid...@tcq.net wrote:

And just what will replace it? Some cocamaymee socialist scheme?

Bob Kolker

>

[nini...@yahoo.com]

forbi...@msn.com wrote:
> nini...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > Day Brown wrote:
> > > Another problem about market choices, is that you dont often know what
> > > the ultimate value or cost of the product is. If cigarettes reflected
> > > the cost of cancer treatment, they wouldda been over 3$/pack decades
> > > ago.
> >
> > People have known the risks for decades and taken them.
>
> The costs are not borne just by the people deciding to take the risk.

Who else bears them? The health problems associated with cigarette
smoking affect the smoker. If the government decides to assume the
costs that's hardly the free market.

> Do you see any problem with recovering the costs in a per pack
> assignment?
>
> It seems to me that in general decisions are made based upon proximal
> costs and not distal costs. Many rivers need cleaning because the
> people deciding to polute them don't have to bear the costs of cleaning them
> up.

Very true. If someone owned the river then they would have a motive
to
force people to either not pollute or to pay for the cleanup.

>
> Our president has set aside many environmental laws for today's
> economic benefit of those who would polute and not include the costs
> of cleanup in their products.

No doubt, but none of these laws would be neccesary if not for the
large
amount of "publically" owned pollutable space.

[forbi...@msn.com]

nini...@yahoo.com wrote:
> forbi...@msn.com wrote:
> > nini...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > > Day Brown wrote:
> > > > Another problem about market choices, is that you dont often know what
> > > > the ultimate value or cost of the product is. If cigarettes reflected
> > > > the cost of cancer treatment, they wouldda been over 3$/pack decades
> > > > ago.
> > >
> > > People have known the risks for decades and taken them.
> >
> > The costs are not borne just by the people deciding to take the risk.
>
> Who else bears them? The health problems associated with cigarette
> smoking affect the smoker.

And those exposed to the smoke. Heck, I was in a restaurant yesterday
and in Washington State these are non-smoking public spaces and yet the
manager left a wake as he walked about the building. I'm sure he
followed
the law and smoked in the designated area but he brought the smoke back
in with him.

> If the government decides to assume the costs that's hardly the free market.

If you define "the free market" in a way where moral hazard is ignored
then
I'm not for free markets even though I believe in a market economy
rather
than a command economy.

You didn't answer the following question.

> > Do you see any problem with recovering the costs in a per pack
> > assignment?
> >
> > It seems to me that in general decisions are made based upon proximal
> > costs and not distal costs. Many rivers need cleaning because the
> > people deciding to polute them don't have to bear the costs of cleaning them
> > up.
>
> Very true. If someone owned the river then they would have a motive
> to force people to either not pollute or to pay for the cleanup.

Owned in common doesn't mean "unowned". I'm sure we have a different
notion of ownership of land. Let's not get into it here. There is
still the
issue of moral hazard.

> > Our president has set aside many environmental laws for today's
> > economic benefit of those who would polute and not include the costs
> > of cleanup in their products.
>
> No doubt, but none of these laws would be neccesary if not for the
> large amount of "publically" owned pollutable space.

I disagree. I'm not sure I can avoid issues of ownership. Ownership
is a social concept. It has no meaning outside of the interaction
between individuals. The public acceptance of private ownership of
land is fraught with moral hazard.

[Straydog]

On Tue, 23 May 2006, Robert Kolker wrote:

> Vid...@tcq.net wrote:
>
>> what we are witnessing today is the begiinings of the great free market
>> empire meltdowm. its unavoidable, and it was built into the system.
>> greed never works.
>
> And just what will replace it?

Bob Kolkerism!

[Nospam]

MOTTO:
=====
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity"
Albert Einstein

Vid...@tcq.net wrote:

And not necessarily by its faults, actually the market economy theory have a
couple of smart points in it. The problem is (like with many other
ideologies) the existence of fundamentalists.

There seems to always be in the society a bunch of nuts unable to use their
brains to understand that there is no "one size fit all" ideology. The
human nature it is too complex to be able to have a society based on a
single primitive idea. We need to be able to balance community with
individuality, the ownership with share instinct and we need the brain to
see and understand when our old system is becoming disfunctional and adjust
it to fit the new realities.

But primitive individuals will always choose one side over the other
and will push to "cast it in stone", to declare it as a law and refuse to
accept corrections even when needed. This idiotic attitude is what
generated the collapse of the communism and this idiotic attitude it is
what is going to generate the collapse of the capitalism too.

Fundamentalism is never going to work, regardless on what ideology it rise
upon. Libertarians seems very clearly intended to force a collapse of the
market economy ideologies in the same way the communists did with planned
economy ideologies.

If the libertarian doctrina is allowed to spread in our society we are
doomed !!!

[Kamal R. Prasad]

Old Pif wrote:
> Straydog wrote:
> >
> > Iran's roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on
> > the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and
> > Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.
> >

these guys are hell-bent on making themselves unpopular.

>
> I am very surprised that the Jews are living in Iran at all. I though
> all of them have fled after the revolution. If the war with Iran breaks

No -they did not flee after the cultural revolution. The ones who fled
were either zorashtrians or rich friends/connected people of the shah
of Iran. After/just before Israel was formed, many jews left for Israel
voluntarily from many parts of the world including India. But they have
stopped migrating of late - for some reason.

> up they would be the first victims. They would better leave as soon as
> possible.

Are you predicting a US attack? Some EU politicians think that is
likely as a measure to shore up republican support <ugh>.

regards
-kamal

[Vid...@tcq.net]

i do not know what will replace it. what i do know is that you did it
to yourselves, and unfortunately i will have to reap what your type
sowed. when according to libertarian dogma you should be individually
responsible for your own actions.

[Day Brown]

forbi...@msn.com wrote:
> I disagree. I'm not sure I can avoid issues of ownership. Ownership
> is a social concept. It has no meaning outside of the interaction
> between individuals. The public acceptance of private ownership of
> land is fraught with moral hazard.

Agreed; but so is public or tribal ownership. The real question is
whether the land is being properly managed. "Constant Battles" by
LeBlanc has an extensive list of primitive tribal communities that
ruined the ecosystem and exterminated lots of species. And another
extensive list of agrarian communities in both the new and old world
that destroyed the fertility of the land with over cropping monoculture
and over grazing.

Its interesting to note the singular outstanding exception to this
litany of disaster in the Chalcolithic agrarian cultures of what is now
Slavic Europe. They're the only place I've seen where the land was
managed for 4000 years in a totally sustainable fashion. The bone
middens show the diversity of species when they left, @4000 BCE, was the
same as when they arrived 4000 years earlier. The soil cores near their
tels along the great rivers (Danube, Bug, Tisza, Dneipr) show the tree
pollen but dont show the silt... indicative of clearcuts.

So rather than ague about what liberals or conservatives or whatever
should be doing, lets go and look at the people who been there and did
it... right. They were the creators of "LBK ware", which was shipped on
the rivers all over Europe in the first great and totally free market
the world had ever seen.

[The Trucker]

"S. 'Trash' Ny Fui" <panno...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1148286588....@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
> Nospam wrote:
>> That is. Letting the free market to solve all the issues will result into
>> a plutocracy. Because the whole concept of free market is flawed from the
>> beginning.

>
> http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html
> May 9, 2006
>
> "Every stock market bubble in history, starting with the South Sea and
> Mississippi bubbles in the 1710s in Britain and France, has been

> sponsored by government. The driving force has been the government's
> attempt to cope with debt obligations beyond its foreseeable ability to
> pay. Creating a bubble has been a way to solve their public debt
> problem--and to pay off political insiders at the same time, thereby
> killing two birds with one stone.
>
> "Modern governments are not politically able to simply default on their
> debts--at least, not debts owed to their own bondholders in their own
> currency. The problem has to be solved through "the marketplace"."

I look at the title of this thread and wonder if the righties will ever
stop attempting to tie the word "Liberal" to any failed thing they
can find.

--
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers
of society but the people themselves; and
if we think them not enlightened enough to
exercise their control with a wholesome
discretion, the remedy is not to take it from
them, but to inform their discretion by
education." - Thomas Jefferson
http://GreaterVoice.org

[The Trucker]

""Peter Bjørn Perlsø"" <pe...@DIESPAMMERDIE.dk> wrote in message
news:1hfrhsr.2zzhts14cfwmcN%pe...@DIESPAMMERDIE.dk...

> Robert Kolker <now...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
>> Vid...@tcq.net wrote:
>> > A final summary definition of neoliberalism as a philosophy is this:
>> >
>> > Neoliberalism is a philosophy in which the existence and operation of a
>> > market are valued in themselves, separately from any previous
>> > relationship with the production of goods and services, and without any
>> > attempt to justify them in terms of their effect on the production of
>> > goods and services; and where the operation of a market or market-like
>> > structure is seen as an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide
>> > for all human action, and substituting for all previously existing
>> > ethical beliefs.

This summary is crap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

>> Markets are all about choices. People get to decide what to make, what
>> to sell and what to buy. They get to decide what they wish to do with
>> their lives in the context of availalbe alternatives. What is your
>> problem with that?
>>
>> What would you propose. A central committee deciding what goodies will
>> be made and how they are to be doled out to the Unwashed?
>>
>> Bob Kolker
>

--