Monthly Archive for June, 2010

On Your Marx: Neoliberalism on the Rocks

marxFrom n+1

The first intellectual consequence of the economic crisis was to undermine neoliberalism—or the belief in the sufficiency of markets to secure human welfare—as the age’s default ideology.

The second was to prompt a hasty resurrection of Keynes. “We are all Keynesians again!” the ghost of Richard Nixon might have declared as Gordon Brown and Barack Obama, leaders of the nations most squarely behind the neoliberal push of the last thirty years, changed the Anglo-American tune and, this past winter, begged their European colleagues to stimulate the Continental economy with borrowed money. The crisis also made the economists Paul Krugman and Nouriel Roubini into the ?rst Keynesian superstars since John Kenneth Galbraith. Their recommendations, on their invaluable blogs, of still vaster countercyclical spending and the temporary nationalization of banks were not taken up by the Obama administration, but they did confer new respectability on the idea of close state involvement in the economy.

To read more…

Europe is a Dead Political Project

a-demonstrator-throws-a-r-006By Étienne Balibar, in The Guardian

This is the beginning of the end for the EU unless it can find the capacity to start again on radically new bases

Within a single month, we have witnessed Prime Minister George Papandreou of Greece announcing his country’s possible default, an expansive European rescue loan offered to him on the condition of devastating budget cuts, soon followed by the “downgraded rating” of the Portuguese and Spanish debts, a threat on the value and the very existence of the euro, the creation (under strong US pressure) of a European security fund worth €750bn, the Central European Bank’s decision (against its rules) to redeem sovereign debts, and the announcement of budget austerity measures in several member states.

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The Disintegration of the Public Sector: Recasting Public Conversation

By Tony Judt, in Institute for Public Knowledge, Transformations of the Public Sphere

One striking consequence of the disintegration of the public sector has been an increased difficulty in comprehending what we have in common with others. We are familiar with complaints about the ‘atomizing’ impact of the internet: if everyone selects gobbets of knowledge and information that interest them, but avoids exposure to anything else, we do indeed form global communities of elective affinity—while losing touch with the affinities of our neighbors.

In that case, what is it that binds us together? Students frequently tell me that they only know and care about a highly specialized subset of news items and public events. Some may read of environmental catastrophes and climate change. Others are taken up by national political debates but quite ignorant of foreign developments. In the past, thanks to the newspaper they browsed or the television reports they took in over dinner, they would at least have been ‘exposed’ to other matters. Today, such extraneous concerns are kept at bay.

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Xinran on Understanding China

five_books_home_main_image-34From Five Books

Tell me about your first book, Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin.

This book is believed by many to be the greatest Chinese novel ever written. For me it is like a bible for everything to do with Chinese culture. Cao belonged to the Han Chinese clan and the book is a huge family novel written in the 18th century. The family’s fortunes were tied up with the Kangxi dynasty and the book is all about the relationship between the family members and all the different classes.

It really is a wonderful book which has been translated by Penguin since 1970 and reprinted again and again. But many Westerners don’t know about this book, which is a shame because it is such a powerful book which I really love.

Why is it so important to you?

Well, it is such a good guide to our culture. In the book more than 100 people, buildings, poems, paintings and dreams are described in great detail. So you really find out the lifestyles of the people living there. I have read this book again and again ever since my childhood.

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Q&A: Joseph Stiglitz Discusses the European Debt Crisis

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by Christopher Bateman, in Vanity Fair Daily

As the European debt crisis continues to unsettle financial markets, Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Vanity Fair contributor, talked to VF Daily about why the measures taken so far have failed to stem the crisis, whether there is a moral hazard in bailing out nations, and how Wall Street has made the situation worse.

VF Daily: This crisis seems to be never-ending. Why, after a trillion-dollar aid package was settled on, are people still so uneasy?

Joseph E. Stiglitz: Well I think it’s understandable. First, owing to the size of the package. Second, there’s maybe a recognition that what Germany had demanded were austerity packages that would weaken Europe and therefore exacerbate the downturn. Third, given the magnitude of the problems and the austerity package that are being demanded, there’s considerable uncertainty whether there will be political and social unrest, and therefore whether packages will be accepted. Fourth, once you look at the numbers you realize that a trillion dollars probably isn’t enough if things don’t work out well, and there’s a significant probability that they won’t.

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Delegate Information Pack Now Available

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We are pleased to announce that a delegate information pack has been posted onto the Global Studies Conference website. This pdf document includes some helpful travel information as well as important conference information and can be found at http://onglobalisation.com/conference-2010/location/.

More information will be added to this document as it is made available so please check back for updates.

Please do not hesitate to contact us with any additional questions that you may have at support@onglobalisation.com

Reading Milton Friedman in Dublin

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By Henry Farrell, in Washington Monthly

A review of Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger by Fintan O’Toole

When I first came to the United States from Ireland in the early 1990s, Americans thought of my home country as a land of green fields, bibulous peasants, and perhaps the occasional leprechaun. Once, on a bus from Ann Arbor to Detroit, a fellow passenger heard my accent and asked if she could touch me for good luck. But something changed over the course of the 1990s and 2000s, as Ireland started to enjoy remarkable levels of economic growth. Blather about Guinness and the Little People made way for a new story line: the success of the Celtic Tiger economy. Between 1995 and 2007, Irish GDP grew at an average rate of 6 percent every year. Housing prices rose by 270 percent between 1996 and 2006. A country that had long been notorious for its high emigration rates started to import people instead. Gort—a tiny town in Galway—acquired a large population of South American immigrants, while Dublin supported no less than three Polish-language newspapers.

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Eurozone Defense: Skeptics and the Common Currency

imagephpFrom Jule Treneer, in n + 1

If you believe the papers, a lot of people think there’s going to be another Lehman. Only this time, it will come not from the recklessness of American finance, but from a sovereign debt default, the result of the infamous profligacy of the European welfare state. And given all the headlines—“The End of the Euro,” “The Death of the European Dream”—you would think these were the end times for the Eurozone itself.

The gloomy chorus has been building for months now: it is the leitmotif of the hyper-powered fund managers who are, as I write this, wagering on the demise of the euro, or profiting off the fear of its demise, or even, perversely enough, the fear of that fear. A February piece in the Wall Street Journal, “Hedge Funds Try ‘Career Trade’ Against Euro,” summed up the fervid atmosphere.

To read more…

Draft Program Online

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The Global Studies Conference is fast approaching and the draft conference schedule is now online.

While the program is subject to some slight changes, the parallel sessions will not likely be moved to a different time.

Please feel free to contact the conference secretariat at support@onglobalisation.com should you have any questions or concerns about your presentation session.