 |
 |
RE: Why does it appear that the Russian population have accepted the loss of a social security system that is presumably associated with that massive 9 year reduction in life expectancy? That's indeed an important question. But there is no lack of theory explaining this, if you look across social sciences. Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism" offers one catchy explanation. I copy Stiglitz's (a Nobel Price winner) review of her book. The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/books/review/Stiglitz-t.html September 30, 2007 Bleakonomics By JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ THE SHOCK DOCTRINE The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. By Naomi Klein. 558 pp. Metropolitan Books. $28. There are no accidents in the world as seen by Naomi Klein. The destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina expelled many poor black residents and allowed most of the city's public schools to be replaced by privately run charter schools. The torture and killings under Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Chile and during Argentina's military dictatorship were a way of breaking down resistance to the free market. The instability in Poland and Russia after the collapse of Communism and in Bolivia after the hyperinflation of the 1980s allowed the governments there to foist unpopular economic "shock therapy" on a resistant population. And then there is "Washington's game plan for Iraq": "Shock and terrorize the entire country, deliberately ruin its infrastructure, do nothing while its culture and history are ransacked, then make it all O.K. with an unlimited supply of cheap household appliances and imported junk food," not to mention a strong stock market and private sector. "The Shock Doctrine" is Klein's ambitious look at the economic history of the last 50 years and the rise of free-market fundamentalism around the world. "Disaster capitalism," as she calls it, is a violent system that sometimes requires terror to do its job. Like Pol Pot proclaiming that Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge was in Year Zero, extreme capitalism loves a blank slate, often finding its opening after crises or "shocks." For example, Klein argues, the Asian crisis of 1997 paved the way for the International Monetary Fund to establish programs in the region and for a sell-off of many state-owned enterprises to Western banks and multinationals. The 2004 tsunami enabled the government of Sri Lanka to force the fishermen off beachfront property so it could be sold to hotel developers. The destruction of 9/11 allowed George W. Bush to launch a war aimed at producing a free-market Iraq. In an early chapter, Klein compares radical capitalist economic policy to shock therapy administered by psychiatrists. She interviews Gail Kastner, a victim of covert C.I.A. experiments in interrogation techniques that were carried out by the scientist Ewen Cameron in the 1950s. His idea was to use electroshock therapy to break down patients. Once "complete depatterning" had been achieved, the patients could be reprogrammed. But after breaking down his "patients," Cameron was never able to build them back up again. The connection with a rogue C.I.A. scientist is overdramatic and unconvincing, but for Klein the larger lessons are clear: "Countries are shocked - by wars, terror attacks, coups d'etat and natural disasters." Then "they are shocked again - by corporations and politicians who exploit the fear and disorientation of this first shock to push through economic shock therapy." People who "dare to resist" are shocked for a third time, "by police, soldiers and prison interrogators." In another introductory chapter, Klein offers an account of Milton Friedman - she calls him "the other doctor shock" - and his battle for the hearts and minds of Latin American economists and economies. In the 1950s, as Cameron was conducting his experiments, the Chicago School was developing the ideas that would eclipse the theories of Raul Prebisch, an advocate of what today would be called the third way, and of other economists fashionable in Latin America at the time. She quotes the Chilean economist Orlando Letelier on the "inner harmony" between the terror of the Pinochet regime and its free-market policies. Letelier said that Milton Friedman shared responsibility for the regime's crimes, rejecting his argument that he was only offering "technical" advice. Letelier was killed in 1976 by a car bomb planted in Washington by Pinochet's secret police. For Klein, he was another victim of the "Chicago Boys" who wanted to impose free-market capitalism on the region. "In the Southern Cone, where contemporary capitalism was born, the 'war on terror' was a war against all obstacles to the new order," she writes. One of the world's most famous antiglobalization activists and the author of the best seller "No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies," Klein provides a rich description of the political machinations required to force unsavory economic policies on resisting countries, and of the human toll. She paints a disturbing portrait of hubris, not only on the part of Friedman but also of those who adopted his doctrines, sometimes to pursue more corporatist objectives. It is striking to be reminded how many of the people involved in the Iraq war were involved earlier in other shameful episodes in United States foreign policy history. She draws a clear line from the torture in Latin America in the 1970s to that at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Klein is not an academic and cannot be judged as one. There are many places in her book where she oversimplifies. But Friedman and the other shock therapists were also guilty of oversimplification, basing their belief in the perfection of market economies on models that assumed perfect information, perfect competition, perfect risk markets. Indeed, the case against these policies is even stronger than the one Klein makes. They were never based on solid empirical and theoretical foundations, and even as many of these policies were being pushed, academic economists were explaining the limitations of markets - for instance, whenever information is imperfect, which is to say always. Klein isn't an economist but a journalist, and she travels the world to find out firsthand what really happened on the ground during the privatization of Iraq, the aftermath of the Asian tsunami, the continuing Polish transition to capitalism and the years after the African National Congress took power in South Africa, when it failed to pursue the redistributionist policies enshrined in the Freedom Charter, its statement of core principles. These chapters are the least exciting parts of the book, but they are also the most convincing. In the case of South Africa, she interviews activists and others, only to find there is no one answer. Busy trying to stave off civil war in the early years after the end of apartheid, the A.N.C. didn't fully understand how important economic policy was. Afraid of scaring off foreign investors, it took the advice of the I.M.F. and the World Bank and instituted a policy of privatization, spending cutbacks, labor flexibility and so on. This didn't stop two of South Africa's own major companies, South African Breweries and Anglo-American, from relocating their global headquarters to London. The average growth rate has been a disappointing 5 percent (much lower than in countries in East Asia, which followed a different route); unemployment for the black majority is 48 percent; and the number of people living on less than $1 a day has doubled to four million from two million since 1994, the year the A.N.C. took over. Some readers may see Klein's findings as evidence of a giant conspiracy, a conclusion she explicitly disavows. It's not the conspiracies that wreck the world but the series of wrong turns, failed policies, and little and big unfairnesses that add up. Still, those decisions are guided by larger mind-sets. Market fundamentalists never really appreciated the institutions required to make an economy function well, let alone the broader social fabric that civilizations require to prosper and flourish. Klein ends on a hopeful note, describing nongovernmental organizations and activists around the world who are trying to make a difference. After 500 pages of "The Shock Doctrine," it's clear they have their work cut out for them. Joseph E. Stiglitz, a university professor at Columbia, was awarded the Nobel in economic science in 2001. His latest book is "Making Globalization Work." ----- Original Message ----- From: R.Thomas To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 6:21 PM Subject: Re: Utopianism & pragmatism in assessing Russia's polity Well said! But what puzzles me is the passivity of the Russian population under Putin. Why does it appear that the Russian population have accepted the loss of a social security system that is presumably associated with that massive 9 year reduction in life expectancy? Does the imposition of a kind of constitutional democracy at the top have anything to do with growing inequality in Russia as whole? Ray Thomas, Faculty of Social Sciences, Open University ******************************* -----Original Message----- From: On all aspects of Russia and the FSU [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alexander Antonyuk Sent: 12 May 2008 08:36 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: FW: Utopianism & pragmatism in assessing Russia's polity You are probably right about the Estonians but why do you generalise to the other republics? In Ukraine situation was radically different. The majority didn't feel the same way as Estonians and 85% voted in 1991 for staying in the USSR. Do you understand my (and many others') point about losing almost all the achievements in social security, about the catastrophic deterioration of almost all aspects of life: healthcare, education, sport, science, culture? What do you think about the 9 year reduction in life expectancy? For comparison, if all cancer cases could be cured life expectancy in the west would increase by 2 years. I would be interested to hear your opinion on that. I am not for restoration of what you call communism (in Russian it's called socialism), it needed to be liberalised and the revolutionary ideology was outdated. I am only trying to draw your attention to the fact that a lot of people who actually lived there have a very different view from yours. I simply thought it would be good if you understood that they are not Russian nationalists, imperialists or behind times, but that they judge the ussr on different points. -----Original Message----- From: Atkinson, Charles A [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: 12 May 2008 05:22 To: Alexander Antonyuk; [log in to unmask] Subject: RE: Utopianism & pragmatism in assessing Russia's polity The Estonians would not have been satifsied with "decentralization". They were as sick of endless roundtable discussions by Soviet windbags on "the nationalities question" as everyone else. They would only have used any wiggle room provided by "decentralization" to further loosen their ties to Moscow, with the aim of total sovereignty as soon as possible. And once the USSR allowed the Baltic states to leave, the question would have been opened for all the others as well. You can wish the USSR hadn't swallowed that pill at the end of WW-II, but you can't wish the poison hadn't acted the way it did. As for the restoration of Communism in Russia (what you seem to be suggesting), that would be something for the Russian voters to decide. I wish them the best of luck in making their voices heard. -----Original Message----- From: Alexander Antonyuk [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Saturday, May 10, 2008 6:13 PM To: Atkinson, Charles A; [log in to unmask] Subject: RE: Utopianism & pragmatism in assessing Russia's polity No. By modernising the ussr I meant decentralisation as well. You think people should have no rights in the workplace? In the soviet union they did, now they don't. This is the core of the misunderstanding - what's the lesser of the two evils, political or class oppression? In the ussr there was political oppression now there is class oppression again. -----Original Message----- From: On all aspects of Russia and the FSU [mai lto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Atkinson, Charles A Sent: 09 May 2008 02:59 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Utopianism & pragmatism in assessing Russia's polity "I think the USSR should have been modernised, not maximalistically thrown to the bin." You think the Estonians should still be ruled from Moscow? -----Original Message----- From: On all aspects of Russia and the FSU [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alexander Antonyuk Sent: Friday, May 09, 2008 7:14 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Utopianism & pragmatism in assessing Russia's polity I am really sorry to say that, you seem to be an authoritative figure on Russia (I saw your interview on BBC I think) but your remark about 1917 and 1991 is typical of what I hear from many Westerners. To characterise such complex event as the Russian revolution with the subsequent horrendous civil war that lasted for 4 years as a clear warning to Russians against authoritarianism is a gross simplification. I am a bit taken aback to hear that from you. Even Ray pointed out today that the freedoms and education women got were very good. You would prefer Russian women to still be illiterate servants? Or work from the age of 8 like my grandmother did before the revolution? I know you wouldn't. Also, how can you persuade people that the soviet system was an "unreliable arrangement" if ALL the main macro statistics show a sharp deterioration for the majority of population? Honestly, did you know that life expectancy now is 9 years lower than in 1991? It's a stunning change, comparable to losses in a war. I call the western attitude to the Soviet Union the greatest historical fraud of the 20th century. You need a great deal of effort to block the main information channels and create such one-sided view among the majority of the westerners, to completely conceal the achievements and exaggerate the problems. Until this is resolved there can't really be a dialogue. Andreas, please don't take it personally, I see this informational bias as a by-product of the cold war. As to democracy in modern Russia, I am not such a "maximalist" as your Russian friends, I would aim for gradual improvements (and I think the USSR should have been modernised, not maximalistically thrown to the bin). But I am not surprised about their views. There is a good book by prof. Vasilenko, "Dialog civilizaciy", where she points out that the Russian national character has always been very "maximalistskiy" ... What can do you about it? Try to transform Russians into people with a different mentality? Or perhaps transform westerners to something closer to Russian mentality? I think solution is simple: we need to try to understand each other. Best wishes, Alexander -----Original Message----- From: On all aspects of Russia and the FSU [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Andreas Umland Sent: 08 May 2008 20:57 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Utopianism & pragmatism in assessing Russia's polity Alexander's remark is typical of what one hears from many Russians: As there is no real democracy anyway, at least not in the West, why bother about possible democratic deficiencies in Russia? The principal issue seems to be here that, in the West, these subjects are mostly discussed from the point of view of democratic theory whereas many Russians discuss them, paradoxically, from the point of view of democratic utopia: As there is no and never was true democracy (and, one coud add: never will be), there is not that much difference between Britain and Russia, the US and China, Switzerland and North Korea... This is a fascinating combination of democratic maximalism with political machiavellianism. The one argument that speaks against such seeming political pragmatism is that almost all of the world's economically and socially more successful countries are those that have been or/and are trying to be as democratic as possible. Granted, the various more or less democratic countries do that with rather varying success. Still, many Western and non-Western countries would, at least, seem to be trying. Though Russia is today trying many things, being more democratic is not among Moscow's current policy priorities. The latter makes many foreigners unhappy and some Westerners, like for example those worrying about the future of Strasbourg's European Court for Human Rights, angry. However, in the end, the most unhappy people will be not any Western "russophobes", but the Russians themselves. As, one would think, they should know from the experience of 1917 and 1991, authoritarian polities constitute unreliable arrangements for organizing modern nations. These regimes, sooner or later, collapse. And their nations have to pay the bill. No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.10/1421 - Release Date: 07/05/2008 17:23 No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.10/1421 - Release Date: 07/05/2008 17:23 No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.10/1421 - Release Date: 07/05/2008 17:23 No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.10/1421 - Release Date: 07/05/2008 17:23 No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.10/1421 - Release Date: 07/05/2008 17:23 No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.10/1421 - Release Date: 07/05/2008 17:23 No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.10/1421 - Release Date: 07/05/2008 17:23 No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.10/1421 - Release Date: 07/05/2008 17:23 -- Я использую бесплатную версию SPAMfighter для частных пользователей. Программа удалила 431 эл. письма спама, полученные до настоящего времени. Пользователи платной версии не имеют этого сообщения в их электронных письмах. Попробовать:http://www.spamfighter.com/lru --------------------------------- The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).