Up from neoliberalism: Free-market mythologies and the coming crisis of global capitalism

Third World Quarterly

Volumn 20, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 453-463

  Berger, Mark T ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0037633491     PISSN: 01436597     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01436599913857     Document Type: Article

References (32)

1. For example, see C Linglc, The Rise and Decline of the Asian Century: False Starts on the Path to the Global Millennium, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998.
2. Sec D Ycrgin, Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War, New York: Viking/Penguin, 1990; and Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991.
3. C Leys, The Rise and Fall of Development Theory, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996, p 19; and J Cronin, The World The Cold War Made: Order, Chaos and the Return of History, London: Routlcdgc, 1996, pp 177, 185.
4. S Gill, 'Globalisation, market civilisation, and disciplinary neo-libcralism', Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 24, 1995, p 399.
5. See especially J Williamson, 'The progress of policy reform in Latin America', in Williamson (ed), Latin American Adjustment: How Much Has Happened!, Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1990, pp 351-420.
6. C M Conaghan, 'Reconsidering Jeffrey Sachs and the Bolivian experiment', in P W Drake (ed), Money Doctors, Foreign Debts, and Economic Reforms in Latin America from the 1890s to the Present, Wilmington, NC: Scholarly Resources, 1994, pp 247-248; and B Greskovits, The Political Economy of Protest and Patience: East European and Latin American Transformations Compared, Budapest: Central European University Press, 1998, pp 37-38.
7. As a long-time World Bank employee noted in the mid-1980s, 'the US does not control the Bank but, as the largest shareholder and in association with other like-minded OECD countries [it] exercises an influence unmatched elsewhere'. Ernest Stem to A W Clauscn, 29 March 1985, cited in D Kapur, J Lewis & R Wcbb, The World Bank: Its First Half-Century, Vol 1, History, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1997, pp 3-4. See also C Cauficld, Masters of Illusion: The World Bank and the Poverty of Nations, London: Macmillan, 1997.
8. P Constable & A Valcnzuela, A Nation of Enemies: Chile Under Pinochet, New York: W W Norton, 1991, pp 166-198; P O'Brien & J Roddick, Chile, the Pinochet Decade: The Rise and Fall of the Chicago Boys, London: Latin American Bureau, 1983; and Juan Gabriel Valdcs, Pinochet's Economists; The Chicago School in Chile, Cambrdigc: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
9. J Ncf, 'Chile: myths, realities and misconstructions'. Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 2(1), 1996, p 24; and G Casper, Fragile Democracies: The Legacies of Authoritarian Rule, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995, pp 186-202.
10. The continued influence of the military was apparent when, for example, the Chilean Congress began an investigation into some dubious business deals which involved Pinochet's eldest son. If this had been pursued it would have raised questions about the general himself; however, the former dictator was able to use his institutional leverage and the power of the military to ensure that the investigation was shut down. T Moulian, 'A time of forgetting: the myths of the Chilean transition', AVICM Report on the Americas, 32, 1998, pp 16-17. In Argentina the transition from military dictatorship to elected civilian government in 1983 was also less of a turning point than was initially thought. During the Alfonsin administration (1983-89), the overall structures, institutions and methods of the national security state (born of the cold war era) remained in place. And during the Mcnem era, the government's tics with the military have grown. What has emerged in Argentina, as elsewhere in Latin America, is a 'guardian democracy'. J P McShcrry, Incomplete Transition: Military Power and Democracy Argentina, New York: St Martins Press, 1997, pp vi, 146, 226, 290. See also A Rouquid, The Military and the State in Latin America, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989; first published in French in 1982 as L'Etat Militaire en Amérique Latine.
11. For a critical analysis of the relationship between electoral democracy and ncolibcralism sec C M Conaghan & J M Malloy, Unsettling Statecraft: Democracy and Ncoliberalism in the Central Andes, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995. See also J Markoff, 'Really existing democracy: learning from Latin America in the late 1990s', New Left Review, 223, 1997, M T Berger, The reconqucst of Central America: Latin American studies and the transition to democracy 1979-1990', Latin American Perspectives, 24, 1997; and James Petras & Morris Morlcy, 'Nco-libcral political cycles: Latin America "adjusts" to poverty and wealth in the era of free markets', Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 4, 1998.
12. The wealthiest 20% of the population of the world are engaged in 86% of all private consumption, at the same time as the poorest 20% of the population of the world consume 1.3%. 'Latin American economic crisis: more reforms?', Weekly News Update on the Americas, 450, 13 September 1998. See United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report 1997, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997; and United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report 1998, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
13. For example, the extent to which the drug trade permeated the Mexican state during the presidency of Carlos Saunas de Gortari (1988-1994), whose rule coincided with the dramatic deepening of neolibcralism in
14. Mexico, has been highlighted in a lengthy report by Swiss police which singles out Carlos Salinas's brother, Raul Saunas de Gortari, as 'a key player in the Mexican drug trade. The Swiss report argued that Raul Salinas-who is in jail in Mexico-'assumed control over practically all drug shipments through Mexico' during his brother's presidency. Estimating that Raul Salinas 'made US$500 million off the drug trade' the Swiss report also suggests that the brothers' father, Raul Salinas Lozano, 'had ties with the drug tradeand that it is unlikely that Carlos Salinas (who now resides in Ireland, which does not have an extradition treaty with Mexico) was unaware of his brother's activities. 'Mexico: Swiss finger Raul Salinas as druglord', Weekly News Update on the America, 451, 20 September 1998; and 'Swiss drug charges hit US allies in Mexican elite', Weekly News Update on the America, 456, 25 October 1998.
15. See The Conde Report on US-Mexican Relations, 2, 17 August 1998.
16. 'Mexico tries to hide economic bad news', Weekly News Update on the Americas, 444, 2 August 1998; and N Lustig, Mexico: the Remaking of an Economy, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1998, pp 61-95, 201-212.
17. 'Chile: all good things must slow down1, The Economist, 7 March 1998, pp 49-50.
18. M T Berger & M Beeson, 'Lineages of liberalism and miracles of modernisation: the World Bank, the East Asian trajectory and the international development debate', Third World Quarterly, 19, 1998; R Kiely, 'Neo-liberalism revised? A critical account of World Bank concepts of good governance and market friendly intervention', Capital and Class, 64, 1998.
19. Bccker wrote a book in the 1970s which argued that human behaviour generally could be understood via the application of the basic principles of neoclassical economics. G Bccker, The Economic Approach to Human Behaviour, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1976. For a critique see R W Hcfncr, 'Introduction: society and morality in the new Asian capitalisms', in Hefner (cd), Market Cultures: Society and Morality in the New Asian Capitalisms, Boulder, CO: Wcstview Press, 1998, p 6.
20. Some of the most influential texts which expound the 'industrial policy thesis' include C Johnson, urn and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industry Policy 1925-1975, Stanford, CT: Stanford University Press, 1982; A Amsdcn, Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialisation, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989; R Wade, Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialisation, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990; and J Fallows, Looking at the Sun: The Rise of the New East Asian Economic and Political System, New York: Pantheon, 1994.
21. R Wade, 'Japan, the World Bank, and the art of paradigm maintenance: the East Asian miracle in political perspective', New Left Review, 217, 1996; T Gyohtcn, 'Japan and the World Bank' in D Kapur, J Lewis & R Wcbb (eds). The World Bank: Its first Half-Century, Vol 2: Perspectives, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1997, pp 297-303; M T Berger, 'A new East-West synthesis? APEC and competing narratives of regional integration in the post-cold war Asia-Pacific', Alternatives, 23, 1998. On the wider contours of the debate sec M T Berger, 'The triumph of the East? The East Asian miracle and post-cold war capitalism', in M T Berger & D A Borer (eds), The Rise of East Asia: Critical Visions of the Pacific Century, London: Routledge, 1997.
22. For a good book-length overview of the crisis up to mid-July 1998 see R Garran, Tigers Tamed: The End of the Asian Miracle, Sydney: Alien and Unwin, 1998.
23. C Wolf, 'Blame government for the Asian mcltdown', Asian Wall Street Journal, 5 February 1998, p 14.
24. J Sachs, 'The IMF and the Asian flu'. The American Prospect, 37, 1998; and M Feldstein, 'Re focusing the IMF', Foreign Affairs, 77, 1998.
25. For example sec J Sachs, "Global capitalism: making it work', The Economist, 12 September 1998, pp 19-23; P Krugman, 'Saving Asia: it's time to get radical', Fortune, 1 September 1998, pp 32-37.
26. J Stiglitz, cited in R Wade, 'The Asian dcbt-and-development crisis of 1997-?: causes and consequences', World Development, 26, 1998, pp 1538, 1552. Sec also N Bullard, W Bello & K Mallhotra, 'Taming the tigers: the IMF and the Asian crisis', Third World Quarterly, 19, 1998; R Wade & F Vencroso, 'The resources lie within", The Economist, 7 November 1998, pp 19-21.
27. Robert Rubin is US Treasury Secretary and Lawrence Summers is Assistant Treasury Secretary. See 'Latin American economic crisis: more reforms?'. Weekly News Update on the Americas, 450, 13 September 1998.
28. Sakakibara, cited in P S Golub, 'East Asia hits the buffers' Le Monde Diplomatique (October Supplement, Guardian Weekly) 1998, p 11.
29. R Wade & F Vencroso, 'The Asian crisis: the high debt model versus the Wall Strect-Trcasury-iMF complex', New Left Review, 228, 1998, pp 18-20, 22. Sec also K S Jomo, 'Introduction: financial governance, liberalisation and crises in East Asia', in Jomo (cd). Tigers in Trouble: Financial Governance, Liberalisation and Crises in East Asia, London: Zed Books, 1998; J Petras, 'The Americanization of Asia: the rise and fall of a civilization'. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 28, 1998; W K Tabb, 'The East Asian financial crisis', Monthly Review, 50, 1998; and D McNally, 'Globalization on trial: crisis and class struggle in East Asia', Monthly Review, 50, 1998.
30. E Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire 1875-1914, London: Abacus, 1994.
31. M Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989, pp 203, 209-210; and M R Peattic, 'Japanese attitudes towards colonialism, 1895-1945', in R II Mycrs & M R Pcattie (cds). The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895-1945, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.
32. S C Topik & A Wells, 'Introduction: Latin America's response to international markets during the export boom', in S C Topik & A Well (eds), The Second Conquest of Latin America: Coffee, Henequen, and Oil during the Export Boom 1850-1930, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1998, pp 7-9.