Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Revolt!!! Portugal gov't on the verge of collapse as lawmakers resist calls for more austerity



Portuguese lawmakers are voting against the planned imposition of new austerity measures. This is nothing short of a revolution as it will likely lead to the collapse of the existing government. The revolt against the highly destructive neoliberal economic agenda is spreading. Ireland will likely resist new austerity measures. We must bring this revolution right here to the U.S.A!

6 comments:

Tom Hickey said...

It's already here in the US. Wisconsin is just the beginning. 70% of the people are in favor of raising taxes instead of cutting spending to balance budgets at the state level.

President Obama put the GOP on notice that '12 would be about extending the Bush tax cuts. The public overwhelmingly supports raising taxes on millionaires.

While this is out of paradigm for MMT, it is a political reality. The workers are tired of the neoliberal paradigm and are looking for a fair deal. At their level of sophistication and the parameters of the debate, raising taxes is the obvious option for balancing the budge, even though this is the wrong direction to be going to get where the public want to go.

I don't think that the breakdown of neoliberalism is automatically going to solve the problem, but it present an opportunity to do so.

BTW, John Harvey reports at heteconomist.com that his post at Forbes was a hit, and he's been asked to do a weekly blog.

mike norman said...

Wow! That's amazing about the article being a hit on Forbes. The whole team there is over the top neoliberal types. I would assume the readership is as well.

googleheim said...

anyone who expand upon diff bet neocon and neolib politic, policy, and economics ?

Tom Hickey said...

Neoconservatism is about spreading US liberal democracy as a world order. Neocons hold that the foundation of liberal democracy is market capitalism iaw neoliberalism.

Neoliberal economics presumes that free markets, free trade and free capital flow are the most efficient and effective means of economic, political and social organization, where "free" mean minimum government intrusion in markets, i.e., competition, deregulation and privatization.

Policy is the pursuit of these norms politically, e.g., wars of "liberation" internationally and a domestic policy of privatization.

googleheim said...

where do libertarians stand on neocon/neolib ?

Tom Hickey said...

There are different strains of LIbertarianism. All are for individual freedom, but Ron Paul Libertarians are generally xenophobic and anti-war, therefore disagree with neocons about spreading democracy with the sword. They are also fiscally conservative, advocating sound money (fixed rates and ideally convertibility) and fiscal responsibility (balanced budget) above other economic priorities.