I recently spent six weeks in China as part of a trip focused in part upon gaining an understanding of the current state of communist China. Since returning, various people have asked me for my impressions of China, and so I have undertaken here to sketch some of what I learned about the country, based upon my own study and observations and upon conversations with various people, ranging from party officials to academics to working people.

One thing that I’ve learned about China is that any discussion of its politics, society and economy quickly elicits controversy and strong opinions. In sketching my impressions here, though my remarks will undoubtedly fall on one or the other side of various heated debates. I aim simply to present China as I experienced it, and to attempt to encourage understanding of a fascinating country which is rapidly resuming its historic position as the world’s leading society.

Where the dictators at?

The elephant in the room, when it comes to China, is communism. As such, I was surprised about the level of consumerism present in China, particularly in the cities. Billboards large and small are everywhere, advertising mostly foreign brands. Ipods, computers, cameras, designer clothing, and many other products are sold from new, fancy-looking stores. The stores are full of people, especially young people, who are clearly excited by these products and by shopping in general.

China’s embracing of capitalism and consumerism has happened gradually over the past thirty-five years, following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. Since then, the ideas of Deng Xiaoping have been the driving force of the policies of the Communist Party of China.

Where Mao focused on the establishment of China’s independence as a state, the building of an industrialized socialist economy, the redistribution of land, and other tasks oriented towards building a socialist society, Deng changed the course of China dramatically, embracing the capitalist economic and social ideas that have resulted in growth of both wealth and inequality in China over the last thirty years.

Interestingly, the Chinese people have a deep appreciation for both Mao and Deng despite their ideological differences: for Mao because he “helped the Chinese people stand up” after centuries of oppression by emperors and foreign imperialists, and for Deng because he helped people become wealthy and have more possessions.

The Chinese political system, with the leadership of the Communist Party of China inscribed in the constitution, seems dictatorial to outsiders. Legitimacy in the eyes of many Chinese is typically based on the fact that communists have brought to the Chinese people what no ruler had previously delivered: an end to the domination of the majority of the population by fascists, tyrants, landlords, emperors, and foreigners.

The Booming Economy

After the consumerism, the most omnipresent feature of China is the pace and scale of construction, of buildings, of subways, of trains, of roads, of bridges. The skyline of every city is marked by dozens of large cranes, working from dawn till dusk. The adventurous architecture of many of the new tall buildings is astounding and is especially present in Shanghai. In Chengdu, we rode the subway to the stop called “Financial City” only to discover a half-built collection of new office towers that will dwarf Toronto’s financial district, and will help to absorb some of China’s rapidly urbanizing economy.

Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province and a city of 11 million, opened its first subway line recently and there are three more under construction, and a further three planned. Similarly in Chongqing, a brand new subway was recently opened and fifteen more lines are planned. Not to be outdone, Beijing is building or expanding eleven lines, many of which will be completed ahead of schedule, bringing its total to nineteen lines. Impressive bridges are also a frequent sight and cruising down the Yangtze River, I passed under several of these bridges. I learned later that until 1957 there were no bridges across the Yangtze; trains would have to be ferried across. Now there are sixty bridges across the river, almost all of which were built in the last twenty years.

The Environment

China’s record on the environment is mixed. From the window of one China’s numerous long-distance trains, I observed numerous massive coal-fired electricity plants pumping out large clouds of smoke, while nearby a factory produced reams of solar panels.

I also saw a few very large solar energy and wind installations built on the edge of the Gobi Desert, surely a sign of China’s energy future. And, more impressively, household rooftop solar hot water heaters were present on most buildings, from the most humble homes to the newest condos.

Car ownership is a major problem in China, and one that the government seems to be devoting increasing attention to. There are strict rules about who can own a car, and where it can be driven. And, as noted above, transit infrastructure is being built at a frenzied pace, including new roads to absorb car traffic, but also new trains that will provide an alternative to car travel.

Public Life

Returning to Canada, the first thing I noticed was a sense of absence, that the airport, then the subway, then the city streets, seemed somehow empty of people. It is hard to find yourself alone any place in China; even the smallest cities seemed to have a few million people.

People practice their hobbies in the public parks, playing instruments, singing loudly, practicing calligraphy with water brushes on stone walkways, dancing waltzes and folk dances in groups, practicing martial arts, flying kites, exercising, and a host of other activities. This appreciation for and engagement with art and beauty must, I think, be deeply rooted in China, and is certainly reflected in the centuries old bureaucratic system that rewarded intellectual and scholarly competence. Someone remarked to me that while Japan was ruled by warriors (the Samurai), China was ruled by poets.

What China has accomplished in the past sixty years is by any measure incredible. Life expectancy has risen from thirty-five years to over 73 years, and the economy has grown dramatically over this time as well. Marx once wrote that capitalism cannot abide a limit. Having visited China, it seems that China cannot abide a limit either. The interesting question will be how, as opposed to whether, the Chinese government, and the Chinese people, confront and overcome economic and social challenges like safe working conditions, inequality, and democratic reforms.

Two things I learned from this book:

The purpose of a corporation is to protect the individual wealth of the corporation’s investors and owners.

The fundamental conflict between employers and workers. Employers pay the workers to do a task; they are buying task completion. But workers aren’t selling task completion, they are selling their time.

The use of the word free does have a crucial double meaning. It suggests that a balance of power exists between capital and labour, that they face each other as equals, otherwise any bargain struck could scarcely be viewed as one which was freely achieved. It also suggests that the state’s role is akin to that of an umpire who works to be involved in applying, interpreting, and adjusting impartial rules. In the case of the first meaning, the structural inequality between capital and labour is obscured; in the second, the use of the state’s coercive powers on behalf of capital falls from view. (13)

In Canada, the right to freedom of association underpins the ability/right to bargain collectively

Myth of gradualism, that things get gradually better over time. Inevitable progress.

On the certification process:

The certification approach to union recognition did more than just weaken the apparent importance of militant organization. It directed the efforts of union leaders away from mobilizing and organizing and toward the juridical arena of the labour boards. In this context different skills were necessary. It was crucial, above all, to know the law–including legal rights, procedures, and precedents. These activities tended to foster a legalistic practice and consciousness in which union rights appeared as privleges bestowed by the state, rather than democratic freedoms won, and to be defended by, collective struggle. The ban on strikes during collective agreements and the institution of compulsory arbitration to resolve disputes while agreements were in force has a similar effect. Under these circumstances it was unnecessary to maintain and develop collective organization between negotiations. (21)

This recalls to me two things. First, the idea of rights being bestowed rather than taken or enacted is something that I wrote about in my paper on the low-skill TFWP in relation to citizenship. Second, the effects of the institutionalization and bureaucratization union activities is something that I learned about recently in a conversation with a fellow student who is involved with the IWW. The IWW sees the elaborate legal processes surrounding the labour board and labour law in general as a strategy for the control of the labourer’s essential and greatest power: the right to withhold his or her labour.

I’ve seen statistics about the stagnation of real wages since the early 1980s. Given what the authors describe was happening in the 1980s (i.e. the legislation of wage stagnation) it seems that the changes in wage levels (or restraints in wage levels) that occurred then have never been overcome–they laid the groundwork for the lack of increase in real wages.

The 1980s featured ‘permanent exceptionalism’ where along with supposedly temporary wage restraints, public and private sector employees’ workplace rights were restricted in a long-term manner.

Another crucial aspect of this book is its focus on the public sector employees and their relationship to their employer, i.e. the state itself. There is an inherent conflict of interest that the state has in so far as it is both an employer and at the same time is the highest authority in the land. Employers in the private sector are beholden to labour laws set out by the legislature and the courts, but the state as employer is not restricted by the law insofar as it can change laws that it sees undesirable. In order for free collective bargaining to take place, both sides of the table (i.e. employers and employees) must be in a relatively equal place. But this can never be the case with public sector employees. Panitch and Swartz demonstrate that since the early 1980s the state in negotiations with its employees the state has increasingly exploited its position as a super-employer, mostly by enacting back-to-work legislation and restricting the right to strike, a right which trade unionists see as a fundamental right of workers. One way that the government has increased its control over the ability of its workers to strike has been by designating certain occupations as essential services, thereby removing their right to strike. The extent to which successive governments have pushed the definition of essential services has even come to the attention of the International Labour Organization (ILO); from 1974 to 1991 fully 34% of all complaints to the ILO of violations of trade union rights in the G7 group of countries came from Canada.

The The tone of the ILO rulings are invariably diplomatic expressing “concern” and suggesting appropriate “ammendment,” but a degree of exasperation has crept in even here. As one ruling pertaining to Nova Scotia put it:

‘The Committee of Frreedom of ssociation recalls that the right to strike could be restricted in the strict sense of the term, i.e. services whose interruption would endanger the existence or well-being of the whole or part of the population. The ban on strike activity for employees of the Art Gallery, Boxing Authority and Communications and Information Centre appears to the Committee to go far beyond this criterion.’

By the end of the 1980s, this tone of exasperation was unmistakable even in relation to the federal government. in their ruling on complaints two against two instances of federal back-to-work legislation enacted within two months of each other in 1987, the ILO dismissed out of hand the federal government’s defense that such legislation was ‘relatively uncommon’ in Canada, and flatly asserted that the Canadian government’s actions were “not in conformity with the principles of freedom of association.” (57)

Challenges by unions to this increasing use of coercion by the state have mostly come via asserting that the freedom of association guaranteed in the charter must imply the right to strike and bargain collectively.

“We live in a contradiction, a brutal state of affairs, profoundly inegalitarian—where all existence is evaluated in terms of money alone—is presented to us as ideal. To justify their conservatism, the partisans of the established order cannot really call it ideal or wonderful. So instead, they have decided to say that all the rest is horrible. Sure, they say, we may not live in a condition of perfect Goodness. But we’re lucky that we don’t live in a condition of Evil. Our democracy is not perfect. But it’s better than the bloody dictatorships. Capitalism is unjust. But it’s not criminal like Stalinism. We let millions of Africans die of AIDS, but we don’t make racist nationalist declarations like Milosevic. We kill Iraqis with our airplanes, but we don’t cut their throats with machetes like they do in Rwanda, etc.” (5)

A key point of departure for Fisher is the idea from Zizek that it is becoming impossible to imagine what a future without capitalism could even look like. ”For most peope under twenty in Europe and North America, the lack of alternatives to capitalism is no longer even an issue. Capitalism seamlessly occupies the horizons of the thinkable” (8). True or defeatist? Rather, there has always been, since the post-war period anyway, a mainstream majority that does not challenge capitalism. Perhaps the global scale of this majority is new (although I know that Capitalism is less entrenched in the so-called developing countries).

A, or maybe the, challenge for Fisher is to be able to imagine an alternative to capitalism that is not born out of, and therefore co-optable by, capitalism and that is not just a rehashing of previous non-capitalistic societies. He writes about the former in relation to the anti-globalization struggles in Seattle (see ch.2, “What if you held a protest and everyone came?”). The latter  it seems to me must not be totally what he is saying, as Polanyi and any economic historian would easily point to the existence of pre-capitalistic societies. Also relating to Polanyi, and I think Fisher would like this, culture would seem to be crucial; cultural creations that are non-capitalizable are crucial if only because they would signal the embedding of the/an economic system in society and not visa versa. In the few pages of the last chapter of the book Fisher starts to lay some of his ideas about how to effectively challenge “late capitalism”.

“It’s well past time for the left to cease limiting its ambitions to the establishing of a big state. But being ‘at a distance from the state’ does not mean either abandoning the state or retreating into the private space of affects and diversity which Zizek rightly argues is the perfect compliment to neoliberalism’s domination of the state.” (77) So we don’t want to focus on capturing and running a big state, but we also don’t want to ignore the importance of the state and leave it do be dominated by neoliberal ideals. This dual concern comes out of for one thing Fisher’s concern about what he calls ‘reflexive impotence’, which occurs when people “know [upon reflection that] things are bad, but more than that, they know they can’t do anything about it.” (21) This feeling of impotence, of ‘passive observation’, becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. This idea also brings to mind another striking passage from Fisher. He, apparently following Zizek, sees a distinction being drawn between internal and external beliefs, and that “Capitalist ideology in general…consists preceisely in the overhauling of belief–in the sense of inner subjective attitude–at the expense of beliefs we exhibit and externalize in our behaviour. So long as we believe (in our hearts) that capitalism is bad, we are free to continue to participate in capitalist exchange.” (13) And, interestingly, Hollywood films that appear to be anti-capitalist and/or anti-corporatist like Wall-E, Blood Diamonds, Syriana, etc. actually “exemplify what Robert Pfaller has called ‘interpassivity’: the film[s] perform our anti-capitalism for us, allowing us to continue to consume with impunity.” (12)

There is an interesting section in the book about not blaming corporations for their misdeeds, but blaming government instead. In this way we treat the state as the nanny? We still expect everything from the state, so individualism does not carry over and apply to corporations even though they are treated as individuals in certain contexts. Corporations exploit this state of affairs in order to avoid blame, accountability, and mass backlash.

Does Bolivarian Latin American present an actually existing alternative to capitlism, and therefore, in contrast to Zizek and Fredric Jameson, the possibility of imagining a different world that isn’t just the end of the world? Fisher (7) claims that the end of actually existing socialism is a premise of his preferring the term “capitalist realism” to “postmodernism”. Is Bolivarianism not good enough, for him, to be a counter to “cultural and political sterility”(7)? is this Eurocentric?

pomo vs cap realism p7

The first idea, of path-dependency, I think ties in with the the phrase “actually existing neoliberalism” that is in the title of the article. Descriptions of actually-existing neoliberalism are meant to contrast with the theoretical (or even utopian) descriptions of how neoliberalism is meant to work. The idea of actually-existing neoliberalism is also meant to counter two common pitfalls in thinking about neoliberalism:

First, neoliberal doctrine represents states and markets as if they were diametrically opposed principles of social organization, rather than recognizing the politically constructed character of all economic relations. Second, neoliberal doctrine is premised upon a “one size fits all” model of policy implementation that assumes that identical results will follow the imposition of market-oriented reforms, rather than recognizing the extraordinary variations that arise as neoliberal reform initiatives are imposed within contextually specific institutional landscapes and policy environments. (353)

Countering both of these pitfalls, the authors argue:

In contrast to neoliberal ideology, in which market forces are assumed to operate according to immutable laws no matter where they are “unleashed,” we emphasize the contextual embeddedness of neoliberal restructuring projects insofar as they have been produced within national, regional, and local contexts defined by the legacies of inherited institutional frame-works, policy regimes, regulatory practices, and political struggles. (349)

The ‘contextual embeddedness’ (i.e. the particular institutional context/history) of neoliberal projects inevitably influence the way that these projects are created, strategized, and implemented. And these contexts are always spatially-dependent, i.e. different places (usually states) have different “institutional frame-works, policy regimes,” etc. Thus, neoliberal projects are ‘path-dependent’:

As indicated, neoliberal programs of capitalist restructuring are rarely, if ever, imposed in a pure form, for they are always introduced within politico-institutional contexts that have been molded significantly by earlier regulatory arrangements, institutionalized practices, and political compromises. In this sense, the evolution of any politico-institutional configuration following the imposition of neoliberal policy reforms is likely to demonstrate strong properties of path-dependency, in which established institutional arrangements significantly constrain the scope and trajectory of reform. (361, italics mine)

This idea of path-dependency is one that is close to Harvey’s highlighting of the contradictions between neoliberalism in theory (a utopian project) and neoliberalism in theory, and I think also to Polanyi’s double movement because the neoliberal project wants to go in one direction but is constrained by the socio-political institutions of the particular spatial context it is working in. I don’t know if this really works though, because I see three movements or forces happening: the neoliberal move away from the Keynesian or Fordist values; the Keynesian resistance to it (a form of conservativism); and thirdly a resistance to neoliberalism’s social destructiveness that takes various forms ranging from anarchist to fascist backlashes. It is the first and third of these that would be a double movement, just like how in the 1930s it was the socialists and fascist surges reacting to increased capitalist power.  Anyhow, on to the next.

Brenner and Theodore’s second focus is the idea of neoliberalism as ‘creative destruction’. They acknowledge that their “emphasis on the tendentially creative capacities of neoliberalism is at odds with earlier studies that underscored its overridingly destructive character.” (362) But, they nonetheless present the idea that neoliberalism is creative in its destruction. My understanding of this, and it may be incorrect, is that in order to circumvent and elude path-dependencies, social resistance, and internal contradictions, neoliberal project are forced to be creative. Of course though, neoliberalism, like all theories of capitalist accumulation, are inherently destructive of all of the more meaningful aspects of human beings’ creations and potentials. Or as they say, “The point of this emphasis [on neoliberal creativity], however, is not to suggest that neoliberalism could somehow provide a basis for stabilized, reproducible capitalist growth, but rather to explore its wide-ranging, transformative impacts upon the inherited politico-institutional and geographical infrastructures of advanced capitalist states and economies.” (363) Indeed, neoliberal policies (like all capitalist strategies) generate their own crises, and thus must be constantly creative in order to continually generate capitalist accumulation while at the same time managing the backlash and crises that capitalist accumulation generates. And so, interestingly,

the neoliberal project of institutional creation is no longer oriented simply towards the promotion of market-driven capitalist growth; it is also oriented towards the establishment of new flanking mechanisms and modes of crisis displacement through which to insulate powerful economic actors from the manifold failures of the market, the state, and governance that are persistently generated within a neoliberal political framework. (374)

The third, and I think main, though for some reason less interesting to me, focus of the article is on cities as the location for neoliberal policies. Brenner and Theodor say that “cities have become strategically crucial arenas in which neoliberal forms of creative destruction have been unfolding during the last three decades,” (367) and that they have become

institutional laboratories for a variety of neoliberal policy experiments, from place-marketing, enterprise and empowerment zones, local tax abatements, urban development corporations, public–private partnerships, and new forms of local boosterism to workfare policies, property-redevelopment schemes, business-incubator projects, new strategies of social control, policing, and surveillance, and a host of other institutional modifications within the local and regional state apparatus. (368)

The authors provide two tables in the article that list examples of the ways in which neoliberalism has been destructive and creative. I think I’ll copy them here and that will be all.

“When we introduce the issues of power and justice into our examination of neoliberal forms of globalization, what is emerging is a politics of supremacy, rather than a politics of justice or hegemony. For example, a situation of bourgeois hegemony implies the construction of a historical bloc that transcends social classes and channels their direction into an active and largely legitimate system of rule. This implies a fusion of economic, political, and cultural elements of society (the state and civil society) into a political alliance or coalition that combines coercion and consent. That is, the creation of such a bloc presupposes opposition and a means for incorporating or defeating it in a process of struggle. Whilst there is no compromise by the leading class fraction on the fundamentals of the mode of production [i.e. capitalism], there is nevertheless an inclusion, politically, of a significant range of interests. Subordinate classes thus carry weight within the formulation of state policy. By a situation of supremacy, I mean rule by a non-hegemonic bloc of forces that exercises dominance for a period over apparently fragmented populations, until a coherent form of opposition emerges.” (400)

Another main argument of his, I think, is that the neoliberal dominance is temporary because it of its relying upon a politics of supremacy rather than on a longer term hegemonic strategy. I think that it is in this context that Gill brings up Polanyi’s idea of the ‘double movement’, which involves seeing capitalism as a ’stark utopia’: “as Polanyi pointed out, a pure market system is a utopian abstraction and any attempt to construct it fully would require an immensely authoritarian of political power through the state.”(420) Polanyi’s theory of the double movement is about, I think,  the idea that when social structures are threatened, (for example as they are by the imposition of market values upon things and concepts that they don’t fit (e.g. water), or in Polanyi’s terms when the market becomes disembedded in society and society becomes embedded in the market), there will be a backlash by social force against these dehumanizing changes. This backlash takes different forms, from the recent rise in the political success of fascist and authoritarian governments to the election of populist socialist governments across Latin America.

On the ‘market civilization’:

Harvey backs up his belief in neoliberalism as a project to restore class power mostly by analyzing the track record of neoliberalism during the last 30 years: has human well-being increased in general? has society become more equitable? has the distribution of wealth become more even? has the world become more democratic? A number of indicators show that by these standards the record of neoliberalism is abysmal, which does not necessarily mean that neoliberalism is an elite class project–it could just mean that neoliberals have failed in their utopian project (the goal of which is to bring freedom and prosperity to all via the free-market and extreme individualism). However, given the rapid transfer of wealth from the poor to the wealthy, and given the large gap between neoliberalism in theory and neoliberalism in practice, it seems that freedom and prosperity for all may not be the true goal of those who influence policy. This is, I think, where Harvey’s theory of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ comes in. Here is a long passage about it:

“The main substantive achievement of neoliberalization, however, has been to redistribute, rather than to generate, wealth and income. I have elsewhere provided an account of the main mechanisms whereby this was achieved under the rubric of ‘accumulation by dispossession’. By this I mean the continuation and proliferation of accumulation practices which Marx had treated of as ‘primitive’ or ‘original’ during the rise of capitalism. These include the commodification and privatization of land and the forceful expulsion of peasant populations (compare the cases, described above, of Mexico and of China, where 70 million peasants are thought to have been displaced in recent times); conversion of various forms of property rights (common, collective, state, etc.) into exclusive private property rights (most spectacularly represented by China); suppression of rights to the commons; commodification of labour power and the suppression of alternative (indigenous) forms of production and consumption; colonial, neocolonial, and imperial processes of appropriation of assets (including natural resources); monetization of exchange and taxation, particularly of land; the slave trade (which continues particularly in the sex industry); and usury, the national debt and, most devastating of all, the use of the credit system as a radical means of accumulation by dispossession. The state, with its monopoly of violence and definitions of legality, plays a crucial role in both backing and promoting these processes” (159)

One of the earlier examples of accumulation by dispossession is the Mexican debt crisis in the early 1980s when Mexico declared that it could no longer pay off the massive debt that it had acquired to foreign banks:

“What the Mexico case demonstrated, however, was a key difference between liberal and neoliberal practice: under the former, lenders take the losses that arise from bad investment decisions, while under the latter the borrowers are forced by state and international powers to take on board the cost of debt repayment no matter what the consequences for the livelihood and well-being of the local population. If this required the surrender of assets to foreign companies at fire-sale prices, then so be it. This, it turns out, is not consistent with neoliberal theory.” (29)

Just who are the elite who are actively securing their own class power? Taking ‘accumulation by dispossession’ as a premise, the economic recovery during the neoliberal era is not based on the generation of (much) new wealth through the expansion of industry. Rather, new ‘wealth’ and accumulation are the result of finanzcialization (numbers games), enclosure of commons (e.g. the commodification and privatization of water), and the diminishment of the power of organized labour (e.g. the decline of wage rates in real terms). Thus, “one substantial core of rising class power under neoliberalism lies…with the CEOs, the key operators on corporate boards, and the leaders in the financial, legal, and technical apparatuses that surround this inner sanctum of capitalist activity” (33). Another group of highly influential elites are the owners of the massive corporations that have come to dominate the world economy, for example Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates, Carlos Slim in Mexico, perhaps Conrad Black in Canada, and the Walton family. “the incredible ability not only to amass large personal fortunes but to exercise a controlling power over large segments of the economy confers on these few individuals immense economic power to influence political processes. Small wonder that the net worth of the 358 richest people in 1996 was ‘equal to the combined income of the poorest 45 per cent of the world’s population––2.3 billion people’. Worse still, ‘the world’s 200 richest people more than doubled their net worth in the four years to 1998, to more than $1 trillion. The assets of the top three billionaires [were by then] more than the combined GNP of all least developed countries and their 600 million people’”(43).

“While this disparate group of individuals embedded in the corporate, financial, trading, and developer worlds do not necessarily conspire as a class, and while there may be frequent tensions between them, they nevertheless possess a certain accordance of interests that generally recognizes the advantages (and now some of the dangers) to be derived from neoliberalization. They also possess, through organizations like the World Economic Forum at Davos, means of exchanging ideas and of consorting and consulting with political leaders. They exercise immense influence over global affairs and possess a freedom of action that no ordinary citizen possesses” (45).

There are a lot of other interesting parts in this book, including the influence of neoliberalism on ethics and rights (e.g. the connections between negative rights, privatization, and individualism); on postmodernism as a symptom of neoliberalism (the idea that “postmodern intellectual currents…accord, without knowing it, with the White House line that truth is both socially constructed and a mere effect of discourse,”(198) or in other words that there are no absolute moral truths so we can/should do whatever we want or whatever best suits our interests or acquisition of power); on democratic processes (e.g. the rise of NGOs, which are essentially private sector (i.e. not democratically accountable) groups); on the current tendency towards neoconservativism, which has less interest than neoliberalism in disguising its embrace of authoritarianism; the contradictions caused by neoliberal policy (e.g. the tendency toward large monopolistic companies like walmart and google, rather than increased innovation through competition); on Polanyi and the value of alternative, collective rights (e.g.”the the right to life chances, to political association and ‘good’ governance, for control over production by the direct producers, to the inviolability and integrity of the human body, to engage in critique without fear of retaliation, to a decent and healthy living environment, to collective control of common property resources”(213)); and more.

I haven’t offered any critical comments on Harvey’s book here, possibly because I think that it is pretty much right on. I thought that the chapter on China was very dry and economistic, and I tend to twinge whenever I read sweeping condemnations of China, entirely as a result of the influence of SLE. This is a very unpopular stance though these days. It is interesting though that Harvey’s criticism of China and its ‘human rights record’ is not coming from the usual place of (hypocritical) outrage about how draconian China is compared to the free and liberal west. Harvey is critical of Deng’s neoliberal turn, and the whole idea of ‘capitalism with Chinese characteristics’ which has involved the destruction of the iron rice bowl, the creation of an elite class, increased privatization of services, implementation of user fees, the dislocation of millions of peasants, and the destruction of the power and influence of organized labourers. Hmmm, it seems that I ended up being uncritical of Harvey again…

Greg Albo’s¹ essay sets out to analyze the state of neoliberalism in Canada in order to analyze the state of the left. As such, this essay is situated within the body of left work that is theorizing about how to have a successful mass movement to construct a socialist alternative. Rather than having an explicitly Gramscian analysis, Albo focus specifically on the contest between neoliberalism and the left as being a class struggle, and points out early that neoliberalism does not describe just a set of economic and financial policies, but rather a “particular form of class rule within capitalism” and that “neoliberalism developed out of an important shift in the balance of class forces and the defeat of the left” (48). Albo highlights three aspects of neoliberalism that he believe are important for the left to consider in its work to confront the neoliberal social order.

First, its is important to recognize the global economic developments of the last thirty years, and the entrenchment, internationally, of capitalists and their technical economic policies, and also the lack of a left alternative. Second, there have been transformations within the ruling block in Canada. Financialization and growth in export-oriented and multinational capital in Canada means that “the political terrain for another grand social compromise with a national bourgeoisie has evaporated” (51). Third, as most other left authors point out, it is “entirely misleading to see neoliberalism as an attack on the state in favour of the market, or as a hollowing out of the state to the global and local, or a bypassing of the state by corporate power” (51). Rather, control and use of the state has been and is an important tool for neoliberal class power. Albo, like Saad-Filho concludes that defeat of neoliberalism cannot come via electoral process: “the political role of the market is being strengthened to offset any democratic initiatives being fought through the state.” (52) And, he recognizes that important non-parliamentary action-oriented groups have already formed and done work, including union groups, the anti-globalization movement, anti-racist campaigns, and other. But, Albo believes that “the constructive challenges of a viable socialist politics remains—the capacity to wage strikes for class-wide demands, electoral gains advancing a radical political program, and building egalitarian social alternatives in our everyday lives” (53). His visions seems to be the creation of a radical political culture.

1. Albo, Greg. “Neoliberalism, the State, and the Left: A Canadian Perspective.” Monthly Review 54, no. 1 (May 2002): 46-55.

In Alfredo Saad-Filho’s essay “Marxian and Keynesian Critiques of Neoliberalism,”¹ he outlines the main thrusts of these two political-economic systems and assesses their relative strengths, accuracy, and usefulness. His point of departure is the observation that despite its recent unpopularity and political defeat in some parts of the world, neoliberalism remains “the dominant modality of social and economic reproduction in most countries” (337). Saad-Filho argues that by delineating the analyses of Keynesians and Marxists it becomes clear that only Marxism can adequately understand the continued dominance of neoliberalism. Specifically, Keynesianism fails in its level of analysis, in its underestimation of the agency of neoliberals in support of their (class) interests, and in its prescription for overcoming neoliberalism. Keynesianism analysis does not go deep enough in understanding the influence of neoliberalism: “Keynesian analyses tend to describe conflicts around the process of accumulation, while obscuring or ignoring completely conflicts about the nature of capitalist accumulation” (341). As a result it does not criticize capitalism. Keynesianism fails to appreciate the extent of the agency of those promoting neoliberalism, who will act in their own interests to ensure their continued wealth. Neoliberalism is “not merely a set of economic and social policies,” it “combines an accumulation strategy, a mode of social and economic reproduction and a mode of exploitation and social domination based on the systematic use of state power to impose…a hegemonic project of recomposition of the rule of capital in all areas of social life” (342). Finally, Keynesianism predicts that a strong government with the correct policies could overcome the neoliberal agenda. This both ignores the embeddeness of the state in the social, political, and economic forces that have been taken over by neoliberalism. Recognition of this embededness means acknowledging that change must involve popular movements that challenge the state.

1. Saad-Filho, Alfredo. “Marxian and Keynesian Critiques of Neoliberalism.” Socialist Register, 2008: 337-345.

From A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey (2007).

“After the implementatino of neoliberal policities in the late 1970s, the share of national [USA] income of the top 1 percent of income earners in the US soared, to reach 15 per cent (very close to its pre-Second World War share) by the end of the century. THe top 0.1 per cent of income earners in the US increased their share of the national income from 2 per cent in 1978 to over 6 per cent by 1999, while the ratio of the median compensation of workers to the salaries of CEOS increased from jus over 30 to 1 in 1970 to nearly 500 to 1 by 2000. Almost certainly, with the Bush administration’s tax reforms now taking effect, the concentration of income and wealth in te upper echelons of society is continuing apace because the estate tax (a tax on wealth) is being phased out and taxation on income from investments and capital gains is being diminished, while taxation on wages and salaries is maintained.” (16-17)