Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

"Liberalism has always contained different shades, and its dominant version has varied across countries and periods. In the capitalist world, going back to the eighties, the line of division separating a liberal politics from a politics of the left is their respective attitudes to the existing order of things: does it require structural change or situational adjustment? Between states, the ‘liberal international order’ has for thirty years been the touchstone of geopolitical reason: free markets, free trade, free movement of capital and other human rights, policed by the most powerful nation on earth with help from its allies, in accordance with its rules and its sanctions, its rewards and its retributions. Within states, ‘neoliberalism’: privatization of goods and services, deregulation of industries and of finance, fiscal retrenchment, de-unionization, weakening of labour, strengthening of capital—compensated by recognition of gender and multicultural claims. The first has

ore corporate management models, they increasingly use and exploit cheap faculty labor ... Students increasingly fare no better in sharing the status of a sub ‐ altern class beholden to neoliberal policies and values’ (Giroux, 2014, p. 20). The implications of this go far beyond the university itself, resulting in what Giroux, one of the leading writers on this topic, has called ‘the near‐death of the university as a democratic public sphere’ (p. 16). In these assessments, neoliberalism, in its impact on Higher Education, is associated with a range of other terms or ‘discourses’: The ascendancy of neoliberalism and the associated discourses of ‘new public management’, during the 1980s and 1990s, has produced a fundamental shift in the way universities and other institu ‐ tions of higher education have defined and justified their institutional existence. The traditional professional culture of open intellectual enquiry and debate has been replaced with an

"How privatisation increases corruption in the developing world"

End of the Neoliberal Era? I have selected some key points in an article by David Kotz. [I]f accumulation and profit rates have not been stellar, in some respects neoliberalism was much better for capital than the previous economic regime, in directing a far greater flow of wealth to the capitalist class. By  2010, neoliberalism had returned in the guise of austerity policy. The misery and insecurity of the Great Recession helped to fuel unexpected political developments— a rise of right-wing nationalism and renewed support for some kind of ‘democratic socialism’.  The current structural crisis has taken the form of stubborn stagnation despite unprecedented monetary stimulus, with slow economic growth, a low rate of capital accumulation, stagnating real wages and worsening economic insecurity for working people— conditions that have helped to produce new political polarizations. The main features of post-war [WWII] capitalism in the advanced economies are well known. The sta

"Millions of tonnes of explosives were used during the mining boom to build more than 100 new mines, but it wasn’t just prime farmland that was blasted away in the boom, it was access to the middle class. At the same time that Gina Rinehart was becoming the world’s richest woman on the back of rising iron ore prices, those on the minimum wage were falling further and further behind their fellow Australians." How the neoliberals convinced us there wasn't enough to go around Related Gina Rinehart

The French rail workers do not want to take England as a role model

Reposting Emmanuel Macron is a Silicon Valley-loving, union-hating, Third Way centrist. He’s no bulwark against the far right. "Emmanuel Macron is not your friend"

Class struggle in Algeria Cranking up the pressure

The IMF and the World Bank The myth of "helping the poor" and "development" "The joint IMF–World Bank comprehensive approach to debt reduction is designed to ensure that no poor country faces a debt burden it cannot manage. To date, debt reduction packages under the HIPC Initiative have been approved for 36 countries, 30 of them in Africa, providing $76 billion in debt-service relief over time. Three additional countries are eligible for HIPC Initiative assistance." 
 Back in 2008, some analysts showed that the HIPC initiative had failed, and failed miserably. 
Let's take just one aspect behind the failure. "The creteria used for country selection excluded the mostly highly populated developing countries (for example, Nigeria — 120 million inhabitants — which was on the very first list in 1996) and kep only small countries that are both very por and heavily indebted... The countries where the majority of the world's poor people live are

La russie expliquée par son chauffage

"Masters in the art of deceipt, the accused institutions [the IMF and the World Bank] concede some mistakes so as to remain at the center of international affairs. Far from being worried by the increasing poverty that it causes, the World Bank seems more concerned with social troubles that put neoliberal globalisation in jeopardy. In a semi-confidential report, under the guise of a mea culpa , it continues to promote an economic model that has deliberately denied impoverishment people vital protections from the insatiable appetite of the most ferocious economic actors. From now on, the new edifice that ensures the expansion of the model of capitalist agriculture consists in making access to land subject to market forces, but also water resources, which amounts to a privatisation of biological life. Finally, it promote the concentration of agricultural resources and encourages speculation." Debt, IMF, and the World Bank  by E. Toussaint and D. Millet, 2010, p. 123

The evolution of neoliberalism in Tunisia 1980-2107

Morocco: Despotism, neoliberalism and climate change

Haft Tapeh sugar workers in Iran

Book review: The Political Economy of Hezbollah

Scrap art schools, privatise cities, and bin social housing

Britain Our way of life: "Everything must go"

"The belt-tightening legislation, outlined in a 7,500-page omnibus bill, includes measures that range from the taxation of coffee and luxury goods to the creation of a new privatisation fund in charge of real estate assets for the next 99 years. Under the stewardship of EU officials, the body will oversee the sale of about 71,500 pieces of prime public property in what will amount to collatera l for the €250bn in bailout loans Greece has received since 2010." “They are with the exception of the Acropolis selling everything under the sun,” said Anna Asimakopoulou, the shadow minister for development and competitiveness. “We are giving up everything.” "At the behest of the EU and International Monetary Fund, the government has agreed to adopt tighter austerity in the form of an automatic fiscal brake – referred to as “the cutter” in the Greek media – if fiscal targets are missed." Greece pushes fresh austerity drive through parliament

The Wolf Report:Nonconfidential analysis for the anti-investor

Why the Israeli Communist Party defends Assad’s regime