You have to give Mr. Carter credit for taking over the aging, and reportedly financially strapped Hollywood institution of Swifty Lazar’s annual Oscar Party, and making it his own. Although some of the Old Guard thought him an interloper, the younger generation of self-promoters were of the ‘spell your name right’ Publicity Hound School. Vanity Fair is and was a glossy Fan Magazine, that threw in some actual informative, even ground breaking reportage. The ‘as if’ being that it just wasn’t an updated Photoplay:
Recall, that the ersatz political radical Christopher Hitchens had a regular column, not to speak of his petulant and acerbic understudy James Wolcott. And the political commentator Michael Kingsley, once the political minion of Wm. F. Buckley Jr., whose jejune political insights are designed not offend the political sensibilities of its readership.
Never forgetting the copious collection of advertisements, offering the latest fashions in clothing, shoes and perfume, with the ubiquitous scratch and sniff feature. The subscriber gets her/his magazine in clear plastic wrapper. I look at this magazine, and feel like I need a refreshing dose of reality, after inhabiting the World According to Graydon Carter, for the half hour it takes to turn its pages. I usually take out the trash or clean the toilet! I almost forgot the coverage of the the Latest Star/Starlet and his/her ‘provenance’, or that stroke of genius The Proust Questionnaire.
In your otherwise well argued reply, you seemed to have missed something:
‘The current Conservative leadership is so incompetent, spineless and self-serving that they have made a return to a 1970’s style planned economy under Corbyn look like a real electoral possibility.’
Read Alan Ryan’s essay titled ‘The Planners and the Planed’ in volume 25,number 3-4 2013 edition of Critical Review:
THE PLANNERS AND THE PLANNED
Alan Ryan
ABSTRACT: Much of what makes Hayek so controversial can be found in The Road to Serfdom, the theoretical basis of which is provided by The Counter-Revolution of Science. The Road to Serfdom, a polemic against the “planning mentality,” did not defend complete laissez faire, but argued that planning disrupts the coordination between prices and supply and demand; that effective planning is thus impossible in a modern industrial society; that it is coercive; and, of course, that it leads to totalitarianism. In The Counter-Revolution of Science, Hayek argued that the “planning mentality” is the result of the hubristic attempt to reconstruct society along scientific lines. But the likes of Edward Bellamy envisioned a planned but free society, while John Dewey contrasted planning, where people collectively choose their goals, against a planned economy that is coercively imposed. Hayek’s welcome strictures against a scientistic society and an overly ambitious social science aside, his binary approach to intellectual history distorted through oversimplification.
In the world colonized by the Myth of Free Market Capitalism’s emanciptory potential, a la Smith of ‘The Wealth of Nations’, it is necessary that we defer to profit, as the only viable approach to the ‘management’ of the Economy! The uncomfortable question arises, where has that led us? All of this outside of the democratic process, that otherwise is the model of the ‘Western Democracies’ : ignore, at our collective peril, the failure of that Myth and point to Jeremy Corbyn as the problem, in the face of a Conservative leadership characterized as incompetent, spineless and self-serving. You fail to make the critical distinction between the Planned Economy and the Planning Economy. Perhaps, an alien concept to you and to this newspaper’s editors.
Is Mr. Ganesh playing Tiresias or Cassandra in this episode of The Brexit Melodrama? I’ll assume that it is Tiresias, because Cassandra was fated to never to be believed. Because this is The Financial Times, I’m sure that Mr. Ganesh’s particular iteration of ‘declinism’, as a direct result of the Brexit, will find, not just agreement, but high praise for the Ganesh prescience! The EU, the tarted up cartel masquerading as as ersatz democracy, appeals to the inherent mendacity of the Capitalist Apologist!
The rhetorical rule of the Tory is to always sing the praises of The Iron Lady and her breaking of the hold that those corrupt union miners had on the politics of 70’s Britain. Was it an error not to mention the ‘Falklands War’ as the final victory for a defunct Imperial Britain?
Another Myth that Mr. Ganesh can’t let go of is the idea that ‘growth’ is the sine qua non of a functioning, indeed, flourishing economy. The thought and practice that the growth model is infinitely realizable is the great Neo-Liberal fiction., The ‘as if’ here is that the model proposed by Manfred Max Neef of ‘development’ as opposed to ‘growth’ has no claim to political/economic legitimacy.
What fuels Mr. Ganesh’s political vision? for want of a more apt descriptor, is not Social Darwinism, but the vulgar ‘dog eat dog’ of competition, as the sine qua non of homoeconomicus. Our political fate is not the republicanism, that has evolved over two thousand plus years of Western History, but the stunted, not to speak of bankrupt model constructed by the Hayek/Mises/Friedman Trinity. The twin Myths of The Iron Lady and The Mont Pelerin Philosopher Kings have their champion in Mr. Ganesh.
Stephen54321,
Thank you for your comment. At least know that I was alive and well when the Weather Underground and the Symbionese Liberation Army had the spotlight. But please don’t forget the shared hysteria mongering of respectable bourgeois pundits and intellectuals, when The Black Panthers ‘invaded’ the California state capitol! http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/history/article148667224.html
‘Student Radicals’ and ‘The Panthers’ were the start of Reagan’s war on ‘Radicals’ heavily garnished with respectable white racism: in ’76 by ‘Welfare Queens Driving Cadillacs’ and in ’80 the notorious Neshoba County Fair speech that opened his ’80 campaign: ‘I believe in States Rights‘! He metaphorically spit on the graves of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner.
http://neshobademocrat.com/Content/NEWS/News/Article/Transcript-of-Ronald-Reagan-s-1980-Neshoba-County-Fair-speech/2/297/15599
The Second American Civil War is here and now! Except that now we have an unapologetic Fascist Trump, not the carefully stage managed Reaganite version. And an utterly corrupt Republican Party- where is the Party of Lincoln? And the New Democrats led by Mrs. Clinton and her coterie of Corporatists, that defines the Politics of the Present. Yet this new Civil War is episodic in nature, Ferguson and Charlottesville were its latest flashpoints. The very cause of the current revolutionary moments is inescapable: the number and frequency of police executions of black folks, that is all pervasive!
What does ‘freedom’ mean in the present political context? You don’t have an answer, neither does Mr. Hedges, in his latest political sermonizing, that cultivates self-congratulation and abject political conformity, in the name of the myth of an ersatz civic peace.
Thank you for your thought provoking comment. To paraphrase Blanche Dubois, I rely on the arguments of my critics. Why will Macron’s ‘Jupertarian Politics’ be different than other forms of authoritarian rule? If you read Ms. Chassany essay and my comment there (http://on.ft.com/2wXBsk1).
Macron has got full permission from Parliament that this reform shall be laid down by decree. This gives him complete freedom to simultaneously hold ongoing, intensive consultations with trade unions and business federations and flexibly respond to their criticism. The president wants parliament to pass these planned regulations in September. His plan for reform has great economic import but it is also highly significant politically: a litmus test for Macron’s ability to push through unpopular decisions and bring about real change in his country.
Describe to me the symbiosis that exists between this autocrat and his En Marche callabos, and those he wields power over! In sum, if a leader accomplishes his political agenda by ‘decree’ i.e. fiat, and given the fractious nature of French political life, what will be the result? Not to forget the near 37% abstentions, spoiled ballots etc. that marked the final vote in the French election.
Neo-Liberalism collapsed in 2008! Robber Capital killed the political goose that laid the golden egg: Free Market Reform, that from Thatcher/Reagan to the execrable Clinton/Obama New Democrats has held sway. Given the choice between Le Pen and Macron, Macron ‘won’ in the category of ‘the lesser of two evils’
What is troubling is that the French couldn’t or wouldn’t look across the Channel, even when Thatcherite Fillon was the front runner, reciting his Speed and Shock dreck.
Thank you for your very challenging, indeed, provocative comment. It offered me the opportunity for thought, what more could a writer ask?
In the Age of the collapse in the Neo-Liberal Dogmas, I wonder about your choice of screen name. The citizen is the primary actor in the Republican Tradition, see The Machiavellian Moment by J.G.A. Pocock for an historical/intellectual reference point, for my statement about that central actor in that tradition. Compare that actor, to the central actor in the Neo-Liberal World View, who is the entrepreneur, a human who thinks that The Market is an historical singularity, that defines the aspirations homo economicus, in toto. A reference point for that Neo-Liberal view is Hayek: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, link here:
To address your question , if you will pardon my reducing your formulation to this: how do we rescue Capitalism from its self-destructive greed, and it devastating environmental consequences ? That could be expressed as its inherent nihilism. The model of ‘development’ as opposed to that of ‘growth’ as advocated by Manfred Max Neef seems to me to be the answer. The first approach must be that of a New-New Deal, that segues into an Economy remade into a Capitalism that serves human need and aspiration. And not the needs of Capital! In a world now dominated by the Corporatism of NAFTA, TPP and TTIP and its precursor in the EU, my Utopianism doesn’t appear to be the product of mere ‘Left’ wishful thinking. Where is that ‘Self-Correcting Market’ that was an essential cornerstone of the Neo-Liberal Mythology?
I don’t think that Capitalism is incapable of taking human need seriously. It believes in dog eat dog, to put it in vulgar terms. If your looking for the paradigmatic figure of that Corporatism: Michael Bloomberg former Mayor of New York. He helped to remove Judge Shira Scheindlin from the Stop and Frisk case, although the three judges that removed her made it clear she was not guilty of any wrongdoing. And he helped the prosecutors convict Cecily McMillian, Of Occupy Wall Street. Also watch his self-congratulatory 2014 Harvard Commencement Speech, where he warns about the ‘forces of repression’ and warned his audience about those who would deny to others the right of free speech!
But what I missed was this essay by George de Menil , whose credentials are quite impressive, or am I being seduced by his title? ‘ a director of studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales’ ,that was published on August 30, 2017.
M. de Menil offers the same Neo-Liberal Party Line, except for these two sentences, which uses German ‘reforms’ of Labor Laws as a standard that the French must adopt.
‘The first is the absence of laws limiting the freedom of businesses to fix their own economic strategies.’
‘A second big difference involves the degree to which sectoral agreements may be arbitrarily imposed on companies and workers who were not a party to their negotiation.’
But note that the first consideration of each of these statements ranks the interest of ‘businesses’ and ‘corporations’ as of primary concern, and the place of workers/employees as second. In the droit du travail the place of that worker/employee is first.
Neo-Liberalism has no moral/ethical component: The Myth of the Wisdom of The Market, and the notion/belief that the Market is the only viable form of human knowledge, in sum an epistemology, attacks the very foundations of Western values, morals and politics. Its nothing less than a pernicious Market Utopianism, whose sine qua non is unslakable greed!
Welcome to the Neo-Liberalization of France. To paraphrase Margot Channing in ‘All About Eve’ hang on its going to be a bumpy ride ! Even E.U. hack Henrik Uterwedde at Social Europe dared to say that Macron and his callabos in La République En Marche will push their ‘Reforms‘ through by Decree, in sum, Macron’s Jupertarian Politics are authoritarian in nature and in fact!
Macron has got full permission from Parliament that this reform shall be laid down by decree. This gives him complete freedom to simultaneously hold ongoing, intensive consultations with trade unions and business federations and flexibly respond to their criticism. The president wants parliament to pass these planned regulations in September. His plan for reform has great economic import but it is also highly significant politically: a litmus test for Macron’s ability to push through unpopular decisions and bring about real change in his country.
What Ms. Chassany carefully leaves out of her advocacy journalism is that Macron won, but that French voters expressed their collective enthusiasm for Macron, by a rate of nearly 37% of spoiled,blank, or uncountable ballots!
And what of Le Pen and her very large constituency of voters, or Mélenchon? According to Ms. Chassany, Macron’s approval rating are ‘plunging’. Will the fractious nature of French politics reassert itself, in opposition to Macron’s rule by decree, what to call this? political delusion? Too many questions remain to be seen, both Ms. Chassany and Mr. Uterwedde’s triumphalist narratives, like Macron’s Jupertarian Politics, need to put to the political test. Although Ms. Chassany does give the briefest space to the CGT’s call for a ‘day of strike’ on September 12th. Let many flowers bloom on that date!
Never will this publication face the demonstrative fact that ‘Uber’ has as its reason d’etre as the avoidance, indeed, a bold and mendacious attack on the State’s power to regulate taxi services in the public interest! ‘Uber’ is NOT a ‘car-hailing app’ but an attack on the power and responsibility of the State to license taxi’s, as part of the responsibility of acting in the public interest!
The motto of The Financial Times is ‘what ever the traffic will bear’! This political/economic/ethical position can’t even be described as Neo-Liberal, because it is even a cruder, a more vulgar expression of the greed and self-seeking nature of Capitalism. Its a dog eat dog world! In this jejune exercise, the FT has few propaganda peers. The many and diverse characters, in this melodrama, get photos and extended commentary, the ‘as if’ here is that they warrant extended commentary. This as the dog days of summer come to a close.
My particular favorite is the professional grifter Arianna Huffington, who never tires of running her con, while cultivating the fiction that she is that ‘White Knight’,that is the sine qua non of her genius at self-promotion wedded to her unslakable opportunism. Her cultivation of the self-created myth as that charming and self-less ‘little Greek girl’ has by now become shopworn.
The reader can consider Mr. Uterwedde essay the chatter of one more Neo-Liberal hetaira, or should the reader call him another EU apologist? singing the praises of the Macron’s Jupertarian Politics! Think of Macron as a pretty De Gaulle? His politics are defined as the social/political/ethical poison of the Free Market. As codified by the Mt. Pelerin Philosopher Kings (recall Mises enthusiasm for Mussolini?) is about to descend on the French voting public: that has expressed their collective enthusiasm for Macon, by a rate of nearly 37% of spoiled,blank, or uncountable ballots!
The opening quote from Mr. Uterwedde propaganda intervention takes its rhetorical shape as:
France needs courageous policies that include clear (even if unpopular) choices, frankness when explaining the challenges, more societal dialogue, and a less chaotic and uncoordinated style of governance.
But just paragraphs later Macronism is defined, as what it is, the dictatorship of La République En Marche :
Macron has got full permission from Parliament that this reform shall be laid down by decree. This gives him complete freedom to simultaneously hold ongoing, intensive consultations with trade unions and business federations and flexibly respond to their criticism. The president wants parliament to pass these planned regulations in September. His plan for reform has great economic import but it is also highly significant politically: a litmus test for Macron’s ability to push through unpopular decisions and bring about real change in his country.
What the world cries out for is one more intellectual for hire, to spread the Gospel of Market Reform, in the the watershed of its near total collapse, as idea and practice. The reader doesn’t need Mr. Henrik Uterwedde, to celebrate at length Macronism, that is consonant with dictatorship! We already have Neo-Conservative ghoul Bret Stephens’s slavering celebration of the end of Socialist France at The New York Times.
Or Martin Sandbu at The Financial Times who warns Macron , at another point in political time: Macron must ‘reform‘ France before all else. Mr. Sandbu last two sentences are instructive of what might just be dubbed ‘The Macron Neo-Liberal Imperative’
Mr Macron must not put his domestic reforms at risk of being weakened by his European initiatives.
An economically thriving France will be strong in Europe, fiscal discipline or not. But a domestic economic promise undermined by a European distraction will make France fail both at home and abroad.
Social Europe is the official/unofficial propaganda arm the EU, and its sham Democracy. That is in fact a Federation of unelected Technocrats, the reflection of Jean Monnet, the unelected Technocrat par excellence. Who created a coal and steel cartel, heavily garnished with the rhetoric of democracy/federalism, now in the control of the Merkel/Schäuble alliance, and its cudgel the European Central Bank! Beware the Merkel/Schäuble alliance! Macron’s hubris and megalomania are the twin dangers to the well being of your Cartel!
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