In 1979 and 1980, two political leaders came into power who would turn this economic revolution into a political one. Margaret Thatcher in [music] the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US.
for - economic history - Volcker Shock - 2 political allies - Thatcher (1979) and Reagan (1980) came to power - cast taxes, social programs and regulation as the bogeyman
David Harvey calls this [music] accumulation
for - economic history - Volcker Shock - David Harvey - accumulation by dispossession. Defaulted countries signing with IMF: - increased poverty - exploded inequality - collapsed public service - gave up economic sovereignty to global financial institutions - continuation of colonialist practice of extractionism and appropriation
conditions were called structural adjustment programs and they forced countries to adopt a very specific set of economic policies mainly the privatization [music] of public assets
for - economic history - Volcker Shock - IMF Structural adjustment program - privatize public assets, - cut spending of welfare, - austerity across the board - deregulation, - open domestic markets to foreign corporations, - remove protection of local businesses and workers - IMF - a deal with the devil
they had to turn somewhere for help. And that somewhere was the International Monetary
for - economic history - Volcker Shock - defaulted countries turn to IMF
subsaharan African countries and parts of Asia were also plunged into crisis
for - economic history - Volcker Shock - second casualties - Sub-Saharan African & Asian countries defaulted
the Latin American debt crisis
for - economic history - Volcker Shock - first casualties - Latin American debt crisis - Mexico, Brazil, Argentina defaulted on loans
Most global finance is denominated in dollars. US interest rates effectively set global interest rates. So when Fuler pushed rates towards 20%, developing countries who had borrowed dollars just a few years earlier saw their interest payments on those loans explode.
for - economic history - Volcker Shock - developing countries loans became unpayable overnight
Paul Fulker was appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve, essentially the head of the United States Central Bank. in 1979 and his appointment signaled a dramatic shift in US economic governance
for - economic history - 1979 - Paul. A. Volcker appointed chairman of Federal Reserve - Volcker Shock - shift - from employment to inflation - raised interest rates to an astounding 20%, intentionally causing a recession
monitoism offered Fulkar the intellectual and political cover he needed for this shift in monetary policy. Away from the Keynesian commitment to full employment and [music] economic stability and towards protecting the value of capital which had been eroded by years of high inflation.
for - economic history - Volcker Shock - used Milton Friedman's theory to provide cover to stop Keynesian commitment to full employment and instead protect capital from inflation. - Volcker raised interest rates to 20%,, causing massive plant shutdowns and unemployment to surge above 10%. - The recession closed shops, and labor lost its bargaining power when plants are shut down.
Milton [music] Freriedman, the economist most associated with neoliberalism, whose work was heavily financed by business elites. It was his theory, monitoism, which framed inflation as the ultimate economic threat
for - economic history - Milton Friedman - represented business elites - Monetarism - inflation seen as ultimate threat to elites
The business round table was established in 1972
for - economic history - 1972 - Business Round Table established
from 60,000 businesses in 1972 to over a quarter million just 10 years later
for stats - economic history - corporate power - 10 years - American Chamber of Commerce - from 60,000 to 250,000 members
Powell memo. It was written by Lewis Powell,
for - economic history - powell memo - Lewis Powell - inequality - corporate lawyer who became supreme court judge - memo that started a long term political campaign to exploit the elite crisis for corporations to take control of universities, media, law and public opinion FOR THE ELITES
often people believe that the dominant economic system is value-free or value-neutral, which dismisses the central role of genocide, slavery, and colonialism in its evolution over the past five hundred years or so
for - dominant economic system - not value neutral - situated on history of colonialism, slavery, genocide, extractionism
Who were the Physiocrats?
for - definition - physiocrats - Steve Keen - economy - history - economic flow as biomimicry of body's circulation system
definition - physiocrat - During the 18th and 19th century, a group of mostly French "economists" led by Francois Quesnay, physician to the King of France at the time, performed some of the first autopsies of the time. - Autopsies were banned for the longest time for religious reasons - When Quesnay performed autopsies, he discovered networks of tubes in the circulation system and this led him to surmise a network of circulation in another field, economics - Quesnay advised the king, hence the name physiocrat - So modern economics has its roots in biology - it was a case of biomimicry!
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Transformation-Political-Economic-Origins/dp/080705643X
Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2001.
Adler's record of ineptness is pret ty good so far — but he surpasses it with his third Revolution. He dis likes both Marxists and Moscow, so how did the Russian Revolution be come one of the great sources or change in modern society? Because “with the Russian Revolution, we have, for the first time, the emer gence of the welfare state” — mild offspring sired from such ferocious parents. In the past, only right‐wing kooks thought F.D.R. derived his in spiration for W.P.A. from the Bol shies!
Reference to the "welfare state" in 1971 by Gary Wills.
Americans and the World believe or want to believe that the United States is built upon a Market Economy.
Historical context validates a classic Market Economy theory as directed by our Founding Fathers and Constitution. We clearly do not have a pure Market Economy today (2021).
Most Americans lump (through education) the concept of economics and government together, into 3 basic categories; Capitalism, Socialism and Communism.
The U.S. is a Capitalist Nation with a corresponding market economy.
Is this statement Fact or Hypothesis ?
Can we still rely on textbook economic models in the 21st Century?
“This has all been an economic move,” she says. “People sort of forget that, I think. It was discovered by some of the HMOs on the West Coast, and it was really not the HMOs, it was the medical groups that were taking risks—economic risks for their group of patients—that figured out if they sent … primary-care people to the hospital and they assigned them on a rotation of a week at a time, that they can bring down the LOS in the hospital. “That meant more money in their own pockets because the medical group was taking the risk.” Once hospitalists set up practice in a hospital, C-suite administrators quickly saw them gaining patient share and began realizing that they could be partners. “They woke up one day, and just like that, they pay attention to how many cases the orthopedist does,” she says. “[They said], ‘Oh, Dr. Smith did 10 cases last week, he did 10 cases this week, then he did no cases or he did two cases. … They started to come to the hospitalists and say, ‘Look, you’re controlling X% of my patients a day. We’re having a length of stay problem; we’re having an early-discharge problem.’ Whatever it was, they were looking for partners to try to solve these issues.” And when hospitalists grew in number again as the model continued to take hold and blossom as an effective care-delivery method, hospitalists again were turned to as partners. “Once you get to that point, that you’re seeing enough patients and you’re enough of a movement,” Dr. Gorman says, “you get asked to be on the pharmacy committee and this committee, and chairman of the medical staff, and all those sort of things, and those evolve over time.”