http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/opinion/27friedman.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=friedman&st=cse& amp;oref=slogin
It's the latest column by Thomas Friedman, Mr. Neo-Liberal himself, remarking on China's accomplishments in preparing for the Olympic games, and how it was an example of state planning and power at work. He goes on to say (in broad terms) that we need the same in America, in order to rebuild the country. Part of his justification is that while China's poor are still worse than America's poor, China's upper class is living better than America's upper class.
Not what you expect to hear from a neo-liberal, especially one who seemed to personify neoliberalism in the 1990's. Friedman was rabidly against the anti-globalization protests here in Seattle in 1999, and used his position at the NYT to become the leading public figure espousing neo-liberalism. He was very influential in Washington.
He seemed to moderate these views in the last few years; in a recent book he even made a favorable reference to Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. This column, which has gone completely unnoticed during the focus on the Democratic convention, might be a sign that he is seriously flirting with a major break with neoliberalism.
Too early to tell, however this is how major change occurs: a significant part of the establishment becomes disenchanted with a status quo they previously accepted or even championed, and actively work to bring it down.
In my opinion, that's exactly what happend in Eastern Europe in 1989. A sizable chunk of the elite class, having been to the West and seen its richness, and having seen how the elite in the West benefited when Reagan and Thatcher removed the "burdens" of regulation and the state, realized that if they did away with planning committees, they could own everything outright. So they turned against their own system...
Now it may be happening again, but in the reverse direction.
Thoughts?
"China did not build the magnificent $43 billion infrastructure for these games, or put on the unparalleled opening and closing ceremonies, simply by the dumb luck of discovering oil. No, it was the culmination of seven years of national investment, planning, concentrated state power, national mobilization and hard work."
while China's poor are still worse than America's poor, China's upper class is living better than America's upper class.
Remember that the only goal of neoliberalism is the well-being of the upper class. Whatever works to provide that is ok. So he still is a neolib - he's just beginning to realise that plunder only works for so long, if others are taking another, more efficient, route in the meantime... In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
