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by redstar
For those of you who, like me, have been bemused by the use, by President Sarkozy among others, of the term "Real Economy," as set apart from the supposedly "fake," financial economy, of wolves rather than the polite lambs of the "real," "good" economy, there's a fascinating and brief deconstruction, by linguist Alain Rey, editor in chief of the French language dictionary Le Robert (equivalent to Websters in the English language), of the term in today's Humanité (oh how I love the English translation, saves the hassle!)
This about sums it up:
...what interested me in this affair is that the term "financial crisis" is a very old expression, and completely normal because there have often been financial crises, most frequently associated with an economic crisis as in 1929, but this is the first time I've heard tell of "the real economy". This expression supposes, and this is rather monstrous, that the economy can't be real in the world of finance. That there are thus two Capitalisms : a bad one that is in the process of collapsing, and a good one, which is "the real economy". The standard of living and buying power belong to the world of the real economy, because they represent realities of daily life far from the unreal world of finance. And this view is corroborated by more and more astronomical figures. When one speaks of 100,000 euros, we remain in a world that is still of human dimensions, even if we don't ourselves possess such sums of money. When you speak of a million euros, we are more likely in the world of the rich, of the powerful, of soccer players, of Johnny Hallyday. Such figures can cause bitterness or admiration, but they remain real. But when one speaks of 27 billion, or 270 billion, or 2,700 billion dollars in a global economy, we are in a completely virtual sphere. There is no longer any human significance possible. The world of the imaginary is crashing down before our eyes, and part of this imaginary world is the false dichotomy of the "real" and the "financial" economy. In our present, liberal system, they are the same, and when the financial comes crashing down, so will the real. The more quickly we realize this, and draw the necessary conclusions, especially on the left, the better.
There's a reason banks and insurers were nationalised in the past and kept that way. This is why. There's a reason key strategic industries, in education, housing development, energy, food production, telecommunications, transportation, security and defence were nationalised and owned collectively, not farmed out for the wealthy to make more on our backs only to be bailed out by us when the system came to its logical and inevitable crisis mode (for such crises are features, not bugs, in the liberal economic system). This crisis will remind us why.
I am amused by the use of the term real economy, I find myself using it sometimes too it has become so pervasive, but in reality, it is a denial of reality, the term "real economy," for the reality is the economic crisis we are entering is absolutely real, and intrinsically related to the real state of collapse of the financial markets which undergird the so-called real economy. |
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LQD: What is the Real Economy? | 13 comments (13 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
LQD: What is the Real Economy? | 13 comments (13 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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