Washington’s Not-So-Invisible Hand: It’s Not Economics, It’s Empire
July 1, 2016
Washington’s Not-So-Invisible Hand: It’s Not Economics, It’s Empire
by Jason Hirthler
Scottish philosopher Adam Smith famously noted the “invisible hand” of the market that shaped the character of economies near and far. The rightwing neoliberal capitalist movement, dominant in the West since the early Seventies, has turned this phrase into the sacrosanct dictum of its secular religion. All human behavior must be submitted to the “free market.” (This is the notional credo, but in practice corporate elites are subsidized, bailout out, and given every possible taxpayer benefit to ensure higher private profits.) So now, when nations fail, it is typically said in the media to be the product of a) a crazed dictator threatening counterintuitive genocide on his own people; or b) foolish state interventions by deranged socialist ideologues.
In other words, if only these benighted nations would embrace free markets and free elections, all would be well. Imagine Voltaire’s Dr. Pangloss admonishing “emerging” nations amid the collapsing scenery of the “developed” world. What’s more, the media conflates free markets with free elections in a risible construct called “free-market democracy,” despite the fact that markets are neither free nor a foundation of democracy, as the construct suggests.
Moreover, absolutely free markets would instantly prohibit democracy, which is why democracy, and often free elections, must be thoroughly undermined to even enable free-market thinking to reign.
In reality, it isn’t the market’s hidden hand at work in country after country, but Washington’s. It is Washington that intervenes to prop up failed businesses at the behest of corporate campaign donors. It is Washington that stages humanitarian interventions to unlock a guarded nation’s resources under the guise of defending the defenseless. It is Washington that negotiates supply gluts in the oil market, crashing the “market price” of crude and producing needless economic trouble for enemies Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and others.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/01/washingtons-not-so-invisible-hand-its-not-economics-its-empire/
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