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mojowork_n

(2,354 posts)
5. Perception Management is the battleground.
Thu Jan 3, 2013, 02:54 PM
Jan 2013

Doesn't matter what the decade -- or even the century -- might be.

It's the same old struggle. Between those few who would put as many of their
fellow citizens as possible to work at (similarly unequal) economic models of one
sort or another:


  • One Big Plantation
  • SovietStyleCollective
  • 19thCenturyRobberBaronCartelMonopolySweatShop
  • State-of-the-artTotallyFenced-InChineseFactoryWithNetsUnderTheWindowsOfWorkers'Housing
  • RaceToTheBottomRightToWorkForLess


...versus the rest of us.

The Latvian "modern economic miracle" appears to be one where The Few
have won. At least for the time being. (No matter what you might see hyped
in the paid-for media.)

Great article at one of the more challenging -- and occasionally, challenged --
web sites. I don't always agree with what they put out but it almost
always makes you think. Here's a good summary of a neo-liberal 'triumph'
from Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Summers:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/01/03/latvias-economic-disaster-as-a-neoliberal-success-story/

[div class="excerpt" style="margin-left: 1em; border: 2px solid #6600cc; border-radius: 0.4615em; box-shadow: 6px 6px 6px #999999;"]A generation ago the Chicago Boys and their financial supporters applauded General Pinochet’s anti-labor Chile as a success story, thanks mainly to its transformation of their Social Security into Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) that almost universally were looted by the employer grupos by the end of the 1970s. In the last decade, the Bush Administration, seeking a Trojan Horse to privatize Social Security in the United States, applauded Chile’s disastrous privatization of pension accounts (turning many over to US financial institutions) even as that nation’s voters rejected the Pinochetistas largely out of anger at the vast pension rip-off by high finance.

Today’s most highly celebrated anti-labor success story is Latvia. Latvia is portrayed as the country where labor did not fight back, but simply emigrated politely and quietly. No general strikes, nor destruction of private property or violence, Latvia is presented as a country where labor had the good sense to not make a fuss when faced with austerity. Latvians gave up protest and simply began voting with their backsides (emigration) as the economy shrank, wage levels were scaled down, and where tax burdens remained decidedly on the backs of labor, even though recent token efforts have been made to increase taxes on real estate. The World Bank applauds Latvia and its Baltic neighbors by placing them high on its list of “business friendly” economies, even though at times scolding their social regimes as even too harsh for the Victorian tastes of the international financial institutions.
du rec. nt xchrom Jan 2013 #1
I think its important to not cultivate a victim narrative. napoleon_in_rags Jan 2013 #2
And then again -- another take on the same story... mojowork_n Jan 2013 #3
Oh yeah. napoleon_in_rags Jan 2013 #4
Perception Management is the battleground. mojowork_n Jan 2013 #5
Good read. napoleon_in_rags Jan 2013 #6
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