Patrick Bond wrote:
>The socio-political fallout of some yuppie NY banker's
>flick of a finger on the keyboard can be terrifying. In SA, a 25%
>currency crash during a six-week period in 1996 compelled the ANC
>leadership to formally junk its soc-dem development programme and
>replace it with a (disfunctional) homegrown SAP, purely for the benefit
>of the f*ing bond traders, and the ongoing fiscal squeeze is brutal,
>demonstrably killing ANC constituents.
Is this really just the doing of "some yuppie NY banker's" finger-flicking?
Or is the FX rate just one mechanism among many that constitute the global
economic hierarchy? The fucking bond traders are just one part of a ruling
class that includes the top execs of Anglo-American, the Business
Roundtable, Chatham House, Bob Rubin - and the comprador elements within
the ANC.
>Not only because it's so US-centric, which it is, but because while
>everyone and everything else is thinking and acting globally, the
>concession that capitalism is in ok shape is basically parochial
>laziness.
What does it mean to say that capitalism is in "ok shape"? It means that a
polarizing system of exploitation is reproducing itself pretty
successfully. The creation of poverty alongside of wealth is an ancient
feature of this charming economic form. I didn't think I had to make that
point with every post to PEN-L, but apparently I do.
Doug
