Michael Hudson: N is for Neo-Serfdom, O for Offshore Banking

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N is for Neo-Serfdom, O for Offshore Banking

January 23, 2014
By Michael Hudson


Part N, O in The Insiders Economic Dictionary.

Neoclassical economics: The school that arose in the last quarter of the 19th century, stripping away the classical concept of economic rent as unearned income. By the late 20th century the term “neoclassical” had come to connote a deductive body of free-trade theory using circular reasoning by tautology, excluding discussion of property, debt and the financial sector’s role in general, taking the existing institutional environment for granted. (See Marginalism and Parallel Universe, and contrast with Structural Problem and Systems Analysis.)

Neoconservatives: Ideologues who oppose government authority and taxation of wealth, except where governments are controlled by the financial and property sectors. Neoconservatives view democratic governments that impose progressive income taxes to finance public infrastructure and other economic welfare as being as reprehensible as the pre-democratic regimes criticized by Adam Smith and other early liberals protesting against governments controlled by autocratic monarchs spending tax revenue largely on the wars and colonial ventures. Neoconservatives in fact tend to support wars to enforce the Washington Consensus throughout the world.

Neoliberalism: The philosophy that public ownership and regulation is inherently less efficient than management by financial operators. The policy conclusion is that the public domain and government enterprises should be privatized and the sales proceeds used to roll back taxes on the highest wealth and income brackets. Unlike the liberalism of Adam Smith and subsequent free-trade economists, neoliberalism endorses an intrusive role of government to protect property and financial fortunes without regard to long-term tendency for the exponential growth of debt to exceed and indeed undercut the economy’s ability to pay. (See Internal Contradiction, Junk Science, Neoconservatives and Social Market.)

Neo-serfdom: The removal of choice from peoples’ lives as interest and rent charges reduce their discretionary income. This expanding rentier overhead is not part of the mode of production, but rather the mode of finance, wealth and economic power. (See Serfdom.) .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://michael-hudson.com/2014/01/n-is-for-neo-serfdom-o-is-for-offshore-banking/

[Smarmie Doofus]

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