A reader has pointed me to this fascinating site showing the impact of the Mont Pelerin Society on Iceland. According to the material prepared for its 2005 conference in Reykjavik, the Society’s intellectual influence directly guided those responsible for making Iceland what it is today.
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John Quiggin 
It would make ecological sense if several of Australia’s aluminium smelters relocated to Iceland. They would run on hydro and geothermal not coal power. We could send them boatloads of bauxite and bananas. Iceland would get jobs to replace those lost in the banking sector. What we got instead is ETS protection for ‘trade exposed industries’ to ensure nothing changes.
JQ – we know that you are running a personal campaign to blame all the worlds ills on capitalism. Do you have anything positive at all to say about the system?
Terje, do you define “capitalism” as “the economic and social model espoused by the Mont Pelerin Society”?
John Quiggin, if you hate capitalism so much, maybe you should go and live in my home country of India, where they practice socialism? If you need to learn more about the glorious virtues of the social democratic lifestyle in India, where poor people beg on the streets while bureaucrats roll in riches, you could try reading my dad’s book. I know some people who would be helpful in getting you a job there. Or perhaps you’d prefer Cuba?
It’s really quite amusing to hear ivory tower intellectuals such as yourself saying that capitalism is at fault for our economic problems. If that’s what you really think (as opposed to what you think will get you the most government grants), then please move to a Big Government paradise and leave the rest of us alone.
I prefer capitalism, that’s why I moved to Australia, a country that ranks highly in economic freedom indices. So I’m putting my money where my mouth is, unlike you.
And you persist in repeating the fallacy that the central bank is a free-market institution. Weren’t you going to do a post addressing the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle?
Wake up and smell the carnage, TerjeP. The system you worship is corrupt and dying. Try this;
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2009/01/31/therovingcavaliersofcredit/
and this;
http://www.isreview.org/issues/64/feat-moseley.shtml
If anything, JQ is far too kind and sanguine about the chances of reforming capitalism.
Capitalist apologists are going to have to get used to Marxists and Socialists being right on some key issues.
Capitalism suffers all kinds of contradictions (internal and external) which it cannot solve. The need for the state to step in and nationalise a bankrupt system and (attempt to) save it from its own systemic failures is a case in point.
The capitalist system is now collapsing irretrievably. The Marxist diagnosis and prognosis for capitalism was and is correct. The Marxist prescription for correcting the faults of capitalism was incorrect. What system will follow the collapse of this one, no empirically honest analyst can predict.
The belief that we can foretell the new system is an historicist fantasy. That is where I part company from the Marxists. Revolutions are always hijacked by a new class of exploiters. There is nothing so consistent are man’s desire to exploit his fellows. Despite 10,000 years of social evolution we remain selfish and vicious primates one step out of the jungle. You will see that fact come to the fore as this plays out.
Hermit, it wouldn’t pay to ship bananas to Iceland. They already grow bananas competitively, in geothermally heated greenhouses.
Terje and Sukrit
If you really believe what you post, I hope you had all your savings in high risk equity 🙂
I like Aristotle’s philosophy that there are two extremes on most topics, and they are usually both foolish. Thus communism and unregulated capitalism are two extremes on the spectrum of economic thought: either government owns and controls amlmost everything, or virtually nothing. Both such extremes have now been shown to fail. Saying that regulated markets is an extreme position is rubbish. Liberalism or social democracy is a middle ground view that is far preferable to the right wing drivel that has gotten us into this mess. Right wingers can deny their guilt all they like, but it would be amusing to watch them walk into an average pub now and tell people that free markets always work.
Hermit
True on aluminium. Australia could meet 20% emission targets by eliminating just two industries – aluminium smelting and beef cattle. They employ less than 1% of the workforce.
Terje,
I am still waiting for an answer to my question of 7 months ago:
Or to use own words, where has the neoliberal project “delivered in spades”?
—
Sukrit, it’s not so much a question of whether we are for ‘capitalism’ or against ‘capitalism’. Rather, it is a question of whether or not democracy should be over-ruled in order to serve the needs of ‘capitalism’.
As we speak, democracy is being subverted in Queensland in order to serve the ‘capitalism’s’ need to impose its solutions to fix its own crisis.
Thus we are having an early election campaign at break neck speed and candidates such as myself, who offer policies different to the free-market policies of the major parties are being denied air time to put our point.
The real issues at stake are not being discussed. Rather we are being asked to give one or the other pro-business political parties an effective blank cheque to impose upon Queenslanders whatever solutions to the crisis is deemed acceptable to the Queensland and international corporate elites.
I have asked Anna Bligh, Andrew Fraser and Lawrence Springborg to give a categorical assurance that they will not privatise any more assets, but have yet to get a straight answer from any of them.
Voters, who overwhelming oppose privatisation are entitled to know which candidates can be relied upon to block any further privatisation, but are not being given that information.
James Sinnamon
Independent candidate for Mount Coot-tha
Isnt that the Monty Pelican society?
Sukrit, I can’t say that I appreciate the invitation to go and live somewhere else, and I think your knowledge of Australian history must be a bit lacking.
The advocates of free-market reform presented themselves as attacking a set of policies they described as “the Australian settlement”. It is they who should be invited to move elsewhere if they don’t like it here.
On your opening sentence, can you point to anything I’ve written to suggest I “hate capitalism” as opposed to preferring the social democratic version to the catastrophic failure advanced by the Mont Pelerin society and variously referred to as laissez-faire, free-market capitalism etc.
Look at their resumes, the high priests of Mont Pelerin, peppered with the dogma of free trade, extensive liberalisations, privatisations (oh mi goodness – you cant have a public bus – lord no!), free choices and liberalisaions…then look at the basket case that is Iceland and now half the world. Great ideas from Monty Pelican.
Their ideas are not indicative of well managed capitalism for those who may think they are, they are indicative of a fanaticism bordering on the destructive.
Sukrit,
Isn’t your comparison between India and Australia just a tad facile. Do you really think that the if they converted to a economic system modeled on ours they’d pretty soon all be sitting around barbies at the beach house knocking off boutique stubbies? I mean, could there possibly be any other factors?
Even if you really, really support the some kind of hands-off ultracapitalism telling people to move to India still isn’t a rational argument. If India adopted your preferred economic policies would you move there?
it seems to me that the explosive growth of both India and China is proof that fre-markets work best when the free refers to tariffs and trade barriers. But in other respects markets still need government regulation adn sometimes even intervention and direction. There has been a considerable amount of government central planning and intervention in both India and China not only in provision of supporting infrastructure, but in skills training and in some cases even govenrmetn investment in industry. The strange thing is, it has worked.
If Iceland is allowed to liquidate quickly, it will recover quickly while the rest of the world wallows around in its own debt for the years to come.
15# “allowed to liquidate quickly?” Nice elegant solution. The car is crashed. Let it be towed to the wreckers yard. Problem solved. Mess gone. Build new car and put new crash test dummies inside.
Taxes are a tariff on inter household trade. They do to domestic trade between households what tariffs do to corporate trade between nations. If I we were offered a policy of low taxes then I could be persuaded to live with tariffs on cross border trade.
We pay more now in per capita taxes than at any time in history. The notion that events of late are due to some free market trend are misguided. The primary difference between now and the 1950s/60s is that in the 1960s taxes were for most Australians quite low and the fiat currency the world used in the 1950s/60s were subject to a more disciplined than the fiat currencies imposed on us today.
Having said that there has been some progress at removing government involement in the running of enterprises via privatisation and the introduction of greater consumer choice. I would think the substantial increase in personal wealth over recent decades is nothing to snivel at.
Personally I am very happy that we got competition in long distance phone calls. It made my life a lot more interesting. I like the fact that imported electronic goods are now cheaper. I’m glad that clothes don’t cost as much as they used to. I like the cars we have these days. I’m pleased that pubs don’t close at 6pm. I like shopping on weekends.
The problem with Iceland was that it didn’t embrace neo-liberal economics fully enough.
As any Uncle Milton acolyte would know, there are no half, or three-quarter, measures. Their economic program must be implemented fully or the the purity of it will be distorted, leading to economic disaster. Such disaster is confirmation of the need for more of the same – liberalisation, privatisation and austerity measures.
18# Right then Michael – they didnt go far enough right? Isnt that what you are suggesting? Uncle Milton wasnt quite the fool you and others have mistaken him for (accidentally on purpose) and did not advocate laissez faire.
#18 (Sorry if I missed irony alerts in responding) I got tired of the “never fully implemented” argument when I used to hear it from Trotskyists regarding the Soviet Union.
In this case, we don’t have to worry. We have it on the authority of the Mont Pelerin Society that Iceland was on the right track, so unless you can find acolytes of Uncle Milton purer than that, I think we can stop worrying.
For any such acolytes, I have an offer you can’t refuse.
Re TerjeP 2 & Sukrit 4
I believe that John Kay in his book “The Truth about Markets: Their Genius, Their Limits, Their Follies (Penguin, 2003)”, does an excellent job of stating the case for the middle of the road economists you seem to be attacking. Kay is not anti-capitalist but he opposes the dumbed down version of capitalism you seem to support.
The following is a extract from an interview Kay gave to the Strategy & Business magazine in 2003.
http://www.strategy-business.com/press/16635507/03310
“S+B: Your book describes and dismantles what you call myths about markets. What are some of them?
KAY: There are four central myths behind what I call the American business model, or ABM. The first is that greed is overwhelmingly the most important motivation in economic affairs. Of course, it is a motivation, but it is not overwhelming for most people. Most people work because they want to do a good job, because they enjoy the respect of their friends, and so on. If you ignore these other motivations, you actually undermine the relationships that make corporations effective.
False premise two is market fundamentalism. It says you should impose as few restrictions and limitations as possible in the operation of markets. But this doesn’t recognize that markets actually operate — and can only operate — through an elaborate social, political, and cultural context. While some of that may be government regulation, a lot of it is self-regulation — the ways people expect to behave. To suggest that unregulated markets are more efficient is wrong. Markets rely on rules and signals. Without these, you get chaos.
The third premise, which in a sense is obviously mistaken, is that a successful business needs a minimal state. This argues that the only legitimate role for the state is in the protection of property rights and the enforcement of contracts. But when you look at them closely, you find that successful market economies have the largest and most powerful governments the world has ever seen.
S+B: And the fourth myth?
KAY: The fourth is that there’s an overriding need for low taxation, which is also untrue.”
Alcoa used to have a mission statement that said “We are in business to maximise profit in a socially acceptable manner”. It’s up to society to set the boundaries on corporate behaviour. Australian society and corporations operating in Australia rely on government to regulate corporate behaviour, and clearly the global financial crisis shows we haven’t regulated corporations properly.
No I don’t want more mountains of regulation but I do want regulation that is stated clearly enough that the spirit of the legislation must be complied with, its easy to understand for both the corporation and their customer and its easy to follow so its easier to comply with and not worthwhile flouting the regulation.
Peter Harcher in the SMH today had a good piece on China (here). But for this thread, the relevant para is:
One of China’s most influential strategic thinkers, Yan Xuetong, observed some years ago that China had put its communist ideologies aside in pursuit of economic growth, while the US increasingly based its economic policies on political ideology: “Which is the ideological country now?” he asked.
The Mont Pelerin lot and their acolytes have done us all great damage.
Not to mention that (according to the Australia Institute) we subsidise the aluminium smelters to the tune of $210 million a year in discount electricity. Plus they are the major consumers of “baseload” power and so hold us back from utilising more variable renewables.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_and_transport_subsidies_in_Australia
Can ProfQ and others explain that if regulated capitalism is such a wonderful thing and would have helped prevent the catastrophe that has befallen us, then why have so many European banks being nationalised and why is unemployment and discord in Europe growing? Surely their stiffling regulation would have helped them out?
Sad to say, Sean, financial deregulation has been pretty much universal. The European banks made the same kinds of bad investments as their US counterparts.
As regards unemployment, this has been one of the areas where the US until recently looked a lot better than the EU. The US is now higher (8.1 vs 7.6). I haven’t compared employment/population ratios, but I imagine the picture is similar.
If you want to test the awesome power of the pure market (neoliberal wet-dream version), what better test than to take one of the trashed economies, such as Iceland, and watch them attempt a pure market rescue of the country. No government handouts, no state interference good or bad, just pure individual greed and the sweet-oh-Lordy-so-sweet unregulated free market. Private police, private roads, private money mints, private hospitals, oh so lip-smacking good.
Alice#18 – wasn’t there a “Dead Pelican” sketch by Monty Pelican?
Thanks for that link PeterM. I like his last line in the article:
I think that sums up this debate. Actually looking at the detailed evidence case by case is too hard.
Oh, there is a difference between the means and institutions of calculating the use of resources, the need to maintain incentives for individuals to increase production and therefore decrease prices, the means of resolving conflict between competing groups of people in a political order, and the distribution of the wealth created by doing all of the above.
In the sense that capitalism and socialism fail, our attempts at both have been largely because we understand them as forms of faith or forms of religion, or political preferences, or biases, rather than understanding a theory of teh social sciences that lets us compare them by other than historical outcomes.
We will always have capitalist institutions. We will always, now, have social redistribution. The problem is not undermining the economy through shrinkage with socialism, or destroying it through expansion with capitalism, but instead, understanding how we can and must calculate production and the use of resources, while redistributing gains without undermining incentives, or causing distortion in the information system we have built in order to cooperate economically instead of compete violently.
Capitalism will have another version. It will continue to evolve in response to the size of our population. It will be the dominant means of human development. Schumpater will be right in that we will have some sort of socialism, or rather public redistribution of wealth. But we will have capitalism, or the use of property to perform economic calculation as well.
The person above who refers to Aristotle is of course correct, in this sense.
I question whether democracy will survive. I suspect not. It never has. It is just another name for communism on a slower time scale. And communism is a silly little idea. I do not know why, when threatened, and in chaos, the wealthy would not hire some set of the population to oppress and conquer the remaining part. Usually this can be done with as few as one in twenty, and I suspect that it can be done with one in one hundred.
JQ @ #20
Sorry, forgot the irony alert.
PeterM,
I’m not familiar with the text by John Kay. However in the piece that you quote I find nothing to disagree with in principle. The furtherest I would go would be to say that low taxes are beneficial but I would certainly agree that they are not essential (within certain bounds).
To his credit (at least in the quote you offer) Kay makes a distinction between rules that we migh call conventions and rules that we might call regulations.
Capitalism is like a dog. Well trained it will bring you a lot of fun, keep you fit, protect your house, give its life for you and your children.
Badly trained it will eat kids, attack everyone and dominate you.
I should add … it will wreck the house as well.
ProfQ – Europe has not invested in financial deregulation. The European model for banks is “universal” ie. retail and commercial banacassurance, corporate banking and private banking. This was not brought about by deregulation of the European financial market.
European banks have made horrific losses but this is not due to deregulation in Europe. What you appear to be doing is taking an issue that annoys you (financial deregulation) and apply it to anyone that lost money.
The French and German banks are incredibly corporatist in their approach and the respective French and German governments have interfered heavily in their running. This has lead large problems within the banks ie. bad loans, poor HR policies, etc. This is not due to deregulation.
The French local councils, for instance, are absolutely sh*tting themselves at this moment. Why? Because they bought securities with subprime embedded in them. All they wanted was a stable cash flow. Was this caused by deregulation? Of course not! It was caused by poor governance, idiotic direction by central government as to what type of investments are appropriate and a cosy relationship with French banks.
19# Re my own post at 19. I meant to say Uncle Adam not Uncle Milton. Uncle Milton was just an avowed conservative partial to the liberal freedom of market participants to choose in vibrant small markets (good model for street cafes and the like until Starbucks moved in) as far as I can read in his greatly undersized and greatly overrated paperback. Nothing like the distorted markets we have now – nothing at all.
I notice the corporate insurers are now bemoaning and wailing about the culture of civil litigation “that is now out of control.”
Isnt that interesting – so these large corporate managers of other corporates’ risks dont like the storm clouds brewing on the legal horizon (for a hefty price). Yet they are the same large firms who rail against regulation.
Bad luck. Cant have it both ways…. or can they?
Will that be the next neo liberal Monty Pelican idea? De-regulate, privatise and float the legal system and judiciary and make it impossible for class actions against irresponsible CEOs and their teams?
Too late isnt it?. The class actions are coming. One good thing is, they will tear themselves apart. The only people gambling will be the lawyers.
I must have said cia@o again! I got moderated.
Sean – even the doyens of free trade – the IMF and WTO now claim it was a massive failure of inadequate regulation ie NOT enough regulation (not too much). You must be one of the last men standing who thinks this GF failure was due to too much regulation. Im starting to think you are more of an anarchist – suggesting policies to lead society and systems to complete breakdown. Oh well, Karl Marx didnt mind free unregulated trade either – he thought it would make the capitalist system crash sooner. I suspect he may have been right. So the Montis Pelicans are really the anarchist Marxi Pelicans (or perhaps just plain old quacks).
38# Perhaps its time for something much much smarter….. Monty Python.
http://adrastos.blog-city.com/smv_village_idiots_monty_python.htm
Alice – have you read my comments? Even comparatively highly regulated banking sectors failed. Have you read my previous comments where I explained how and why risk has magnified? The regulators failed their duty but to categorise me as the last man standing of an ideology that has lifted billions out of poverty… well I’ll accept that!
1. The links in JQ’s post contain enough information to do a network analysis on the Mont Pelerin Society and its off-springs. (The date for the node “Sydney” is 1985)
2. I could not find one name on the lists of economists found on the links, which I could say has made a contribution to analytical economics since WWII. By analytical economics, I mean Walrasian and non-Walrasian general general equilibrium theory and game theory, applied to Economics, and various more applied work in areas such as environmental economics.
JQ, or anybody else, please correct me if I am mistaken.
3. I am also asking for a reference to a precise theoretical model of ‘capitalism’.
In the mean-time I am using the term ‘capitalism’ for the ‘school of thought’ of the Mont Pelerin network and Karl Marx.
4. The precise theoretical work (eg Roemer) that came out of Karl Marx is often classified as Marxist economics. I’d a comment on this point.
#30 No worries, Michael. A most convincing imitation of the real thing.
Sean#39
The lifting billions out of poverty is over rated and globalisation has also plunged a lot of people into poverty. Its totally arrogant to presume globalisation is a cure all for the worlds ills and you cannot ignore the freedom that it gives larges global firms to exploit labour, the environment and tax systems (causing dysfunction and instability at the national level). In a global expansionary phase we would expect people’s lives to be improved but de-regulation taken to an extreme, we just as easily expect weaknesses to emerge leading to crises. I think we have just seen that now. No policy taken to an extreme is ever going to work Sean (and especially one as dangerously hands off as suggesting that we remove as much regulation as we have in financial capital flows, and leave the market to sort it out for itself). I am by the way pro capitalism but I am not pro fanaticism. There is quite a difference. Ill take my capitalism healthy and functioning well for the majority where I live Sean, rather than swallow the line that what is good for the corporate structure (to have the freedom to go where and when it likes for whatever reason it likes) is also good for me. I dont like standing here in Australia right now watching the predictions of unemployment climbing to ten plus percent (and eve that is understated).
Alanna #19 on Michael #18
Ditto – missed the irony alert – Doh! Agree with JQ – convincing Michael. You could have been any old usual suspect…
Alice – I suggest that you re-read all my comments again. When did I suggest that globalisation was the cure for everything? Where did I suggest that what “is good for the corporate structure” is good for all?
I suggest that you re-read all my comments before posting a response because it is very hard to follow your logic.
MORE STRAW ECONOMIC MEN?
JohnQuiggin @ #11 said: The advocates of free-market reform presented themselves as attacking a set of policies they described as “the Australian settlement”.
John, could you please name these Australian advocates of free markets.
To narrow this task down, let me point out that, from my inside knowledge of the Australian economic policy community, very few if any of those who advocated policies different from the Australian settlement – and some of the organisations I have worked for have been at the forefront of this – were and are advocates of the free market. Certainly, virtually all those policy economists I have worked with recognise the need for government intervention in various markets, and they certainly did not reach their recommendations for deregulation, in the instances where that is what they recommended, on the basis of some starting point that markets are superior to governments at managing all kinds of risks – words you have used previously (although, to be fair, at that time you subsequently softenned your words when I pointed out that no economist I know holds that view).
If the people you have been suggesting are Australian free marketeers turn out not to be policy economists, who are they? Are they certain politicians, such as Howard and Costello, notwithstanding their high tax and spending record; or are you refering to certain business people, such as the bank bosses cited in the SHM article you referred me to on Andrew Norton’s blog?
If the latter, it would be useful, to avoid confusion among your readers, if in future you clarified the people you are referring to by the use if such labels, so readers can get a sense as to what relevance, if any, the group being attacked is to policy formulation in Australia.
Tom
_____
PS: I realise that at some point my demands that you tightly specify these terms, and to whom they apply, may become tiresome. Equally though, I hope you will appreciate the reasons – and I hope validity – of my efforts to ensure precision in this area.
Socrates @ 7
“I like Aristotle’s philosophy that there are two extremes on most topics, and they are usually both foolish. Thus communism and unregulated capitalism are two extremes on the spectrum of economic thought: either government owns and controls amlmost everything, or virtually nothing.”
I think Aristole was as wrong about the above as he was about the geocentric model – ie. the earth being the centre of the universe.
Liberalism (democrats) and Conservatives (capitalist) are opposing ideologies. There is no common ground.
The philosophy of romanticism carries a morality of altrusim in which all living things naturally want to help each other and co-exist (liberalism). “Value” and “self interest” (conservativism) play almost no role in altrusim. Liberalism is the opposite of conservatism. In fact common ground between conservatism and liberalism is a flat out contradiction in terms.
The recession of the world economy has a lot to do with the pseudo capitalist economies (eg.China, India, europe, Australia, Americas) only partly introducing capitalism. The “closet” socialist governments were trying to introduce freedom while maintaining control. That is a contradiction in terms.
Solution is simple. We all agree on the philosophy of capitalism (no comprimise)then formulate an agreement on what the governments job description is.
In regard to capitalism beginnings, it started in the early 1800’s. It is still evolving and has a distance to go. In debates it will continue to be exploited for its weaknesses by the liberals.
Meanwhile, Mont Pelerin Society dreams of the perfect capitalist world. Iceland has bottomed and the only way is up. The rest of the world pump prime themselves into the dark bottomless pit of debt.
Reference: Punchinello’s Chronicles “why is there no middle ground
@ 21 I realise it was only one point of Kays and i don’t necessarily disagree but you do not have to argue against greed being the key driving force of economic activity to argue for gocernment intervention. Market faillure occurs even when agents are assumed to be self interested in the traditional material sense.
Sean G 38
Now you are lumping regulations together; there are many forms of bank regulation. The critical fact in the current problem is that none of the OECD coutnries regulated the derivative market, which was the source of the problem in the US and now world wide. Because that market (CDO and CDS) was inadequately regulatd the rest has become irrelevant, because of the losses. Even in Lehman Brothers UK office right up to the day they collapsed, their UK division was profitable – it was their CDO/CDS trading in New York that sank the whole company, including the profitanble and unprofitable bits.
Ubiquity 45
Saying Capitalism and Libealism are opposites is incorrect. (That is like saying that gravity is the opposite of electricity.) Capitalism is an economic system, Liberalism is a political doctrine. You can have Capitalist countries that are either Liberal (eg England) or dictatorships (eg Chile under Pinochet). It so happens that Liberalism contains moral principles that are irreconcilable with extreme forms of capitalism. Likewise you can also have Liberal countries where Capitalism is highly regulated (eg Sweden). When you abolish private ownership that is at the heart of capitalism you get Socialism or Communism, not Liberalism.
In face to face conversation we detect irony by facial expression or tone of voice. In the online world, a wink or tounge-in-cheek emoticon will do the trick. Use emoticons a little more folks… or is that too unintellectual for such a high powered blog? 😉
There’s a good article on Iceland by Michael “Liar’s Poker” Lewis is the most recent Vanity Fair.
It’s all rather incredible how naively they swallowed the free market line. Of course, being rubes – literally, fishermen who decided on a career change and instantly became bankers and hedge fund managers – they got sold the worst of the worst junk assets by investment bankers in London and New York who saw them coming.
When a distinguished University of Chicago economics professor, Bob Aliber, told them in 2006 that they were in the midst of a financial market bubble that would burst and end in tears, they didn’t want to know. So confident was Aliber that he put Iceland as a case study of a bubble in his textbook, before it burst.
Much blame attaches to David Oddson, a poet who became Prime Minister and then got himself appointed as Central Bank Governor.
None of it is funny. But semi-amusing was the local academic economists who sought to explain Iceland’s apparent financial success with theories of “informal networks” – everyone knows everyone in Iceland. Some academics can find a way to rationalise anything!