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     Rajusk Side Hero Username: Rajusk Post Number: 3448 Registered: 02-2008 Posted From: 66.93.90.250 Rating: N/A |
The chips are falling. How they will ultimately fall is still unclear. But the scale of the economic and financial crisis of laissez-faire capitalism, triggered by the US sub-prime crisis that has brought America’s mighty institutions to grief and singed one European country after another, grazing Asian markets, is breathtaking. The irony is that communism as a system of governance had earlier failed spectacularly before it could gloat over the demise of unfettered capitalism. Nor did the West European model of capitalism with a human face in the shape of tempering the evils of capitalism with a generous social security net and greater supervision of financial institutions prove hardy enough to withstand American competition. Social security in Europe has been pared down to meet the demands of free market capitalism and the kind of exposure hallowed European institutions had to US vulnerabilities was eye-opening in its folly. The truth is that after the fall of communism as a viable system of governance in the Soviet Union, the fountainhead of communism, Europeans decided that there was only one kind of capitalism left, i.e., of the American variety. Free market democracy became the official creed not only for Europeans but also for the rest of the world and although France, Germany and Scandinavian countries retained mixed economies in varying degrees, they were often viewed as impediments to reaching the economic nirvana. After the disaster induced by neo-liberal policies, many Latin American states have been attempting to go their way. There were Doubting Thomases in Europe, of course. Germany sought to curb the independence of financial institutions through a regulatory framework at the summit of the Group of Seven industrialised countries it hosted last year, with Russia as an add-on later. Nothing came of it because it fell foul of the American creed of unfettered capitalism. The George W. Bush presidency was, of course, under the spell of the neoconservatives and the US model seemed to be more for the corporations than it was for the people. America has had to pay for its follies by rescuing some financial institutions while letting others go under and finally succeeding in obtaining a whopping $700 billion bailout from Congress, with caveats attached. How far these fire-fighting measures will succeed is anybody’s guess. Everyone’s hope is that the bailout plan will bring a measure of stability into the world’s markets because America’s economic influence has been so pervasive that European states have had to prop up their major banks and financial institutions. Asia has been left less bruised because Japan has been sitting on healthy reserves, China is relatively unscathed, apart from the dangers the American downturn holds for its export-led prosperity, and India has been lucky in warding off the worst because of its Central bank’s fiscal prudence. The Gulf countries, awash with mountains of reserves flowing from the astronomically high energy prices, are sitting pretty although beset with worries over the consequences of a world-wide recession on their ability to notch up reserves for oil and gas. In fact, Japan, China to a lesser extent, the Gulf states and Singapore, with its kitty of sovereign wealth funds, have been busy in snapping up parts of legendary US institutions in the hope of acquiring more wealth and influence. What of the larger questions posed by the spectacular failure of the American model of unfettered capitalism? The very nature and scale of the crisis implies that emergency measures being devised in the US and Europe are tactical, rather than strategic. The very anguish of some Republicans in approving a massive bailout of falling institutions — a measure they equate with socialism, an evil incarnate for them — tells its story. What is becoming apparent to growing numbers of Americans is that the Bush presidency has been practising a form of capitalism tilted towards corporations and the very rich, as opposed to the wider society, through tax breaks and a largely unregulated economy based on self-correcting market forces. Previous frauds and failures failed to convince President Bush to act — until hallowed institutions proved foolish and wayward. They were so big that even a neoconservative government could not afford to see them fail. The economic meltdown will have two consequences. It will trigger a debate on the merits of unfettered capitalism. Continental Europeans have always had a more nuanced view of the state’s guiding role in steering a capitalist economy. It speaks volumes for the attraction of the American model that many in Europe have been abandoning their own model of a compassionate capitalism to compete with the United States on its terms. It is one thing for American institutions to fall because they gambled so heavily on freewheeling capitalism but to see hallowed solid European banks tremble, needing crutches not to fall, is psychologically a cataclysmic development. Traditionally, in the post-World War II era, European societies have been less violent than their American counterparts because they have believed in trading off the prospect of accumulating more and more money with the pursuit of happiness. More egalitarian societies are less dysfunctional and hence less violence-prone than those consumed by making money, with the less fortunate allowed to fall by the wayside. Nor does the failure of communist states provide a beacon. For all the idealism implied in the essential communist creed, it has not worked in any state because the once disenfranchised form a new class, so brilliantly illustrated by the late Yugoslav dissident Milovan Djilas, the standard of free public services plummets and people’s freedoms are circumscribed under an arbitrary and dictatorial individual or cabal. Democracy’s dilemma is that it is impossible to ensure the calibre of a country’s rulers. Modern means of communication have exacerbated this dilemma because style, rather than substance, often holds sway and populism becomes the currency of power. Combining freedom in economic activity with a one-party structure and its consequent limitations of political freedom and lack of representative government, successful, as it has proved to be in China in the short term, is no answer. The merit of the present economic crisis is that it has reopened the debate on the best form of governance to fulfil human needs. If communism failed in the past, the American variety of capitalism has failed to measure up. Will West Europeans now revert to their own kinder version of capitalism they were hastening to dismantle in keeping up with the American Joneses? | ||
| Bazooka Side Hero Username: Bazooka Post Number: 4851 Registered: 01-2008 Posted From: 216.221.240.130 Rating: N/A |
avalready iceland country country diwala tesindantaa Jai Chiranjeeva | ||
| Rajusk Side Hero Username: Rajusk Post Number: 3447 Registered: 02-2008 Posted From: 66.93.90.250 Rating: N/A |
manchi time ki thread vesaru..ippudu ade chaduvthunna..next post detailed gaa paste chestanu..enjoy reaading | ||
| Funny Junior Artist Username: Funny Post Number: 330 Registered: 08-2008 Posted From: 65.91.151.194 Rating: N/A |
Can anyone give detail description, why world countries shake if something happens in US? |
