Rejoice! God is not dead… He is just in a comatose state of shock!
“The worst thing about communism[i] is what comes after” A. Michnik
“The free market ideology simply doesn't work!” Joseph Stiglitz
Abstract
Beyond the inevitably terse contextualization of the latest social engineering fad aiming to induce the global acquiescence of the new con by virtue of decreeing the binary (good vs. evil) unilateralism of the neo-con dogma as the apex of history, this essay offers an unequivocally critical assessment – of an interpretable rather than merely explanatory nature – of the post-industrial, corporate crusade looking to turn the world into a deregulated, privatised “global village” by means of economic and symbolic violence[i].
This ageing globalization paradigm appears to have come of age in the international community of democratic citizenry-hollow corporatist establishments, cobbled up by a shallow eagerness to remove undue interferences in the public debate by civil society “commoners”, weary of this amalgamating process’ intended scope and unchecked advancement. There is a now a new collective reality in place in which the “stakeholder society” has been disenfranchised (by actively encouraging a comatose voter apathy and by making the proletarian drift towards the lowest common denominator fashionable!) and replaced by a “shareholder society”, devoid of ethical conscience, sense of equality, tolerance, fairness or decency.
Its plutocratic structure follows the shape of an asymmetrical hourglass comprised of a sphere bloated by masses of disenfranchised people that have been quietly evacuated from the middle classes and are now forced to look up to a strato-sphere populated by idle, chattering classes of “experts”. Wrapped in cloaks of expertise and institutional legitimacy such experts are given credibility by a hoard of media conglomerates aiding and abetting the use of “scientific” methodologies for the purpose of manipulating rational systems i.e. such as when the causes of the current economic instability are made to look more complicated than they really are if only to ensure the public’s continued dependence on its “interpretation” of supposedly “complex” matters.
By claiming scientific method to its politically correct propaganda (looking to occupy the centre ground where axiological neutrality was supposed to separate post-modernism from ghost-modernism!), the neoconservative dogma gives an eerie credibility to this ism – which reveals corporatism to be but a form of fascism with a human face – a sobering ultimatum to a world summoned to accept its wholesale transformation into a parvenu’s bonanza or be faced with the dire consequences of any defiant manifestation.
Widely aware of the pitfalls inherent in the long jump to conclusions, I will nevertheless deny a priori the principle of modernity invoked upon releasing God’s “death certificate” – whereby humanity’s natural limits appear to constitute but an insurmountable barrier preventing it from reaching philosophical objectivity’s rightful abode. Furthermore, I unreservedly adhere to the considerable body of opinion questioning the right to consider economics (which is after all nothing but the management of the most reviled Biblical sins comprising human behaviour!) a science[ii]. In this respect, I will highlight the richness inherent in the "get rich" recipes marking the transition from socialism (commonly referred to as “post-communism”, despite the very fact that none of the feudal regimes from the loosing side in the Cold War of idle threats ever went past the "socialist" stage of their arrested development!) to this seemingly bankrupt form of “casino capitalism”.
This globalising Ponzi scheme[iii] (draped into a scientific discourse on the back of its embellishment with mathematics – sometimes even chaos theory and fractals – to avoid addressing the ever-growing chasm apparent between ethics and economics, yet another fact acknowledged by eminent economists of Amartya Sen's calibre!) is being run by “a den of vipers and thieves” – as the American President Andrew Jackson was calling these speculators, back in 1832[iv] – a plutocratic elite made up of “entrepreneurial” tax-cheats, scheming “machine politicians” (aka “ward-heelers”), predatory loan-sharks (dressed up as reputable international financial organisations) – alas, every one of these executive “good fellas“ running the selfish capitalist [v] globalisation show!...
VALUES AND REALITIES
The subject of this academic endeavour concerns the end of the corporate capitalist paradigm that had been self-proclaiming, not long ago, a seemingly premature end to history, evolution and progressive alternatives to the utterly selfish ideology calling itself the new liberalism. This research project is the result of observing certain specificities pertaining to the fundamental realities of the corporatist plutocracy being installed after inflicting upon its ideological rival a crushing financial victory that was supposed to have brought to an end the Cold War of idle threats. Most worryingly though, for the past twenty years or so, this type of fascism with a human face has taken over mankind’s discursive future.
This social engineering project, guided by a unilateral, self-righteous and politically correct ideology is arguably as dangerous as was that of the Nazi Drittes Reich, built to last for a thousand years. Though the corporatist discourse encompassed in the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)[vi] is a lot less ambitious in terms of its projected sell-by-date it is nevertheless as insidious as the most potent virus imaginable. Other sources of discursive legitimacy for this system (prone to Boom-Bust-ic(!) failures, from which it never learns anything!) are the Washington Consensus and its Friedmanite economics pillion – a modern version of Lenin’s NEP – both giving credence to the assertion that corporatism is indeed a form of fascism with a human/ liberal appearance.
These fundamental realities made me envisage the opportunity for establishing certain heuristic collocations in the multidisciplinary quest seeking the Holy Grail of the One (and only!) paradigm. I therefore intend to offer an uncompromising critique of this unilateral approach to reality, this fast food for thought according to which the only things that really matter are economic growth and profit, for its failure to shoulder the blame for the current financial crisis – unprecedented even for an economic system with an in-built self-destruct cycle. At this very moment in time, consumer-driven capitalism appears to have grind to an abrupt halt revealing itself for what it really is – a ghost-modern, hollow ideology gone bust.
The prematurely hailed End of History was little else but catchy propaganda denying the self-evident inequality of opportunities leading the disenfranchisement of the Keynesian welfare state while underpinning the deregulated, “free” market capitalism, spiced up with Milton Friedman’s economics. This ideological decree trumpeting the victory of liberalism was also the historical moment when the globalisation process was started in earnest. Yet, as we shall see in the latter stages of this critique of the ideological, moral, ethical, financial and above all systemic bankruptcy of corporatist capitalism, the current state of economic affairs lies in the faulty structuring of this social engineering project.
The obsessive quest for profit maximisation and production costs reduction presupposed by the globalisation of the world economy – which is driving the centralised efforts to justify doctrinally these bureaucratic, vertical, closed, rational and apparently natural corporatist structures of power – makes use of its massive potential to shock those that are subjected to it into a regressive state from which they cannot question the scope nor the direction of this amalgamating process.
Among the most shocking instances of the new world order are the decentralisation of the global balance of power allowing for the non-interference principle to be contradicted via this unilateral “regime-change” doctrine. Thus, the “market fundamentalism” entailed by this global “commune” (rather than the “village” underpinning McLuhan’s ageing globalization paradigm!) comprised of an “international community” of states (that have been amalgamated, economically and militarily, within the utterly rigid confines of “The Washington Consensus”[vii]) is revealed to be but an area inside which all political, economic and cultural dimensions of the heterogeneous community of nation-states (envisaged upon the creation of the United Nations organisation) had been levelled to the ground (“Zero”) by this unstoppable steam roller.
Further still, globalisation bears full responsibility for inducing the death of the civil society by smashing it into billions of atomised pieces, mere shoppers forced to buy into the trans-national hypermarket idea, wilfully misinformed after decades of being drip-fed the white noise of scientific propaganda – the process also known as “marketing” – which is responsible for creating the false needs of excessive consumption and instant gratification. Beyond widespread accusations of cultural imperialism, other such apparently well-founded concerns regard the process of “democratising” education well beyond its intended scope of allowing universal access to its teachings, by debasing it to the lowest common denominator of accessibility. I cannot end this brief enunciation of shocking instances without pointing to society’s redistribution of classes – a process owing to the ever-widening financial gap in the hyperbolical polarization of incomes between the new-moneyed elite and the impoverished intelligentsia – i.e. the GINI index which is in effect denying all other statistical methods devised for calculating the real prosperity of a nation – or by pointing to the privatisation of public utilities, medical services, politicising scientific research[viii] etc.
It is surprising to notice how these impervious corporatist entities are but the backbone or, if you prefer, the engine room of the (liberal) “Open Societies” – a term coined initially by Bergson that was to acquire widespread notoriety after being adopted by Popper[ix]. They are also an appendix of the “free market” ideology – where the term “free” signifies but the freedom from those commercial barriers put up against seemingly unfair competitions set up between corporatist giants and local producers.
In practice, the wilful degradation of the political discourse, achieved after pruning the decisional tree of its alternative vocabulary of models, aims to synthesise the One and only paradigm while, at the same time, it intends to occupy every single inch of the perceived middle-ground by pushing outside every progressive model there may be by vilifying them as either “leftist” or “extremist”. The “centralised” ownership of the media conglomerates further aids and abets the promotion of a unilateral discourse using “scientific” methodologies to manipulate rational (albeit limited!) systems bounded by an authoritarian formal legality geared to establish and consolidate a new world order.
Nothing essential from the societal evolution towards multiculturalism (under this corollary coexisting scientific, historical, ecological etc. research endeavours – alas, every single component of the human identity that contributed to the genetic modification of the 21st century political discourse into a type of politically correct newspeak!) cannot be understood in the absence of the theoretical and methodological support offered by the various endeavours aiming to objectify knowledge. Obviously, this particular reference addresses exclusively those types of research in which axiological neutrality had been preserved unaltered by various ideological contributions destined to institute hierarchical value systems by claiming unilaterally both rationality as well as scientific method in their pursuit.
Not even Weber’s fundamental contribution towards drafting “the social sciences’ theoretical and methodological basis”[x] cannot be said to offer a concrete perspective as to the ways in which this philosophical quest for objectivity may eventually be achieved. Though he does clarify the differences between values and truths per se one cannot assert with any degree of precision whether or not he honestly believed whether a researcher could indeed eliminate value-driven influences from his data analysis.[xi]
Despite the manifest difficulty presupposed by any attempt to analyse the relationship between objectivity and all the values that cannot be justified “scientifically”, despite the potential for instituting varying axiological hierarchies, inherent in Weberian objectivity, and despite the apparent problems arising out of any attempt to limit objectivity (in dedicated research endeavours) to a straightforward analysis of the facts and truths presented and, finally, despite the obvious difficulties inherent in the precise determination of the source of an individual’s valuing perspectives – i.e. whether these can be said to derive from human nature, self-identity, metaphysical perspective or whether their particular perspective represents nothing but a straightforward cultural construct – my intention is to propose a research protocol based on a realistic and positivistic description of the current economic and social realities underpinning the appropriateness of using a type of normative epistemology normally found in the qualitative analysis of the total social phenomena.
When Weber compares political, social or religious systems he does nevertheless admit to the fact that choices cannot be made according to axiological criteria without its affirmed values and scope being taken into consideration – both of whom appear to belong to the scientist’s perspective. Yet, despite implicitly admitting to the limitations of such an endeavour, he still considered that once the values, means, scope and/or perspective intended for use by the researcher had been established, he would still be able to claim axiological neutrality for his experiments – such as the case appears to be when making supposedly “objective” comparisons between the capitalist and socialist systems.
The rule of thumb ensures that if Weber’s assertions create a precedent for the “subjective presentation and justification of economic phenomena” such as when he affirms in his “The Nation-State and its Economic Policies”[xii] that even “economic truths are subjected to the influence of valuing perspectives” then, this apparent existential slip constitutes the licence needed to affirm, as the sociology founding-father did too, in an address entitled “The Profession and the Vocation of Politics” [xiii] the political deficiencies of the capitalist system – yet not from Weber’s stated position of “success”, [xiv] but from one highlighting the exact opposite of his assertions: more precisely, the “perfect failure” of the utterly “selfish capitalist” system.
A DIACRONICAL CONTEXTUALIZATION AND THE AFFIRMATION OF THE FUNDAMENTAL POINTS OF VIEW
Starting from Adam Smith, Hobbes or Locke to reach the point of considering Weber, Hayek, Friedman and the rest of the modern apostles of the Chicago School economic dogmas or the purists hailing the “second coming” of Ludwig von Mises in their quest for an unmitigated affirmation of the limited rationality bureaucratic deontology[xv] of the capitalist spirit of malign competitiveness – freed from the national sovereignty barriers preventing it from organising “free and fair” competitions between corporate giants and local producers – I came to the conclusion that the apocalyptic paradigm according to which neoconservative corporatism is deemed to be the apex of the evolutionary chain of humanity is in fact none other than a revisionist interpretation of the history of economics hailing selfish individualism as the ultimate value to be had.
In the seventies, this economic and political credo, which Oliver James labels as “selfish capitalism” is but a “creationist” version of Friedmanism which had been enthusiastically adopted by the administrations of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher or Augusto Pinochet – to name but the front line of the Ideological War of idle threats – before ’89, and by most of the newly “liberated” regimes in Eastern Europe, eager to show their new masters their conservative credentials, ever since. This credo is underpinning what Naomi Klein labels as “disaster capitalism”[xvi] – a system imposed either by coup d’états (directly supported by the CIA!) or, by virtue of administering brutal economic shocks to a population forced to acquiesce the scope and pace of these fundamental changes.
The scientific trick was to make-believe that the “trickle down” effect was more than mere wishful thinking, designed to manage a more efficient exploitation of the human resources – starting from the first episodes of the liberal dogmas, such as Taylorism or Fordism leading up to the more modern mechanisms of labour organisation, such as “6 Sigma” or “Lean Manufacturing”. Every one of these management schemes is simply aimed at herding people into becoming mere clients of the banking system, whose credit rate is utterly dependant on their leading politically apathetic, mediocre lives in a never-ending cycle of failure.
The inability to fulfil the expectations born out of the stealthy propaganda of the selfish capitalist system has a profoundly negative effect on people which can be analysed on two counts. On the one hand, it leads to a widening of the gap stratifying this plutocracy according to people’s incomes – a tiny minority growing richer than ever before while the vast majority stagnates, in real terms. The decline in the median household incomes is prevented by the ever-increasing numbers of women in work as well as the total number of hours worked to that end. On the other hand, it leads to a substantial growth – in the ‘70s compared to the ‘50s – in the population’s “emotional stress” i.e. what psychiatrists refer to as “mental illnesses”.[xvii]
ADHERING TO AXIOLOGICAL VALUES AND SIGNALLING AXIOLOGICAL NEUTRALITY TRANSGRESSIONS IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
A variety of bibliographical sources define axiology – deriving from the Greek word axios (άξιος), meaning value – as the study of the origins, nature, functions and of the inter-relationship between ethical, esthetical and/or religious values. It is a known fact that formal axiology is based on the logical nature of significance, viewed as a set of predicates. Grossly simplifying things here, I will only add that it represents a particular type of mathematics and, given the fact that mathematics is an objective and a priori science, formal axiology too becomes an objective and a priori science. Thus, any test which relies on it for referential purposes becomes an objective test, based on an objective standard.[xviii]
The point for these summary explanatory enunciations is to introduce other axiological components, in particular ethics, in order that the transgressions occurring in scientific research may be better illustrated. Yet, before I proceed with examples, I will attempt an equally brief diachronic contextualisation of this problematic.
Starting from the end of the 19th century, a number of German intellectuals thought possible a universal science encompassing the social sphere as a whole, voided of all political reflections. Interestingly enough, this rather romantic approach was occurring despite the individualism of the Industrial Revolution or the French Revolution’s quest for democracy. While adopting Kant’s position, Weber contradicts this perspective by affirming the impossibility of confusing objective judgements for valuing ones without losing all possibilities of ever managing to objectify such unilateral approaches to reality.
In reality, drawing axiological hierarchies between different levels of causality is not a natural process as these can only come about from a series of heuristic choices. Consequently, political sociology cannot simply offer readymade policies awaiting straightforward implementation – as these are always based on the values they represent; it can only offer technical expertise to assess concrete situations or draw a set of predictable consequences arising upon adopting a certain decision. Setting axiological hierarchies implies making certain ethically or existentially-loaded affirmations while the manner in which we position ourselves vis-à-vis such particular values becomes “the very basis of the questions we ask of reality” – a concept allowing for the sociological interpretation of human behaviour. This type of distinction is what Weber considers axiological neutrality to be.
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A collateral victim of the liberalised (in a profoundly undemocratic way!) capitalism is the area of scientific research. The corporatist military complex’s violent transgressions in this field are a prime example of its deliberate attempt to interfere and control the last bastions of academic research. Starting with the infamous mind control programme, MKULTRA – a preview of the “Shock and Awe” US military doctrine – which was started at the McGill University by the other “Angel of Death”, Dr. Ewen Cameron, leading to a whole host of counter-insurgency programmes, such as the Phoenix programme or, Project Camelot, during the Vietnam War – turning American anthropologist into mere mercenaries in the US Army pay – up to and including the Minerva Research Initiative and the Human Terrain System programme, it seems that the whole scientific research community has been infested the corporatist gluttony virus.
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The globalization phenomena and its associated transgressions blurring the distinctions which exist between public and private, civilian and military in all walks of life including scientific research is the best example of the entrepreneurial quest for a unifying paradigm – appearing to vindicate the proposition advancing the idea that unity is indeed more comforting than diversity. Consequently, Kuhn’s idea according to which all great scientific disciplines are, at some point in their evolution, dominated by a single unifying paradigm is the reason why many researchers appear keen to deny these diversities by “demonstrating” the aporia of convergence for all of these heterogeneous traditions by pointing out the fact that their synthesis only goes to show their profound unity (see Talcott Parsons – The Social Action Structure).
THE SELF-REPLICATING/ SELF-DEVOURING MECHANISMS OF CORPORATE CLONING
There are a number of remarkable scientific models resulting in an open invitation to reconsider Newton’s and Einstein’s scientific legacy via a unifying physical (energy) principle – according to which “gravitational forces” are being replaced by “geometrical orbit ecuations”.[xix] Yet another intriguing paradigm is the one offered in 2003, by Steinhardt and Turok, in their Cyclical Theory,[xx] according to which Time and Space exist in perpetuity, not only since the Big Bang – a point in Time considered to be but an intermediary rather than a reference point for the collapse of the previous Universe, a mere stopover in an uninterrupted sequence of extensions and contractions. Such scientific theories destined to aid the comprehension of the infinite complexity of the Universe are living proof of the fact that we are only at the beginning of our quest to formalise one unifying theory for everything that exists objectively.
Regardless of whether the potentially paradigmatic metaphor used here belongs to astrophysics or to the quasi-scientific endeavour of managing “the most reviled Biblical sins”, reunited under the unifying umbrella which we call “economics”, at this particular moment in time, when we are inexorably sinking into the greatest depression that the capitalist system of Boom-Bust-ic cyclical crises has ever known or produced, it seems that the most appropriate paradigm giving consistency to the irreversible decline of Western corporatism is contained in Spengler’s Cyclical Evolution of Civilizations.[xxi]
One of the greatest collective shocks in living memory was produced by Gorbachev’s failure to reform the socialist system while simultaneously facing the enormous financial challenge entailed in the military race for supremacy against the system’s ideological foe. It was clear right from the start that the West would not allow him to reform a system the same way the US did not let the countries (in what it still considers to be its “back yard”!) go “The Third Way”. This paradigm, which picks and chooses an á-la-carte menu of the best policies produced by the two systems, was clearly a more formidable foe to be had hence the reason for its full blown offensive to get it bankrupted.
The client network created by the financial globalization of the world is responsible for furthering what the Canadian journalist Naomi Klein calls “The Shock Doctrine”. The shocking likeness between the authoritarian tactics of the “long march” towards communism and that of the social engineering project encompassed by Chicago School economics is illustrated in the regime-change military interventions against the states left unprotected for not embracing wholeheartedly one ideological dogma or another. This brutal interventionism is hardly nuanced by an insidious worldwide propaganda network using selectively the “human rights” issue as well as the scientific marketing hailing the unquestionable superiority of the welfare state – which, by the way, disappeared long before it could be used as an excuse for the current economic crisis.
Despite its totalitarian nature (or, maybe because of it!) this bipolar system ensured the world’s balance of power. The end of modernity (in political terms!) though causes a massive collective shock to millions of people who are being forced to undergo a period of transition during which time the old Cold War scores are being settled with a vengeance by the none too gracious winners. This shock is amplified exponentially by the white noise of the Washington Consensus experts needed to cover up the impoverishment caused by the economic Shock Therapy unleashed so as to force people to accept without preconditions the Friedmanite “Holy Trinity”: privatisation, deregulation and savage cuts to budgetary expenditure on health and social security.
As far as the privatisation issue is concerned, for many countries in Eastern Europe – of which Romania is but a prime example – the unnatural length of this process is indicative of the time needed to ransack the country’s most prised assets. The deregulation of its economic system gives rise to a type of free-wheeling economics, encompassed in a lax single taxation system – which is still being dodged by euphemistically called “entrepreneurs”, despite the fact that even after taxing the oligarch and the “nostalgic” the same percentage of their incomes, this system is still but a grand sieve of loopholes allowing for the generous proceeds to be laundered in off-shore accounts around the world. There has been so much said about the final piece in the jigsaw, which allows for the existence of over 47 (forty-seven!) million people in the world’s “biggest democracy” to go without health insurance, that renders superfluous any attempt on my part to add anything to it. I too feel sometimes a tad “nostalgic” about the replacement of a system, albeit very far from being perfect, with another one that prescribes most crimes, including economic crimes for that matter, for the sole purpose of engendering an ideological change of paradigm.
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A special place will be reserved to analysing the theory of crises, as drafted by Milton Friedman, in the context of it being but as a subspecies of these tragic transitions. The more the global economy abides by his theoretical recipes – adopting floating interest rates, „liberalising“ prices and doing exactly the same as Ceausescu did when gearing the entire Romanian economy towards exporting its dirt cheap, yet poorly manufactured products – the more the entire system becomes liable to be engulfed by crises, which the Nobel Prize laureate identified as the only times when governments seem likely to adopt his radical advice.
This is the way in which crises become incorporated in the Chicago School of economics, argues Naomi Klein. When limitless sums of money are free to travel the world at the speed of electronic transfers, speculators are given licence to bet on everything, starting from the price of raw materials to the currency prices. Since international corporations are a lot bigger than many countries put together and when such sorrowful appendages of the international community are at the mercy of the “electronic herd” residing in the stock exchanges and the main international financial institutions it is no wonder that a state of shock engulfs the whole world with regard to the state of this Athenian ideal that we still call democracy.
CONCLUSIONS
In 1937, David Mitrany (1888–1975), one of the founders of the functionalist approach to the problem posed by instituting a world government was saying that in times resembling those of today, a bold ideal may become the most genuine form of realism imaginable. This is the very reason for this project, aiming to re-democratise society – an interpreting amendment, in the sense posed by Dilthey and Rickert to Karl Popper’s „Open Society“.
The hope of instituting an international system of humanist governance, based on respect for human rights as well as the rest of the laws and treaties agreed internationally is the reason why I invite researchers from all walks of life to bring their contribution towards structuring a consociational[xxii] type of democracy, a viable alternative to the disaster capitalist voracity that ought to allow history to come out of the polarising impasse it seems to have got itself stuck into. Such an endeavour would allow for societal re-democratisation while instigating a type of social libertarianism declassifying the equality of opportunity myth i.e. by reversing the type of “shareholder society” envisaged by the current paradigm to a “stakeholder society”.[xxiii] It should also institute a normative system adding true value to society by instigating a social economy of cooperation, individuality, proportionality and a meaningful type of segmental autonomy giving rise to consensual politics in a community of nation-states in which civil society is reinstated as the main actor.
This project bears a striking resemblance to the Linux system of operation never more so than when considering both methodological heterogeneity and the diversity apparent in the theoretical positioning and the research practices underpinning contemporary political sociology endeavours. In order that this project’s paradigmatic potentiality is achieved sooner rather than later we would have to reconstitute the string of actions that gave rise to the globalisation phenomenon while analysing concurrently the motives upon which political, social, economic and military decisions were taken and implemented.
This would obviously be but the first step towards the decentralisation of the political and economic power that is currently being held in trust by the technocratic elites presiding over the capitalist system’s cyclical failure. Another urgent step needing to be taken concerns the revocation of the powers conferred upon the repressive institutions of state power – the only ones accredited to use force – thus preventing the extension of evil from the “banality”[xxiv] of the ethical discourse to a global level, in which the “War on Terror” is being used as a pretext for cancelling out civil liberties.
Pumping increasingly large sums of money into an ailing system seems destined only to prolong its suffering. Its fate has been sealed and it is irreversible. Corporatism has had its day. It is high time to re-nationalise public utilities, the health and banking systems and start again from scratch by finalising a new accord similar to the one reached at Bretton Woods that would bring back meaning into what has long ceased to be a case of fair trade between sovereign nations alongside that much needed sense of order in the global financial system that should never again be left to its own devices. I have never been as convinced as I am today by Jeffrey Sachs’ affirmations about the invisible hand of the market, free to privatise itself out of the tax payer’s pockets, representing a wholly inadequate solution to the current economic crisis.
NOTES:
[i] Pierre Bourdieu formally explains violence to be but a symbolic force in drag hiding its true violent nature for the purpose of gaining recognition, approval and acceptance so that that it can present itself under the guise of universality – more precisely, under the guise of ration and morality; see also Richard McCutcheon, The Iraq War as Globalized War, paper presented at the Forum on international arms embargoes and the case of Iraq, Toronto, 2001 www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/WorkingPapers/wp023.pdf
[ii] Marcuzzo, Maria Cristina, Is History of Economic Thought a Serious Subject, Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, Volume 1, Issue 1,Autumn 2008, pp. 107-123 http://ejpe.org/pdf/1-1-art-5.pdf
[iii] Saft, James, Was Whole Economy a Ponzi Scheme, International Herald Tribune, 01.01.2009, http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/01/business/col02.php
[iv] Jim Quinn, The Perfect Storm: Our Great Depression, http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/quinn10.html
[v] Oliver James, The Selfish Capitalist: Origins of Affluenza, Vermillion, London, 2008; see also Lanteri, Alessandro, (Why) do Selfish People Self –Select in Economics, Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, Volume 1, Issue 1,Autumn 2008, pp. 107-123 http://ejpe.org/pdf/1-1-art-1.pdf
[vi] The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is an American neo-conservative think-tank promoting the interventionist policies of the US, especially during the Reagan and Bush administrations http://www.newamericancentury.org/
[vii] John Williamson coins this catch-phrase in order to add further emphasis to the set of economic policies considered by the International Monetary Fund and by the World Bank to be but the lowest common denominator ensuring the health of the world economy. The entire list of what he considers to be but the set of common assumptions agreed upon by all serious economists is little else but a resume of the Friedmanite “Holy Trinity”.
[viii] Lepădatu, „Cei buni, cei răi şi cei neutri axiologic“ http://romania.indymedia.org/ro/2008/12/2907.shtml.
[ix] Popper’s philosophical conception must surely be qualified in a number of ways one of which being the research methodology he uses to advance certain political philosophy theories, starting with his critique of Hegelian historicism (despite the apparent fact that the empirical falsifications philosopher never actually read Hegel in original, using instead only a poorly translated synthesis from an undergraduate students’ anthology – see Walter Kaufmann “From Shakespeare to Existentialism: Studies in Poetry, Religion, and Philosophy”, Beacon Press, Boston 1959, p. 88-119, chapter 7: The Hegel Myth and Its Method) to the possibility of his fraudulently using Otto Selz, his professor’s ideas – see Michel ter Hark, Popper, Otto Selz and the Rise of Evolutionary Epistemology – leading up to the question of electoral manipulations via fraudulent political discourses – see Soros, George, "From Karl Popper to Karl Rove - and Back", http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/soros36).
[x] Max Weber, Teorie şi metodă în ştiinţele culturii, Polirom, 2001, p. 6.
[xi] Ralf Dahrendorf, “Max Weber and Modern Social Science”, chapter 37, Max Weber and his Contemporaries, coord. Wolfgang J. Momsen şi Jürgen Osterhammel (London, The German Institute for History/ Allen & Unwin, 1987), p.577 quoted in Steve Hoenisch, Max Weber’s View of Objectivity in Social Sciences, copyright 1996–2006, www.criticism.com
[xii] Max Weber: Political Writings, “The Nation State and Economic Policy”, p.1
[xiii] Max Weber: Political Writings, “The Profession and Vocation of Politics”, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, p.367, quoted in Steve Hoenisch, ibid.
[xiv] Ibid.
[xv] Consider Herbert Simon’s limited rationality theory.
[xvi] Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Penguin, 2007.
[xvii] James, Oliver, ibid., pp. 2-4.
[xviii] Hartman, Robert S., “Formal Axiology and the Measurement of Values”, Journal of Value Inquiry, I (1967), 39.
[xix] McCutcheon, Mark, The Final Theory – Rethinking our Scientific Legacy, Universal Publishers, 2004.
[xx] Steinhardt, Paul J. şi Turrock, Neil, A Cyclic Model of the Universe, http://www.sciencemag.org/, vol. 296, 24 May 2002.
[xxi] Spengler, Oswald, Declinul Occidentului, ed. Beladi, 1996, vol. 1 & 2.
[xxii] Consociational democracy or „konkordanzdemocratie“ (Lehmbruch, 1967 and Lijphart, 1968) is a form of conflict management in deeply divided societies- see Lehmbruch, Gerhard, Consociational Democracy, Class Conflict, and the New Corporatism, paper originally presented at the “Political Integration Round Table“ of the International Political Science Association, Jerusalem September 1974, republished in Philippe C. Schmitter und Gerhard Lehmbruch, eds.: Trends toward corporatist intermediation. Sage: London 1979, 53-61: http://www.uni-konstanz.de/FuF/Verwiss/Lehmbruch/Veroeffentlichung/Jerusale.rtf
[xxiii] Giddens, A., Hutton, W., On the Edge: Living with Global Capitalism, Vintage Books, London, 2001.
[xxiv] The “banality of evil” concept wishes to extend Hannah Arendt’s meaning to the conceptual framework encompassing the political economy of globalisation.
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1. Atkinson, Robert, Povestea Vieţii: Interviul, Polirom, 2006.
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