IP: absolutist ideology

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 10:44:17 -0400
> To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
> From: Jock Gill <jgill () penfield-gill com>
>
> Dave,
>
> Greg Palast's recent articles on Nobel prize winner Joe Stiglizt and on 
> the IMF's results in Argentina are chilling.   If true, they make the 
> World Bank and I.M.F. equivalent to the Taliban in so far as they believe 
> they can impose salvation upon the non-believers and the infidels. In this 
> case it is an economic 'religion'.  It is the ultimate expression of a top 
> down, centralized, paradigm for wealth and power. Further, the more this 
> centralized paradigm comes under attack from the new paradigm of 
> decentralization and distribution, ala the Internet,  or renewable 
> resources, the more rigid the centralists become.  And the more 
> fearful.  And more desperately dangerous. The paradox is that our new non 
> state terrorists are members of a closed network and are rigid believers 
> in an absolute ideology but are using the means of a decentralized and 
> distributed open network. Perhaps in this internal contradiction they are 
> sowing the seeds of their own destruction?
>
> In any case, I find this disturbing:
>
> "Stiglitz greatest concern is that World Bank plans, devised in secrecy 
> and driven by an absolutist ideology, are never open for discourse or dissent."
>
> Stiglitz's solution sounds remarkably like Hernando DeSoto, who promotes 
> clear title to land.
>
> "So then I turned on Stiglitz. OK, Mr Smart-Guy Professor, how would you 
> help developing nations? Stiglitz proposed radical land reform, an attack 
> at the heart of "landlordism," on the usurious rents charged by the 
> propertied oligarchies worldwide, typically 50% of a tenant's crops."
>
> So I suspect that until we root out and acknowledge our own Taliban-like 
> players, ranging from Jerry Falwell, to The World Bank, to our very own 
> The Army of God, and other "true believers" in absolutist dogmas, we will 
> be in for a long and difficult time.  Members of closed networks who truly 
> believe they can impose salvation upon non believers have been at the root 
> of many a bloody episode.
>
> Until we do this, we are little more than the pot calling the kettle 
> black. And until we can acknowledge the beam in our own eye, it is 
> difficult to see how we can truly know our enemy.
>
> In the end, I think the the election in 2000 was at least in part about 
> the fearful absolutists willing to do anything to fight off the threat 
> from the new paradigm of distributed and decentralized solutions. The old 
> 18th century fight between the Federalists and the Republicans.  Isn't it 
> odd that today's so called Federalist Society is in complete opposition to 
> everything that Hamilton and the original Federalist stood for, at least 
> with respect to the role of the Federal government?
>
> Perhaps it is useful to think about centralized energy solutions, fossil 
> fuels, vs decentralized and renewable energy sources such as wind, solar 
> and fuel cells.  Or the opposing philosophies of Bill Gates and Richard 
> Stahlman might provide a more trenchant example.  Is the Linux movement 
> representative of a middle ground?
>
> Regards,
>
> Jock
>
> http://www.gregpalast.com./
>
> The Observer, London October 10, 2001
> by Greg Palast
>
> JOE STIGLITZ: THE GLOBALIZER WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD
>
> TODAY'S WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS
>
> The World Bank's former Chief Economist's accusations are eye-popping -
> including how the IMF and US Treasury fixed the Russian elections
>
> "It has condemned people to death," the former apparatchik told me. This
> was like a scene out of Le Carre. The brilliant old agent comes in from
> the cold, crosses to our side, and in hours of debriefing, empties his
> memory of horrors committed in the name of a political ideology he now
> realizes has gone rotten.
>
> And here before me was a far bigger catch than some used Cold War spy.
> Joseph Stiglitz was Chief Economist of the World Bank. To a great extent,
> the new world economic order was his theory come to life.
>
> I "debriefed" Stigltiz over several days, at Cambridge University, in a
> London hotel and finally in Washington in April 2001 during the big confab
> of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. But instead of
> chairing the meetings of ministers and central bankers, Stiglitz was kept
> exiled safely behind the blue police cordons, the same as the nuns
> carrying a large wooden cross, the Bolivian union leaders, the parents of
> AIDS victims and the other 'anti-globalization' protesters. The ultimate
> insider was now on the outside.
>
> In 1999 the World Bank fired Stiglitz. He was not allowed quiet
> retirement; US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, I'm told, demanded a
> public excommunication for Stiglitz' having expressed his first mild
> dissent from globalization World Bank style.
>
> Here in Washington we completed the last of several hours of exclusive
> interviews for The Observer and BBC TV's Newsnight about the real, often
> hidden, workings of the IMF, World Bank, and the bank's 51% owner, the US
> Treasury.
>
>
> ---- snip ----
>
> And see also:  < http://www.gregpalast.com./printerfriendly.cfm?artid=96 >
> Who Shot Argentina? The Finger Prints On the Smoking Gun Read 'I.M.F.'
> Inside Corporate America


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