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georgehunter's review
3.0
Marc D'Eramo on the insufficient US economic response to the pandemic is short and powerful:
"...the pettiness of these legislative tricks—too localized and limited to rescue an ailing neoliberal order—shows that the pandemic has caught the ruling classes off guard: they have not yet grasped the recession that awaits us, and its capacity to upend economic orthodoxies. Just as Agamben views all emergencies as anti-terrorist, our rulers see this systemic crisis as a mere financial one: they respond to the pandemic as if it were a new 2008, imitating Bernanke and prescribing Friedmanite monetary expansion. Prisoners of monetarist orthodoxy, they do not understand that this time the demand shock will entail more than a simple liquidity crisis.
"Soon enough, entire fortunes will be lost as capitalists watch their business ventures (airlines, construction companies, car factories, tourist circuits, film productions) go down the drain. But in this context, Friedman’s ‘helicopter drop of money’—the injection of astronomic amounts of liquidity into the economy—will initiate a large-scale destruction of capital, since this newly issued currency does not correspond to any real value. During wartime, both financial and material capital is demolished: infrastructures, factories, bridges, ports, stations, airports, buildings. But once the war is over a period of reconstruction begins, and it is this reconstruction that triggers an economic rebound. However, the current epidemic looks more like a neutrino bomb, which kills humans and leaves buildings, roads and factories intact (if empty). So, when the epidemic is over, there will be nothing to rebuild—and no consequent recovery."
Shaohua Zhan on the Land Question in China is equally direct, concise and informative.
The rest of the edition is over-academic and thus inaccessible, inconclusive and irrelevant.
"...the pettiness of these legislative tricks—too localized and limited to rescue an ailing neoliberal order—shows that the pandemic has caught the ruling classes off guard: they have not yet grasped the recession that awaits us, and its capacity to upend economic orthodoxies. Just as Agamben views all emergencies as anti-terrorist, our rulers see this systemic crisis as a mere financial one: they respond to the pandemic as if it were a new 2008, imitating Bernanke and prescribing Friedmanite monetary expansion. Prisoners of monetarist orthodoxy, they do not understand that this time the demand shock will entail more than a simple liquidity crisis.
"Soon enough, entire fortunes will be lost as capitalists watch their business ventures (airlines, construction companies, car factories, tourist circuits, film productions) go down the drain. But in this context, Friedman’s ‘helicopter drop of money’—the injection of astronomic amounts of liquidity into the economy—will initiate a large-scale destruction of capital, since this newly issued currency does not correspond to any real value. During wartime, both financial and material capital is demolished: infrastructures, factories, bridges, ports, stations, airports, buildings. But once the war is over a period of reconstruction begins, and it is this reconstruction that triggers an economic rebound. However, the current epidemic looks more like a neutrino bomb, which kills humans and leaves buildings, roads and factories intact (if empty). So, when the epidemic is over, there will be nothing to rebuild—and no consequent recovery."
Shaohua Zhan on the Land Question in China is equally direct, concise and informative.
The rest of the edition is over-academic and thus inaccessible, inconclusive and irrelevant.
lucyl273's review
3.0
Subscribed to this to try to read more current left-wing political essays. This was a pandemic special issue.
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