La crise a ceci de bon, dans une \u00e9poque o\u00f9 la place de l’information et la force de sa diffusion sont consid\u00e9rables, qu’elle agite les esprits et qu’elle d\u00e9lie les langues. La police de la pens\u00e9e a beaucoup d’h\u00e9sitation ces derniers temps, d’autant qu’elle est soumise elle-m\u00eame \u00e0 bien des incertitudes. La crise ayant frapp\u00e9 d’abord le Saint Office (Wall Street) et son bureau de surveillance de la Foi (la City<\/em>), le doute est au cur du fruit et l’amertume se fait partout sentir, et la col\u00e8re \u00e9clate. Ainsi du magnifique article de Madeleine Bunting, ce matin<\/a> dans le Guardian<\/em>, qui fait le proc\u00e8s de cette religion qui a converti le camp occidental \u00e0 partir des ann\u00e9es 1970.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tBunting remonte aux origines les plus r\u00e9centes de cette installation de la Foi au cur de notre raison, notre nouvelle religion dont les caract\u00e8res furent d\u00e9finis par quelques r\u00e9flexions essentielles qui suivirent la Grande D\u00e9pression. (The Great Transformation<\/em> de Karl Polanyi et The Road to Serfdom<\/em> de Friedrich Hayek, le premier avertissant des dangers de ce qui est aujourd’hui le n\u00e9olib\u00e9ralisme, ou laisser faire, le second exaltant la doctrine et la pr\u00e9sentant comme la formule pour l’issue heureuse d’une humanit\u00e9 souffrante, deux livres publi\u00e9s en 1944.) Bunting examine les effets de cette religion impos\u00e9e au monde durant les trente derni\u00e8res ann\u00e9es, jusqu’au paroxysme des sept derni\u00e8res ann\u00e9es, le paroxysme avant la chute. Bunting met \u00e0 sa juste place la fable grotesque du terrorisme: \u00abThen 9\/11 and for the next seven years a sideshow was offered as a distraction with caricature villains and thriller drama. While eyes were on the absurd charade of the \u00ab\u00a0threat of Islamist terrorism to western civilisation\u00a0\u00bb, the real doomsday scenario that poses a far greater threat to western civilisation (whatever that is) was gathering pace right next to Ground Zero, in Wall Street.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tL’article est \u00e0 lire de toute urgence, tant il restitue bien ce caract\u00e8re essentiel de foi, de croyance absolu, ce caract\u00e8re compl\u00e8tement religieux qui a conduit notre raison pendant ces trente derri\u00e8res ann\u00e9es, jusqu’o\u00f9 nous nous voyons aujourd’hui. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abAt the time Polanyi was writing, there were many who agreed with him that free-market capitalism was chronically and destructively unstable, with terrible political consequences. But in the 70s and 80s, Hayek’s neoliberalism began to take hold on the US ruling elite, Margaret Thatcher was recruited – and in due course Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Roll back the state, leave the economy to run itself has held sway ever since. As Ann Pettifor points out on her website, debtonation.org, Alan Greenspan wrote enthusiastically in August that the past decade has seen mounting global forces (the international version of Adam Smith’s invisible hand) quietly displacing government control of economic affairs. He blithely continued that the greatest danger facing the economy was that some governments, bedevilled by emerging inflationary forces, will endeavour to reassert their grip on economic affairs. Last week, Greenspan did a gigantic volte-face as he pleaded for government to do just that reassert its grip in the form of the bail-out.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbWe are now learning what countries across the developing world have experienced over three decades: unstable and inequitable neoliberal economics leads to unacceptable levels of social disruption and hardship that can only be contained by brutal repression. Add that to the two other central charges against deregulated capitalism: first, it may create wealth but it does not distribute it effectively; and second, that it takes no account of what it cannot commodify neither the social relationships of family and community nor the environment, which are vital to human wellbeing, and indeed to the functioning of the market itself. Ultimately, neoliberal capitalism is self-destructive.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbWe are now witnessing the collapse of this absurd economic orthodoxy that has dominated politics for nearly 30 years. Its triumphalist arrogance, its insistence on orthodoxy, has been comparable to Soviet communism in its scale. For two decades, we’ve been told Tina There is no alternative.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbEconomists talk of trust, belief, faith; we now understand that all along neoliberal capitalism was a form of mythology. That’s why the triumphalism was necessary – you could not afford to have anyone challenge the system or we might all realise we were gawping at the emperor’s nakedness. Rowan Williams was right to quote Marx, that unbridled capitalism becomes a kind of mythology, ascribing reality, power and agency to things that have no life in themselves. Richard Dawkins should be critiquing this superstitious belief system.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbFortunately Thomas Frank did so in his brilliant book, One Market Under God (2001). This is the second book on the reading list, because it explains how neoliberalism entrenched its triumphalism into the political system of the US; how it marginalised and delegitimised all challenge and established hegemony in the so-called free world.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbNow, as it all totters, we can take stock. We can ask how and why the critique of which Frank was a part and Polanyi the bible which was emerging in the late 90s was crippled. The anti-globalisation movement argued that neoliberal capitalism was unjust, unstable and destructive to human and environmental wellbeing. Sounds sensible now, but at the time it mysteriously got smeared by association with anarchists with a penchant for smashing Starbucks’ windows. The broad network of social grassroots movements US unions, Mexican peasants, Indian farmers were misnamed, misunderstood, ridiculed and ignored. There is no alternative, the politicians intoned mantra-like.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThen 9\/11 and for the next seven years a sideshow was offered as a distraction with caricature villains and thriller drama. While eyes were on the absurd charade of the threat of Islamist terrorism to western civilisation, the real doomsday scenario that poses a far greater threat to western civilisation (whatever that is) was gathering pace right next to Ground Zero, in Wall Street.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbAs in all mythologies, the only option, according to Timothy Garton Ash (not noted for his religious faith) on these pages recently, is to pray. What makes me frightened is that this is a corrupt mythology which, like that of the Aztecs, may require a lot of human sacrifice.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tNous ne connaissions pas l’acronyme TINA (There Is No Alternative<\/em>), qui fut effectivement le moteur terroriste de la Foi interdisant la pens\u00e9e alternative, mais nous connaissons bien le triomphalisme qui a accompagn\u00e9 les commentaires sans cesse et sans fin qui rythm\u00e8rent d’un champ martial la marche en avant du n\u00e9olib\u00e9ralisme. Entre ces deux armes dialectiques, rien d’autre n’est possible et le n\u00e9olib\u00e9ralisme triomphe, fut effectivement \u00e9tabli un terrorisme de la pens\u00e9e comme il n’en exista jamais<\/strong> auparavant, sans le moindre doute possible. Ce terrorisme r\u00e9ussit \u00e0 imposer cette formule orwellienne selon laquelle le conformisme de la pens\u00e9e c’est la libert\u00e9 de la pens\u00e9e, et cela marcha \u00e0 tombeaux ouverts. Ce fut ce que nous avons d\u00e9sign\u00e9 comme le diktat<\/em>. Nous devons effectivement \u00e0 cette crise et \u00e0 la peur<\/strong> qu’elle suscite<\/a> au sein du clerg\u00e9 de la chose qu’effectivement le voile est soulev\u00e9<\/a>. Le roi est nu, comme on dit.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tCette mise en lambeaux de leur religion et cette pulv\u00e9risation de leur Foi sont, sans aucun doute l\u00e0 non plus, le grand \u00e9v\u00e9nement de ce mois de septembre 2008, bien plus important que la crise elle-m\u00eame, et il s’agit du plus grand \u00e9v\u00e9nement depuis 9\/11 qu’il surpasse \u00e9videmment en cons\u00e9quences. De celles-ci, de ses cons\u00e9quences, nous ne savons rien. L’\u00e9v\u00e9nement ne nous promet rien, ni dans un sens ni dans l’autre, il accomplit cet acte fondamental de lib\u00e9rer la pens\u00e9e de ses cha\u00eenes, il d\u00e9cha\u00eene la pens\u00e9e. Nul ne sait ce qu’il r\u00e9sultera de ce d\u00e9cha\u00eenement. Il suffit d’admettre que l’acte se suffit \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame pour arguer de son importance fondamentale. Il suffit de l’admettre pour se tenir d\u00e9sormais pr\u00eat \u00e0 tout.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \tMis en ligne le 6 octobre 2008 \u00e0 06H25<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" La crise a ceci de bon, dans une \u00e9poque o\u00f9 la place de l’information et la force de sa diffusion sont consid\u00e9rables, qu’elle agite les esprits et qu’elle d\u00e9lie les langues. La police de la pens\u00e9e a beaucoup d’h\u00e9sitation ces derniers temps, d’autant qu’elle est soumise elle-m\u00eame \u00e0 bien des incertitudes. La crise ayant frapp\u00e9… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7831,7784,7224,7832,7830,3778,7833],"class_list":["post-70253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-bunting","tag-diktat","tag-foi","tag-hayek","tag-neoliberalisme","tag-religion","tag-tina"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}