Paul Krugman has jumped into this week’s TPMCafe Book Club, aka The Rumble in the Econ Department.
If you’re just checking into the debate, read a quick summary of what you’ve missed here.
More bizarre revelations from Democratic strategist and former Edwards/Kerry adviser Bob Shrum, who advised Edwards to vote for the Iraq War.
Turns out he worried that he himself would look left-wing if Edwards voted against the invasion.
TPM Reader DM chimes in …
I think saying that our current adventures are all about the oil is only half right. I think that itâs more about political economy broadly speaking, with oil being a necessary factor in the case of the Middle East. Since the dawn of neoliberalism in the 1970s and its takeoff as a grand strategy in the 1980s, a key ideological aim of American policy makers from the Reagan administration through the Clinton administration and up to Bush II has been fostering neoliberal economic policies around the globe: freer trade, rule by law (necessary for the predictability in rules that transnational firms seek), an animus against price fixing, privatization, and anti-import substitution. If a nation or region has had any real potential as trade partner, consumer, and exporter of goods, the US has pushed neoliberal policies on them. Sometimes they have succeeded and sometimes they havenât. And when the US has succeeded in causing policy changes, the results have been very mixed. The bottom line, though, is that neoliberalism â which is of course amenable to democracy â drives much of American foreign policy.
At any rate, when you look at the Middle East in 2001 (and now, frankly), you see the following: an economically important region whose lone key export industry is run by a cartel of states, not private firms. There is also very little rule of law in the economic sense, and price fixing has long been the order of the day. And a cartel of state-operated industries engaged in rampant price fixing goes against most of the core classical tenets of free trade.
When you look back to the 1990s, the neoliberal agenda acquired the veneer of common sense in the US among both liberals and conservatives. And you could see it pushed everywhere from Eastern Europe to Latin America to South Asia to parts of East Asia (particularly after the 1998 crash). It never penetrated the Middle East, however, despite the fact that unlike Africa (the other region beyond the pale when it came to neoliberal theory), it was economically very important.
So yeah, itâs about oil, but itâs about a much bigger thing as well: fostering a proverbial new world order of democratic capitalism based on neoliberal principles. The vision is hostile to socialism in all its guises, the corporatism that emerged in the interwar years, and to a lesser extent Keynesianism (because itâs harder to attack â Keynesianismâs intellectual and policy hold has remained powerful). Outside of economically unimportant states like Cuba and a host of African countries, Middle Eastern states are the last unreconstructed holdouts to this bold new era. The oil has allowed them to do this, but despite their oil wealth, they are by and large poor countries which outside of oil exports are very poorly integrated into the current global economic system. We want that to change.
Venezuela seems to be going in this direction now too, and our beef with them is about the same set of issues â state control, price fixing, reversing privatization, etc.
Even China has come around a bit, and while the US continues to complain about their economic policies, theyâre too big for us to tackle.
This is all true, to an important extent. But let’s add on a few more issues. In one sense what we are talking about here is simply US-backed globalization based on neo-liberal economic principles. This is a story we’re all familiar with. In a modified form at least it’s an agenda I agree with. And part of this broad meta-discussion is the role of US hard power in providing the undergirding of a neoliberal world economic order — much as pre-WWI free trade era was an ideological and economic construct made possible by the dominance of the British Navy.
Okay, so set all that to one side. And let’s get at another part of the question.
I think the perceived need to exercise de facto physical control over these oil resources points to a different goal, a different perception of the kind of world system we’re trying to build and where we fit into it. It suggests that we no longer believe we will continue to have the sort of economic and political clout that will allow us to maintain our standards of living and power in the world. So we need to lock down physical control of the oil now with our military power — the lagging indicator of national decline. In other words, we need to use it before we lose it. It’s a very pessimistic vision. And a strategy that’s really not panning out so well.
Shock and disappointment seemed to be the prevalent reactions to the recent Democratic compromise on the Iraq funding bill. Whether you agree or disagree with the bill itself, it makes little sense to be surprised when the Democrats were telegraphing the move in advance. We explain in todayâs episode of TPMtv …
Late Update: For a summary of today’s episode, click here.
A new poll undermines one of the Rudy campaign’s key talking points about the strength he’d have in a general election.
Another voter fraud casualty?
Fingerprints of Republican voter fraud kingpin Mark “Thor” Hearne appear on firing of U.S. Attorney Todd Graves in Kansas City.
TPM Reader JR writes …
Re your argument that the quest for oil is a parsimonious explanation for the Iraq war. I have long doubted this proposition. Big Oil may be venal in its pursuit of profit, but it has an intimate knowledge of non-western political structures, and it’s far from stupid. These interests would have known from the start that a cobbled together, post-colonial state like Iraq couldn’t be invaded without catstrophic consequences. This set me wondering, though. I never did come across any substantial report on what Big Oil actually thought as this loony-tunes adventure popped up in the night. I don’t mean the paid mouth-pieces but the power managers within the companies – those advised by anthropologists, political scientists, and other experts who actually have a clue about the workings of the real world.
I think this gets at one of the central confusions of this debate. When you say it’s about controlling the oil, that’s not the same as saying that the oil companies themselves — ExxonMobil, Shell, etc. — want to own the oil in the ground or want more generous concessions from the governments. They probably do. But I don’t think this is what that’s about. The oil companies, in case you haven’t noticed, make a decent amount of money under the current system of working with the local oligarchies and kleptocracies in the countries in question.
This is about the US controlling the region itself, having troops on the ground and structures in place so that none of the nominal governments in the region can act on their own without US assent. That’s a whole different question than which companies have the right to pump the stuff out of the ground.
U.S. Attorney who was on firing short-list mulls a 2008 challenge to Dem Rep. Chris Carney in Pennsylvania.
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) on the newly announced White House policy …
“The White House announcement that they view South Korea as the model for a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq is further evidence of how dangerously out of touch with reality this administration is.
“On a strictly historical level, the comparison is comical. A high school student could tell you that there are virtually no similarities between the Korea and Iraq. The administration’s inept attempts to come up with tortured historical analogies to try to justify a failed policy should be another reminder just how little credibility they have on the issue.
“The frightening truth is that there are obviously people within the Bush administration who believe that it is a good idea to occupy Iraq military on a permanent basis, which is why we have fought so hard in Congress to establish a clear policy to prevent permanent military bases in Iraq.
“The overwhelming majority of Iraqis want an end to the occupation, and for the White House to suggest that it will continue for another fifty years, or perhaps permanently, only fuels the insurgency and further endangers our troops.
“The American people are also calling for an end to the occupation, and the fact that the administration has responded by saying they think the occupation should be permanent just underlines not only how out of touch they are, but how critical it is for Congress to intervene to bring an end to this failed policy.”
Art Brodsky: three cheers for Edwards and Gore for their leadership in the arcane but important world of telecom policy.