person:gordon brown

Les héritiers du blairisme
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2012/12/DIXON/48499

Au cours de l’été 2012, l’ancien premier ministre britannique (1997-2007) Anthony Blair a fait savoir qu’il envisageait de revenir à la vie #Politique, sans vraiment déclencher l’enthousiasme — y compris dans son camp. Paradoxalement, il semblerait même que la survie d’une partie de l’héritage (...) / #Royaume-Uni, #Idéologie, #Parti_politique, Politique - 2012/12

#2012/12

British Labour Party steps up anti-immigrant rhetoric - World Socialist Web Site

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/03/14/immi-m14.html

British Labour Party steps up anti-immigrant rhetoric
By Robert Stevens

14 March 2013

The recent Eastleigh by-election has been the occasion for a marked shift to the right in official politics, with the Labour Party assuming pole position.

The Liberal Democrats managed to retain the seat but under conditions of a significant collapse in their vote and that of the Conservatives. With Labour recording virtually no change, the anti-European and anti-immigration United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) benefited from a swing of nearly 20 percent in its favour.

Migrations #asile #royaume-uni

Is This Really the End of Neoliberalism? (2009)
by DAVID HARVEY

►http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/03/13/is-this-really-the-end-of-neoliberalism

Does this crisis signal the end of neo-liberalism? My answer is that it depends what you mean by neo-liberalism. My interpretation is that it’s a class project, masked by a lot of neo-liberal rhetoric about individual freedom, liberty, personal responsibility, privatisation and the free market. These were means, however, towards the restoration and consolidation of class power, and that neo-liberal project has been fairly successful.

One of the basic principles that was set up in the 1970s was that state power should protect financial institutions at all costs. This is the principle that was worked out in New York City crisis in the mid-1970s, and was first defined internationally when Mexico threatened to go bankrupt in 1982. This would have destroyed the New York investment banks, so the US Treasury and the IMF combined to bail Mexico out. But in so doing they mandated austerity for the Mexican population. In other words they protected the banks and destroyed the people, and this has been the standard practice in the IMF ever since. The current bailout is the same old story, one more time, except bigger.

What happened in the US was that 8 men gave us a 3 page document which pointed a gun at everybody and said ‘give us $700 billion or else’. This to me was like a financial coup, against the government and the population of the US. Which means you’re not going to come out of this crisis with a crisis of the capitalist class; you’re going to come out of this with a far greater consolidation of the capitalist class than there has been in the past. We’re going to end up with four or five major banking institutions in the United States and nothing else. Many on Wall Street are thriving right now. Lazard’s, because it specialises in mergers and acquisitions, is making megabucks. Some people are going to be burned, but overall it’s a massive consolidation of financial power. There’s a great line from Andrew Mellon (US banker, Secretary of the Treasury 1921-32), who said that in a crisis, assets return to their rightful owners. A financial crisis is a way of rationalising what is irrational – for example the immense crash in Asia in 1997-8 resulted in a new model of capitalist development. Disruptions lead to a reconfiguration, a new form of class power. It could go wrong, politically. The bank bailout has been fought over in the US Senate and elsewhere, so the political class may not easily go along – they can put up roadblocks but so far they have caved in and not nationalised the banks.

But this can lead to a deeper political struggle: there is a strong sense of questioning why are we empowering all the people who got us into this mess. Questions are being asked about Obama’s choice of economic advisers – for example Larry Summers who was Secretary of the Treasury at the key moment when a lot of things started to go really wrong, at the end of the Clinton administration. Why would you now bring in so many of the characters who are pro-Wall Street, pro-finance capital, who did the bidding of finance capital back then? Which is not to say that they aren’t going to redesign the financial architecture because I think they know it’s got to be redesigned, but who are they going to redesign it for? People are really discontented about Obama’s economic team, even in the mainstream press.

A new state financial architecture is required. I don’t think that all existing institutions like the Bank of International Settlements and even the IMF should be abolished; I think we will need them but they have to be revolutionarily transformed. The big question is who will control them and what their architecture will be. We will need people, experts with some sort of understanding of how those institutions do work and can work. And this is very dangerous because, as we can see right now, when the state looks to see who can understand what is going on in Wall Street, they think only insiders can.

#néolibéralisme
#Harvey

Where’s the global outrage over this modern-day slavery? | Kevin Watkins | Global development | guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/dec/10/global-outrage-modern-day-slavery?intcmp=122

Headline figures tell part of the story. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), there are 215 million five to 17-year-olds trapped in child labour. Globally, numbers are falling at a desperately slow pace. On current trends there will still be 170 to 190 million child labourers in 2020. In Africa the numbers are going up.

Half of all working children are employed in what the ILO describes as “hazardous conditions”. That’s a polite euphemism for conditions that would have shocked even the most hardened Victorian social reformers.

In Mali, boys as young as eight are digging shafts for gold mines and working in tunnels 30 metres underground. They are among the 2 million children worldwide employed by small-scale mines. Another 30 million children, most of them girls, are employed as domestic servants, working long hours for very low pay and facing physical abuse. And there’s a good chance that the metals in your mobile phone include products mined by children working under the control of warlords in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

#travail_des_enfants

Autour de Malala, mobilisation pour l’éducation
http://www.lesnouvellesnews.fr/index.php/civilisation-articles-section/civilisation/2318-autour-de-malala-mobilisation-pour-education

Un mois après avoir échappé à la mort, la jeune pakistanaise Malala Yousafzai est plus que jamais un symbole du combat pour le droit des filles à aller à l’école. Un symbole qui fait de l’effet sur le gouvernement pakistanais.

Ne pas lâcher la pression !

#Malala #Pakistan #éducation #filles

La réunion annuelle des géographes américains se prépare, et il semble que ce sera un truc vraiment bien. De nombreuses sessions sont en trains de s’organiser, ça promet d’être un extraordinaire cocktail de géographies critiques et expériementales

Call for Papers (CFP) for the Association of American Geographers 2013 Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA

Session Title: Postneoliberalism? Neoliberal regulation in the continuing crisis: opportunities for change or just more of the same?

Session organizers: Hugh Deaner, University of Kentucky and Christopher Oliver, University of Kentucky

Neoliberalism is in crisis - or even “dead” - so say a number of academics, editorialists, and public intellectuals (Dumenil and Levy 2011; Klein 2008; Krugman 2009; Magdoff and Foster 2009; Smith 2011; Stiglitz 2008; Wallerstein 2008). Some argue that neoliberalism’s demise represents opportunities to push social regulatory policy in the direction of new and more effective forms of managed capitalism (e.g., Keynesian approaches) (Krugman 2009, 2012; Magdoff and Foster 2009; Stiglitz 2010), thereby reversing the four decade-long movement towards unfettered market-based regulation. While these claims are sometimes monolithic in nature, in other instances writers have made even more grandiose proclamations that the on-going global economic crisis has created new opportunities for changing social regulatory frameworks and, more generally, that a unique historical moment has unfolded offering various potentialities for forging a new ideological framework to social governance (e.g. Klein 2008).

Critical geographers (and critical social scientists) also have attempted to take up these issues: some argue for a possible “postneoliberal” turn, while others question the efficacy of such concepts; and still others ask whether such a transition - or radical re-envisioning - of the various neoliberal forms of social regulation is even possible (Brenner, Peck, and Theodore 2010a, 2010b; Harvey 2009; Hobsbawm 2008; Peck, Theodore, and Brenner 2009; Smith 2011). Whether or not neoliberal forms of social regulation have entered their “zombie” phase, or if changes can lead - or have led- to new forms of counter-neoliberalization is an important - and empirical - question (cf. Brenner, Peck, and Theodore 2010; Fine 2010; Harman 2010; Peck 2010). Further, whose neoliberalism (and to what end and what consequence) is of equal import (cf. Harvey 2009).

In regard to these concerns, we ask the following: Since the emergence of the 2007-2008 crisis, has there been a shift in the form, content, and practices of neoliberal institutions of regulatory governance? And if so, has this change served to lessen or diminish the role of market-based strategies of regulation, or has change merely furthered existing forms of neoliberal governance (e.g., “zombie” neoliberalism) - or has this change strengthened or even emboldened new forms of neoliberal regulatory practices (cf. Peck, Theodore, and Brenner 2012).

We seek papers that explore these issues through a number of possible theoretical and conceptual perspectives and substantive themes:

a) Theoretical discussions which examine the consequences or potentialities of various forms of restructuring within neoliberal regulatory approaches - whether global, regional, national, or local- and what, if any, effect the current and on-going crisis has played (or is playing) in restructuring these conditions (e.g., Is a Polanyian “double movement” taking place - or can it take place - within this crisis and under the current social regulatory conditions?);

b) Conceptual-based illustrations of changes in neoliberal forms of governance through detailed comparative work of varying scales and scope (e.g., Has the current crisis led to a dramatic shift in conceptual understandings of post-Fordist regulation?);

c) Single or comparative empirical-based case studies that chart shifts in neoliberal forms of regulatory governance (e.g., How has the current crisis effected the regulation of housing markets in the US and Europe?).
Though the range of possible substantive themes for the papers is open, some potential areas of work might include:

Neoliberalization/financialization of nature

Green economy policy and practices

Governance and sustainability practices

ban policy including regulation of fiscal policy

Housing policy and the regulation of mortgage markets

The regulation of financial markets

The rise (and fall) of shadow banking

Labor market regulation

Legal regulation of markets

Economic policy changes and their effects

Education policy including public-private partnerships or marketization of educational instruction

The Euro crisis and the crises in Spain and Greece (and other countries)
Please submit abstracts of no more than 250 words to Hugh Deaner athugh.deaner@uky.edu<mailto:csol222@uky.edu> by October 15, 2012.

References:

Brenner, Neil, Nik Theodore, and Neil Brenner. 2010a. “After neoliberalization?” Globalizations. 7: 327-345.

___. 2010b. "Variegated neoliberalization: Geographies, modalities, pathways. Global Networks. 10: 1-41.

Dumenil, Gerard and Dominique Levy. 2011. The Crisis of Neoliberalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.

Fine, Ben. 2010. “Zombieeconomics: The Living Death of the Dismal Science.” In The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism: The Collapse of an Economic Order. Pp. 153-170. London: Zed Books.

Harman, Chris. 2010. Zombie Capitalism: Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.

Harvey, David. 2009. “The crisis and the consolidation of class power: Is this really the end of neoliberalism?” Counterpunch. Available at: ►http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/03/13/is-this-really-the-end-of-neoliberalism. Accessed September 28, 2012.

Klein, Naomi. 2008. “Wall street crisis should be for neoliberalism what fall of Berlin Wall was for communism.” Lecture at the University of Chicago. Available at: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/6/naomi_klein. Accessed September 23, 2012.

Krugman, Paul. 2009. Return to Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.

___. 2012. End This Depression Now. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.

Hobsbawm, Eric. 2008. “Is the intellectual opinion of capitalism changing?” Today program, BBC Radio. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7677000/7677683.stm. Accessed September 24, 2012.

Magdoff, Fred and John Bellemy Foster. 2009. The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences. New York: Monthly Review.

Peck, Jamie. 2010. “Zombie neoliberalism and the ambidextrous state.” Theoretical Criminology. 14: 104-110.

Peck, Jamie, Nik Theodore, and Neil Brenner. 2009. “Postneoliberalism and its Malcontents.” Antipode. 41: 94-116.

___.2012. “Neoliberalism resurgent? Market rule after the Great Recession” The South Atlantic Quarterly. 111:265-287.

Smith, Neil. 2011. “Cities after neoliberalization?” Paper available at: http://neil-smith.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Neil.Smith_.AfterNeoliberalism.pdf. Accessed September 20, 2012.

Stiglitz, Joseph. 2008. “The end of neoliberalism?” Available at: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-end-of-neo-liberalism-. Accessed October 1, 2012.

__. 2010. Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Shrinking of the World Economy. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.

Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2008. The demise of neoliberal globalization. Available at:http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2008/wallerstein010208.html. Accessed September 27, 2012.

Migrant workers: Ed Miliband’s dangerous rhetoric
http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/opinion/15857-migrant-workers-ed-milibands-dangerous-rhetoric

He seeks cover from the left by claiming immigration should be seen as a class issue. He claims the slogan “British jobs for British workers” is wrong – not because it is divisive and poses the problem as one between nationalities, but because “We cannot tell people things we cannot deliver”.

The only conclusion to be drawn is that “Red Ed” would like to deliver this, but is barred by anti-discrimination laws.

This slogan gained prominence not when Gordon Brown first ill-advisedly spouted it, but when it became the rallying call and slogan of the construction workers around the Lindsey Oil Refinery strike of winter 2009.

Pourquoi l’empire Murdoch s’est délesté d’un joyau devenu trop pesant | Jean-Claude Sergeant (Le Monde diplomatique)
►http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2011/10/SERGEANT/21088

Il arrive que l’arbre révèle la forêt. En juillet 2011, les Britanniques, scandalisés, découvraient la nature des pratiques journalistiques de l’hebdomadaire « News of the World ». Mais cette dérive en éclairait d’autres : concentration de la propriété des médias, marchandisation de l’information, connivences politiques. Une conception de la presse qu’incarne à lui seul le magnat Rupert Murdoch. (...) Source : Le Monde diplomatique

Pourquoi l’empire Murdoch se déleste d’un joyau devenu trop pesant | Jean-Claude Sergeant
►http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2011/10/SERGEANT/21088

En juillet 2011, les Britanniques, scandalisés, découvraient la nature des pratiques journalistiques de l’hebdomadaire « News of the World ». Mais cette dérive en éclairait d’autres : une conception de la presse qu’incarne à lui seul le magnat Rupert Murdoch. / #Royaume-Uni, #Communication, #Droit, (...) / Royaume-Uni, Communication, Droit, #Entreprise, #Information, #Justice, #Médias, Parti politique, #Politique, #Presse - 2011/10

#Parti_politique #2011/10

Après son refus de payer la #dette, l’Islande fera le triple de la croissance de l’UE en 2012
http://actualutte.info/societe/idees/item/102-apr%C3%A8s-son-refus-de-payer-la-dette-lislande-fera-le-triple-de-l

#Islande a terminé l’année 2011 avec une croissance économique de 2,1% et selon les prévisions de la Commission européenne, elle va faire le triple du taux de croissance attendu pour l’UE en 2012 (La croissance de l’UE est prévue à 0,5% en 2012 contre 1,5% en Islande). Pour 2013 la croissance devrait atteindre 2,7%, principalement à cause de la création d’emplois. L’Islande est le pays qui a nationalisé les banques privées et qui a emprisonné les banquiers responsables de la crise.

L’Islande a été le seul pays européen qui a rejeté par un référendum citoyen le sauvetage des banques privées, laissant s’effondrer certaines d’entre elles et jugeant de nombreux banquiers pour leurs crimes financiers.

via @reka

#finance #banque

Widespread Celebrations But No Pardon For Turing
http://www.i-programmer.info/news/82-heritage/3735-widespread-celebrations-but-no-pardon-for-turing.html

A petition signed by over 21,000 people asked the UK Government to grant a pardon to Alan Turing. That request has now been declined.

http://www.i-programmer.info/images/stories/News/2012/JAN/A/atywide.jpg

How Iceland survived the fire | Martin Wolf | Financial Times
http://blogs.ft.com/martin-wolf-exchange/2011/11/21/how-iceland-survived-the-fire

ah bon l’#euro c’était pas la stabilité…

Having a currency of one’s own is useful when things go badly wrong, even if the currency area is as small and the currency and financial system as mismanaged as Iceland’s. A collapsing currency is a simple alternative to renegotiating millions of contracts, piecemeal.

#Islande via @latrive

Le mouvement social britannique sort de sa léthargie | Tony Wood (Le Monde diplomatique)
►http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2011/06/WOOD/20680

Outre le renforcement du Parti national écossais au sein du Parlement de Holyrood, le rendez-vous électoral du 5 mai 2011 a été marqué par une sévère sanction infligée aux libéraux-démocrates. Leur proposition de réforme du mode de scrutin a été rejetée par une large majorité de la population, qui critique l’alliance nouée avec les conservateurs dans le cadre d’un programme d’austérité d’une rare ampleur. (...)

Le mouvement social britannique sort de sa léthargie | Tony Wood
►http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2011/06/WOOD/20680

Outre le renforcement du Parti national écossais au sein du Parlement de Holyrood, le rendez-vous électoral du 5 mai 2011 a été marqué par une sévère sanction infligée aux libéraux-démocrates : une large majorité de la population critique l’alliance nouée avec les conservateurs dans le cadre d’un (...) / #Royaume-Uni, #Capitalisme, Économie, Éducation, #Finance, Fiscalité, #Inégalités, #Jeunes, Mouvement de contestation, Parti politique, Crise économique, Crise financière, #Néolibéralisme - 2011/06

#Économie #Éducation #Fiscalité #Mouvement_de_contestation #Parti_politique #Crise_économique #Crise_financière #2011/06

The great Murdoch conspiracy (The Daily Telegraph)
►http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8638614/The-great-Murdoch-conspiracy.html

In the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown years, Rupert Murdoch’s empire exploited an alternative and corrupt system of government. (...)

Newspaper phone-hacking scandal goes beyond voicemail - tech - 12 July 2011 - New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20684-newspaper-phonehacking-scandal-goes-beyond-voicemail.html

Brown and like-minded colleagues warned British lawmakers about this self-authorisation and other anomalies during the passage of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) in 2000. Gordon Brown, chancellor of the exchequer at the time, today revealed that his child’s medical records had been appropriated by another News International title, The Sun.

“We predicted facilities like RIPA’s self-authorisation would be abused, but the government called us paranoid, asking us what we had to hide. We said it’s not so much government we’re worried about as hackers and corrupt insiders – and we have been proven right,” says Ian Brown.

“It’s a case of ’We told you so’.”

The stupidity of our copyright laws is finally laid bare
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/may/22/uk-intellectual-property-law-cameron

WikiLeaks cables: FCO ’refused to speak with doomed British hostage’ - Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8303489/WikiLeaks-cables-FCO-refused-to-speak-with-doomed-British-hostage.html

Foreign Office officials turned down the opportunity to speak to a British man held hostage in Mali before his execution because they did not want to be seen to negotiate with terrorists, cables obtained by WikiLeaks indicate.

#cablegate #Grande-Bretagne #Mali

Objectif : tuer Osama
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Objetivo/matar/Osama/Bin/Laden/elpepuint/20110205elpepuint_26/Tes

Matar a Osama Bin Laden se ha convertido en una obsesión que ningún mandatario internacional anuncia en público, pero que desde hace años se confiesan al oído. Arabia Saudí propuso unir las fuerzas de seis países distintos para asesinar al dirigente de Al Qaeda y a su escudero, el pediatra egipcio Ayman al Zawahiri, los terroristas más buscados del planeta, según documentos diplomáticos secretos a los que ha tenido acceso EL PAÍS.

#cablegate

Le désarmement n’engage que ceux qui y croient :

Whitehall told US to ignore Brown’s Trident statement | The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-cables-trident-nuclear-us

The London embassy sent a secret cable back to Washington last autumn reporting conversations with the two civil servants, Richard Freer and Judith Gough, in which they cast doubt on the significance of Brown’s announcement at the UN general assembly that Britain might cut the number of planned new Trident submarines from four to three.

Pour la France, réduire l’armement nucléaire, c’est de la démagogie :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/218931

Araud and the Elysee’s Guillaud fear British nuclear policy is being guided for the moment by Labour Party “demagogues” for domestic political consumption. Briens added that Gordon Brown seems to have decided disarmament will be his legacy, and the UK has moved from talking about disarmament as a political sop to gain parliamentary support for renewing its Trident force, to embracing disarmament as an end in itself. According to Briens, in some fora, the UK has shown willingness to accept clauses calling for a “ban on nuclear weapons.” Critically, UK rhetoric suggests that nuclear weapons are inherently bad, thus implying that maintaining a deterrent force is immoral. For France “nuclear weapons are not bad or good, they just are.” Thus, France continues to oppose the phrase “a world free of nuclear weapons,” which in Araud’s view implies a moral judgment. However, France can accept “a world without nuclear weapons,” which the GOF thinks is more neutral.

Ne pas perdre de vue que la bombe atomique, c’est une question d’identité nationale (je savais pas, mais bon, sur ce sujet tout est possible) :

However, France’s concerns about U.S. rhetoric go beyond RevCon tactics and to the heart of French nuclear theology. Araud said that any statements that are seen to delegitimize the idea of a nuclear deterrent capacity directly threaten French strategic interests, which are fundamentally and “psychologically” bound to France’s deterrent. France’s policy of nuclear deterrence is supported by parties across the political spectrum and has become an essential part of French strategic identity.

#désarmement #Grande-Bretagne #cablegate #France #armement_nucléraire #bombe_atomique

Penser l’impensable, par Serge Halimi (Le Monde diplomatique)
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2008/11/HALIMI/16446

Pendant trente ans, la moindre idée d’une altération quelconque des fondements de l’ordre libéral afin, par exemple, d’améliorer les conditions d’existence de la majorité de la population s’était pourtant heurtée au même type de réponse : tout ceci est bien archaïque ; la mondialisation est notre loi ; les caisses sont vides ; les marchés n’accepteront pas ; savez-vous que le mur de Berlin est tombé ? Et pendant trente ans, la « réforme » s’est faite, mais dans l’autre sens. Celui d’une révolution conservatrice qui livra à la finance des tranches toujours plus épaisses et plus juteuses du bien commun, comme ces services publics privatisés et métamorphosés en machines à cash « créant de la valeur » pour l’actionnaire. Celui d’une libéralisation des échanges qui attaqua les salaires et la protection sociale, contraignant des dizaines de millions de personnes à s’endetter pour préserver leur pouvoir d’achat, à « investir » (en Bourse, dans des assurances) pour garantir leur éducation, par

#politique #libéralisme #finance #capitalisme #crise