The Great Jump behind

the Great Jump behind is a book of the journalist Serge Halimi published in 2004 (republished in 2006) with the editions Fayard.

The title is a wink with the Grand Step ahead of Mao Tse-Toung.

This excavated book (620 pages) recalls the history of the rise of the ideas Néolibéral are in the world from a point of view antilibéral.

By restoring the political history and the history of the ideas of the 20th century, Serge Halimi explains how the world would have passed from an economy or the role of the State was essential (the policies Keynésien born), to a market economy Libéral E.

Serge Halimi explains the rise of the ideas of the liberal thinkers through the 20th century like Friedrich Hayek or Milton Friedman, and how their ideas could receive an echo in the American preserving political world (Ronald Reagan), then English with Margaret Thatcher, through circles of carefully selected personalities then financing of institutions diffusing their ideas (the Think preserving tank) by large managers of undertakings, and through the concentration of the Média S held by capital of private companies.

The theory posed by the book

History

The rise with the capacity in the United States of the liberal thoughts was possible by an alliance between Néoconservateur S (favorable to religious morals, anti-abortion, prohibition of drugs) and the néolibéraux ones (rather libertarian in these fields) within the Republican party. That was done thanks to joint positions on the reduction in the role of the Social state (the État-providence which prevailed until there).

The rise of the international economic organizations which followed, in particular the Fonds international currency, the BERD (directed to its creation by Jacques Attali and which pushed the Eastern European countries with privatiser their economy) and OECD in Europe, was done often with the assistance of the members of the institutions deprived previously evoked. Their deployment throughout the world allowed an internationalization of these ideas. International meetings like the Trilateral or Bilderberg, as well as the meetings of the G8. also allowed to tie international contacts between these people.

Rise of a liberal elite

Serge Halimi allots to their policies an extraordinary digging of the inequalities of incomes, the sale of the public property (privatizations) and breaks it collective solidarity. It also charges economic failures to them (the richness of Russia remains lower by 30% to 1991, the GNP indonésien collapsed of -15%, Korea -6% Juste after the application of the policies of the IMF), and of the social retreats.

The IMF is shown to have increased the inequalities in the Third World countries, where the governments acted on behalf of the Multinationale S, with the suppression of their national industries, and the development of a foreign debt asphyxiating their economies. The pretexts of democracy disappeared since the loss from influence from the USSR, and Serge Halimi quotes Samuel Huntington (being part of the Trilateral Commission) in 1976, which recognized whereas Brazil would have had “difficulties in achieve development of the economy under the military dictatorship with a democratic regime”, as well as the case of Chile under the military Dictature Pinochet.

The American democrats as Bill Clinton will be followers of international free trade, according to Serge Halimi, and will give the Alena agreements and the “rounds” of liberalization of GATT and OMC as from 1995: “ If we believe in the democracy, we must get busy to reinforce the bonds of the trade ”. These processes in fact are especially intended for to open the worldwide markets with the American products , according to Bill Clinton. In Europe, even the Socialist Michel Rocard considers that there is not the choice, and that the threats of Délocalisation S oblige the State to limit the taxes and to limit the Social protection. That leads Noam Chomsky to conclude on the reduction from the roles from the State, with the profit of a " Parliament virtuel" free flow of the capital, which can influence the orientations of the governments. The electoral campaigns become increasingly centered on publicity and marketing, with the appearance of the advisers in communications, at the same time as the campaigns becomes without contents.

Serge Halimi points out that universalization does not decrease the exploitation of the Third world, in particular of the children (“To the ones the exploitation of the minors, with the others the dividends which it gets. The whip is long, and the hand which holds it, they are the five fingers of the market. ”), and this universalization trains the workers of the countries developed with a social competition, like says it Gary Becker.

The development of tax shelters protects the holders from capital, more especially as the graduated incomes on the income, where the rich people are more strongly taxed, decrease in many countries. “The European Union, which was to perennialize a model distinct from the United States, was used as incubator with an social order approaching the American type”, and the political parties do not try to inflect “the inspiration Néolibérale of the building of Brussels”, and Alain Madelin sees there “a life insurance against the Socialisme”, like Alain Touraine: “In France, the word Libéralisme was unpronouncable, then one found some another, Europe”. Serge Halimi estimates that Europe could not be socialist (and even the Socialists recognize it), because the European policy relates to only free-competition, and the fight against inflation. It also leads the countries to converge towards a tax lowest bidder, which leads to a social lowest bidder. Serge Halimi quotes Régis Debray on the currency, and it takes as symbol the European tickets: “The European monetary Institute made a point of giving to Europe a " representation appropriée". To symbolize the spirit of opening, one drew with the recto of the windows and the gates; and with the back, of the bridges, symbols of communication. 5 euros, an ancient bay, an aqueduct. 10 euros, a Romance gate, a stone bridge, etc Europe virtual, floating, without pile in the indiciel and the carnal one, represent in a way adapted by suspended bridges in the air, windows giving on nothing, of the pillars and the abutments posed on the vacuum”.

The adhesion of the left to the liberal project

According to Serge Halimi, in the world, it is often the left which made liberal reforms, in particular Jimmy Carter in the United States, François Mitterrand in France, Tony Blair in the United Kingdom, Roger Douglas in New Zealand.

The media were sometimes an important vector of electoral support. Serge Halimi quotes inter alia the case of Murdoch, owner of the Sun, which supported Tony Blair whose government liberalized then the sector of the communication in the United Kingdom, making it possible the group of Murdoch to increase its presence.

According to Serge Halimi, the social classes however did not disappear, contrary to the classes of “new servants” reappear: domestic employees, guards, gardeners, cleaning ladies. He recalls that in the United States, 1% Americans have, after tax, more than the 40% the their poorest fellow-citizens.

Serge Halimi quotes Gary Becker which estimates that the business men have sometimes interest with the victory of the left parties, which will be able to more easily have the confidence of the trade unions, and to make pass from the reforms without social clashes, of as much better than the socialist parties agree to give up socialism.

Serge Halimi estimates whereas the policies “neoprogressists” of the left parties, which want to be “modern”, gave up the popular categories (already weakened by the continuous weakening of the working trade unions) to privilege in their place of the increasingly middle-class social layers (of which the interests however are already defended by the conservative parties).

The conclusion of Serge Halimi

According to Serge Halimi, the left must now draw from the thirty years lessons past: the liberal line gained the battle of the ideas because it is committed there at bottom, on the long run, and does not have dreaded to be judged extremist by his adversaries. Moreover, it profited, especially since 1980-1985, of the support of the media which frequently were privatisés (like other sectors of the economy) and were sold with great industry groups and were financial. Susan George recognizes that the ideas altermondialists, in spite of a certain visibility, for the moment did not allow of concrete projections. The crises of capitalism (stock exchange crash of 1987, monetary crisis of 1998, bursting of the Bubble Internet in 2001) did not call into question the economic order néolibéral. In the same way, the attacks of September 11th rather reinforced the capacity in place, the fear often welding the populations with their controlling.

The report of Serge Halimi is not very moderate: “The market settles, including in our brains, obliged to permanently compare the prices and the services: yesterday fixed prices of cellphones, tomorrow subscriptions with gas, as if our intelligence of the world were to be absorptive by a permanent blotter of consumption making it possible to make more natural the transformation of the world into goods. And then there are the schools which one puts in competition to be able to direct as of more the young age his children towards the best colleges, which themselves prepare at the best universities. There are also the hospitals, the cities, the areas which one classifies to learn how to escape the destiny losing from which does not privilege its individual safety at every moment. ”

The change of company could come, according to Serge Halimi, from a need for Utopia to which capitalism is unable to answer: “the increase in the production is not generally perceived like a project as attaching as the family, the friendship, the tradition, solidarity the dead algebra of universalization profits from a fragile support”.

Criticisms

The book was sometimes violently criticized: Alain Duhamel, in the Point (4/29/04), speaks about “absolute over-simplification” and “infantile myopia”, “erudite hatred of capitalism”, and shows Serge Halimi to want “to reign on the French intelligentsia of extreme left” and to be “Mandarin of second class among the ideologists of the gauchism”.

the Expansion (5/26/2004) concludes that this book and the other books altermondialists were “cacophonous”, and rather returned its readers towards the reading of the books of Alain Minc.

the Express train (3/29/2004) made appear a comment, measured enough, of Eric Dupin. Even if he thinks that Serge Halimi does not propose convincing solutions, he makes a real report, according to the journalist.

Daniel Mermet invited Serge Halimi with his emission “Là-bas if I am there”, on France Inter.

The newspaper Marianne made a rather eulogistic article. Le Monde Diplomatique (where Serge Halimi works) did not make an article on the book.

References

See too

External bonds

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