Nmherman on Mon, 27 Sep 1999 02:52:20 +0200 (CEST)


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: <nettime> Re: some observations on the bias of financial networks


In a message dated 9/25/99 5:15:13 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
stalder@fis.utoronto.ca writes:

>  Understanding the financial markets, then,
>  can help to understand basic organizational patterns of our society in
>  general. As much as the factory can be said to have provided a basic
>  organizational blue print for 19th century western societies at large.

This is an excellent kind of observation.  The greatest changes during 
Reagan's time were not the cutting of social programs or increases in 
military spending, but the general deregulation of corporations and capital.  
Thomas Friedman at the NY Times had an editorial a couple of weeks ago in 
which he wrote that it was this deregulation, i.e. the breaking of the air 
traffic controller's strike which freed US corporations from labor concerns, 
that fueled the massive advantages of US high-tech and military corporations. 
 It became far easier for US corporations to fire workers, implement new 
technology, and sell the products to a world market; the economies of Europe 
for example had less deregulation and thus less power to dominate the new 
economy.

Also interesting is the way financial markets shape geopolitical dynamics.  
Poor or developing nations now have only one market into which to grow, the 
global-western one.  Their growth is dependent on the G7 nations and the IMF. 
 Frontline aired an excellent program on how the IMF insures that first-world 
investors remain safe even when their investments in poor countries fail 
completely.  The recent currency collapses in Russia, Mexico, and Thailand 
are the main examples given.  Ordinary Mexicans are poorer now than in 
decades, but investors like George Soros made billions in the financial 
markets due to IMF intervention.  

The greatest problem here is the overly sensitive and thus volatile patterns 
of capital flow enabled by digital trading technology.  The West is unwilling 
to implement restraints, even to slow the process and thus allow poor 
countries to develop more sustainably, because of the gigantic profits for 
Wall Street.  Another instance of how the speed of digitally networked 
financial markets truly reflects their domination of world events.

Max Herman
The Genius 2000 Project
www.geocities.com/~genius-2000

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net