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