Laura Carvalho, writing for Project Syndicate, thinks that
The Dead Hand of Neoliberalism Is Blocking Green Growth
What is blocking 'Green Growth' in Carvalho's native Brazil? Criminals. Liberalism, neo or paleo, is predicated on the rule of law. Sadly, enforcing the law costs money. Also, that money might get stolen.
The waning of neoliberalism gives developing and emerging economies a chance to cooperate on a new economic development paradigm for the age of climate change.
Moreover, cooperation between plants will cause them to overpower and eat animals. By eliminating animals, animal caused Global Warming can be done away with. Equally, if developmentally challenged kids get together, they will soon prove the Reimann hypothesis. Field Medalists will die of envy. But for this to happen, we must get rid of Neo-Darwinism as well as Neo-Liberalism.
But addressing climate change is a global struggle,
in which only those who are smart and who have a lot of money are effective.
and international trade rules generally do not allow developing countries to break with the old orthodoxy.
If there are 'Trade rules', then Trade isn't Free.
SÃO PAULO – Recent election victories for leftist parties in France and the United Kingdom may herald a new era of climate policymaking in Europe.
Or it may herald higher spending on Welfare.
Britain’s new Labour government has ambitious plans to expand renewable-energy capacity;
Plans don't matter. Budgets do. Keir Starmer isn't going to repeat Merkel's mistakes.
and, although tricky coalition building remains, the climate-skeptic far right has been thwarted in France.
But the yellow vests can't be thwarted. If you want to cut the retirement age, you can't also piss money against a Green wall.
One hopes this momentum can be carried into the G20 ministerial meeting in Rio de Janeiro on July 24. There, rich countries will consider Brazil’s pioneering proposal for a 2% annual minimum wealth tax on the world’s billionaires. Such a tax, along with new climate-financing instruments that are expected to be announced, could support investments in green growth, climate adaptation, and measures to address inequality within countries.
Actually, if Kamala wins in November, then Biden, in Rio, in December, will have the clout to come to a modus vivendi with Xi. Something could come of such a rapprochement. Before there can be a global solution, there must be global stability.
But new investment vehicles will not suffice. As our experience with COVID-19 showed, purely market-based approaches were not enough to tackle a pandemic,
Nothing was.
nor can they help counter environmental destruction
Apparently, Lula has reduced the rate of deforestation in Brazil
or the world’s yawning wealth gap.
If Nations can't counter this, how can the globe?
Even the rich world is starting to move away from the neoliberal orthodoxy of privatization and deregulation.
So as to become relatively poorer.
But as long as developing countries remain hamstrung by the old rules, they will struggle to develop their own economic models and shape their own destinies.
Also, so long as donkeys remain hamstrung by the old rules, they won't turn into flying unicorns. The problem with a lot of developing countries is that nobody is following any rules- unless there is a rule regarding stealing and demanding bribes.
Where previously Western free-trade advocates decried China’s use of protectionism and subsidies to favor strategic sectors, now these practices are de rigueur in advanced economies.
Biden enjoyed pissing money against various walls
The United States is pumping tens of billions of dollars into domestic electric-vehicle and battery manufacturing through the Inflation Reduction Act,
which, hilariously, immediately raised inflation
using the state to stimulate investment and job creation in green sectors. But addressing climate change is a global struggle, and international trade rules generally do not allow developing countries to boost their own industries in this way.
Very true. My M.P promised to give me a blow job and a billion quid if she got elected. Now she says WTO rules won't permit her giving me even a handy and a 50 pence coin.
For example, Indonesia – the global leader in nickel, a critical metal in EV batteries – has been punished at the World Trade Organization for pursuing an industrial strategy.
The WTO can't punish shit. It is utterly useless. That's why the Obama administration stopped allowing new Judges to be appointed. Trump went a step further dispensing with appellate review of its dispute resolution mechanism. Recently, to further underline its own futility, the WTO has ruled in favor of the EU which had complained about Indonesia. This changes absolutely nothing.
Indonesia had banned the export of nickel ore because its falling price was making indigenous smelting projects uneconomic. The export ban forced the Chinese to invest in Indonesian smelters in Central Sulawesi. But this has created its own environmental and social problems. The WTO and the EU can go fuck their respective selves. Indonesia will still face the same problem- viz. price volatility- and there are also concerns that their may be a revival of anti-Chinese feeling.
Thus, while neoliberal policy prescriptions fall out of favor in developed economies, they are being repackaged in green boxes for less affluent ones.
No. Indonesia banned the export of ore and gained massive f.d.i so as to move up the value chain. But, precisely because poorer Indonesians aren't receiving much benefit, there could be political problems going forward. Also, new technology could shift in the derived demand curve and so the problem of deteriorating terms of trade remains.
Policymakers in high-income countries can rely on costly industrial policy levers like tax incentives and loan guarantees,
sure they can. What's more, if they are strategically located, as Indonesia is, then they can gain 'Belt & Road' infrastructure investment.
whereas developing countries have no such luxury.
Developed countries might actually heed WTO judgments. Developing countries can always scream about Neo-Imperialism or Neo-Liberalism or Neo-Darwinism which has prevented donkeys from evolving into flying unicorns.
The latter must figure out how to create jobs, reduce inequality, and decarbonize their economies all with a much more limited set of tools and technological capacity.
No. Their leaders can steal everything in sight while telling the Environment to go fuck itself.
Moreover, richer countries are pushing developing countries to “leapfrog” to renewables at an unrealistic pace.
They are also pushing them to be less fucking corrupt. But they are told to fuck the fuck off.
They fail to recognize developing countries’ need for limited fossil-fuel use in the short term, or that unfair trade rules are limiting poorer countries’ access to affordable green technology and cheap capital.
Nobody is observing those so-called rules. On the other hand, it is true that Neo-Darwinism has unfairly blocked donkeys from evolving into flying unicorns.
Such double standards are indicative of the same power imbalances observed in recent years when wealthier countries hoarded vaccines, slashed aid budgets, and failed to deliver on past climate-finance promises.
Worse yet, wealthier countries refused to grant poor rapists equitable access to their teenaged daughter
This hypocrisy has not gone unnoticed. Authoritarian populists such as former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Argentinian President Javier Milei, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have each promoted the narrative that climate policies undermine economic growth.
The Club of Rome promoted the view that economic growth was very very evil more than five decades ago. Anyway, the Australians got rid of carbon pricing a decade ago.
That may be true in many cases, but only because of the trade-offs imposed by neoliberal policies.
No to mention the trade-offs imposed by Neo-Darwinism. This lady could have easily evolved into a donkey which evolved into a flying unicorn which farts rainbows but for evil savants in the Global North.
If developing countries could shape their own policies, climate investments would drive job creation and inclusive growth. Governments that are being asked to green their economies need flexible financing at concessional rates.
Also poor rapists need urgent access to your teenage daughters.
They also would benefit from progressive national and international tax schemes that build on recent successes such as the UN Tax Convention, an effort led by developing countries to democratize tax rules and claw control away from closed shops like the OECD.
It will be utterly useless. On the other hand the UN Flying Unicorn convention will definitely succeed in redefining donkeys as flying beasts which fart rainbows. The Global North will cry and cry.
The waning of neoliberalism gives developing and emerging economies a chance to cooperate on the design of a new paradigm.
Also donkeys can cooperate with monkeys to create hyper intelligent unicorns.
By devising state-led models that link green strategies with socioeconomic development, they can shield the climate agenda from attacks by authoritarian opportunists.
By banning elections? How else will keep Trump or Orban or, that Neo-Liberal, Fascist, Kamala out of power?
Consider Mexico, a manufacturing powerhouse and oil producer that has just elected a climate scientist, Claudia Sheinbaum, to the presidency.
Climate scientists are very good at battling the drug cartels. Claudia's secret identity is Wonder Woman.
Her administration aims to invest $13.6 billion in renewable energy, with a goal of meeting 50% of electricity demand through zero-carbon sources by 2030. If done right, these efforts should promote job creation and reduce inequalities,
because guys with good jobs get paid the same as guys with no jobs or really shitty jobs- right?
with state-owned enterprises being leveraged to support the deployment of green technologies.
In other words, state-owned enterprises will buy overpriced shit from state subsidized enterprises.
The encouraging announcement of a new ministry
i.e. more red-tape and corruption
overseeing science and innovation could also support the development of advanced manufacturing and high-tech industries.
Mexico had a Minister of Security- Garcia Luna- who has been arrested for drug trafficking.
Brazil is also well positioned to pioneer green policies for the developing world.
it may indeed pioneer new forms of corruption.
Freed from Bolsonaro’s destabilizing rule, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s
who had been in jail for corruption
administration is pushing sustainable development and tax reform.
and corruption
If it can effectively coordinate its industrial policy, infrastructure aims, and green initiatives like the Ecological Transformation Plan, it could power ahead with a robust green growth agenda at home, while expanding its regional and global influence as the host of this month’s G20 meeting and next year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30).
Very true. This is why, a couple of years down the line, this stupid lady will be writing an article about how the rich countries in the Global North used Neo-Liberalism to force nice and sweet Brazilian donkeys to become Ministers and steal everything in sight.
We can build a new world of climate justice and social equity on the ruins of neoliberalism.
However, it may be safer to run away from that new world to somewhere run by old fashioned capitalists.
To succeed, we need new economic structures that are informed, actively shaped, and maintained by low- and middle-income countries.
Why not by donkeys and monkeys? If we must reject Neo-Liberalism, why not Neo-Darwinism as well?
A fairer global order requires more robust, proactive states that can design and implement policies to drive economic growth, job creation, inequality reduction, and decarbonization.
Very true. People in Brazil or Mexico are foolish to worry about criminal gangs. What is vital is that new Ministries are created so corruption can burgeon.
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