Het Neoliberale Geloof 2

Het neoliberale geloof, of anders gezegd, het naakte kapitalisme, is in feite een permanente staat van oorlog met mens en natuur. De Amerikaanse geleerde Chalmers Johnson schrijft in 'The Sorrows of Empire': 'After the attacks, when the United States shifted from economic to military imperialism, globalization stood revealed in all its predatory nakedness. Following 9/11, munitions and war profiteering replaced the blatantly illegal or crony capitalism to make money. The military-indutrial complex and its protector, the Pentagon, have always played powerful roles in the post-World War II economy, but after 9/11 they became the economy's stars. Arms manufacturing, however, does not follow the rules of globalization. Normally it has only one customer and is not subject to market discipline. Risks of profit and loss are simply not taken into account by governments when national security is an issue. Munitions making is an example not of "free enterprise" but instead of state socialism. The United States is officially and explicitly opposed to "industrial policy," which is said to subvert the free market in order to produce a governmentally desired outcome. Anathema to orthodox Anglo-American economics, industrial policy is outlawed by the World Trade Organisation under provisions addressing nontariff barriers to trade. There is, however, a glaring exception to this rule - the production and sales of weapons. The United States has long run one of the world's most highly developed industrial policies through its defense sector. It is illegal, for example, for the United States openly to subsidize Boeing's 747 jumbo jets for export (as the European Union does for Airbus airliners), but the government has found numerous ways around this restriction, for decades financing technological innovation in universities and enterprises under the cover of national defense needs. Foreign military sales are often financed by Pentagon loans and concessions, and the privitization of numerous activities formerly performed by the armed forces serves the interests of privately owned companies. Given recent trends toward militarism, the United Stes has become a de facto industrial-policy superpower.'