liberal democracy and the unfettered market represents man’s highest form of development and more importantly, the fall of the Berlin Wall is proof of this triumphalism.
History, as defined in the movement of society from different phases, that is primitive communalism, feudalism and capitalism, has come to an end. Long live the market.
Fukuyama’s construction has been taken up by a new breed of high priests of the market, the neo-conservatives (the neo-cons) who include, among others, Adair Turner and the pocket of over-educated scholars at Yale University.
The ascendancy of liberal democracy goes on to create, among other things, the uncritical and unbridled champions of private property rights, the market and globalisation.
In the developed world, this translates into a hegemonic iron rule of unregulated finance capital. This philosophy is then imposed in the majority of countries in Africa and the third world through structural adjustment programmes (Saps) that preaches the orthodoxy of non-intervention in the market and extremely small governments.
The net result is the celebration of a new era of neo-liberalisation and the neo-fascism of the market. In short, predatory globalisation and infectious accumulation. In this period, the Left, bewildered by the fall of state capitalism in Eastern capitalism, has taken a retreat and hibernated in university bars and nationalist ideologies.
The terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 should have awakened the neo-cons to the false victory of liberal democracy. The crisis in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Mexico (1994), East and South East Asia (1997), Russia (1998), Argentina (2001), North Korea and Iran and the continued collapse of economies in the third world should have removed any illusions but unfortunately didn’t.
However, many who were watching global markets knew that it was only a question of time before the world could witness the hurricane of the massive global financial crisis that would question the market fascism of the neo-cons.
Signs of decay in the financial markets as a result of predatory greed was there for all to see. Many of us will recall the fall of Enron, young Nick Leeson of Barings, John Meriwether of Longterm Capital Management and Robert Citron.
However, it is the present day global financial crisis that has brought the chickens home to roost. The world is currently experiencing the biggest financial crisis since the Wall Street crash of 1929.
The crisis has seen the crash
