{"id":8522,"date":"2019-08-30T14:39:50","date_gmt":"2019-08-30T06:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/?p=8522"},"modified":"2020-11-24T10:28:33","modified_gmt":"2020-11-24T02:28:33","slug":"here-comes-zombie-neoliberalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/here-comes-zombie-neoliberalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Here comes zombie neoliberalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

(This lecture was recently discussed by IBON research head Rosario Guzman with a group of international theologians)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The South Korean independent\nfilm in 2016, Train to Busan<\/em>, had\ndefinitely added a novel attack to the zombies genre. It appears now that the\nzombie theme has been revived after considerable time of having been run into\nthe ground. For 2019, there are about 16 upcoming (if not yet shown already)\nzombie films, a number never seen before in any given year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But like any other themes\nthat have pervaded our culture, our current obsession with zombies is but our\nsubliminal reflection on what is happening with the global economy \u2013 or more\nprecisely, on how it is desperately being reanimated. Critical analysts have\ncoined the terms zombie capitalism, zombie neoliberalism or even zombie consumption\nto describe the mindless continuation of what is otherwise dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A moribund system<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The global economy has been\nin a protracted crisis, a marked slowdown since the 2008 financial crash with\nUS capitalism as the epicenter. The growth rate of the gross domestic product\n(GDP) of the 20 most advanced capitalist countries has hovered only above 3% in\nthe last three years. This is failing to recover the pre-2008 levels, much less\nthe growth spurt of over 5% in 2010 when governments did suicide borrowing just\nto save the financial system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Global trade has slowed down\nas well. It is not reaching the exports value recorded in 2013, and worse, the\nongoing US-China trade war has more extensive impact on the global\ntrade-dependent poor regions. Foreign direct investment (FDI) had its third\nconsecutive fall in 2018, registering tepid outflows of only US$1.3 trillion.\nFinally, profitability, the single most important indicator for the capitalist\nclass, went down to 6.8% in 2018 from an average rate of 9.8% before 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not to say, however,\nthat the global economy before this was fine, or that what we are witnessing is\njust a perversion of an otherwise well-functioning system. Crisis is inherent\nin capitalism, and the escalating contradictions quite evident. Crisis has been\naddressed by increasing technology, colonizing markets, extracting\nsuper-profits from colonies and neocolonies, waging wars, and imposing\nneoliberalism. But the crisis only continues to manifest in a cycle of rising\ninventory, retrenchment of workers, lowering of wages, limited consumption, and\nalienation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has brought the\nlong-term fall in the labor share in income. The International Monetary Fund\n(IMF) observed in 2018 that since the 1980s, even more so since 2008, the share\nof revenues that went to corporate profits had increased over time while the\nshare of revenues going to workers had declined. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, the scandalous widening\nincome inequality between the super-rich 1% and the rest of us 99% is worrisome\nto capitalists and neoliberalists, the IMF included, not so much for the\nincreasing super-exploitation of workers and the world\u2019s lack of justice. The\ngrowing concern is simply for the sluggish demand that eventually threatens the\nsurvival of the market economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For four decades, the\nprincipal means of neoliberalism to address the problem of declining\nconsumption had been debt and financialization \u2013 the very \u2018solution\u2019 that\ncrashed global finance in 2008. Financial and nonfinancial corporations,\ngovernments and households alike accumulated huge debts \u2013 debt was the main\ndriver of economic growth. Today, there is already very little debt that can be\ncreated and productive activity is virtually lifeless to support old and new\ndebts. Yet, neoliberalism presents the same bankrupt solution \u2013 the undead \u2013\ndebt and financialization \u2013 by extending a period of very low interest rates\nthat can let the economy idle. Like a zombie, illogical as it is, neoliberalism\nkeeps stumbling on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ugly, persistent, dangerous<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Global debt is ballooning\nagain to US$250 billion in 2019, a big jump from seven years ago and now\naccounting for 320% of global GDP. The undead continues to feed on the\ninvolvement of nonfinancial institutions in financial activities and the\nconcentration of share ownership in the hands of financial corporates.\nDebt-driven consumption has remained the unintentional compulsion of the\ndecaying system. Cannibalism, the highest form of capitalism at this point, is\nthe continued privatization of public resources so that transnational corporations\n(TNCs) can go on devouring super-profits, leaving the public buried in debt and\nprohibitive user-fees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rentierist profit strategies\ninstead of productive investment are being employed to extract super-profits \u2013\nthe positive difference between the actual profits and typical profits, which\ncan only be achieved through rent-seeking behavior. Privatization is the main\nstrategy of zombie neoliberalism, and sectors such as energy, utilities,\ntelecommunications and healthcare are the brains that rentiers crave for. Why\nnot, the demand for these is inelastic (i.e. you will avail of these services\nno matter what happens), thus they serve deliciously oozing super-profits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of brains, surplus\nprofits are also being realized through the strategic use of intellectual\nproperty rights (IPR), the monopoly control of technology, such that the\nmonopoly capitalists will still be raking in profits long after the lifespan of\nthe product. IPRs are most profitable in new high-technology sectors such as\nonline services and software platforms, information-intensive goods and\nservices, and pharmaceuticals. IPR triggers profits simply with the use of new\nand useful inventions, the cost of which is ultimately passed on to the\nconsumers, and not from investment in actual production. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The share of super-profits in\ntotal profits of TNCs has increased comparing the periods of 2001-2008 and\n2009-2015, the UNCTAD notes. The percentage has reached 49% for the top ten\npercent of TNCs and as high as 55% for the top one percent. TNCs in the last\ntwo decades, it turns out, have been extracting profits that are more like\nrents in character. The income is derived simply from TNC ownership and control\nof assets instead of deployment of economic resources in production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are on our shores<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually, the zombies have\nbeen walking around the Philippines for some time now. They have bitten our\ngovernment officials, our economic managers, academics, and all other\nneoliberal apologists who have taught us that there is no other way but to\nliberalize our economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the Philippines is facing a new wave of risks, primarily arising from the Duterte government\u2019s pursuit of FDI-led and debt-driven economic growth particularly in counter-productive infrastructure development. This is coupled with the raid of public resources through privatization, particularly in public services and natural resources. The Duterte government has prepared for these neoliberal attacks first by reforming the tax system to lower the taxes paid by rich people and foreign and big local corporations and to tax the poor more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Duterte government has\nalso maximized the imposition of neoliberalism by using the legal systems (also\nwith the impending amendment to the Philippine Charter) to provide TNCs and\nforeign governments enormous incentives and concessions, greater protection,\nand even the right to sue our own government. As on other shores, neoliberalism\nis feeding on the super-exploitation and repression of Filipino workers through\nlow wages, wage stagnation and labor contractualization. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In such a short time, we have\nwitnessed elevated inflation brought about by increasing excise and value-added\ntaxes on consumption goods. We are also seeing higher government debt of Ph7.8\ntrillion as of March 2019, where it was only Php5.9 trillion when the Duterte\nadministration started three years ago. The Duterte administration is\nexhibiting the fastest growth in debt in nine years and the highest monthly\nborrowing rate never seen before after the Marcos dictatorship. Finally, income\ninequality has never been as acute as now, with the different dimensions of\npoverty indicating the worsening condition of the Filipino people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A peculiar narrative is adding to the zombie theme in the Philippines. Economic managers are desperately weaving hypnotic untruths to push people into believing that neoliberalism is the way to be and it is absolutely necessary for the people to be in the grip of neoliberalism. But the harsh impact of past and present neoliberal policies is unequivocal \u2013 the poor majority are not buying the narrative. For them, like a zombie, neoliberalism is decaying, it cannot be reformed, it just has to be killed.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY ROSARIO GUZMAN<\/p>\n

Like a zombie, neoliberalism is decaying, it cannot be reformed, it just has to be killed.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":8523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-withbanner.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2048,3],"tags":[347,96,348,116,2047],"class_list":["post-8522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banner","category-features","tag-duterte-administration","tag-international-and-regional-issues","tag-neoliberalism","tag-philippine-economy","tag-programs-and-policies","wpautop"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-23 19:24:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8522"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9278,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8522\/revisions\/9278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}