A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

securities; and - a crucial measure - the Fed extended in October 2008
its organization of swap lines (‘temporary reciprocal arrangements on
currency’) for the central banks in the North and the large countries of
the South, rendering them almost ‘unlimited’.
Then there were the Paulson plans No. 1 and No. 2 and the plans for
the general support of the economy (including General Motors and others,
without preventing massive lay-offs), with, along the way, the recapitalization
of the Fed, which was at the end of its resources. And,
finally, at the beginning of 2011, the President of the Fed warned the
Treasury that it would not continue to finance public deficits, that there
had to be a return to greater rigour, that the rates of interest had to be
increased. This incurred two major risks: for the United States that the
burden of public debt became still heavier and for the rest of the world
that capital flows would return to finance the US deficits, enabling the
country to continue to live once again beyond its means.
All that was happening under the eyes of the general public, who realized
that not only had the State turned against the public good but that
they themselves would be made to pay for the rescue of the high finance
which controlled the State.
2. In light of all this, a small but significant minority among neoliberal
currents of thought continue to become more and more radical in their
support of the ultra-neoliberal theses inspired by Hayek, Mises and Rothbard.
Their analyses of the crisis, for example by Rockwell and Rozeff
of the von Mises Institute, are based on a reaffirmed faith in the automatic
character of market re-equilibrium.
Clearly this is annoying for the neoliberals, insofar as these ultra-liberals
defend the idea that the crisis came about from an excess of interventionism
and that the State should not save the banks and companies in
difficulty. What needs to be done, according to them, is to put an end to
State regulations that limit the freedom of agents on the markets. As
an example, while public housing policies claimed that citizens could all
aspire to house ownership, the markets (which were not ‘populist’) have
demonstrated that this is not so. These ultra-liberals are therefore
against any anti-crisis plan and in particular against any regulation of interest
rates by the central bank.
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