One person's freedom is another person's lack of freedom

Joseph Stiglitz, economist and Nobel Laureate, warns about the rise of oligarchies and social inequities, and points out the failures of neoliberalism. He also highlights the negative influence of corporations on health and welfare, and advocates reconsidering globalization.

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001, director of the Brooks Institute for Global Povertyof the University of Manchesteracademic at the Royal Academy of Economic and Financial Sciences of Spain and chief economist of the World Bank from 1997 to 2000, he has not stopped publishing books critical of the free market economists since 2002. 

On the occasion of the publication of his latest book Road to freedom (Taurus), La Vanguardia interviews him about how he sees the current world situation after Trump's victory in the 2024 elections. Here are some of his most outstanding thoughts from this reputed American economist.

There is too much uncertainty and chaos. When (Trump) said he would take over the Panama Canal and Greenland, does that mean we are going to go to war? And his idea that half of TikTok should be owned by the U.S. is like what happens in authoritarian countries, where governments take a share of the wealth.

It is clear that this is a new era. Everybody recognizes a new era of oligarchs. We've been on the verge of that, we've been complaining about the role of money in politics, but Musk is the visible fact. With Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos surrounding Trump, the visibility has never been greater. We used the term oligarch as a term of disparagement against Russia, and now Americans are using it against themselves and realizing that this is what we have become.

And for (...) Zuckerberg to say that he will remove content moderation and any lies, misinformation, no matter how dangerous, like about vaccines, will be allowed, indicates that this is a dangerous time for the US and for the world.

Russia called itself a democratic oligarchy. They had elections. And those free elections left Putin in power, partly because they controlled the media. Today the most important media is social media. And they control that.

In the U.S. we have the lowest life expectancy of the major advanced countries, and it has been declining in a country with the highest life-prolonging technology. And we spend twice as much as France and four times as much as Singapore on healthcare and get worse results.

Purdue, the pharmaceutical, promoting opioids leading to opioid crisis, food companies promoting products leading to infantile diabetes.... We have company after company pursuing profits that destroy our society.

Biden in one year reduced child poverty by 40% with the Recovery Plan. But then the Republicans (...) refused to renew the program even though we showed we knew how to reduce child poverty in the richest country in the world.

Freedom for the wolves is death to the sheep. Freedom for corporations to do what they wanted meant that they were free to become monopolies, free for banks to exploit everyone by taking excessive risks. And then we, the citizens, had to bail them out.

(The great economists who promoted 50 years of neoliberal policies) thought that free markets alone would generate economic efficiency, innovation and growth, and that everyone would benefit, (...) they were empirically proven wrong. The benefits of growth were passed on to those at the top. There was innovation, but only in a very small area, (...) they directed innovation to create a better advertising engine.

Behind most of the great innovation was the government. The government created the Internet, (...) gave money to Tesla, almost 500 million dollars. So those men had an image of the free market, but they didn't understand the important role of government.

Neoliberalism failed, but more importantly, they underestimated the extent to which unchecked it would lead to economic gaps in society, creating fertile ground for demagogues like Trump.

What we see is the growth of authoritarian populism in countries that have done too little (in government action to create the welfare state), not where the government has done too much. It is anger at not meeting basic needs, the failure of neoliberalism, that has led to Trump, Bolsonaro and the other authoritarian demagogues we see around the world.

Those who take power always claim it is for freedom. It is a language that worked, but they never defined freedom. And they never recognized that one person's freedom can be another person's lack of freedom, the interdependence of freedoms.

As for globalization, we have taken it too far, but now we are too integrated, it is very difficult to untangle the chaos. (...) And if the United States invades Greenland or Panama, which is a possibility, it is hard to imagine that China will not invade Taiwan, and then we will have no supply of chips. So we have to rethink globalization. And one way of thinking about it is that we can be interdependent, but we need to have a certain degree of national economic sovereignty.

(Europe) has to recognize that it cannot give in to U.S. aggression on digital issues, so it has to defend its own values.

You can read the full interview in La Vanguardia at https://www.lavanguardia.com/cultura/20250121/10306015/joseph-stiglitz-nobel-economia-trump-musk-bezos-neoliberalismo-libro-camino-de-libertad.html

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