Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

 [1] neo-liberal ideology has conquered so many of our collective representations that it has largely dominated political and economic thinking over the last three decades. Although it is currently questioned, it is still deeply embedded in the minds of opinion-makers and an overwhelming majority of decision-makers. Of course they are finding it harder to assert that we must trust the self-regulating ability of corporation CEOs and financial markets, yet their reasoning has not fundamentally changed.

The neo-liberal ideology, which is simply the capitalist vision of the world doctored to the taste of the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries, still prevails in universities, major economic journals, and the media. The new ideological kit for the next capitalist stage has not yet been produced on a mass scale. The approach developed before the crisis still holds good.

Right-wing governments just as almost all social-liberal governments still apply the neoliberal ideology, or submit to it, with or without a sense of shame. [2] Although worn to nothing, it still holds sway in the industrialised countries of the North, but also in Eastern Europe (Federation of Russia included) and in Third World countries. Several governments in the South that formerly developed a socialising, or even a Moscow / Peking inspired ‘marxist-leninist’ kind of discourse in the 1960s and 70s have embraced it with the fervour of the newly converted.

But we should note that those who produce ideology and draft the speeches of the heads of state of the most industrialised countries have shifted their reasoning. The crisis that burst in the heart of the system bred a sort of chrysalis within some zealous servants of the system. The neo-liberal larva wants to turn into a capitalist dragonfly. It wants to cast off its tattered grey suit and assume the motley appearance of a capitalist re-confection based, on the one hand, on a subtle balance Balance End of year statement of a company’s assets (what the company possesses) and liabilities (what it owes). In other words, the assets provide information about how the funds collected by the company have been used; and the liabilities, about the origins of those funds. between freedom for capitalists, and on the other, on a sense of responsibility for the common good guaranteed by the State’s wise regulation. Since the crisis is multidimensional with a strong environmental component in addition to its economic and financial aspects, one and all - from Barack Obama to Nicolas Sarkozy via Gordon Brown - harp upon a new ‘green capitalism.’

Before analysing the ideological foundations of capitalist policies since the 1970s-80s, it is useful to remember that other policies, distinctly removed from the “hands off” variety, were implemented in capitalist countries for decades during the 20^th century. The majority of them did indeed help maintain capitalism but contrasted with those that preceded the 1929 Wall Street crash as well as with those that would be developed in Chile from 1973, in the UK from 1979, in the US from 1980, and that eventually prevailed almost everywhere.