"Debt sustainability" is just a buzzword for debt forgiveness. Which basically means the creditors get screwed. Now maybe you think creditors should get screwed because they are white or Jewish, or imperialists, or whatever. But if you screw the creditors do not expect them to trust you in the future and lend you more money.
The history of international lending has been a history of creditors getting screwed and coming back for more. (A person who files for bankruptcy is the US often receives a credit card offer soon after.) Maybe you think creditors shouldn't get screwed because of justice or something. But withholding future credit does not seem to be on the list, as an empirical matter.
That third sentence is bizarre, most creditors get compensated for their loans whilst vulture funds profit of the defaulted debt. Creditors don’t give out loans if they can’t recover their funds if the recipient defaults. Look at sovereign debt restructurings.
Confounded by persistent demands for the redress of inequality at the expense of efficiency, stability, and order, neoliberals turned to nature in matters of race, intelligence, territory, and money as a way to erect a bulwark against the encroaching demands of progressives and hopefully roll back social changes to return to a hierarchy of gender, race, and cultural difference they imagined to be rooted in genetics as well as tradition
Perhaps conservatives just believe that their worldview leads to more human flourishing. This type of strawmanning one's intellectual opponent's "true motivations" is just weak.
The genetics are pseudoscience and very often the so-called traditions are what I've come to think of as mythefaction, a species of putrefaction where a web of false stories have rotted away all possibility of comprehending reality. The self-image of conservatives as intending true human flourishing is delusional. And in my opinion, your apology is just weak.
I think it would be legitimate to speculate that if you were able to draw a Venn diagram circle around people who are suspicious of diverse methods and another of people who are suspicious of people with diverse origins most of the people within each would be in both.
"The Grievance Narrative" is the phrase used by Richard Baldwin to describe the worldview of "Liberation Day," the bizarre ideological yard sale of Hobson and dependency theory misapplied by MAGA to the US. However, this phrase could also be used for Putin's "Greatest Geopolitical Disaster" Soviet nostalgia and (with incontrovertibly more legitimate reasons to be spiteful) for China's Century of Humiliation. Is there any superpower without a grievance narrative now? Though one can argue all are taking on the trappings of "slaves" in the Hegelian dialectical sense, they all nonetheless seem less optimistic in their focus than the development story told by 19th/C20 Whigs (Cobdenites, Rostovians/Modernisation Theory) or C20 Hegelians (Marxists). Is there any great power not using a grievance narrative right now?
Yes, environmentalism was one of the main avenues in the 1970s by which the Democrats successfully sought to corral and defuse the impact of the anti-Vietnam War movement, as well as the more politically radical leadership of the Black Civil Rights/Liberation movements (with no little help from J Edgar Hoover's FBI). Environmentalism, with its strong element of NIMBYism, along with the insurgent feminist and gay liberation movements, sought to counterpose themselves to the more collectivism-orientated Left of the 1960s, and separate themselves from the militancy of the labor movement, especially that which was black and leftist led. All of these were sectoral movements, self-centered at heart, and soon complemented ideologically, and even surpassed, by their right-wing Libertarian counterpart, "Looking Out for Number #1." Jimmy Carter's cynical attempt to refurbish the U.S. as Human Rights leader of the world notwithstanding, this new focus on self, or my group, ushered in what is now 45+ years of gradually increasing social reaction. Only now, under the weight of Trump and Trumpism, and their bringing an end the nearly century old Liberal Era, can one finally envision Me Generation ideology on the cusp of unwinding.
At the same time (1970s), the U.S. started seriously losing its highly dominant economic position from WWII in the capitalist world, first via Japanese and German autos, electronics, etc., and then eventually as a result of China's Stalinist-led industrial revolution, accomplishing in a generation or so what took two centuries in the West. In the process, the U.S. turned from being industrial-centered country into a largely service economy, with the lower wages, benefits and lesser career prospects that go with it. Donald Trump, the shyster and narcissistic entrepreneur, is both the representative of third and fourth wave Reaganism, demagogically playing on the decaying economic plight of the lower 60% of the population, and the degree to which the U.S. capitalist ruling class has fallen to desperate measures to reestablish its worldwide dominance (and go after "Red China").
In this context, no matter how much facing environmental issues have obviously become a collective need worldwide for the species, the movement's post-Vietnam political origins in the U.S. primarily with the Democrats, and its continued favor among upper middle class liberals, has made it a target for the main party of American capitalism, the Republicans -- even if that orientation is self-defeating and, increasingly, disastrously so.
I am always grateful to Adam Tooze for his deep and challenging analysis, and this is no exception. After 4 decades working in the "development arena", however, I would argue that the SDGs are a highly political endeavour. True, they look like a matrix of Key Performance Indicators. But virtually each indicator corresponds to a clear political decision fostering a vision of a world where equality, equity, human rights, environmental sustainability and good governance, are the driving paradigms. Also, and this is not a small detail, contrary to the Millennium Development Goals that were established only for developing countries - and low middle income countries may be - the SDGs apply to an should be pursued by every single UN member country.
Thanks Adam for this. I'm in the middle of an attempt to convince the Global (though mainly European) cultural sector that the pursuit of a "culture goal", or SDG#18 is not only futile and out of time, but is not necessarily something that, if it did happen, would do them much good. It would drag them into a whole seething matrix of indicators, and the main beneficiaries would be consultants and the larger commercial (of "CCI") players.
"Debt sustainability" is just a buzzword for debt forgiveness. Which basically means the creditors get screwed. Now maybe you think creditors should get screwed because they are white or Jewish, or imperialists, or whatever. But if you screw the creditors do not expect them to trust you in the future and lend you more money.
The history of international lending has been a history of creditors getting screwed and coming back for more. (A person who files for bankruptcy is the US often receives a credit card offer soon after.) Maybe you think creditors shouldn't get screwed because of justice or something. But withholding future credit does not seem to be on the list, as an empirical matter.
But they do. Check history. Decades pass, new leadership. Other factors enter the stage.
That third sentence is bizarre, most creditors get compensated for their loans whilst vulture funds profit of the defaulted debt. Creditors don’t give out loans if they can’t recover their funds if the recipient defaults. Look at sovereign debt restructurings.
This sentence ruins the whole argument:
Confounded by persistent demands for the redress of inequality at the expense of efficiency, stability, and order, neoliberals turned to nature in matters of race, intelligence, territory, and money as a way to erect a bulwark against the encroaching demands of progressives and hopefully roll back social changes to return to a hierarchy of gender, race, and cultural difference they imagined to be rooted in genetics as well as tradition
Perhaps conservatives just believe that their worldview leads to more human flourishing. This type of strawmanning one's intellectual opponent's "true motivations" is just weak.
The genetics are pseudoscience and very often the so-called traditions are what I've come to think of as mythefaction, a species of putrefaction where a web of false stories have rotted away all possibility of comprehending reality. The self-image of conservatives as intending true human flourishing is delusional. And in my opinion, your apology is just weak.
the whole sentence is just a strawman. so there is no need to defend it.
I think it would be legitimate to speculate that if you were able to draw a Venn diagram circle around people who are suspicious of diverse methods and another of people who are suspicious of people with diverse origins most of the people within each would be in both.
"The Grievance Narrative" is the phrase used by Richard Baldwin to describe the worldview of "Liberation Day," the bizarre ideological yard sale of Hobson and dependency theory misapplied by MAGA to the US. However, this phrase could also be used for Putin's "Greatest Geopolitical Disaster" Soviet nostalgia and (with incontrovertibly more legitimate reasons to be spiteful) for China's Century of Humiliation. Is there any superpower without a grievance narrative now? Though one can argue all are taking on the trappings of "slaves" in the Hegelian dialectical sense, they all nonetheless seem less optimistic in their focus than the development story told by 19th/C20 Whigs (Cobdenites, Rostovians/Modernisation Theory) or C20 Hegelians (Marxists). Is there any great power not using a grievance narrative right now?
Yes, environmentalism was one of the main avenues in the 1970s by which the Democrats successfully sought to corral and defuse the impact of the anti-Vietnam War movement, as well as the more politically radical leadership of the Black Civil Rights/Liberation movements (with no little help from J Edgar Hoover's FBI). Environmentalism, with its strong element of NIMBYism, along with the insurgent feminist and gay liberation movements, sought to counterpose themselves to the more collectivism-orientated Left of the 1960s, and separate themselves from the militancy of the labor movement, especially that which was black and leftist led. All of these were sectoral movements, self-centered at heart, and soon complemented ideologically, and even surpassed, by their right-wing Libertarian counterpart, "Looking Out for Number #1." Jimmy Carter's cynical attempt to refurbish the U.S. as Human Rights leader of the world notwithstanding, this new focus on self, or my group, ushered in what is now 45+ years of gradually increasing social reaction. Only now, under the weight of Trump and Trumpism, and their bringing an end the nearly century old Liberal Era, can one finally envision Me Generation ideology on the cusp of unwinding.
At the same time (1970s), the U.S. started seriously losing its highly dominant economic position from WWII in the capitalist world, first via Japanese and German autos, electronics, etc., and then eventually as a result of China's Stalinist-led industrial revolution, accomplishing in a generation or so what took two centuries in the West. In the process, the U.S. turned from being industrial-centered country into a largely service economy, with the lower wages, benefits and lesser career prospects that go with it. Donald Trump, the shyster and narcissistic entrepreneur, is both the representative of third and fourth wave Reaganism, demagogically playing on the decaying economic plight of the lower 60% of the population, and the degree to which the U.S. capitalist ruling class has fallen to desperate measures to reestablish its worldwide dominance (and go after "Red China").
In this context, no matter how much facing environmental issues have obviously become a collective need worldwide for the species, the movement's post-Vietnam political origins in the U.S. primarily with the Democrats, and its continued favor among upper middle class liberals, has made it a target for the main party of American capitalism, the Republicans -- even if that orientation is self-defeating and, increasingly, disastrously so.
I am always grateful to Adam Tooze for his deep and challenging analysis, and this is no exception. After 4 decades working in the "development arena", however, I would argue that the SDGs are a highly political endeavour. True, they look like a matrix of Key Performance Indicators. But virtually each indicator corresponds to a clear political decision fostering a vision of a world where equality, equity, human rights, environmental sustainability and good governance, are the driving paradigms. Also, and this is not a small detail, contrary to the Millennium Development Goals that were established only for developing countries - and low middle income countries may be - the SDGs apply to an should be pursued by every single UN member country.
David Runciman also has a good piece in LRB on "Hayek's bastards."
Thank you for this analysis. It resonated when DJT took the UN stage this week. I drew on it for my Guardian column, with links. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/28/trump-un-address-disturbing-turn-new-world-order-neoliberalism?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
I never thought about the universal value of democracy as a conservative point. What could I read on the topic?
And does it imply that democracy is not a universal thing for progressivism?
Maybe. Or maybe Philip Pilkington's "The Collapse of Global Liberalism: And the Emergence of the Post Liberal World Order" is essentially correct ...
Thanks Adam for this. I'm in the middle of an attempt to convince the Global (though mainly European) cultural sector that the pursuit of a "culture goal", or SDG#18 is not only futile and out of time, but is not necessarily something that, if it did happen, would do them much good. It would drag them into a whole seething matrix of indicators, and the main beneficiaries would be consultants and the larger commercial (of "CCI") players.