Author: Idrees Ahmad
I am a Lecturer in Digital Journalism at the University of Stirling and a former research fellow at the University of Denver’s Center for Middle East Studies. I am the author of The Road to Iraq: The Making of a Neoconservative War (Edinburgh University Press, 2014). I write for The Observer, The Nation, The Daily Beast, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Al Jazeera, Dissent, The National, VICE News, Huffington Post, In These Times, Le Monde Diplomatique, Die Tageszeitung (TAZ), Adbusters, Guernica, London Review of Books (Blog), The New Arab, Bella Caledonia, Asia Times, IPS News, Medium, Political Insight, The Drouth, Canadian Dimension, Tanqeed, Variant, etc. I have appeared as an on-air analyst on Al Jazeera, the BBC, TRT World, RAI TV, Radio Open Source with Christopher Lydon, Alternative Radio with David Barsamian and several Pacifica Radio channels.
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Great interview. A wonderful showcase of “neoliberal regulationists” whose most compassionate remark towards the effects of the financial crisis and the global expansion of neoliberalism is one of fascination: “it is interesting” both Stiglits and Ali say.
Fascinating was witnessing their ability to never question the underlying assumption that the globalisation of capital is good. Their emphasis they place on the role of the state in regulating markets is the emphasis they place on the “neo” in neo-liberalism. Tariq Ali missed several opportunities to embarrass both Stiglitz and Lea, particularly in relation to their defense of the Washington Consensus, on which it would have been easy to score a goal at a time where they were both struggling to defend their position.
Ruth Lea was also left unchallenged, by what I thought would have been an obvious and easy rebuttal for Tariq Ali, on the idea that in the global economy states still retain their sovereignty and that their removal from the global market is simply a question of national political will.
If left unchallenged, this new regulationist slant in the family of neoliberal discourses lead by Stiglitz will end up being mistaken as a true alternative and a genuine paradigm shift, whereas it represents nothing more than what Foucault would have called the “normalisation” of rival ideals into the dominant ideology…