At the end of the fall of the iron curtain, about the early 1990s, “market liberals” basically abandoned the russian people and surrendered them in the hands of organized crime. The liberalization of free markets in Russia left humans in a pervasive state of poverty, crime, squallor, dirt and despair. Liberalization changed a “pretty dismal” situation in Russia in to a downright “dystopian” one. The state was replaced by maffia.
We are seeing the same in the western world. As economies drain away all the filth at the bottom of ‘the economical lake’ gets exposed. And we have been dumping a lot of unpalatable crap in to this proverbial economic lake. The illusion that people in the EU and the US lived in a civilized world is being dismantled. Instead the best case scenario in both the US and the EU is more likely to be 20 years of japan-style shrinkage. The growth paradigm is over, and since we depend on growth to have a globalized economy, and we depend on endless financialization to have a well-saturated banking system. The residu of this collapse is nothing short of a maffia economy. The veneer of civilization is falling away with giant’s steps.
The important matter is that normal people will quickly wake up to the systemic lies and corruption in the system. We have been served a nice example over here in Europe what happens when a country is thrown to the wolves and that example is Greece. The rhetoric that Greece “is responsible for its own mistakes” is not one that will last long when this level of asshole austerity arrives at your doorstep.
People are not stupid when push comes to shove and they’ll know who is responsible – and that is by and large the market radicals are to blame. I other words – idiots with money and power.
And guess what – a lot of people will come after them once this party ends.