Ukraine’s neoliberalism on steroids, Europe’s economic suicide

(Would you look at that. Even Trump's ridiculous 'you gotta pay us back with your resources' demand is actually a policy created by the oligarchs of America during the  Biden administration. Go figure.)

from Geopolitical Economy published May 15 2023 under the Biden administration

Political economists Radhika Desai, Michael Hudson, and Mick Dunford analyze the conflict in Ukraine, discussing the aggressive neoliberal reforms being imposed by the Ukrainian government and Europe’s suicidal policies.

... And so beginning with Ukraine, what I find really remarkable about the whole sort of economic situation in Ukraine is that normally when a country is at war, you’d expect that the country pulls together, the government creates policies that are egalitarian.

You know, in the course of the conflict in the Second World War in Britain, there was talk of fair shares and equal sacrifices.

But what you find in Ukraine now is absolutely the opposite. What you are looking at in Ukraine is what we may call neoliberalism on steroids...

Meanwhile, the government is implementing exceedingly anti-labor legislation. It has banned the opposition that will try to resist that. And it is privatizing all sorts of state assets in order to finance the war...

And what’s more, the privatizations include the very, very fertile land of Ukraine. And it is not being privatized to ordinary farmers or anything. On the contrary, the land is being sold off to large agribusiness...

And in many other ways as well, private enterprise is deeply involved. Every time there is a loan being given to Ukraine, private sector operators, big financial institutions are involved. And of course, the IMF is funneling money to Ukraine in various ways and so on...

So the U.S. is accumulating a bill that now the New York Times says is $2 trillion that Ukraine will have to pay the West in order to become solvent once the fighting is over...

But of course, the war crimes trial is going to take years and years. And in the meantime, Ukraine is going to have to sell off exactly all of its assets that you have mentioned.

It’ll have to sell off its agriculture to Monsanto. It’ll sell off its gas rights to Chevron. The U.S. has hired BlackRock, the Wall Street firm, to make a repertory of all of the assets Ukraine has and how they will be sold to U.S. buyers.

Well, the whole question is, what will happen? Will that really be sold off?...

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