Haussmann probably boring to death a class of undegrads with one of his famine creating theories.

Ricardo Hausmann is an academic I have come across in my research on Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in Mexico. His role is that of giving academic legitimacy to the introduction of SEZs in Mexico along with the usual neoliberal economic structures, such as the World bank and IMF (the IFIs), and the business media who push them as the answer to poverty all over the world. Usually though the main beneficiaries are the transnational capitalist class (TCC).  Primarily, global capital who take advantage of poor countries highly indebted to the IFIs and the western financial sector, and in need for foreign direct investment (FDI), dollars in effect, to service that debt. And secondly, the local elites who take massive profits from government investment and infrastructure projects funded by borrowing from the IFI while letting the average tax payer repay.

Nevertheless, advancing SEZs is just one job Haussmann has had in an illustrative career as a neoliberal economist who has moved from think tank to government to IFI and academia. His journey a perfect example of how capitalism subjugates through what Foucault calls micro-power: power as an emanating energy rather than force. Academia, and the other structures of capital that Haussmann has travelled through, have produced a willing subject imbued with his own sense of righteousness in promoting the great good of free markets and trade though his science of economics. His mission is to give economic policies that drive inequality and push the limits of nature itself a sheen of legitimacy: obscuring exploitation and greed within the liberal creed.

One such example is this blogpost on Venezuela Haussmann wrote recently. He argued his desire to see legitimate military intervention by foreign forces in Venezuela to forestall the coming “man-made famine”. And he should know about this due to his direct involvement in formulating economic policies for the Venezuelan government in the late 1980s that led to a “man-made famine” that manifested itself in the form of the Caracazo. This was  a riot incited by the consequence of high foreign debt, economic recession, low oil prices and the final straw: wholesale neoliberalisation of the state in 1989[i].

This “man-made famine” was resolved in a similar manner to the solution proffered by Haussmann here: “military intervention”. An intervention that left thousands dead in the aftermath.

The biggest consequence of this though was that it eventually led to the election of Chavez which must really stick in Haussmann’s craw as he and his neo-liberal cronies were kicked out of power replaced by the former and his allies. One elite class replaced with a new one.

With Maduro floundering the old elites are circling like vultures.

Haussmann may claim to not want a military coup, but is his solution of a military intervention led by a coalition of nations from the Americas and European a better option?

He claims it would be like the liberation of Europe from the Nazis, and legitimate as it could be requested by the National Assembly. To assume that the people of Venezuela, not the minority of anti-government protestors who garner all the Western world’s media attention, will give up the gains they have made in the last two decades to return to Haussmann’s Venezuela of “man-made famines” and welcome his foreign military force is as ludicrous as the claims of Bush and Blair in the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. That worked out well for corporations that “rebuilt” the country along US dictated capitalist friendly development models (neoliberalism), but not for the Iraqis who have lost their lives, or those that live in a state of sectarian conflict, insecurity and poverty far worse then under Hussein’s iron fist.

Haussmann’s real hope, like Bush and Blair, is for the rebuilding of the Venezuelan economy along neoliberal dictats, not helping the starving, that he espoused when in government back in the 1980s, which directly led to a “man-made famine”, and does presently from his ivory tower position at Harvard.  The danger is that the humanitarian intervention narrative that Haussmann is tapping to legitimise his view has been highly effective in the United States and Europe over the last two decades in advancing military intervention: actions that have usually been calamitous for the poor people living in those parts of the world: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria to name a few.

That is why Hausman’s, and his ilk’s, specious claims must be called out and contested.

Reference:

[i] https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11868