3071-The political economy of new slavery

Emma Dowling 211
know any non-specialist will find difficult to understand. Furthermore,
it is interesting to note the dismissive language used to make arguments
more resonant: ‘No competent economist in their right mind would support
any form of capital control’ (De Rosa, 2001; Bloomberg). Likewise:
The French Socialist Party and some lunatic fringe Belgian Deputies
are both clambering on board the Tobin train while there is no other
news for journalists to write about...but don’t worry, there is no
chance of the [British] Government adopting this proposal...Let’s
hope that the Tobin tax will die with 2001 and that madcap politicians
will come up with some other silly wheeze we can write about
in 2002.
Hetherington-Gore, 2001, p. 1
Although there is a great deal of sincere literature about the feasibility
of the Tobin tax, I think it is revealing that such language is used by
financial journalists, who are not thinking critically about the given
context of the neo-liberal discourse. An example of how this discourse
is constructed can be found in the language employed by Garber and
Taylor in their article against the Tobin tax. They state that: ‘A policy of
throwing sand in the wheels of international finance would very likely
amount to little more than a futile, Canutian attempt to command the
tides of international capital flows’ (Garber and Taylor, 1995, p. 180).
This is a reference to the mythological figure King Canute, who thought
he was so powerful he could command the tides of the sea and of course
did not succeed (Markham-Rhodes, 2002; Viking). This implies that
international capital flows are more powerful than the human beings
that operate within them, meaning there is no point in trying to change
the way they flow. Besides, the caricatured presentation of Adam Smith’s
theory of the ‘Invisible Hand’ of the market leads people to trust in
unregulated markets. The example above also implies that they are not
something created by human beings but are something that exists
beyond them. This is a powerful metaphor but at the same time a
questionable assertion that simply serves to reinforce the discourse that
market forces are so powerful we cannot do anything to intervene. If we
do, we are destined to be destroyed by the waves, in other words not
succeed or bring greater problems upon ourselves. In mythology, those
that try to meddle with nature usually bring great unhappiness upon
themselves. Underlying the arguments outlined above is a specific
interest in maintaining the status quo that is portrayed as ‘inevitable’
and ‘beneficial’. What must be understood, however, is that the status