FED: Rudd justified in slamming neo-liberalism: Keating
03 Feb 2009 12:20 AM
Subject: FED: Rudd justified in slamming neo-liberalism: Keating FED: Rudd justified in slamming neo-liberalism: Keating
CANBERRA, Feb 3 AAP - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is only partly right when he says the great neo-liberal experiment of the past 30 years has failed, his Labor predecessor Paul Keating says.
In an essay to be published this week, Mr Rudd argues "neo-liberalism and the free-market fundamentalism it has produced has been revealed as little more than personal greed dressed up as an economic philosophy".
Mr Keating, who was prime minister from 1991 to 1996, says there is "much justification" in Mr Rudd's claim.
"He's correct in focusing on the point that at the very heart of the western financial system there was, on the part of the American regulatory authorities, no attempt to pull this in," Mr Keating told ABC Television's Lateline on Monday.
But whether Mr Rudd was right to say neo-liberalism was dead "depends what you call neo-liberal", the former prime minister said.
Labor governments in the 1980s and 1990s reduced protectionism, introduced a floating exchange rate and abolished the centralised wage system, Mr Keating said.
Those moves could be described as neo-liberal in philosophy but had led to Australia's recent prosperity.
AAP jcd/srp =0A
FED: Rudd justified in slamming neo-liberalism: Keating