Following the lively discussion yesterday between Owen and Ezra I would like to offer an explanation of what “neoliberalism” is. The best way to do this is to quote a review by Eugene McCarreher of a book by Philp Mirowski called How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown, (Verso, $29.95). It is deeply scary, and points up the need for a system of humanist beliefs, such as Epicureanism, which stands for moderation, friendship, mutual respect, equal opportunity and treatment for everyone.
Neoliberals do not just call for laissez faire; they seek to reweave “the entire fabric of society” by “increasingly erasing any distinctions between the state, society, and the market”, to remake human life in the crucible of capital accumulation. In this view the market is omniscient, more righteous than mere mortals. It can never be coercive or unjust; only resentful losers have the effrontery to question its edicts (unbelievable. Ed.) The individual must “surrender his selfish arrogance and humbly prostrate himself before the imperatives of capital”. Democracy is only mentioned “as a collective and impertinent attempt to outguess the Wisdom of the Universe”.
While advocating deregulation, neoliberals use state power to impose a kind of entrepreneurial feudalism: state services are privatized while the mouthpieces of the neoliberal belief, like Fox News, promote the idea that the Market is the quintessence of democracy, and that capitalism needs to be safeguarded by corporate and political elites. The ascendency of neoliberalism depends on what Mirowspki calls “an optimal allocation of ignorance among the populace”.
We are asked to give up any idea of defending our dignity as human beings against this commodity humanism. We are told we should endure savage inequality and ecological wreckage in a world “canker’d, crude, superstitious, rotten — and longing”.
Tomorrow I will continue these comments on neoliberalism, probably the most damaging idea since the “isms” of the 20th Century purported to be the “answer” to human progress. It is peddled by chancers, who have abandoned judgement in pursuit of a comfortable career, serving their rich paymasters and supplying a bogus philosophy to justify it.
I predict that one day soon the poor American whites will realise that voting for your tormentor is plain dumb. At which point we could have violence. Think 18th Century France or Tsarist Russia. The rich are supposed to be clever; maybe, but not wise. Epicurus might well agree.
When asked in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll if “life for our children’s generation will be better than it has been for us”, fully 76% of Americans said they had no such confidence. Only 21% agreed. That’s the worst result ever recorded in the poll.
An improved economy might alter the figures somewhat, but underneath the economic malaise has been despair at the dysfunctional political system. It appears that, after two decades of “scorched-earth politics”, Americans just don’t believe their leaders are equipped to deal with the future. (Dana Milbank, The Washington Post)
The New Era estate in Hoxton, hard by the City of London, is “one of the last estates to provide working Londoners with a home”, says Aditya Chakrabortty. At least it was before Tory MP Richard Benyon and his property consortium snapped it up from the council. So when someone like Lyndsey Garratt, an NHS care co-ordinator, comes to renew the contract on the two-bed flat she shares with her small daughter, she’ll have to pay £2,400 a month instead of the £640 she pays today. That’s more than her entire take-home pay, so she’ll have to move into a homeless shelter and then find temporary digs in Manchester or Birmingham. But while she and her friends get “scattered across the country”, Benjyon will stay put in the “splendid stately home” outside Reading that he inherited, with its deer park and 3,500 acres of woodland. The ex-minister is a scourge of the “something-for-nothing welfare state”, but that hasn’t stopped him pocketing a £2m subsidy from Brussels for the upkeep of his farmland or the £625,000 his estate receives in tenants’ housing benefit. “The rich man in his castle; the poor man at his gate”… nothing much has changed, has it?
(Aditya Chakrabortty’ The Guardian)
Neoliberalism not only increases poverty and decreases opportunity, it actually is bad for growth as well. In the 50s, a Republican conservative president called Eisenhower invested in the Interstate Highway System, which had been hugely beneficial for growth and profits. But no such investment would be proposed today, by either Republicans or Democrats, as it would be dismissed as ‘socialist.’ We need the government to make investments to increase growth. Allowing the private sector to control all the capital will result in a lack of long term investment, particularly in infrastructure- where short term profits tend to be lower.
Well said! You are absolutely right. Aside from anything else the animus against paying tax and against the Federal Government is so pervasive that it’s difficult to get anything done. Yesterday, the proposal for an open Internet went through ( that is the idea of charging according to spedd was rejected). I nearly fell off my chair. But any consensus like this is now very difficult to achieve, The rich will only fork out cash if they can see a personal return.