Following the lively discussion yesterday between Owen and Ezra I would like to return to the issue of “neoliberalism”. 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)

In the neoliberal imagination, the human person is an “entrepreneurial self,”a package of vendible talents and qualities, “a product to be sold, a walking advertisement…a jumble of assets to be invested…an offsetting inventory of liabilities to be pruned, outsourced, shorted, hedged against, and minimized.” Promulgating a “catechism of perpetual metamorphosis,” neoliberalism denies the existence of a “true,” invariant self, and celebrates the “eminently flexible” personality always ready and willing to submit to the Market. Averse to solidarity (especially unions), neoliberals erase class from its political lexicon. Inoculated against empathy, it espouses a punitive sado-moralism toward the poor, the weak, and the unsuccessful, the “losers”.

According to the high priests of neoliberalism, opposition is futile where it isn’t counterfeit. Of course, it will be if antagonism to the Market fades and if marketization is allowed to seep into every crevice of our lives. At that point Thatcher’s ominous ukase — “there is no alternative” becomes true by default.

My comment:
One gets rid of one repellent idea and yet another pops up! In the old days, people would have been out on the streets protesting this assault on human values. Is it only the elderly, who remember the struggle against Hitlerism and Stalinism, who are prepared to speak up against this distasteful “philosophy” of life? Surely, there are young people, facing a lifetime of being regarded as “products to be sold, winners or losers”, who are prepared to stand up against this dehumanizing idea of neo-liberalism?