Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems

Imagine if the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of communism. The ideology that dominates our lives has, for most of us, no name. Mention it in conversation and you’ll be rewarded with a shrug. Even if your listeners have heard the term before, they will struggle to define it. Neoliberalism: do you know what it is?

 ‘No alternative’ … Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher at the White House.

Its anonymity is both a symptom and cause of its power. It has played a major role in a remarkable variety of crises: the financial meltdown of 2007‑8, the offshoring of wealth and power, of which the Panama Papers offer us merely a glimpse, the slow collapse of public health and education, resurgent child poverty, the epidemic of loneliness, the collapse of ecosystems, the rise of Donald Trump. But we respond to these crises as if they emerge in isolation, apparently unaware that they have all been either catalysed or exacerbated by the same coherent philosophy; a philosophy that has – or had – a name. What greater power can there be than to operate namelessly?

So pervasive has neoliberalism become that we seldom even recognise it as an ideology. We appear to accept the proposition that this utopian, millenarian faith describes a neutral force; a kind of biological law, like Darwin’s theory of evolution. But the philosophy arose as a conscious attempt to reshape human life and shift the locus of power.

Read the story by George Monbiot on The Guardian - “Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems.”

Neoliberalism is creating loneliness. That’s what’s wrenching society apart

(Capitalism has favoured humanity with many wonders, while its unbridled variant, neoliberalism, can equally be attributed with many of humanity’s ills, among them a disrupted climate system that has been worsened and accelerated from the "competitive self-interest and extreme individualism” lamented here by George Monbiot – Robert McLean)

 Illustration by Andrzej Krauze

What greater indictment of a system could there be than an epidemic of mental illness? Yet plagues of anxiety, stress, depression, social phobia, eating disorders, self-harm and loneliness now strike people down all over the world.

The latest, catastrophic figures for children’s mental health in England reflect a global crisis.

There are plenty of secondary reasons for this distress, but it seems to me that the underlying cause is everywhere the same: human beings, the ultrasocial mammals, whose brains are wired to respond to other people, are being peeled apart. Economic and technological change play a major role, but so does ideology. Though our wellbeing is inextricably linked to the lives of others, everywhere we are told that we will prosper through competitive self-interest and extreme individualism.

Read the comment piece by George Monbiot on The Guardian - “Neoliberalism is creating loneliness. That’s what’s wrenching society apart.”

Learning from the Neoliberals

"Our movement must be more powerful
 than ever to push Hillary into the
 climate leadership that the earth
 demands - Chloe Maxman.

With the presidential election less than three months away, how are our nominees doing on climate change? Donald Trump rarely mentions climate. When he does, he mocks it. Hillary Clinton? She’s excited to say that she believes in climate change, while condoning fracking and lauding the deeply flawed Paris agreement. Still, we know that we need Hillary, and we must do everything we can to elect her. Most importantly—our movement must be more powerful than ever to push Hillary into the climate leadership that the earth demands.

How can the climate movement develop the political power to fight effectively?

To glean a few answers, I looked to what I regard as one of the most successful examples of social change in the modern era: the neoliberal coup. Between 1975 and 2008, an ideological movement called “neoliberalism” evolved from fringe theory into the dominant economic paradigm of our age, with great help from the Republican Party, and then, the Democrats as well.

Read The Nation story - “What the Climate Movement Can Learn from the Neoliberal Coup.”

Endless consumption drives captitalism, and catastrophic climate change

A light bulb at a fire station in
Livermore, California, has been
on almost continuously since
1901. In 2015 it was recognized
by Guinness World Records as
the world’s longest-burning bulb.

Capitalism driven by the endgame that is Neoliberalism survives only if people consume endlessly.

Early in the 20^th Century, the leading corporate entities realised that long-lived products spelt doom for the operations and so in what was probably the first cartel with global reach.

It was seemingly inextinguishable light globes that drove the creation of that first cartel when it was realised that new and continuing sales depended entirely upon on that a light globe must regularly fail.

The sophistication of industry and the design of the products it produced meant that the quality of goods improved steadily and the life of goods equally improved.

It seemed that the manufacturing world was doomed, ruined by its own success.

The too good to fail light globe was a symbol of that success and so industry groups arrived at what is now understood as planned obsolescence.

That planned obsolescence may well be good for the world’s manufacturing industries, but it is the antithesis of what is needed if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Read J. B. MacKinnon’s story in The New Yorker - ”The L.E.D. quandary: why there’s no such thing as ‘built to last’.”

Neoliberalism: do you know what it is?

Imagine if the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of communism. The ideology that dominates our lives has, for most of us, no name. Mention it in conversation and you’ll be rewarded with a shrug. Even if your listeners have heard the term before, they will struggle to define it. Neoliberalism: do you know what it is?

Its anonymity is both a symptom and cause of its power. It has played a major role in a remarkable variety of crises: the financial meltdown of 2007‑8, the offshoring of wealth and power, of which the Panama Papers offer us merely a glimpse, the slow collapse of public health and education, resurgent child poverty, the epidemic of loneliness, the collapse of ecosystems, the rise of Donald Trump. But we respond to these crises as if they emerge in isolation, apparently unaware that they have all been either catalysed or exacerbated by the same coherent philosophy; a philosophy that has – or had – a name. What greater power can there be than to operate namelessly?

So pervasive has neoliberalism become that we seldom even recognise it as an ideology. We appear to accept the proposition that this utopian, millenarian faith describes a neutral force; a kind of biological law, like Darwin’s theory of evolution. But the philosophy arose as a conscious attempt to reshape human life and shift the locus of power.

Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.

Read The Guardian story - “Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems.”