As far as neoliberals are concerned, the only immoral act is standing in the way of profits.
So slice by slice, they pared a wage that would have once been enough to buy a family home into a wage that barely lasts to the next one.
They pocketed the difference, but it still wasn’t enough.
So they moved the jobs overseas where they could pay people even less, happily working with brutal authoritarian regimes.
They pocketed the difference, but it still wasn’t enough.
So they drew in “illegals”, exploiting their vulnerability like an abusive partner so they could pay them below minimum wage.
They pocketed the difference, but it still wasn’t enough.
So now they want to use children, so they can exploit people who are even more vulnerable by paying them even less money.
They’ll pocket the difference and it still won’t be enough.
So they’ll start eyeing up slavery, astro-turfing for fascists so they can pay their workers in bread and water.
And with nothing left to take from them, it still won’t be enough.
But the dirty secret is that this isn’t cutting edge of exploitation, this is the middle of the road.
The trailblazers are already there and have been for a decade. Nestlé uses child slaves, distant and brown enough to be swept under the rug. Walmart and Wendy’s use prison labor, paying less than a dollar an hour.
The claims of “the free market will solve it” were bullshit. For-profit media companies don’t cover it because the unspoken rule is that you can push and shove for market share but you never, ever attack neoliberalism itself.
But even if we do hear of it, it won’t do us any good. Ethically produced goods are a luxury that few people can afford because their first move was suppressing wages.
Need a kitchen knife? A good one that will last forever is $300 dollars you don’t have. A slave made one that will be landfill in a year is $3 that you do have. Two years from now the ethical company will be buried beside it for refusing to play the game.
Regulations did (and still could) solve it, so they groomed their own children for politics, capturing both sides of the aisle and building an illusion of choice, letting us decide if we want to be slammed into a wall at 100mph in a red car or 98mph in a blue one.
But it’s also the only way back out of this hole, so vote better I guess. Progressive politicians are the only solution and if you can’t find one, as disgusting as they might have made the job, you might have to become one.
Neoliberal economic policies stress two fundamentals of capitalism: deregulation—the removal of government control over industry—and privatization—the transfer of ownership, property, or business from the government to the private sector.
Whatever country you’re in, the right-wing (or center-right if you’ve got fascists) tend to be a bit more shameless and psychopathic with their neoliberalism.
So tax cuts for the rich, deregulation until disaster, cut social services but keep letting your friends and donors overcharge tenfold for government contracts, hand them monopolies by privatising critical services then line their pockets further by letting them demand ransom payments on top, open hostility towards unions, that kind of stuff.
This is the Reagan and Thatcher way, they’ve just learned to never use the word “neoliberalism” in public because if people don’t know the word, they can’t find the studies that show it never actually works.
But unfortunately, in most wealthy countries, the left-wing parties are doing the same thing, just slower and with a well practised frown.
They’ll still give tax breaks to the rich, but they’ll throw in some crumbs for the middle class. They won’t read their climate policy directly from an oil company email, but they’ll still prioritise millions of dollars over millions of lives.
Often, they work as a holding pattern. They pick a small number of social issues that won’t touch the rich and work on those. Things like gay marriage, legal weed and helping the native people who weren’t genocided. Some infrastructure here and there (which still lines the pockets of friends and donors, but we actually get something back in return).
But they won’t actually undo any of the previous neoliberalism. They won’t nationalise critical infrastructure or significantly expand social services (for example, expanding universal healthcare to cover dental). They’ll keep most of the previous budget cuts, maybe undoing half of one here and there as part of the “pretending to be two different parties” pantomime.
There will be genuine progressives among them (much like fascists in the conservatives) but they never weild real power, always being outnumbered by faceless neoliberals at all times. But they’re basically PR, making the party look more (or less) progressive than it really is and serving as a litmus test for “how many crumbs will it take to keep us from the guillotine”.
One of the most high profile examples of this was Bernie Sanders, a genuine progressive that had a genuine shot at the presidency and once there, might make actual changes.
So left-wing politicians, right-wing politicians, left-wing for-profit media empires, right-wing for-profit media empires, progressive business leaders and conservative business leaders all joined together to undermine and attack him in an act of class solidarity that socialists and communists can only dream of.
Instead we got Hillary who offered crumbs or Trump who offered racism. Now we have Biden, offering slightly larger crumbs than expected because polling showed that “eat the rich” was gaining momentum.
Which is probably more than you ever cared to know about neoliberalism (and definitely more than I care to edit), but it’s important to identify it and challenge it.
With social media astro-turfing now being the most effective way to win an election and AI poised to be the most effective propaganda/mind-control tool ever created, we have a very small window to end this “endless financial growth forever” insanity before it kills hundreds of millions of people.
As far as neoliberals are concerned, the only immoral act is standing in the way of profits.
So slice by slice, they pared a wage that would have once been enough to buy a family home into a wage that barely lasts to the next one.
They pocketed the difference, but it still wasn’t enough.
So they moved the jobs overseas where they could pay people even less, happily working with brutal authoritarian regimes.
They pocketed the difference, but it still wasn’t enough.
So they drew in “illegals”, exploiting their vulnerability like an abusive partner so they could pay them below minimum wage.
They pocketed the difference, but it still wasn’t enough.
So now they want to use children, so they can exploit people who are even more vulnerable by paying them even less money.
They’ll pocket the difference and it still won’t be enough.
So they’ll start eyeing up slavery, astro-turfing for fascists so they can pay their workers in bread and water.
And with nothing left to take from them, it still won’t be enough.
But the dirty secret is that this isn’t cutting edge of exploitation, this is the middle of the road.
The trailblazers are already there and have been for a decade. Nestlé uses child slaves, distant and brown enough to be swept under the rug. Walmart and Wendy’s use prison labor, paying less than a dollar an hour.
The claims of “the free market will solve it” were bullshit. For-profit media companies don’t cover it because the unspoken rule is that you can push and shove for market share but you never, ever attack neoliberalism itself.
But even if we do hear of it, it won’t do us any good. Ethically produced goods are a luxury that few people can afford because their first move was suppressing wages.
Need a kitchen knife? A good one that will last forever is $300 dollars you don’t have. A slave made one that will be landfill in a year is $3 that you do have. Two years from now the ethical company will be buried beside it for refusing to play the game.
Regulations did (and still could) solve it, so they groomed their own children for politics, capturing both sides of the aisle and building an illusion of choice, letting us decide if we want to be slammed into a wall at 100mph in a red car or 98mph in a blue one.
But it’s also the only way back out of this hole, so vote better I guess. Progressive politicians are the only solution and if you can’t find one, as disgusting as they might have made the job, you might have to become one.
Cogent and thoughtful post. Well done.
Does “neoliberal” mean conservative?
I found this to be well written https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-neoliberalism-definition-and-examples-5072548
Later on also says globalization.
Ok so yeah, basically. Neoliberalism is what conservatives are in favor of.
Unfortunately, not really.
Whatever country you’re in, the right-wing (or center-right if you’ve got fascists) tend to be a bit more shameless and psychopathic with their neoliberalism.
So tax cuts for the rich, deregulation until disaster, cut social services but keep letting your friends and donors overcharge tenfold for government contracts, hand them monopolies by privatising critical services then line their pockets further by letting them demand ransom payments on top, open hostility towards unions, that kind of stuff.
This is the Reagan and Thatcher way, they’ve just learned to never use the word “neoliberalism” in public because if people don’t know the word, they can’t find the studies that show it never actually works.
But unfortunately, in most wealthy countries, the left-wing parties are doing the same thing, just slower and with a well practised frown.
They’ll still give tax breaks to the rich, but they’ll throw in some crumbs for the middle class. They won’t read their climate policy directly from an oil company email, but they’ll still prioritise millions of dollars over millions of lives.
Often, they work as a holding pattern. They pick a small number of social issues that won’t touch the rich and work on those. Things like gay marriage, legal weed and helping the native people who weren’t genocided. Some infrastructure here and there (which still lines the pockets of friends and donors, but we actually get something back in return).
But they won’t actually undo any of the previous neoliberalism. They won’t nationalise critical infrastructure or significantly expand social services (for example, expanding universal healthcare to cover dental). They’ll keep most of the previous budget cuts, maybe undoing half of one here and there as part of the “pretending to be two different parties” pantomime.
There will be genuine progressives among them (much like fascists in the conservatives) but they never weild real power, always being outnumbered by faceless neoliberals at all times. But they’re basically PR, making the party look more (or less) progressive than it really is and serving as a litmus test for “how many crumbs will it take to keep us from the guillotine”.
One of the most high profile examples of this was Bernie Sanders, a genuine progressive that had a genuine shot at the presidency and once there, might make actual changes.
So left-wing politicians, right-wing politicians, left-wing for-profit media empires, right-wing for-profit media empires, progressive business leaders and conservative business leaders all joined together to undermine and attack him in an act of class solidarity that socialists and communists can only dream of.
Instead we got Hillary who offered crumbs or Trump who offered racism. Now we have Biden, offering slightly larger crumbs than expected because polling showed that “eat the rich” was gaining momentum.
Which is probably more than you ever cared to know about neoliberalism (and definitely more than I care to edit), but it’s important to identify it and challenge it.
With social media astro-turfing now being the most effective way to win an election and AI poised to be the most effective propaganda/mind-control tool ever created, we have a very small window to end this “endless financial growth forever” insanity before it kills hundreds of millions of people.