Friday, August 10, 2018

neoliberalism as a form of colonization?

Interesting metaphor. Implies another empire imposing its will on currently existing empire.

In reality, neoliberalism was invited in by those for whom maximization of profit was the most desirable outcome. I suspect the redistribution of income under social democracy was what the companies and their 1% were hoping to avoid. Though it seems common knowledge you can avoid Revenue Canada -since their workers become corporate workers, as seems to be the career trajectory for them- and by using off-shore accounts because it is too expensive for the government, apparently, to sue you for owing taxes. I'm not rich enough to be able to confirm those supposition though. Plus I believe in a social democracy and that makes my values and ethics inherently incompatible with neoliberalism.

Neoliberalism has successfully displaced democratic values and moral choices though. Just read the literature on it. Maximization of ROI, getting value for our money, #buckabeer = competition = survival of pre-existing large companies over small beer companies thus in reality reducing competition, .... You get the idea. The newspapers are full of foolish, non-democratic values laden content. Life is supposed to get nasty, brutish and short otherwise the funneling of monies "through competition and fitness" wouldn't be working. Or phrased slightly differently, inequality is an integral feature of neoliberalism.

For big picture, research-based why this horrible thing happened, you will likely wish to start by reading  Breaking the WTO...as an exposé on the USA implementing neoliberalism in order to remain dominant economically...and how it worked for many years but as greed moved manufacturing and innovation offshore, it has come to bite the USA in the ass with China now becoming the dominant economic power.

This is all opinion about why neoliberalism came about, based on bits and pieces of my readings.  FYI, I did want to create a reading list for #neoliberalism but I'm not there yet. But start with Breaking the WTO, Philip Mirowsk (and et al's) books to place neoliberalism smack dab in history, along with Killing the Host by Michael Hudson. One of the most important things to refute about neoliberalism are its claims: to be ahistorical and thus irrefutable because it is new and shiny and we don't know enough about why/where it came from...and that there are NOT better options out there (not even democracy!).

But enough diatribe/musings for now.