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Miranda: O brave new world that has such people
in it!
Prospero: 'Tis new, to thee.
The Tempest Act 5, scene 1
In my reading today I came across this relatively good description of
Neoliberalism in economics excerpted below, and its implications for society.
The name for this school is often confusing to some, because it is a school
of the right, more akin to political neoconservatism
than anything commonly known as liberal.
Here is the schoolbook definition of neoliberalism in economics:
"Neoliberalism is a label
for economic liberalizations, free trade, and open markets. Neoliberalism
supports privatization of state-owned enterprises, deregulation of markets,
and promotion of the private sector's role in society. In the 1980s, much of
neoliberal theory was incorporated into mainstream economics."
I have to reiterate my own perspective
that economics is not a physical science with rules generally tested by
replicable experimentation on the macro level, but is at most a 'social
science' that attempts to approximate a complex human reality, like
sociology.
Microeconomics 'works' because it is less dependent on the human element, and
involves itself with mechanical processes and pricing functions. By
'economics' I am discussing what is called macroeconomics, or the
economics not of a discreet process or set of processes called a 'business'
but of a broad economy with enormous sets of variables and processes that are
far too complex to represent well mathematically. They most often trim and
crush reality to fit some compactly useful model, as in the manner of Nassim Taleb's Procrustean
Bed.
When it ventures into the realm of public policy discussions, economics often
resembles a belief system very much like a religion. It is easily
twisted to serve the desires and actions of its acolytes while conferring an
aura of logic. But there is almost always some 'leap of faith' made that
spans the enormous gulf between the model, its assumptions, and reality.
Economics is only as good as its assumptions, which may in fact be terribly
distorted with each step towards a more general application from a simple a
priori observation that sounds self-evident at first. Economics is a
veritable cornucopia of non sequiturs encased in obscurantist
terminology.
People are reasoning, therefore in their actions they act reasonably. And in
the mass of financial transactions that is the market, these rational actors
and their actions impute a natural rationality to the market that
makes it efficient. Therefore the law of supply and demand and
the perfect clearing price of the market, which are central tenets of
market efficiency, are not to be interfered with by outside forces, like
regulation and government.
And what makes this believable is that this can be true, if people are
as good and perfectly wise and uniform in their actions as angels; but they
are not, not a one of them, but especially those who are drawn to making
their money from money, and especially from speculation in the markets. This
type of activity attracts people from the tails of human behaviour, like most sources of wealth and power.
This assertion of natural market efficiency sounds good, especially when it
is delivered by academics in nice suits with lots of degrees and titles,
backed by a multimillion dollar PR campaign that contains well crafted,
thinly disguised appeals to more visceral emotions.
But it is a theory that is easily shown to be founded in fantasy to anyone
who has driven on a crowded multi-lane highway in rush hour.
And a corollary to this is that the system grades or objectively and
perfectly evaluates people on their merits. If one suffers some misfortune or
fails to rise 'to the top' of the heap, then this is an objective judgement on them and their value, their character, their
worthiness as a human being. And some would say that this speaks to their
status as a fully valued member of that society, to have rights and to vote,
to receive food and vital medical attention, and to have families and to
procreate.
Because the system is perfectly efficient and rewards the best, the most
successful are sanctified by it. I am wealthy, therefore I am among the
elect, whether it is marked by an aristocratic title or an enormous bank
account. I am above all the rest, and this proves my value, and provides all
the things which are stuffed into my hollowed being.
One can certainly and legitimately use economics, among other things, to support
their particular policy arguments to estimate effects. But the listeners
should accept this with plenty of skepticism, because the proofs are largely
based on statistics, or statistically based models, that are filled with often
unspoken assumptions, questionable estimates, and too often critical
omissions, both conscious or inadvertent.
But to take an economic model out of its place, and put it above the
discussion as policy maker in the manner of a computing machine which spits
out the ultimate solutions, to capitalize 'Market' as a type of god on earth,
to put that false idol as an unfettered decision-making machine above the
individuals of a society and the rule of law, is inhuman, and a tyranny of
the anti-human.
Economics is a tool, in some implementations better than others, but overall
not a particularly reliable one. It is better in 'explaining' than
predicting; its explanations are more often rationalizations founded in its
malleability and lack of rigor.
The elevation of macroeconomics today reminds one of the perversions of the
discoveries in biology that led to the theories of eugenics and the race
worship, the mythology of the blood that motivated much of the social
thinking and many serious political movements at the beginnings of the
twentieth century. It was when the intelligentsia and the professions, the
doctors and lawyers, threw in their lot with the financial and industrial
elite that European society began to quickly fall apart.
"I believe that if a canvass of the
entire civilized world were put to the vote in this matter, the proposition
that it is desirable that the better sort of people should intermarry and
have plentiful children, and that the inferior sort of people should abstain
from multiplication, would be carried by an overwhelming majority...
Indeed, Mr. Galton has drawn up certain definite proposals. He has suggested
that "noble families" should collect "fine specimens of
humanity" around them, employing these fine specimens in menial occupations
of a light and comfortable sort, that will leave a sufficient portion of
their energies free for the multiplication of their superior type."
Source: H.G. Wells, Mankind in the Making
People forget that a whole range of
intellectuals and popular thinkers, from George Bernard Shaw to H.G. Wells
and a large measure of the economic, professional and political aristocracy
of the day, embraced the notion of the natural superiority of certain human
types, and the scientific necessity of encouraging their proliferation, and
the dominance of the untermensch as not only
their right but their obligation.
The medical profession disgraced itself, amongst the first of those in
Germany, with their willingness and devotion to implement euthanasia based on
these 'scientific principles.' And the elite in the West broadly looked at
this movement with quiet compliance and even admiration for the will to make
these 'hard decisions.' It was only when the definition of the master race
became increasingly narrow and their methods madly brutal that they recoiled
in horror. But by then it was too late, although many adherents to the basic
principles remained sympathetic in England and America.
Science serves at its best, but it does
not rule well, except to blind the heart and the mind to madness.
And one might look at these people from the past with revulsion and wonder, but
the self-proclaimed ruling class of the West is doing the same thing today,
largely by financial means for now. Their rhetoric and reasoning is filled
with it, a sense of the obligation of their natural superiority. And if they
steal from you, it is a privilege. And if a little of their spoils trickles
down, you should be grateful.
There are plenty of believers in the ascendancy of a new master class,
as long as they think they are a part of it. You may see them and their ideas
on display this week from Brussels and Berlin, to Tampa and Jackson Hole. And
they are not members of learning organizations, but protectors and promoters
of the status quo.
"There is a lack of critical
assessment of the past. But you have to understand that the current ruling elite
is actually the old ruling elite. So they are
incapable of a self-critical approach to the past."
Ryszard Kapuscinski
If one wishes to have an oligarchy or
even a dictatorship based on power and unscrupulous behaviour
in which the 'superior,' as one may choose to define them, use the weak as
servants and prey, then decide to do so and say it, and hope the people will
support it.
But it seems particularly hypocritical and cheap to set up a god of economic
science which is elevated to speak these same words as an inspired dictum
from above, but which is in reality a false idol carrying the calculated
whisperings of its high priests, and then expect the people to bow to it
forever without any eventual reaction.
The Tyranny of Neoliberalism
Unapologetic in its implementation of austerity measures that cause
massive amounts of human hardship and suffering, neoliberal capitalism
consolidates class power on the backs of young people, workers, and others
marginalized by class, race, and ethnicity. Neoliberal capitalism
appears to no longer need the legitimacy garnered through its false claim to
democratic ideals such as free speech, individual liberty, or
justice—however tepid these appeals have always been. (cf. Glenn
Greenwald - Jesse)
In the absence of alternative social visions to market-driven values and the
increasing separation of global corporate power from national politics, neoliberalism
has wrested itself free of any regulatory controls while at the same time
removing economics from any consideration of social costs, ethics, or social
responsibility. Such a disposition is evident in the fact that neoliberalism's
only imperatives are profits and growing investments in global power
structures unmoored from any form of accountable, democratic governance.
The devastating fallout of neoliberal capitalism's reorganization of society,
the destruction of communities and impoverishment of individuals and
families, now becomes its most embraced mode of expression as it is
championed, ironically, as the only viable route to economic stability.
In this widely accepted, yet dystopian world view, collective misfortune
is no longer interpreted as a sign of failing governance or the tawdry
willingness of politicians to serve corporate interests, but attributed to
the character flaws of individuals and defined chiefly as a matter of
personal responsibility. In fact, government-provided social protections
are viewed as pathological. Matters of life and death are removed from
traditional modes of democratic governance and made subject to the
sovereignty of the market. (Don't feed the 'losers' or the undesirables -
isolate and then euthanise them, indirectly at
first - Jesse)
In this new age of biocapital, or what Eric Cazdyn calls "bioeconomics,"
"all ideals are at the mercy of a larger economic logic"
—one that unapologetically generates policies that "trample over
millions of people if necessary." Neoliberalism's defining
ideologies, values, and policies harness all institutions, social practices,
and modes of thought to the demands of corporations and the needs of the
warfare state. They are as narrowly self-serving as they are destructive. (The
individuals, even in their millions, must die if not for the good of the
state or the race, then for the good of the market and corporate profits. -
Jesse)
As collective responsibility is privatized, politics loses its social and
democratic character, and the formative culture necessary for the production
of engaged critical agents is gravely undermined. An utterly reduced form
of agency is now embodied in the figure of the isolated automaton, who is driven by self-interest and eschews any
responsibility for the other.
As Stuart J. Murray points out, neoliberalism's totalizing discourse of
privatization, commodification, deregulation, and hyper-individualism
"co-opts and eviscerates the language of the common good." The
ascendancy of neoliberal ideology also manifests in an ongoing assault on
democratic public spheres, public goods, and any viable notion of equality
and social justice.
As corporate power is consolidated into fewer and fewer hands, ideological
and structural reforms are implemented to transfer wealth and income into the
hands of a ruling financial and corporate elite. This concentration of
power is all the more alarming since both Canada and the United States have
experienced unprecedented growth in wealth concentration and income
inequality since the 1970s.
Henry Giroux, Days of Rage: The Quebec Student Protest Movement
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