Neoliberalism is dead. The wreckage it has created is all around us. So, this Christmas, I want a new political vision. I don't think that's too much to ask for, is it?
This is the audio version.
And this is the transcript:
It's Christmas Eve, and I want a vision for Christmas.
No, I'm not talking about a new stable or angels appearing in the heavenly heights and singing Alleluia. I'm talking about a new political vision because, let's be honest, at the end of 2024, what we know is that politics is completely broken. It's not just broken in the UK; it's broken around the Western world.
Neoliberalism is broken. It has run us into a cul-de-sac from which there is at present no escape. Unless, that is, we have a new political vision.
And at the moment, there is very little sign that vision is going to appear from our politicians. They are dedicated to that neoliberal view that if only we let markets do whatever they wish, then profit motivation will result and, as a consequence, resources will be allocated optimally in society.
Neoliberalism has no explanation for poverty as a consequence.
Neoliberalism has no explanation for fear.
Neoliberalism has no explanation for those left behind in a world that doesn't care.
And I do care. That's what this channel, that's what my politics is all about.
I want a vision that puts care for people at the heart of our politics this Christmas.
I'm not interested any longer in discussing a political vision which is all about balancing the books and talking about finance and pretending that money is the be-all and end-all of everything when caring is.
When we have children in poverty, when we have pensioners who will die of cold this winter, when we have people who are homeless or who are living in homes so substandard that there is water running down the walls, when we do not recognise our neighbour as ourselves, then there is something fundamentally wrong with our society.
And that's it. There is something fundamentally wrong with our politics that does not shout out about these things.
And so, this Christmas, what I want is that new vision.
I'm not pretending we've got it just yet. We haven't got all the answers right now. I will be exploring some of these themes over the next few days.
This is after all, Christmas, and politics - at least the active form of politics that we find in Westminster - is kind of quiet right now. So, instead, I'll be thinking about these bigger issues. But. That's not long enough to create that vision. In 2025, this channel is going to be about how we create that vision.
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Neoliberalism has no explanation for many things, because it has but one motive: to make a profit.
Everything else is considered justified because the market knows best. Raw sewage in rivers, unhealthy foods, and suspect vaccines, are all justified in the name of profit.
I can recommend: Invisible Doctrine – The Secret History of Neoliberalism (2024) — George Monbiot
https://amzn.eu/d/5AlGL0O
Thanks
Well said Richard – we need courageous, visionary, passionate politicians to break away from old worn out paradigms. Neoliberalism crushes progress and social and economic evolution – it’s time for a change.
Thank you for all the work you do and the hope and encouragement you give to us.
Happy Christmas!
Happy Christmas, Ellie
Over the last couple of years I have been writing short stories around a theme. When I started i had little idea how they would finish but an answer emerged. One of my school friends was a designer and rose from being a secondary modern pupil like me to working for the United Nations. He says the creative process is often like that. We need to have faith in the process. A vision will come.
All the best to you and your family for Christmas. Have a rest and refresh.
Thanks
Go well this Christmas
Here is a nice clip of Matt Damon (with his mother) talking about what incentives people have to work (and it’s not money).
It’s only 57 seconds: https://x.com/zei_squirrel/status/1870804977192407262
Classical economics is wrong.
Very good
Well said Richard. Starmer says, “Look after one another”. Well, we’re going to have to do that very thing, because you, and your Government certainly aren’t going to. Merry Xmas, if possible, and a Happy New Year to you and yours.
Thanks to, and appreciation of, Thomas and you!
Might the above mentioned word “optimally” be a key word-concept?
Might the phrase “in context” be a key phrase-concept?
One, more than somewhat unstated, facet of neoliberalism, seems to be to minimise rules and regulations which might restrict financial activities and those concerning public equity and safety and to maximise the money facet of transactions and their reporting without much, if any, of their social contexts.
H M G’s current socio-economic policies maximise the financial/ balanced books facet whilst minimising the social facet.
Might HMG policies which optimally proportioned decent, realistic bookkeeping with safe, equitable living and developing contexts for all citizens and their children be more appropriate and more sustainable?
Similarly, might the setting of financial statements, plans etc, in social contexts be more realistic and provide better assessment and planing guidance?
Might one example be the combining the announcements of latest stock marked data with data in the current use of food banks?
Noted
I like that idea. The DWP are terrified of food bank data. I used to collect the stuff and collate it and publish it monthly on our website and archive it on spreadsheets, then submit it via IFAN to the IFAN/Trussell joint database. Millions of real life datapoints per week across the nation, not projections or assumptions or guesstimates, but factual records of actual family/individual circumstances, who was in work, how many children, reason for visit etc.
DWP had nothing approaching it for size oe reliability (for the simple reason that they didn’t collect it & actively avoided doing so).
So they came up with their own mixture of smears, lies and excuses. (temporary cash flow, budgeting problem, scroungers, frauds/cheats, lazy benefit lifestyles, foodbanks creating the demand – free food handed out to allcomers – get back to your knitting – so uplifting).
All now reduced to a single answer, “growth will make all this go away – what people need is LESS benefits and more hard work”.
Which doesn’t seem to be working out so well.
Thanks for what you do.
Hello again Richard and a Merry Xmas to you & your family (including your ‘womb mate’).
Less emphasis on ‘belongingS’ but more on ‘belonging’ is to be my New Year resolution.
The plural noun is incapable of being satisfied and I already ‘belong’ to a singular one… humanity.
Eliminating my desire to ‘own’ surplus gadgets will allow other species to survive our man-made climate crisis too.
That S makes a big difference
Quite so and agreed.
A culture tolerating cruelty and outcomes dictated by the unequal allocation of resources (passed off as the ‘natural order’) now dominates.
We have capital’s version of Heaven – unregulated, free to exploit, free to shrug off any consequences free to dis-aggregate human co-existence and just compete.
Do we need a whole new political philosophy, or just a return to a more strongly regulated form of capitalism? Many of the tools are there, they have just been increasingly watered down or abandoned.
I am working on that, even now.
Happy Christmas, Richard. I look forward to reading you all next year.
Thanks
And to you.
Instead of measuring the economy by GDP why not measure it by the amount of foodbanks we have in the UK and how many people are using them .
Growth would be judged by how much they are reduced over the term of a government .
If they increase then clearly the economy model isn’t working , almost everyone can understand that particular economic measurement .
If we are looking for a new vision, and we certainly need one, I hope it can encapsulate the conundrum behind these very simplistic questions.
1. If I own/use a fridge, how would I feel if someone told me I couldn’t have one any more? (to save the planet)
2. Should EVERYONE in the planet (household/family/community unit) have a fridge? (Is that sustainable?)
3. WHO should have fridges? (and who shouldn’t, and how do we decide?)
4. How many people in (say) China, should have a fridge? (Or, if you are Chinese, how many Brits should have a fridge?
How does all this relate to a vision for the politics of “need”?
Assumptions – our present system says that the powerful and wealthy MUST have fridges, that the poor don’t need them, we decide the matter by killing one another, thank god I was born in a wealthy greedy nation, and stuff sustainability.
Forgive me, but I don’t do abstract thinking very well, unless it’s theology. But I do understand fridges a little (they help stop Campylobacter growing in turkey carcasses and giving you the squits on Boxing Day).
Richard, I really like this plan to explore a new vision. Go for it!
I am playing with ideas around those themes today.
I think we have to be careful about considering ideas in isolation.
To suggest we shouldn’t have fridges because of, for example, global warming, is to ignore so many other options. What if my fridge gets its energy from clean energy? What about all the benefits of refrigeration (less spoilt food, fewer journeys to get fresh food), etc etc.
I note that there has been criticism of China’s use of coal (country that has the highest usage on the planet), which ignores coal usage per capita (puts them outside the top 20). And there are so many other considerations of so many other issues.
“To suggest that…”
I am definitely NOT making that suggestion.
I’m not trying to sneak in ecofascism over Christmas!
I am asking slightly frivolous but “concrete” questions, in the hope that any new economic vision can handle them and to flush out some of our “rich world assumptions, that tend to surface if anyone asks a question about something we assume will always be available US, even if it is NOT available to others.
Of course there are other low carbon, resource friendly, non exploitative ways of equitably providing the refrigeration we NEED across the globe. Just as we found ways of making fridges without CFCs.
My post was designed to highlight the rather unpleasant way we handle the fridge questions under the current status quo of power/wealth/conflict as determined by neoliberalism.
A very good question RobertJ.
I have a friend (with mobility issues, adoptive single mum of two early teenage girls with severe trauma issues from toddler-hood) living on UC who casually let it drop in conversation that she would love to be able to afford to heat the girls’ bedroom.
She relies on a portable gas heater downstairs.
Her main struggle in last two years has been getting the specialised therapy and correct schools her children need.
The relentless discomfort in cold weather of a chilly, half heated house, is shrugged off.
I am of an age where I grew up in a house heated by one fire in the “living room.”
I hated it. I vowed when I was grown up I would have a bedroom where there was not ice on the inside windows in winter, and where I brought my clothes into the bed to warm them up every morning before I got dressed.
I am very aware of the comfort of a well insulated, warm home.
But if that is something we can all have is indeed a good question.
What needs to be “the new normal”?
Probably a lot less comfortable than I am today.
I too remember ice on the windows and going downstairs to dress in the warm – well, where it was warmer.
I spent a fair few childhood holidays in SW Scotland, in an unheated bedroom, ice on the inside, remember pulling clothes into bed to warm them up, & lowering myself from a high Scottish 3/4 bed to a v cold floor. That’s where I learned to set a coal fire. (& my granny didn’t have a fridge, she had a v cold larder with stone slabs and a meat safe. Brrr! But Lanimer Day & Whuppity Scoorie were fun!
My granny had a weird outside wired framed box for a fridge on the north side of the house. I have no idea if it worked….
I think it is salutary to remind ourselves of how far our expectation of comfort has come by watching the The Big Snow of 1947 on Channel 5. https://www.channel5.com/show/the-big-snow-of-47
It was the year I was born and my poor mother had a really hard time of it with a newborn in early March.
Thank you, Richard. Hear, hear.
One looks forward.
Steve’s idea of “balancing” , say, business announcements with food bank use is good. I think this will resonate. One can add pollution, median pay as opposed to fat cat pay, corruption etc. This going to be, er, fun, especially on social media.
Richard: “What we know is that politics is completely broken. It’s not just broken in the UK; it’s broken around the Western world.” In addition to neoliberalism, let’s add its companion, neoconservatism / imperialism, especially in the hundred plus years war on / genocide of Palestinians.
It may not be apparent from the western MSM and to western leaders, but a new world is emerging outside the west. Western support for Israel is amongst the last gasps of the(ir) so called rules based international order, an order that now has the EU, home to some current and former colonial powers, reduced to being a vassal of the US.
Much to agree with.
Thank you, Richard.
Merry Christmas to your loved ones and you.
Thank you so much for the care for others you show and thoughts you share.
I wish you, and those you love, a very happy Christmas and a great New Year.
Thanks Bill
Merry Christmas Richard to you and the family
Thanks, John.
And to you.
After 45 years of unchecked neoliberalism, a class of billionaires has emerged who are now demanding and exercising political power. This is most obvious in the USA (Musk-Ramaswamy) but it is happening under cover in many other countries. Look how Reeves backed down on taxing carried interest at 40% for an example of how big money lobbying works behind the scenes.
Musk may prove to be an outlier for now in terms of actually wielding political power as openly as he did last week, if only because it’s doubtful if Trump will be content to play second fiddle for long, despite owing Musk favours for the $270m in campaign donations. But the billionaire class will always be able to quietly lobby politicians to ensure that no laws get passed that they don’t want. And in many countries it has already gone well beyond lobbying and morphed into outright corruption. I would suggest that Labour’s first few months in office showed it perilously close to being bought by big money. Even if it wasn’t, snouts in the trough is never a good look.
When 2 self-described “alpha” males are competing for top spot, the result is bound to be full of opportunities, esp when one has money & the other has the power.
Of coutse one can be brought down by his customers, and the other by his party colleagues/rivals/facilitators.
Of course there’s also a high risk element.
Thank you, Peter.
Most of Labour’s advisers are from investment firms, such as asset strippers Khalifa and Cohen, not banks.
Just a bit of perspective. A reminder if you will.
Pale Blue Dot
“Look again at this dot. This is here. This is home. This is us. Everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you have ever heard of, every human being who has ever existed, lived out their lives on it. The multitude of our joys and sufferings, a thousand self-righteous religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and gatherer, every hero and coward, every builder and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every couple in love, every mother and father, every bright child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of ethics, every lying politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived here – on a speck of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage on a vast cosmic stage. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all these generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they might become the short-term masters of a fraction of a grain of sand. Think of the endless cruelties inflicted by the inhabitants of one corner of this dot on the barely distinguishable inhabitants of another corner. How often they disagree, how eager they are to kill each other, how hot their hatreds are.
Our posturing, our imagined importance, the illusion of our privileged status in the universe – all of them are worthless before this point of pale light. Our planet is but a lonely speck in the surrounding cosmic darkness. In this vast emptiness there is no hint that anyone will come to our aid, to save us from our ignorance.
The Earth is the only world known so far capable of supporting life. We have nowhere else to go – at least in the near future. To visit, yes. To colonize, not yet. Like it or not, the Earth is our home now.
They say that astronomy instills humility and strengthens character. Perhaps there is no better demonstration of human conceit than this distant picture of our tiny world. I think it highlights our responsibility, our duty to be kinder to one another, to treasure and cherish the pale blue dot that is our only home.”
Carl Sagan
Thank you, that hits the nail on the head. What frustrates me about the Labour government isn’t what they haven’t achieved – people’s expectations cannot possibly be met this quickly – but the fact that they don’t have a clarity about their vision (or in functional term, their goals).
It shouldn’t be difficult to say that what they are aiming are is a more just society where even the poorest (for whatever reason) have access to good and timely healthcare, to decent public services and utilities at affordable cost, and for their children to be sure of decent education and not going to school hungry. Plus living in a nation with a fair reliable justice system, security against external threats, and a system of democracy which people feel reflects their views.
And then to be honest about where they are in achieving their vision, it would be pretty impressive if they could get halfway to my vision in a single parliament given what they started with.
.
Thanks, Jonathan
Warren Mosler Live At Leeds
Rid us of the parasitic finance sector:
1) permanent zero INTEREST RATE
2) unlimited, fixed-price SHARES
3) fully insured BANK DEPOSITS
4) no tax-advantaged SAVINGS
One resource I’d recommend is Rob Hopkins book, From What is to What if?
We had it in our online book club over the pandemic and it really helps the envisioning process. Especially just the simple act of asking What if? Then you get to the next question: what next?
Every journey starts with a small step, what is the first step to creating that vision?
Enjoy your winter break
Thanks
Just because our politicians are out of ideas, it doesn’t mean that we are! We’ll keep sowing the seeds of change, telling the story of how things could be better, of how we could make life fairer for more of us until they just can’t ignore the alternatives any more! Thanks for your efforts, Richard, and know that there are more people right there with you than you might think.
Agreed, and thanks