This is just an idea.
I keep saying that neoliberal economics is broken.
I keep explaining why it is broken.
But suppose everyone already knows?
They can see the evidence before them.
The incomes that are flatlining.
The inequality that is rising.
The pubic services that are failing.
The hope that is disappearing.
The planet that is burning.
The despair that is rising.
What people don't need is to be told this is happening. They know it.
What they know is that this is happening.
What they want is an alternative.
What they are being told is that there is no alternative.
And what they know is that this must be wrong.
There has to be an alternative.
And what they hate are politicians who say that no such thing exists.
And that no such thing is even possible.
As a result, they look to anyone who offers change, even if they're a charlatan.
That's how desperate things are.
Our political choice has been reduced to despair versus the unpalatable.
So what do we need?
Talk of the alternative requires that every assumption be challenged.
Markets are not all-powerful.
We don't necessarily want choice.
We just want things that work.
We don't want to be told by the wealthy that we can't be like them.
We aren't even sure what value the wealthy add.
Or what gives them the right to preach to us.
Or to hold us to ransom.
Or to tell us that the books must be balanced, at cost to all the people who suffer as a result.
But not them, of course.
Because, instead we see all around us people who want to work.
Who want to deliver.
Who want to innovate.
Who are capable of doing all those things, but who are denied the chance to do so.
Who are denied by those 'balanced budgets'.
Who are denied by top-down thinking that thinks it alone knows best.
Wh0 are left with shit jobs because markets value productivity more than people.
And which then condemns people for not working.
And wants to sanction them for not trying hard enough.
That does not understand that many give all they can, and are still told that is no good.
But who are never given the chance to find out what might be better.
Because all we want is the chance to be.
To be in our own space.
With our own friends and families.
Each with enough to survive, and a bit more, so we can have some fun.
We don't want to maximise.
We don't think money is everything, although it helps.
We just want the right to exist in peace and harmony.
And would very much rather we were't screwed in the process of trying doing so.
So, unsurprisingly, we resent exploitation by banks, landlords, energy companies and others.
We just want a system that works.
That's all people are asking for, when they know that what we have does not function now.
Is that too much to ask for?
And isn't it my job, and the job of all thinkers on the left, to explain how that might happen?
Otherwise, why do we, as commentators, as thinkers, as bloggers, exist?
Why, indeed?
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When the mainstream media has been captured and politicians “bought”, all that is left is the voice of commentators and bloggers.
Protestors are being silenced, deemed to be terrorists, or imprisoned, will commentators and bloggers be next in the name of national security?
I will go down fighting.
I’ll do the same. Never mess with a weapons-trained bipolar Aquarian.
Same, even though it’s exhausting living in a permanent state of fight/flight. I refuse to accept living in this shitty environment.
Sadly many just listen and read the MSM and don’t know this. They know things aren’t working but they still believe the lies they are told. It’s the EU and the immigrants etc. Unfortunately, many read the Daily Mail etc and just swallow what they are told and believe Nigel Farage will be their saviour despite so much evidence to the contrary.
The only main stream news channels I watch are either C.N.N or aljazeera, in the hope they might be more objective,
Al jazeera will give half an hour to three ‘experts’ to discuss a topic. Not usually politicians or journalists.
They are rarely interrupted given time to explain their view. it can be challenged by the others.
We could do with more of this approach.
An emotional process is to push out what is unbearable, people are suffering and some people feel better if they push this into another, watch a group or person or animal suffer more,
The fascist architects always seemed to know this and use it.
The antidote is solidarity, unity around our common oppression.
One of the problems I notice about politics today is the immunity that most politicians have from direct questioning.
The “political interview” died a long time ago.
Hustings and press conferences do not allow REAL accountable questioning.
Journalists and presenters who ask the tough questions can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
The Today programme of Brian Redhead etc is long gone, Panorama has been castrated by Tim Davie.
A question – can ANYONE hear recall any MSM journalist, editor or presenter, asking any politician…
– where government money comes from?
– why do they say budgets have to be balanced?
– can the government run out of money?
– why do the poor bear the brunt of austerity while the rich get richer?
I find my most effective weapon is “the good question”, targeted at somethig stupid (but widely assumed to be true) that “everyone” believes.
Could Funding the Future or the video channel spend time coming up with “good questions”?
We will never get to ask the politicians and they will never answer, but we can ask them on the omnibus, in our homes, or at work.
I want to ask why there hasnt been a run on the pound after the announcement of all that defence expenditure, when we were told that unless we cut WFA there WOULD be a run on the pound. Because since then the reports on our economy haven’t shown growth but stagnation. So shouldn’t the pund be plunging?
I know the answer, but I’d like a nice list of killer questions to ask Reform and Reeves supporters when I meet them.
“Good questions”?
I am working obn the ‘How to arghue with a neoliberal’ series.
And one on wealth
Now ‘What are the good questions?’
This book is quite good:
“Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading and Public Speaking” (Feb. 2023) by Mehdi Hasan
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Win-Every-Argument-Debating-Persuading/dp/1529093589
I have it
I like Mehdi
Questions for neoliberal series?
Look forward to this series.
Questions from an ordinary person,
There is a rapid expansion of marketisation, including essential resources water, children in care, housing ; was that always within the neoliberal agenda, what’s the impact on vulnerable groups and is there anything you would not subject to marketisation?
No one has ever met homo economicus, have you ever met a homo economicus? Do you think there are any problems in applying a fictional person to the complexity of the real world, explain?
Where does the free market exist?
Thanks
I will add a new category to “Open Source Slogans” (OSS), that of Open Source Questions (OSQ).
Any question with the OSQ suffix doesn’t need answeing here, it needs ASKING somewhere else.
Examples:
“When Chancellor Reeves refers to the government having maxed out its credit card, who issued the credit card and who is the government making the repayments and interest to?”(OSQ)
“We are often warned that if the government spends more than it receives in taxes, it will run out of money. Where does our money actually come from in the first place?”(OSQ)
“If trickle down economics actually works, why are the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer?”(OSQ)
“PIP is a non-means tested payment, and at least 16% of recipients, are IN work (OBR Oct 2024), & use it to finance the extra employment costs their health condition exposes them to, such as financing Motability payments or taxi fares for their commute. How will the proposed cuts in PIP eligibility, help (post-Nov 2026) disabled employees stay in work?”(OSQ)
“If the government freezes tax thresholds yet again, how many pensioners on basic new pension only, and who are unfamiliar with the internet will be paying tax for the first time? What arrangements have been made at HMRC to cope with that and how will the tax be collected and self-assessment accounts be managed?”(OSQ)
“We keep hearing about something called MMT, Modern Monetary Theory. What IS that?”(OSQ) – that is for either Reeves or Darren Jones only)
“When are you going to DO something about small companies that are set up, registered at Companies House, then closed down a year, having avoided paying their VAT, NI, PAYE & Corporation tax?(OSQ)
“How many people have been prosecuted for PPE fraud?”(OSQ)
You get the idea…
Wait until the morning….
I have lost quite a lot of the day to you… 🙂
It’s very effective – people still take if for granted that we live in an informed open democracy – where any questions can be asked and answered – even those that you mention that are rarely if ever posed.
Its what Chomsky called Manufacturing Consent – and said that part of the trick is to sound very confronting and challenging but only within very narrowly defined tramlines.
Its amazing how well it works – we know those questions wont be asked so we begin to accept the confines of the debate just as Russians accept Putins media.
There is a blog post and maybe a video under development on this now.
Manufactured consent:
Do you want the blue Tory party, or the red Tory party?
“One of the problems I notice about politics today is the immunity that most politicians have from direct questioning.”
and
any sense of responsibility for their actions (or lack thereof) and the bureaucracy that supports them. Eurometaux annual conference – the President noting that none of the EU institutions takes any sort of responsibility whatsoever for anything. My Bx contacts think the EU has perhaps 5 years left – due to the gathering right-whinge storm in Germany, France and Italy.
But yeah – politicos never ever expose themselves to tough questions & are functionally incapable of giving direct answers. 90% of them? are liars and charlatans – most of the time. Concerned? only for their own pockets.
I note that the zionst Streeting was whinning about some anti-IDF chants @ Glastonbury – remind me how many children the IDF has murdered? (10,000? or is it 20,000?)
Yes Mike, but the chants UPSET people which is FAR worse than killing thousands of children; cant you see that?
In the opinion of some that, apprently, is true.
UPSET .. Israel and zionists.
There fixed it for you mate.
Once upon a time, politicians believed they had power, that they could make things happen – and some did. Now they have lost their way, they don’t understand the purpose of their job. They turn to advisors who will willingly advise, but not for the good of all, but for their paymaster few.
We all know things are decaying. These, in my view, are signs of civilisational collapse. We don’t seem to wonder about why, around the world (apart from in Africa) the number of babies born are too few to replace those who die. Even in India the fertility rate is just below 2. Apparently, once this trend has started, (as it has for other civilisations now lost to us) there isn’t an example of the trend being reversed. It forms the backdrop to the decay that Richard has enunciated.
Just a thought:–
We need an economic paradigm that can cope with decline. Neoliberalism, and all that goes with it, can’t do the job. But what can? Ideas are needed based on the reality of the laws of thermodynamics, entropy in particular. These ideas have been around for several decades. Perhaps their time has come?
[ Entropy economics, as a distinct field, was primarily started by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. In his 1971 book, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, he applied the concept of entropy (the second law of thermodynamics) to economics, arguing that the economic process involves an irreversible degradation of resources. ]
I remember reading that in the 70s, or maybe mid 80s, when I considered a PhD on such issues, and thought it powerful.
James K Galbraith and Jing Chen have had “Entropy Economics” published earlier this year. In a fit of enthusiasm I bought it. It’s not long but I find I need to be undisturbed when reading it.
Steve Keen reviewed it at:–
https://profstevekeen.substack.com/p/comments-on-entropy-economics-by
His closing words are:–
“In closing, to paraphrase Jamie’s famous father, you will find much wisdom in this book, and none of it is conventional. But it is high time that it did become the convention.”
I must order a copy…
Rich
I like your post, but please do not use the word ‘decline’ OK?
The proper word is ‘change’.
‘Decline’ as a motive used by politicians can be used to justify anything – it is alarmist and just manufacturing consent for things voters had never imagined and which will only hurt them.
Thanks PSR
I hadn’t really thought of it in the way you have interpreted it. I find it difficult to write unambiguously, politicians will misinterperate anything that suits their argument. I’ll certainly try to be clearer.
Rich
Rich
Reading what I have actually written, I think it’s me who needs to write in proper English for a start!
To me, this post reveals the underlying tragedy of our times.
We have been denied the epiphanies and critical thinking that people like Gramsci and Freire said needed to happen. Maybe we – they – did not think that our oppressors would read their books as well and organise matters against these alternatives? Cut them off before they could be born or realised?
I was watching Adam Curtis’ ‘The Power of Nightmares’ again the other day and came across a phrase used by radical Islam to describe a state of consciousness that the radicalised Muslim could use to essentially justify killing a fellow moderate Muslim or any Westerner for that matter. ‘ Jahiliyya’ – is seen as pre- Islamic state of barbarous ignorance in the face of Islam and also as an insult and a threat (especially if you are a Muslim who advocated monotheism).
Curtis being Curtis is honest and points out that people like Sayyid Qutb (Qutb is a really interesting character – he saw for example similarities between the West and the Soviet bloc as early as the 1950s/60s but began by questioning Islam itself about how it went about its business) were subject to torture and cruelty and that this may well have pushed their conservative/orthodox natures further into more radicalised thinking. And we cannot ignore that the Egypt that Qutb and others lived in was also pushing for Western style ‘modernisation’.
But I got thinking about this concept of ‘jahiliyya’ – not the bit about justifying someone’s death with it, but by the ‘barbarous ignorance’ portion and it chimed with me about what sort of people we are now – the sort of people where some of us see Farage as an answer to our problems and will stand outside a reception point for boat people and harangue them or try to burn down where they are being temporarily housed.
I cannot but help look for symmetries with ‘jahiliyya’ and my own country – the casual barbarism of the MSM, the reductio absurdum that passes casually for ‘political debate’. The abuse of television which has long lost its notion of a public good and instead gives us mass entertainment, brands, dreams, contrived ‘reality’ TV shows, advertising ideals like from perfect skin and empty roads to drive in and the snake in the grass internet delivering our world to us – personally, privately preying on what its snooping reveals about us and often without oversight. And of course I look at the market delivering all of this to us as government steps back and lets them get on with it without them as the market rewards politicos with party funds and jobs for keeping their hands off.
So the question is, who is responsible for ‘jahiliyya’ in my country? In the West?
Why of course the people who tell us that we should ‘not believe in experts’; ‘that there is no such thing as government money’; that we have ‘world beating public services’; ‘that BREXIT would leave us with loads more money for the NHS’; that food banks are being used by greedy people to pick up cheap food’; ‘that there is a left wing pogrom to kill all Jews in the UK’; that you can ‘make a meal for 30 pence’; that mankind’s first duty is to one’s self and his needs (Ayn Rand). The list could go on. But keeping people ignorant and confused, conflicted will certainly help propel them towards barbarism – especially if you tell them whom they should be barbaric to, as often happens.
And the worst of it is, we who fall for this are in a snare that will tighten around us as we pull on it, because the ‘Establishment’ who set that snare see us fall for this then lose their respect for us and treat us with even more contempt. So, they may not kill us here in the West, but what they will do is kill your hopes, kill your income, kill your future, kill your freedoms and if war is on the cards, kill you and your loved ones too.
So I agree with the post – this barbarous ignorance of Western market induced ‘jahiliyya’ that has been created and provided for us and which we live under must be opposed as long as we can by those able to do it. But we must also have faith that others will come to the same conclusion and keep reaching out.
Encapsulates and informs the despair I feel when contemplating the events of my 74 years on the planet. My personal belief is the extinction of humanity was set in motion when agriculture and consequent cities came into being (commidifying land and eveloping political power) , and cannot currently see any hope in the devastation wreaked by neoliberalism and the military/industrial complex. The difficulty in getting anyone to see the destruction, and even if they do, the despair created, gives me little hope.
I’m reading a book “Reconciling Justice – Concepts of Justice in the Multireligious Context of Palestine/Israel” by a Palestinian Arab Israeli Christian, and academic (Salim J Munayer) about the concept of “justice” in all 3 Abrahamic faiths (including the militant versions of each). He discusses “jahiliyya” briefly, in a section on Sayid Qutb (1950’s, executed by Egypt 1966), p135 which I haven’t got to yet.
The hard part is explaining to people that they’ve been fooled, and probably arguing from received false premises for most of their lives. It’s easier to fool people.
I thought it worth sharing this link as an example of where a country goes when it elects a lying, egomaniac, shitebag because “mainstream” politicians have given up trying to make a difference (i.e. admit neoliberalism has failed and have the courage to stand up to the rich and do stuff that benefits us all). Trump’s “Garden of Heroes” – part of his “Big, beautiful bill” – for which they’re setting aside $40 million. No doubt Farage has similar plans.
https://x.com/karlykingsley/status/1939160030579683625
The more right wing, now pretty much establishment corner of the internet is better funded, and each blogger, podcaster, influencer, schill, whatever, has higher views than their progressive counterparts. That’s why it always surprises me how far progressive ideas actually spread, and how deep they penetrate into the conversation. The progressive side of the internet is an interconnected eco system of TikTok videos, blogs, and a whole lot of newsletters with links to other progressive issues. That’s why the establishment keep getting surprised by left wing candidates. They aren’t looking, don’t notice, think they are winning with the big numbers, but they aren’t. That’s why Trump is having so much trouble exercising his coup. He just can’t get the numbers and doesn’t understand the size of the opposition. He’s not like Putin or Xi,he can’t control the narrative yet, and hopefully never will. He can’t even get the military behind him.
Thanks, Tom.
Part of that might reapear on this blog soon, with credit given.
Of course bot banks troll armies and other expensive tricks can inflate “follow” figures. I’ve always monitored my own follow requests on social media to weed out the fakes and also the surveillance bots that pretend to be what they aren’t, the over-familiar beautiful “Russian” ladies looking for love (or visas and bank accounts) with older men, and the scammers trawling for cash.
That’s very hard when you have 232,000 followers on Twitter and more than 218,000 on YouTube.
I think the cleverest thing the neoliberals did was not widely name their ideology. When I mention neoliberalism most people don’t know what I’m talking about. They managed to make people think that neoliberal economics is a fundamental truth of life so cannot be challenged rather than a belief system to destroy the welfare state. Council housing, NHS, free education including at at university level. Nationalised industries etc; until it’s widely named how can the alternatives be named, challenged and believed in.
[…] not scrutiny. So, what should we actually be asking politicians? This list has been developed as a result of a comment here by […]
“Because all we want is the chance to be.
To be in our own space.
With our own friends and families.
Each with enough to survive, and a bit more, so we can have some fun.”
Fucking yes!
Keep banging that hamer Richard, eventually you will nail the change we all need.