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As a former colleague used to say, ‘harsh but fair’
Neoliberalism is callous by its very nature: Profits before people.
Neoliberalism tries to shift blame from people to markets.
Can’t pay your health bill? Then you die.
Cheaper cladding, then you die.
Free markets ignoring health and safety regulations, then you die.
High-profit low-nutrition food, then you die.
How many lives does a billionaire exploit?
Ian Tresman,
‘Neoliberalism tries to shift blame from people to markets’.
By this you mean those people that are Neo-liberal in thinking hide behind the idea of the market, when in fact their own sick behaviour is that which makes the market in the first place?
Because if I had to sum up one of the traits of the Neo-liberalism is how it shifts the blame from markets to people – not only does it shift blame it also shifts onto them a lot of risk.
Exactly. Socialism for multinationals and corporates. Capitalism for the masses.
Neoliberalism says that everything is a business transaction. A Russian soldier has signed a contractor to fight in Ukraine. He knows the risks, if it doesn’t work out for him he was unlucky. That is the market. It completely ignores wider institutional questions. Such as why is the Russian military in Ukraine? Why has the Russian state outsourced national security to defense corporations. Why do these seemingly operate all over the world without any attention? It treats politics like it doesn’t exist.
I think you do have to be callous to be neoliberal. Either that or very stupid. I’m tending towards mostly callous.
Oh no, just look at America and the UK and you will note that the stupidity of the public in general fosters and promotes the callousness that is inherent in Neoliberalism.
Might it be that neoliberalism attracts those with a significant callousness trait?
Might it be that recent and current political parties filter to the side, or filter out, those who are not callous enough?
Maybe
But why did so few of the rest not notice?
Thank you for your reply.
Might the reasons include?
1) Gullibility resulting from upbringing
2) Ditto education
3) Lack of incisive, public enabling main stream media
4) Improper/excessive use/misuse of infra-structures such as health and informed, responsive democracy as persuasion tools of the Ideological State Apparatus resources to seek/achieve subordination
5) Ditto Repressive State Apparatuses such as the courts and police to warn/frighten into subservience
People believe, by and large, what they want to believe. I recall a conversation in a comfortably off middle class suburb around the time Thatcher was installing herself in no. 10. The group were mainly Liberal party supporters and the like, intelligent (some very), well educated, active as charity volunteers and so on – decent people and undoubtedly very well meaning, far from callous in their everyday lives. But when it came to the likely action and consequences of the new government, most of the reaction was on the lines of “but they’ll never do that”, even though ‘that’ was exactly what Thatcher had said she was going to do, and did. A refrain running in the background, though, was ‘We have to keep the Socialists out’ – stamp on the unions, keep wages and taxes down – so, presumably, we can all be little Ladies and Gentlemen to pass on our ‘inheritance’ of savings and inflated house prices. No perception, apparently, that there might be any conflict between that ambition and the programme on offer, no notion that the well advertised Tory demolition of public goods might affect them or their children, or conlict with their own sense – largely justified in personal terms – of being good, even worthy citizens.
I believe a large part is down to “abrogation” and “derogation”:
Abrogation by the public of their right-of-involvement/ their opinions, choices and playing their part in societal issues.
Whilst augmented and encouraged by the politicos and the direction of travel in elections & campaigns (carrots with lies).
The derogation by business of their customers and more in the political system but each aided and encouraged by the other.
How I love, when faced with business “procedures/processes”, as excuses for not supporting my complaint/frustration, to mention that I, as the “service-user” / client, also have processes/procedures, which do not follow the “service-provider’s”.
Of course, a “gesture of goodwill” (bung to you and me) is the result, 90% of the time. That and a guarantee that no lessons will be learned and HR will definitely not listen!
My list is endless of how many times ex-employers’ HR “specialists” have tied themselves in knots but these two quotes are my favourites:
“Our Fixed-Term Contracts are open-ended”. (!)
“That Global Policy (all employees/contractors and 3rd-parties), does not apply to you”.
My only solution? Raise the issues; point-out the ridiculous but know in doing so that it is lonely, in the relm of reality. It also causes stress to quit/switch-suppliers or simply do without. They know it too, hence why they believe that we have little choice. Although removing yourself from the “issue” does bring temporary-satisfaction that you no longer give them/it your support.
I thoroughly recommend it! 🙂
I can recommend another book that I have only just started reading, but is apt. It’s introduction begins:
“Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization. I should know; I was an EHM.”
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, 3rd Ed. by John Perkins (2023)
https://amzn.eu/d/1wPmLgJ
My friend and colleague, John Christensen, was in an earlier edition as a good guy.
I have been discussing elsewhere today the fact that everything now has to make a profit, or it is not seen as being worth doing. Profit has seeped into every aspect of our lives since 1979.
I left school in 1972 with one ‘O’ level, in English. I was able to walk straight into a job. I was never out of work.
In those days, as some here will recall, all public services and utilities were not for profit. Including airports, two national Airlines, the railways (where I worked quite happily for 24 years), schools (where profit has crept in since academisation) and we had the Royal and British Road Services, and buses that were run locally and not for profit.
The vast improvements in health and technology would have happened anyway, in my opinion, but what else is better now than it was in 1972?
The internet is…
But we have forgotten all about value.
Coach travel is better in the UK, and remarkably cheap.
So you get bored by the long travel times, then use the remarkable technologies on your ‘phone to keep yourself interested.
Water much better too Graham, you don’t get the brown water flows , pressure drops or dead streams like you used to.
That was not what I expected…
My area has plenty of brown in the water, both rivers and the sea have excretia.