The death of neoliberalism and the crisis in western politics
Last edited Mon Aug 22, 2016, 12:33 AM - Edit history (1)
+The western financial crisis of 2007-8 was the worst since 1931, yet its immediate repercussions were surprisingly modest. The crisis challenged the foundation stones of the long-dominant neoliberal ideology but it seemed to emerge largely unscathed. The banks were bailed out; hardly any bankers on either side of the Atlantic were prosecuted for their crimes; and the price of their behaviour was duly paid by the taxpayer. Subsequent economic policy, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, has relied overwhelmingly on monetary policy, especially quantitative easing. It has failed. The western economy has stagnated and is now approaching its lost decade, with no end in sight.
After almost nine years, we are finally beginning to reap the political whirlwind of the financial crisis. But how did neoliberalism manage to survive virtually unscathed for so long? Although it failed the test of the real world, bequeathing the worst economic disaster for seven decades, politically and intellectually it remained the only show in town. Parties of the right, centre and left had all bought into its philosophy, New Labour a classic in point. They knew no other way of thinking or doing: it had become the common sense. It was, as Antonio Gramsci put it, hegemonic. But that hegemony cannot and will not survive the test of the real world.
The first inkling of the wider political consequences was evident in the turn in public opinion against the banks, bankers and business leaders. For decades, they could do no wrong: they were feted as the role models of our age, the default troubleshooters of choice in education, health and seemingly everything else. Now, though, their star was in steep descent, along with that of the political class. The effect of the financial crisis was to undermine faith and trust in the competence of the governing elites. It marked the beginnings of a wider political crisis.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/21/death-of-neoliberalism-crisis-in-western-politics?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1
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Title should be "Dying Neoliberalism and Western Politics".
= new reply since forum marked as read
Neoliberalism has made a bad case for itself, for sure.
Most folks who have learned about it think it sucks (unless they are wealthy).
Unfortunately, it is not as dead as it could, or should, be.
It has led us to disaster after disaster ----Privatized prisons & privatized "Public" charter schools; a shrinking tax base,
as the rich pay less and less; widespread fracking; lopsided trade deals like NAFTA and now the horrible TPP;
massive loss of jobs (especially manufacturing) stateside; a monopolized and degraded corporate media; expensive healthcare managed by private compoanies for profit; politics dominated by "pay to play" ethics;
giant hedge funds siphoning wealth from the US, and other nations' economies;
an avalanche of debt (with the primary crediters being largely private banks);austerity imposed on millions
of already suffering people.
No.
Neoliberalism, sadly, is not dead yet.
But we can all dream of, and try to work for, its destruction, can't we?
When you have a solid right wing billionaire saying this ....
We can do it partly by going to war against TPP immediately after the election,
in mass-numbers.
I am prepared to do that, bigtime.
Read til the end....
http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2016/08/really-alternative-banking-systems/
