Imagine if the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of communism. The ideology that dominates our lives has, for most of us, no name. Mention it in conversation and you’ll be rewarded with a shrug. Even if your listeners have heard the term before, they will struggle to define it. Neoliberalism: do you know what it is?
Its anonymity is both a symptom and cause of its power. It has played a major role in a remarkable variety of crises: the financial meltdown of 2007‑8, the offshoring of wealth and power, of which the Panama Papers offer us merely a glimpse, the slow collapse of public health and education, resurgent child poverty, the epidemic of loneliness, the collapse of ecosystems, the rise of Donald Trump. But we respond to these crises as if they emerge in isolation, apparently unaware that they have all been either catalysed or exacerbated by the same coherent philosophy; a philosophy that has – or had – a name. What greater power can there be than to operate namelessly?
Inequality is recast as virtuous. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.
So pervasive has neoliberalism become that we seldom even recognise it as an ideology. We appear to accept the proposition that this utopian, millenarian faith describes a neutral force; a kind of biological law, like Darwin’s theory of evolution. But the philosophy arose as a conscious attempt to reshape human life and shift the locus of power.
Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.
Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.
Excerpt from here:
Wealth that both trickles-down and gushes-up to create Plutocrats who warp democracy controlling it by means of the nation's governance. And weak inheritance taxation breeds dynasties as the wealth accumulated is transferred from generation to generation to generation ... ad nauseam.
Excerpt from here:
Wealth that both trickles-down and gushes-up to create Plutocrats who warp democracy controlling it by means of the nation's governance. And weak inheritance taxation breeds dynasties as the wealth accumulated is transferred from generation to generation to generation ... ad nauseam.
Excerpt from here:
Wealth that both trickles-down and gushes-up to create Plutocrats who warp democracy controlling it by means of the nation's governance. And weak inheritance taxation breeds dynasties as the wealth accumulated is transferred from generation to generation to generation ... ad nauseam.
Excerpt from here:
Wealth that both trickles-down and gushes-up to create Plutocrats who warp democracy controlling it by means of the nation's governance. And weak inheritance taxation breeds dynasties as the wealth accumulated is transferred from generation to generation to generation ... ad nauseam.
"...a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency."
Hmmm...
Sounds suspiciously like Mother Nature. Could it be that Neoliberalism is based on life itself?
So we can assume no one in your family made it big in business or any other endeavor, otherwise you might not be so quick to tax the heck out of the money someone earned and wanted to pass on to their children and grandchildren.
Like an aristocracy.
Check.
Yes, there are lots of those around these days.
Noted
Tomayto tomahto.
Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and all that.
And weak inheritance taxation breeds dynasties as the wealth accumulated is transferred from generation to generation to generation ... ad nauseam.
So we can assume no one in your family made it big in business or any other endeavor, otherwise you might not be so quick to tax the heck out of the money someone earned and wanted to pass on to their children and grandchildren.
quote from one of my favorite books.
'Profit' is a dirty word only to the leeches of the world. They want it seen as evil, so they can more easily snatch what they did not earn.
FYI, that comment got you removed from my Ignore list.
Yes, I know that some prefer the title Socialist over Communist, even though make the same quacking sound these days.
Think about this.
You earn money through work. It's taxed as income.
You save money over your life time and pay taxes on the investments and/or interest you earn.
You die, and your estate is taxed.
That's three different taxes on your life's efforts.
Why should it be taxed EVEN more? Isn't that enough already?
Or are you only talking for the elite, 1% ????
Neoliberal policies will be the destruction of our country. My biggest concern being an educator is the neoliberal policies that overtook Chile's educational system are happening here with its voucher system creating more inequality and creating much more stratification. We need to move away from it and not more toward it. It's very unsettling.
I agree...one size fits all is always a better way to go, isn't it?
Could it be that Neoliberalism is based on life itself?
So we can assume no one in your family made it big in business or any other endeavor, otherwise you might not be so quick to tax the heck out of the money someone earned and wanted to pass on to their children and grandchildren.
"...weak inheritance taxation...". Dismissed out of hand.
Neoliberal policies will be the destruction of our country. My biggest concern being an educator is the neoliberal policies that overtook Chile's educational system are happening here with its voucher system creating more inequality and creating much more stratification. We need to move away from it and not more toward it. It's very unsettling.
This is a "failure to draw the line" fallacy. Or maybe "false dichotomy".
This notion that its totally "free" markets or the fake communism examples y'all always cite.
That its impossible that bastards have figured out how to game the system to their benefit and everybody else's detriment.
That capitalism needs an overhaul, not be discarded.
So, change hands ... ?
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