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From the Guardian: Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems

Lafayette

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Excerpt from here:

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.

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.
 
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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.

Wow. Crickets on this one. That's interesting.

Great article. Thanks for posting it.
 
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.

"...weak inheritance taxation...". :roll:

Dismissed out of hand.
 
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.

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.
 
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?
 
"...a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency."

Hmmm...

Sounds suspiciously like Mother Nature. Could it be that Neoliberalism is based on life itself?

Nope. Human beings are social animals.

Us AGAINST nature is our model.

Neoliberalism is a scam.
 
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.
 
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.
 
Tomayto tomahto.

Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and all that.

Yes, I know that some prefer the title Socialist over Communist, even though make the same quacking sound these days.
 
And weak inheritance taxation breeds dynasties as the wealth accumulated is transferred from generation to generation to generation ... ad nauseam.

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% ????
 
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.
 
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.
 
FYI, that comment got you removed from my Ignore list.

either you like what I have to say or you don't. doesn't bother me in the least.
 
Yes, I know that some prefer the title Socialist over Communist, even though make the same quacking sound these days.

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.
 
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% ????

Estate taxes only affect. 0.2% of inheritances.

And its the heirs that are taxed for the income the inheritance represents. Its not another tax on the deceased.
 
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?

"Life" itself (amongst humans) has changed significantly since hominids walked upright out of the savannas of Africa into Europe, and then eastward to finally reach the southern tip of South America.

Along the way, and only recently, did we learn to defy the agglomeration of riches by only one tiny sector of any given population. (Resisting also along the way the Darwinian notion of animalistic "survival of the fittest".)

That took us only 4/6 million years to evolve as a fundamental principal of mankind, but the desire to amass wealth is fairly recent in our evolution - only 5/6 thousand years.

And in some parts of the world, we are still learning the hard way ...
 
A SUBTLE TRUTH

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.

No, not true, and also irrelevant.

The notion of Social Democracy is universal in nature. It does not defy self-enrichment as a desire or a goal. It simply puts a limit to it, such that income sharing becomes fair and equitable. After all, why should one not expect to share fairly the income that one has contributed to generating as a member of a market-economy?

Not equally, of course, but equitably.

Some people, besotted by the simplistic notion that life has only winners and (obviously therefore) losers, cannot assimilate that self-evident but subtle truth ...
 
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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.

Given the divide in educational quality that exists today between the inner city and the wealthy suburbs, the stratification you fear is already here.

Giving the folks in the inner city the opportunity to change their outcome through free choice provided by vouchers seems to be a good option.

Why do you oppose the option?

Providing your children a better path than the one that didn't work for you seems vary suitable.
 
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.


Like it or not, the very rich are paying the bill for our little party.

The bottom half of the earners are pretty much riding for free.



Top 20% of Earners Pay 84% of Income Tax - WSJ

BF-AJ529A_11txr_16U_20150409185406.jpg
 
So, change hands ... ?

Taxing death is not what free countries do. What is it with leftists that gives them the impress they have a right to other people's money? These monies have already been taxed, what is the purpose of taxing them over and over and over?
 
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