I wrote this in response to one of Tom Hickey's posts but it just became larger and larger until it became a short essay it its own right. So I'm putting it out it here instead.
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Neoliberalism
is like a cancer, it corrupts people in high places and then spreads itself
everywhere. I once described as like being in the film, The Invasion of the
Body Snatchers, where it seems that almost everyone becomes one of the aliens
with their minds taken over, and neoliberalism uses the propaganda of the
'meritocracy' to hoodwink ordinary people in as well..
When I first started work many years ago loads of people were on the moderate left or in the centre. So when it came to high rates of tax on the very rich, most people just said, ' well, you've got to earn it to pay it', in order words, if they're earning a ton, then what have they got to grumble about? This was a common sentiment.
But when Margret Thatcher got elected out of the woodwork came the working class pro-fascists, the authoritarians, who supported tough management and the 'vulgar' Conservative Party. And in those depressing times I would often go to parties and there would sometimes be some right-wing bigot there winding people up by saying things like, why should they pay for other people's kids to go to school, or that everyone should pay for the roads when they use them, pay by tolls, and they would say why should they pay tax for other people to use the roads. And these people were often completely unchallenged because the Right were in their hey day, with the One Percent, the aristocracy, pumping £millions into right-wing think thanks to spread their propaganda.
I once went on holiday and my friend brought his mate along who was a raging neoliberal full of neoliberal BS, and he would go on and on about Elton John saying that because he was so rich he could afford to spend £290,000 on flowers on his wedding day, and how this had helped all the little florists shops in his area. Well, he probably read this BS in the Daily Mail that he used to read. And then he told me how Elton had to hire a lorry to take him to his wedding because his wedding dress was so huge, and how this too had been good business for the tailors who had made the dress. But florist workers are on usually very low wages so how does the £290,000 spent on flowers on one day make up for the loss of spending power of ordinary people on all the other days of the year? How many little shops in Elton John's area were struggling to make a living because most people were on very low wages impoverishing the community?
So the neoliberal revolution came upon us until the bottom fell out of it in 2008, but its corpse carries on just like in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And like the young prince's whipping boy who had to take all the punishment when the boy prince was naughty, so ordinary people had to pay up when the One Percent gambled, looted, and busted the financial system. And just like the whipping boy, most passively and gratefully accepted their punishment, while the One Percent got richer than ever.
When I first started work many years ago loads of people were on the moderate left or in the centre. So when it came to high rates of tax on the very rich, most people just said, ' well, you've got to earn it to pay it', in order words, if they're earning a ton, then what have they got to grumble about? This was a common sentiment.
But when Margret Thatcher got elected out of the woodwork came the working class pro-fascists, the authoritarians, who supported tough management and the 'vulgar' Conservative Party. And in those depressing times I would often go to parties and there would sometimes be some right-wing bigot there winding people up by saying things like, why should they pay for other people's kids to go to school, or that everyone should pay for the roads when they use them, pay by tolls, and they would say why should they pay tax for other people to use the roads. And these people were often completely unchallenged because the Right were in their hey day, with the One Percent, the aristocracy, pumping £millions into right-wing think thanks to spread their propaganda.
I once went on holiday and my friend brought his mate along who was a raging neoliberal full of neoliberal BS, and he would go on and on about Elton John saying that because he was so rich he could afford to spend £290,000 on flowers on his wedding day, and how this had helped all the little florists shops in his area. Well, he probably read this BS in the Daily Mail that he used to read. And then he told me how Elton had to hire a lorry to take him to his wedding because his wedding dress was so huge, and how this too had been good business for the tailors who had made the dress. But florist workers are on usually very low wages so how does the £290,000 spent on flowers on one day make up for the loss of spending power of ordinary people on all the other days of the year? How many little shops in Elton John's area were struggling to make a living because most people were on very low wages impoverishing the community?
So the neoliberal revolution came upon us until the bottom fell out of it in 2008, but its corpse carries on just like in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And like the young prince's whipping boy who had to take all the punishment when the boy prince was naughty, so ordinary people had to pay up when the One Percent gambled, looted, and busted the financial system. And just like the whipping boy, most passively and gratefully accepted their punishment, while the One Percent got richer than ever.
Neoliberalism is not really a 'meritocracy' at all, but a system for self perpetuating rich to stay forever on top, people who get rich while they sleep, where just like in a game of monopoly the more rich you become the easier it is to get grab everything for yourself until in the end one person gets to own everything and everyone else gets busted.
So the One Percent own the banks, the government, the old socialist parties of Europe, the judiciary, the media, the Democrats, the Western propaganda machine, the police, and so are able to fix elections to make sure that their politicians always get voted back in again, because they have so much money they can easily buy anything, or virtually anyone. So this cancer spreads throughout society and the World with democracy being reversed getting replaced by serfdom, which Paul Craig Roberts calls, The Matrix.
Most people are hoodwinked and don't even know they are being cheated, or that their children are being robbed, or will get robbed. They believe that their huge mortgages and their slavery to their jobs is just a natural occurrence. And when someone tells them how much their house is worth they go all weak at the knees thinking that they are part of the mega rich too, but their children can't afford to buy a home and will have to become slaves to their jobs as well. And unless people sell their houses and go to live where no one else wants to live, it is only paper money that can never be realised, so they have been hoodwinked by neoliberal greed.
And when they get old they may need to sell their houses to pay for their old age care, so the One Percent screw them throughout life and then get to screw them all over again at the end by taking everything back again. So these people just thought they were wealthy when in fact they were really just serfs, caught in the system like hamsters running in a wheel going nowhere. They are trapped in The Matrix.
Now some people will sell their houses to buy a flat, or an apartment, so they can give their children enough for a deposit on a house, to give them a chance. And so they will often move to an area where property is much cheaper because there are no jobs there, so the roots they had laid down all their lives and all the friends they had ever made will end up becoming just distant memories. And they may have to live many miles from their children too, because they will need to live near their jobs. And in this way close knit communities and friendships get broken up and may never be the same again, but neoliberalism has no other values as all life is just a commodity. The market is God, and people have no choice but to worship it because everyday they are always told this is TINA, that ‘There Is No Alternative’, which the highly paid gurus of the ‘free market’ say is just like the laws of physics and so can never be changed. But it's all hot air, smoke and mirrors, we’re in The Matrix. Take the blue pill, or the red pill, it makes no difference. So run boy, run, because you can never stop, they will have you hoping over hoops for them until you die.
The
aristocracy know how to make serious money because they own all the banks and
so they can get everyone in debt right up to their eyeballs. Then people are
forced to work their asses off becoming virtually slaves.
Everyone
needs somewhere to live, a sanctuary, and in Qaddafi's Libya people would get a
house from the government because it was considered a basic human right, which
it is. But that didn’t suite the One Percent so they got rid of him. But if the
free market can’t supply us with good quality homes at reasonable prices then the
government should be able to step in and supply them instead. But we can’t vote
in such a government because the neoliberals own all the different political
parties so we don’t get any real choice at election time.
There
is only a finite supply of houses but the banks can create an unlimited amount
of money out of thin air, with no investors required. So people are forced to
compete with each other for property until they are maxed out because the banks
will always be able to supply the money. This private money supply creation is
a force outside of market forces which distorts the market so house prices just
keep on rising at alarming rates. So the banks should be more highly regulated,
or the government should start its own public banks.
People
desperate for a home will just keep bidding up the price of houses until they
get one because they have no other choice. And then they will have to do lots
of overtime, or to do two or three different jobs, often doing 60 to 70 hours a
week at work, or even more, just to be able to afford to buy, or rent,
somewhere to live. This is disruptive to
family life but the Conservatives say they are strong believers in family
values.
Everyone
is getting maxed out including those that rent, and with their taxes, council
rates, energy bills, water bills, and everything else, etc., they end up with
very little money left over to spend in the real economy so there’s always be a
recession going on of some sort. This means that capitalism isn’t working, or
isn’t working for the majority of people. It’s time for a change.
KV
5 comments:
So the banks should be more highly regulated, or the government should start its own public banks. Kaivey
Another option is to let government provide a risk-free payment system via accounts for all citizens and their businesses, etc. at the central bank.
Of course, once a risk-free payment system outside the banks exists then all payments by the monetary sovereign, eg. US Treasury, would naturally go to those accounts by default and not to the banks, etc. Thus the banks would be deprived of a source of largely* captive reserves.
Government-provided deposit insurance would soon fall too as an unnecessary subsidy of private banks.
Eventually all other privileges for depository institutions would fall and the banks would largely be reduced to loan intermediaries.
*Only largely because reserves can still be converted to physical fiat, bills and coins.
Eventually all other privileges for depository institutions would fall and the banks would largely be reduced to loan intermediaries. aa
Bu, bu, but endogenous money creation would suffer!
So what? Equal fiat (exogenous money) distributions to all citizens (in addition to normal perpetual deficits by the money sovereign) should be able to drive interest rates in fiat to near zero but without cheating anyone.
I think that there is another thing going on now rather than "neoliberalism" as privatization and deregulation.
Classical liberalism morphed into neoliberalism and now neoliberalism has morphed into what might be called international liberalism, the economic aspect of which is turbo-capitalism and the political aspect is liberal interventionism and technocracy masquerading as democracy.
International liberalism is really a kind of neo-imperialism that seeks to replace national sovereignty and democracy with transnational plutocracy under Western control through hegemonic military power.
Neoliberalism is not really a 'meritocracy' at all, but a system for self perpetuating rich to stay forever on top, people who get rich while they sleep, where just like in a game of monopoly the more rich you become the easier it is to get grab everything for yourself until in the end one person gets to own everything and everyone else gets busted.
I manage some money for some relatives and it's kind of amazing that it doesn't take that much to allow this to happen. I don't think most people who go to work every day to earn 50K/year or whatever understand that there many, many people who make much more for doing...nothing. The notion that people deserve to earn interest on their savings is ingrained into the psyche.
The notion that people deserve to earn interest on their savings is ingrained into the psyche. Andrew
They deserve what they can get - but without government subsidies such as deposit insurance or a lender/asset buyer of last resort or other privileges for the banks such as exclusive access to accounts at the central bank or a gold standard or interest paying sovereign debt, including interest on reserves (IOR).
That's quite a list of privileges for usurers and without them usury would be a lot more risky since it would then at least be honest usury and not a form of government-subsidized theft.
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