(Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)
NeoLiberalism is basically the code word for war on the Middle Class.
(Hat tip John Hemington)
excerpt:
"Neoliberal policies aim to reduce wages to the bare minimum and to maximize the returns to capital and management.
They also aim to demobilize workers’ organizations and reduce workers to carriers of labour power — a commodity to be bought and sold on the market for its lowest price.
Neoliberalism is about re-shaping society so that there is no input by workers’ organizations into democratic or economic decision-making.
Crises and austerity may not be intentionally sought by most state leaders and central bank governors, but they do contribute significantly towards pursuing such ends.
Consequently, these politicians and leaders of the economy do not strive to put in place new structures or policies that will reduce the recurrence of crisis."
Anyone see a problem with this? Yes, for some, NeoLiberalism is a superficially attractive hypothesis, but it makes no biological sense whatsoever.
It's quite obvious where it all goes wrong. It assumes simplicity where complexity exists.
In a 1st-pass at systems logic, it's true that right-sizing component maintenance processes does makes systemic sense. However, having no idea where the sustainable tolerance limits are for all those diverse processes, and then blindly - and relentlessly - pushing past any and all tolerance limits ... that's just plain stupid and non-scientific - and suicidal to boot.
Toyota wouldn't be in business if it tried to build cars that way. All they'd churn out would be Yugos, Chevy NoVas, and Ford Pintos.
The prime failing of NeoLiberalism is simply complete ignorance, about when to stop.
They cannot in the slightest way recognize when they've gone too far.
That simple point reveals their ignorant obsession, and their resulting inability to see simple solutions.
The 1st rule of parasitism is "don't kill your host."
Similarly, you'd think that the 1st rule for all
OCD Control Frauds and self-styled Aristocrats would be to
"enslave the serfs, but don't starve them to death." You'd think that even a sociopathic numbskull would quickly realize that well fed, trained & educated slaves are more productive than constrained ones. If you're smart enough to even start down that path, you might eventually -
depending on how intelligent you were - recognize that the pinnacle of wealth is attained by unleashing the serfs, by setting them free.
He is richest who has motivated, capable, free people with a reliable affinity for him.
Who else can do a BETTER job of watching your back, or the backs of your family & children?
Instead, a cultural tourniquet is exactly what NeoLiberalism embraces.
Sequestering maximal current fiat FROM an existing generation, while remaining blind to implications for future cultural options.
That is NOT how multi-level (i.e., cultural) evolution works. Rather, system or cultural evolution works via a dynamic, 2-stage optimization task. Those that over-adapt to transient context hasten their own extinction. The actual goal is to constantly re-chart a course that optimizes the dynamic sum of
[current fiat PLUS future options], not either one in isolation.
Anyone who stops & thinks about this for 30 seconds agrees - even Mutual Fund investment advisors. The goal is to stay in the adaptive race for decades, not to "win" today - because "winning" or out-hoarding everyone else today is going too far, over adapting to transient context, and reducing future options. What does it take to get NeoLiberals to actually stop & think for 30 seconds?
Do the NeoLiberals love all the grandchildren of America? Even if they think they do, are they really so arrogant to think that
THEY know what's best when it comes to planning for the generations yet to come?
How ironic that unfettered, unthinking, runaway capitalism and the class war that results constitutes just another form of the
Central Planning that they profess to abhor? What part of tollerance-limits versus going too far do these dimwits not understand? When it comes to constraining cultural adaptive rate, does it matter whether the Central Planners claim Divine Right, Communist Committee, or oligarch authority?
Culturally, NeoLiberalism is analogous to putting a tourniquet on each foot, to squeeze MAXIMAL quarterly productivity out of them. Doh! The result isn't systemic progress, it's cultural gangrene that's soon fatal, if continued unchecked.
Here are some additional, entertaining articles about NeoLiberalism. If only the dimwit NeoLiberals could learn the difference between a useful tactic and unnecessary, suicidal overkill - they could then be progressives. Then we could go back to safely firing the dumbest of the dumb upstairs, out of the way.
Four Signs Neoliberalism is (Almost) DeadThough Margaret Thatcher is no longer among the living, her ideology lives on. That ideology – known today as neoliberalism ... is strikingly unique.
Barack Obama and the Neo-Liberal CoupDefenders of the policies of President Barack Obama have correctly pointed to the difficult circumstances he and ‘the nation’ faced when he entered office and the dim intransigence of Congressional Republicans while they fail to address that his actual policies have derived almost exclusively from the political-economic theories of neo-liberalism—the economics of the radical right.
The Origins of the Neoliberal War on the PoorIn November of 1994 two years of ramshackle government, breached pledges and the Clinton administration’s frequently manifested contempt for its traditional base, exacted their price.
The Human Equivalent of the $640 Toilet SeatCHUCK SPINNEY
Neoliberal economics has been an ideological mantra of Republicans and Democrats alike since President Jimmy Carter began the wave of privatization and deregulation that exploded during the succession of Republican and Democratic presidencies after 1980.
The Corporate State and Manufactured DependenceAn argument often heard in the 1980s and ‘90s by those favoring lower taxes on the rich was the rich could avoid paying taxes because they had the resources to do so, so why not be pragmatic and set tax rates low enough the rich would actually pay them?
There is an alternative. Seeing our own population as our own, best force, for exploring our expanding national options. NeoLiberals claim to love the military. Therefore they should have no opposition to embracing "Force-Readiness" principles ... which requires optimal investment in the MiddleClass, the foot-soldiers of an adaptive culture.
Yet so far, NeoLiberalism argues that the best citizen "army" is one where the generals constantly strive to hoard all the weapons and ammunition. Good luck with that nonsense. NeoLiberalism is self-contradictory, not just bat-shit crazy.
If you think NeoLiberalism makes sense, then you'd have to also argue that
adipocytes should "rule" the human body, and that "
honey pots" should run all policy for certain ant colonies. That view is ridiculously simplistic, and also contradictory to our own, human history. The NeoLiberal intellect sees only static assets, and totally misses the
dominance of dynamic assets - aka, teamwork.
