The title comes from an article in Le Monde Diplomatique
Even neoliberal proponents recognize that it is a crisis-ridden system. In his popular book Why Globalisation Works, Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf writes: “Between 1945 and 1971, in what might be called the “age of financial repression”, there had been only thirty-eight crises in all.... Then, between 1973 and 1997, there were 139 crises. The age of financial liberation has, in short, been an age of financial crisis”
Our House and soon the senate will approve returning to the system that caused near complete financial meltdown back in 2008. Wall St will once again be able to play the riskiest games yet the profits will be pocketed by the banks the losses will be paid for by you and I.
These policies include, privatization, the de-regulation of the financial sector, increasing openness to foreign trade and investment, and cuts to public welfare spending.
So how does neo-libralism survive after 2008?
Neoliberal policies aim to reduce wages to the bare minimum and to maximize the returns to capital and management. They also aim to demobilise workers’ organisations 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’ organisations into democratic or economic decision-making.
So every time you see unions denigrated, austerity heralded, deregulation proposed you are hearing the voices of the neo-liberals and since they own the media any debate is perverted.
The rising levels of inequality associated with neoliberal policies are often decried by critics as weakening social ties and generating social conflict. But this is exactly what neoliberal policies are designed to do — to break apart social organisations such as trade unions, transform worker’s into individuals at the mercy of firms’ hiring and firing strategies, and transfer resources from workers to owners and managers of capital. In this regard neoliberalism uses crisis and austerity to great effect.
In this madness there would be opertunity if some of our side of the aisle were not sold out to these interests. Sadly the President has once again demonstrated on whose side of this argument he stands.
When legislation is also written by these interests and then approved by the legislators that have been funded by the very same people that had the legislation written we have a major problem. The US is not alone in this, but is well ahead of the curve.
With real wages decreasing for the majority the growth of the market needs to be driven in another way, and that is via high risk derivatives and wage restrictions. The demand for increased wealth by the top 1% knows no bounds hence even now hen most have seen decline in their real wages the stock market is more buoyant than ever. Hence the screams about increasing the minimum wage high enough so that the government no longer has to contribute via welfare etc, so that people actually have a living wage. Corporate welfare in a nutshell never mind government subsidies given to some of the most profitable industries on earth. Never mind local politicians at State level chucking millions to corporations so that they move to their State. Never mind States overturning workers rights to make themselves more corporate friendly.
When our whole political system is dependent upon financing by these same neo-liberals so that the politicians can afford to run in an election the system is screwed. The Koch brothers may also have other motives but the neo-liberal doctrine is also at the heart of their political positioning.
So when you hear bipartisanship being heralded as some form of holy grail what in fact you are hearing is the voice of neo-liberal doctrine. With the vote in the House that in effect deregulates the banks you now know just how loud that voice is and it will only be worse in January.
It's not as if most of this bill concerns "we the people" 60% of it goes to the military and our security agencies, meanwhile our infrastructure on which we depend every day crumbles. Then when we ask what our security services are actually up to such as spying on us, torture and drone kills, we are told a sack full of lies.
Who is on our side?
Well the White House approves of this bill.
SCOTUS has consistently sided with the "money"
Well we have the result in the House and we will soon find out in the Senate.
It is not simply the question of voting for more and better democrats it is for all voters to decide who actually represents them and not the so called neo-liberals that have fooled many that they represent the center of our political system in both parties. They are not the adults in the room, they are the problem.