David Harvey proposes in his book A Brief History of Neoliberalism, wherever the neoliberal programme has been implemented, it has caused a massive shift of wealth not just to the top one percent, but to the top tenth of the top one per cent(4). In the United States, for example, the upper 0.1% has already regained the position it held at the beginning of the 1920s(5). The conditions that neoliberalism demands in order to free human beings from the slavery of state - minimal taxes, the dismantling of public services and social security, deregulation, the breaking of the unions – just happen to be the conditions required to make the elite even richer, while leaving everyone else to sink or swim.
Given that a Biblical take on the world requires that we consider how things look from the perspective of those who get the rough end of the stick in this life (Eg. "Oppressing the poor in order to enrich oneself, and giving to the rich, will lead only to loss." Proverbs 22:16-16,) this observation should not pass without notice. Especially as it could be that this is an ideology in the Marxist sense of the term:
Their purpose was to develop the ideas and the language which would mask the real intent of the programme – the restoration of the power of the elite - and package it as a proposal for the betterment of humankind.
We should, as ever, note that neoliberalism has its blind-spots. It expects certain things to be in place that do not have a market, it relies on non-market mechanisms in order for it to 'work'. It is the selectivity that is galling not to mention that it simply is not true that it betters everyone.
Monbiot.com � How Did We Get Into This Mess?: "
No comments:
Post a Comment