The Neoliberal Lie And the Rise of the Working Poor

Posted on September 1, 2017 by greg

The neoliberal lie postulates that the reduction of state interventions in economic and social activities and the deregulation of labor and financial markets, as well as of commerce and investments, liberates the enormous potential of capitalism to create an unprecedented era of social well-being in the world’s population. The partial economic recovery in European Union member countries has in no way contributed to easing poverty among workers. The ‘working poor’ is a class now identified as those working hard but unfortunate enough not to fit into skilled labour – for the most part whose unions and rights have been taken from them and whose weekly wages have all but stagnated, but mostly declined over the past decade, have been propelled into chronic poverty and underemployment. Corporations, along with their international partners in crime, siphon off billions via secretive off-shore accounts to avoid paying taxes. This leaves countries cash starved for social programs for the poor and ill.

George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, two of England’s foremost literary figures of the last century, each wrote a compelling description of a future dystopia, both of them nightmare visions of society totally under the control of a ruling clique whose only purpose is the enjoyment of power. The most striking parallel of course is that both men foresaw the future as totalitarian rather than democratic and free. Today economic elites control corporate and media interests who continue to hollow out democratic principles to further their goals. This new world-totalitarianism is a panoptical world constructed on the basis of fear and authority. Governing occurs by providing individuals with choices and holding them accountable for the choices they make. Neoliberalism creates insecurity through the use of indicators and measures to assess the performance of an individual. In turn, alternative media maintain the illusion that merely hides crime, hypocrisy, and moral bankruptcy, that is threatened by truth and honesty.

There is no difference between the fake news, misinformation, disinformation of today – such lies have been churned out for years, and it is all designed to support the oligarchs. Today there is a new battleground – social media. This so-called fake news made to look like credible journalistic reports are easily spread online to large audiences, often to naïve and wide audiences who end up spreading it. The disease is dubbed ‘post-truth politics’ which are finely tuned and sophisticated appeals based around peoples fears and emotions rather than facts and policies required to make informed rational decisions. Donald Trump denounces in the mainstream media any news story or news organization that displeases him as fake news. Trump surrogates lie every time they open their mouths to persistently push mistruths of Trump’s alternative reality (making Trump one of the leading sources of fake news around).

First, the amount of misinformation available grows proportionally with the availability of valid information. In fact, it may grow even faster because of the lack of fact-checking in much of the new media. The main reason that people are more likely to believe false information (for example, that climate change is a hoax) is because it actually takes less brainpower to believe a statement is false than to accept it as truth. Whether we believe something is true boils down to something psychologists call processing fluency, i.e. the ease with which we mentally process information. Fluency plays a subconscious role in many of the conclusions we draw about the world around us. Judgements of truth, require time and effort: for example, under the original GOP repeal of  Obamacare everyone would get a tax cut, but in fact, there would be a significant tax break for high earners – the top 0.1% earners would get a $207,000 tax cut, while the bottom 20% would receive an average reduction of $150.00.

It is commonly believed that people’s long-term memory records events that we experience exactly as they happened, just like a DVR records episodes exactly as they first appeared on television. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, researchers have found that long-term memory is very prone to errors and can easily be altered and molded. The inaccuracy of long-term memory is enhanced by the misinformation effect, which occurs when misleading information is incorporated into one’s memory after an event. Reliance on misinformation differs from ignorance, which we define as the absence of relevant knowledge. Ignorance, too, can have obvious detrimental effects on decision-making, but perhaps surprisingly, those effects may be less severe than those arising from reliance on misinformation. Ignorance may be a lesser evil because in the self-acknowledged absence of knowledge, people often turn to simple heuristics (strategies derived from previous experiences with similar problems) when making decisions.

The postmodernist’s premise is that no definite terms, boundaries, or absolute truths exist – facts are socially constructed. Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, or objective efforts to explain reality. Now enters Trump, a man who has great distain for facts – a man who can make two conflicting statements in a day without blinking an eye. In Trump’s world, the “image” is all there is. In 2016, to the frustrated and disillusioned, Trump promises a better path. The political lies of the last forty years include: the deception used by false intel to sell the invasion of Iraq; the need for austerity, which is merely ideology to make the rich and powerful more rich and powerful, and the great lie of neoliberalism. The highlight is the May and Trump talk of re-skilling, re-equipping, and re-industrialism of the homeland – which is an absolute reversal of the experiment we were all mis-sold for forty years.

Social classes are hierarchical groupings of individuals that are usually based on wealth, educational attainment, occupation, income, or membership in a subculture or social network. The class system in America puts those with the most wealth, power, and prestige at the top of the hierarchy and those with the least at the bottom. In the second decade of the 21st century the middle class has been stripped of jobs, income, and security. People are motivated by custom or tradition, by emotions, by religious or ethical values, and by rational goal oriented behavior. All human behavior, Max Weber (1864-1920) claims, is motivated by various combinations of these four basic factors. However, just because an action is rational in terms of fulfillment of a short-term goal, Weber asserts, does not mean it is rational in terms of the whole society. It often happens, he writes, that an excessive focus on short-term goals undermines the very goals of society. Reducing business income taxes and reducing taxes on repatriated foreign earnings would provide little incentive to hire or invest.

It is necessary to replace socioeconomic status with class as the significant structural factor in determining whether people reach their potential. Class represents structural characteristics of society. Recently the structural class perspective is the rise of the working poor. Social inequalities, such as income, are a consequence of structural change in class power. It is about the rise of business power and the decline in labor power (as part of the era of globalization) along with the attacks of the “new right” on the welfare state – consequently there is a rapid rise in social, income and health inequalities. But in terms of income and wealth for the top 1 percent, neoliberalism was a dramatic success. The truth is policies that would have the largest effects on output and employment per dollar of budgetary cost includes reducing employers’ payroll taxes, increasing aid to unemployed, and providing additional refundable tax credits for lower and middle income households.

In summary, finding the truth takes time and effort that people often don’t care enough to spend on particular issues that aren’t of immediate concern. The main reason that misinformation is sticky, according to the researchers, is that rejecting information actually requires cognitive effort. Weighing the plausibility and the source of a message is cognitively more difficult than simply accepting that the message is true – it requires additional motivational and cognitive resources. If the topic isn’t very important to you or you have other things on your mind, misinformation is more likely to take hold. How do we combat the mental apathy that helps reinforce misinformation? A big part of it is engaging audiences with fact-checking and verification rather than just pushing information to them. If we want evidence-based practice and policy in a democratic society, then science communication, journalism, and education will have to take on the challenges associated with misinformation.1

The American system of education is rooted in the Socratic tradition where questioning and skepticism are the foundation to the teaching-learning process. With respect to trickle-down economics, the effects of neoliberal capitalism with the 2008 financial crisis is the greatest broken promise (or lie) of our lifetime. People support democracy and capitalism, just not the version espoused by the present economic elite. We need to re-introduce into the universities the type of critical thinking that helped illuminate the way for the thinkers during the Enlightenment and created a cultural revolution that produced new ideas and values. This new intellectual revolution needs to question the workings of society and government, explain the purpose of government, and describe the best form of it to create a new middle class wealth boom.2

1 Cousins, Farron. (24 Sept 2012) Psychological Study Reveals Why Misinformation Is So Effective. https://www.desmogblog.com/2012/09/20/psychological-study-reveals-why-misinformation-so-effective 

2 Part 2 of 2: The Class System and Education http://questioningandskepticism.com/part-2-of-2-the-class-system-and-education/

 

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Victim Politics Is Part of the Strategy of the Neoliberal Counter-revolution

Posted on August 19, 2017 by greg

In order to understand the current conservative backlash movement, it is necessary to comprehend the role played by fantasies of victimhood that supports victim politics. Victim identification is one of the strongest political forces in the world today. Not only do religious fundamentalists base their identity on real or imagined scenarios of victimhood, but after 9/11, the strongest countries in the world were able to present themselves as victims. Victim mentality is an acquired (learned) personality trait in which a person tends to regard him or herself as a victim of the negative actions of others, and to think, speak and act as if that were the case – even in the absence of clear evidence. As we learn from psychoanalysis, victims always see themselves as innocent and pure as they reject all criticism and justify all vengeful hostility.

Three years after the economic debacle of 2008 the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests began – connected by the anger of the common person against the banks for manipulating the system and tanking the economy. The OWS protesters reminded us that, since the 2008 financial debacle, there has been no progress on significant reforms of the financial services industry (to reduce the risk of reoccurrence). Throughout the middle ages the Catholic Church sunk deeper into a pit of scandal and corruption. A German monk by the name of Martin Luther set out to reform the Catholic Church – and ended up sparking the Protestant Reformation. In response, the Catholic Church set in motion the counter-reformation. This counter-revolution was led by conservative forces whose aim was both to reform the church and to secure its traditions against the innovations of Protestant theology and against the more liberalizing effects of the Renaissance.

The greatest victory for the neoconservatives was not that they highjack the theories of neoliberalism and use them to promote their own political global agenda but the fact that they managed to make the world to see their ideas as necessary or even the best way, perhaps the only way, for the social order to be regulated. Neoliberalism in all horrible reality is a significant disruptive force that dominates policy, politics, and culture to the advantage of the select few, enabling concentration of wealth and power to breed totalitarian nation-states. The great prophets of neoliberal economic policies like Milton Friedman claim economic freedom is a necessary condition for political freedom; it appears neoliberalism is a breeding ground for totalitarian tendencies, not free will and democracy. The strategy of neoliberalism has been successful based upon the income and wealth of a privileged minority gaining political dominance.1

Erdogan once declared that democracy was “a vehicle, not a goal”, implying one could disembark at any time. In the 2007 election cycle the Turkish military opposes the then Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul as the AKP’s favourite candidate for president. Erdogan called for a new election; the AKP received 47% of the vote. This provided the renewed popular mandate for Gul to be the 11th president. Then Istanbul police uncovered an alleged plot to overthrow the government. The subsequent high profile trials have captivated Turkey from 2007 to 2013. The investigation promised to root out the “deep state” – an alleged network of media, intelligence and civilian officials along with journalists and academics. It is now claimed that significant portions of the evidence was fabricated. During this time Erdogan consolidated personal power and in the process transformed Turkish society. Since 2010 constitutional amendments gave AKP greater ability to pack the courts with sympathetic judges.

After 2002, the stability of AKP’s one party rule was welcomed by all segments of the economic elite since it immediately and fully committed itself to the neoliberal model. The democratic reversal expanded – in order to do business with the government oligarchs were encouraged to purchase media properties that could be counted on to faithfully report what the prime minster wanted. The AKP pursued a political strategy based on polarization. The Gezi Park protest which began as a protest to save green spaces became an outpouring of anger over police brutality, crony capitalism and the arrogance of power. The Turkish oligarchy that emerged as a result of the restructuring was part of the subsequent systemic corruption of the economic elites leading to political fragmentation. The protests against privatization were handled by marginalizing the discourse of the opposition group (i.e. labour) – basically taking advantage of the economic crisis to deepen neoliberal policies.2

In Poland, the hard right PiS paints itself as anti-establishment with a paranoiac vision of plots and agents. Their leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski long railed against the hidden Uklad or System, said to link key parts of the security services, media, political class and economic oligarchy. Kaczynski tapped into nationalism – nostalgia for a past era of material security – leveraging enthusiastic support for neoliberal reform. The demise of social democracy by scandals opened the way for his party to champion itself as protecting the transformation losers and helping them get back what is rightfully theirs. The PiS was elected based on opposition to reforms carried out by its rivals. This plan also included xenophobic hyper-nationalism along with policies that target disproportionate harm to women, immigrants and other marginalized groups. While the PiS leadership rail against the system, they are part of the political elite allowing the redistribution of wealth upwards.3

Rodrigo Duterte, a populist demagogue, assumed office of President of Philippines in June 2016. He was elected on a promise to rid the country of crime and drugs. He came across as challenging the elite with crude language. However, a day after the election he appeared on television with a popular televangelist and his inaugural speech was obscenity-free. He is a tough guy who is hyper-sensitive to criticism. To him human rights are not an issue as more than 3,000 have been killed in a drug war since he took power. He thinks out loud, in long rambling monologues, laced with inscrutable jokes and wild exaggeration. His is a style that leads to misunderstanding amongst journalists. Duterte’s spokesman has pleaded with the Presidential press to use its ‘creative imagination’ when interpreting Duterte’s comments. Duterte, elected by an angry Filipino people who were tired of being abused by society’s heartless elite, has not gone up against the oligarchs, rather, the neoliberal policies of previous administrations are for the most part being continued by his government.4

Over the decade prior to Trump’s victory, Steve Bannon developed an intricate multi-media machine into a sophisticated propaganda operation. Bannon identified Trump as being capable of delivering the ‘populist-nationalist idea’, and build a system to support the traditionalist movement to protect American culture. The alt-right coalesced around the Breitbart message – eight years of an African-American president had left whites disenfranchised. Breitbart and the Drudge Report moved views from the fringe into mainstream media via Fox news and Facebook. Breitbart helped focus election coverage on Trump’s immigration and grandiose job-creation rhetoric, and direct attention away from Clinton’s economic message and towards her email scandal. Bannon’s efforts, along with the Russian troll factories, recruited the necessary voting block needed to eke out an Electoral College victory – turned on little more than 100,000 votes in three crucial states that he won: Wisconsin, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Donald Trump harnessed the resentment and sense of victimhood of the Republican Party. Trump came across unceasingly pained, injured and aggrieved: the primaries were unfair, the debates were unfair, the general election was unfair. He gave a voice to that part of America that also feels aggrieved. Trump claimed there was a conspiracy against him supported by ‘fake’ news. Today Trump’s paranoid White House continues to see ‘deep state’ enemies on all sides. He became the representative of the idea of the new whiny right: waning power of whiteness, privilege, patriarchy, access, and the cultured surety that accrues to those in possession of such. Bannon and Trump who want to restrict the overall number of immigrants argue allowing lower-skilled immigrants into the country hurts job prospects and suppresses wages for American-born workers. Trump has staked his future on stoking racial division so that he can emerge as the hero of the ‘victimized’ whites.

By far the most disastrous feature of the neoliberal period has been the huge growth in inequality. How did neoliberalism manage to survive virtually unscathed for so long? There is a neoliberal counter-revolution based on polarization. Trump’s victim politics is a complete fraud, an old trick used by economic elite to keep working-class Americans fighting each other rather than taking on the oligarchs who are ripping them off. Trump and his allies are again stoking racial tensions even as they seek to cut taxes on the rich by shedding affordable health care for everyone else, dismantle protection for workers and consumers, and tear down environmental protections that stop wealthy corporations from poisoning communities. Victim politics is cultivated for a reason – to keep workers distracted from the real causes of economic inequality.

1 Ideas matter…Perpetuating the Neoconservative Agenda Through the Economic Crisis Cycles. (21 May 2012) https://counternormal.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/ideas-matterperpetuating-the-neoconservative-agenda-through-the-economic-crisis-cycles/

2 Cook, Steven. How Erdogan Made Turkey Authoritarian Again (21 July 2016) https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/07/how-erdogan-made-turkey-authoritarian-again/492374/

3 Rozworski, Michael. (16 Nov 2015) Poland’s Iron Consensus https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/11/poland-october-elections-kaczynski-law-justice-party/

4 Chen, Adrian. When a Populist Demagogue Takes Power. (21 Nov 2016) http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/21/when-a-populist-demagogue-takes-power

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The Role of Nationalism in Supporting Economic Neoliberalism

Posted on August 11, 2017 by greg

Neoliberal (or free market) globalization is merely one type of globalization. The neoliberal variant of globalization is currently dominant causing it to be confused or mistaken with globalization in general. Economic neoliberalism is supportive of economic globalization, but is firmly opposed to political globalization. Economic neoliberalism supports individual freedom, in particular, freedom from market-inhibitory forms of government intervention. However, it supports market-enabling government intervention to protect property rights and enforce contracts. Neoliberals oppose interventions for the purpose of reducing market failures and redistribution of income and wealth. Neoliberals advocate dismantling national policies on most economic issues and to confine as many market-inhibiting taxes and regulatory powers as possible to the state or provincial level where they will be constrained by the need to compete for mobile workers and businesses. This forces jurisdictions to compete for investment by providing the types of neoliberal policies that investors and corporations prefer.

Conservative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) have many projects that support economic neoliberalism. AEI supported a 1980 study on the emerging ‘social cost’ arguments against smoking in support of the tobacco industry, and more recently supports various studies that cast doubt on global warming. More than 20 AEI staffers served in the George W Bush administration. In 2000, the Institute set up its federalism project that produced position papers on American federalism, with particular interest on federal and state business regulations, and the role of the court to promote states to compete for corporate business interests. In 1990 the Institute hired Charles Murray and received the Bradley Foundation support for The Bell Curve. Murray’s work on welfare in Losing Ground was very influential over welfare reform in the 1990s. Murray reintroduced social Darwinism which had been in vogue in mid-19th century into acceptance by the 21st century economic elite.

Neoliberalism has not succeeded in reducing either poverty or inequality. From the perspective  of the international capitalist class it has failed in terms of the system itself. It has not recreated the conditions for capital accumulation which existed during the Great Boom. Above all, it has failed consistently to increase the rate of profit. To the extent that it has intermittently done so, it has not achieved rates comparable to those between 1948 and 1974. Accumulation has increasingly come to rely on increasing productivity on the one hand (making fewer people work harder) and decreasing the share of income going to labour the other (paying workers less in real terms). The suppression of real wage levels in Canada and the US has encouraged the very dependence on borrowing that has now entered crisis. This debt load is not physically sustainable indefinitely.

This debt has become a means for consumers to add to their ‘possessions’, as morality accounts imply. Rather it has been driven by their need to maintain liquidity through loans, mortgages, unsecured credit and the like, precisely to meet the costs of the ultra-commodified world neoliberalism has created. Payment of minimal required is very expensive. But an economy that requires systemic debt to maintain expansion is scarcely a healthy situation. The real success of neoliberalism has been to transfer wealth and resources to the ruling class and its hangers on. However, capitalism can only survive through expanding production, not mere personal enrichment.1

One of the main arguments of the neoliberal era has been centred on the decline of nation states and governments as actors in the economic sphere, replaced by decentralized market networks, multinationals, corporations and a new class of economic elites. The promise of the ‘borderless state’ or ‘the end of the nation state’ has not come to pass, and indeed nationalism and nation states remain in place. While the new economic elite may appear cosmopolitan on the surface, their riches have been amassed with the active assistance of state machines committed to national interests. How does the economic neoliberalism interact with the national political unity of the state? Neil Davidson’s answer: despite the mythology of free competition between capitalists, competition itself drives a self-interested desire on the part of each capitalist to use non-economic means to gain advantage – a function classically given to states on the world stage. If there was a single global state managing all inter-capitalist competition around the world, there would be no ‘outside’ for the capitalist to seek advantage.

Basically states cannot be reduced to such managerial functions within the anarchy of competition. They are also sites of ideological attachment. The drive of competition is always towards the subversion or breaking of rules, yet capitalists in general tend to play within the rules – but conservative think tanks are at work promoting changes to these legal rules and regulations embodied in the nation. Nationalism is not only important to unify local groups of capitalists, but it also helps capital to fragment the working classes. As Luckas puts it, nationalism binds “the individual members of those classes as single individuals as mere ‘citizens’ to an abstract state reigning over and above them.” At one level in the alienated circumstances they face under capitalism, workers seek out a collective consciousness, and national identification can become one spontaneous expression of this when class consciousness becomes anger over falling further behind economically.2

The same disruptive forces of capitalist competition that bring capitalists together within the framework of nations also acts to sharpen exploitation and oppression for the working class, thereby weakening the ideological hold of nationalism as it fails to deliver for them, instead acting as the enforcer of the ruling class interests. In these circumstances the economic elite and the politicians they own consciously work to re-enforce nationalism ideology. Thus neoliberalism pursues pro-capitalist programs which create disruptive changes to society. On the other hand, people want constancy in their lives, which leads them to support a fairly conservative social agenda along with nationalism. Donald Trump promised to govern for all: attacking refugees, providing a narrative on border security that includes a wall, and shops serious action on climate change as damaging to the ‘national interests.’ To do this Trump had to draw on and adapt longstanding national tropes: America keeps losing, the need to make America great (again), I will build a strong military (that we won’t have to use), I will protect your social security.3

Neoliberalism, with its combination of market anarchy and workplace despotism, is also projected as a new world where discipline and conformity in the office or factory are counterbalanced by a potpourri of gratifying and pleasurable consumer choices. It further destabilizes social order by promising and then ‘dashing’ hopes of individual liberation. Here nationalism plays the role of filling the gap that consumerism can never satisfy, providing placebo compensation for the uncertainty and instability of modern life, social cohesion beyond the fragmentation of the marketplace, and encouraging allegiance to the interests of one’s national ideology. As neoliberal capitalism fragments social experience, nationalism becomes ever more important in gluing the working class to their rulers. It tends to reinforce the existing social order and the interests of the ruling elite. The ‘new’ economic policy of the Trump administration is no more than national neoliberalism serving the interest of financial capital and globalized elites in the redistribution of wealth upward. It is necessary to challenge this ideology.

What are the hallmarks of a reform movement? Core values include grassroots democracy, inclusivity, ecological sustainability, and social justice. A key pillar of democracy is the free flow of information between citizens and all spheres of government which requires locally responsible and independent mass media. Grass roots democracy means all citizens have the right to express their views and have the capacity and opportunity to directly participate in environmental, economic, and social decisions. Inclusively is about supporting the rights of all people. Everyone should have the opportunity for personal development and be able to fully participate in society without discrimination. Identity politics is not part of this message. Under ecological sustainability and social justice policies must counter the patterns of human production and consumption in the global economy where driven by the pursuit of economic growth at any cost that have resulted in increased inequality. A more equitable distribution of resources should eliminate poverty.

The economic elite seek to influence election results through various activities that include gerrymandering, obfuscation, such as Trump’s partisan voter fraud commission, and nationalism. Democracy is key to change because the working class, in particular, understands democratic activism to be the most effective tool they have to attack extreme inequality and maintain a check on the power of elites. Reformers need to mobilise the vote. The basis of reform policies is to seek amelioration of the negative effects of capitalism within the bounds of the system and its state. This effort is about social forces advocating greater government intervention in the economy for the purpose of reducing market failures, a more equal distribution of income and wealth, and guaranteeing adequate revenue to fund quality public services. These need to be incorporated as national policies to counter a race to the bottom amongst states or provinces as they attempt to attract or retain economic activity in their jurisdiction.

1 Davidson, Neil. Nationalism and Neoliberalism. http://www.variant.org.uk/32texts/davidson32.html

2 The Curious Marriage of Neoliberalism and Nationalism. (16 Jan 2011) https://left-flank.org/2011/01/16/the-curious-marriage-of-neoliberalism-and-nationalism/

3 Borosage, Robert L. (27 Aug 2015) Trump’s Tropes. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-borosage/trumps-tropes_b_8048330.html

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Meritocracy Disguises Inequality That Supports A Growing Oligarchy

Posted on August 1, 2017 by greg

The idea that the mind plays an active role in structuring reality is called Kant’s Copernican revolution, because like Copernicus who turned astronomy inside-out by claiming the Earth moved around the sun (instead of the other way), Kant argued we must reformulate the way we think – theorizing that objective reality depends on the mind rather than the other way round (compared to Empiricists who held that all ideas, hence the entire mind comes from experience.) Kant claimed the structure of the mind shapes all sensory experience and thought. The mind has an active role in producing our conception of reality by acting as a filter, an organizer, an enhancer. Now it is important to avoid the massive cognitive bubble created by the Internet. This creates a situation where individuals will accept a myth over facts because these myths feed into a deeper truth that we believe about the world. Myths, which are ideas that are believed by many people, but are not true, were created by early civilizations to make sense of the world around them.

The Copernican revolution was a paradigm shift triggered by the publication of the Nicolas Copernicus treatise, the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres. This was a publication of a new view of the world as a heliocentric model, rather than the Earth stationary at the centre of the universe. With this the reassurance of the cosmology of the Middle Ages were gone, and a new view of the world, less secure and comfortable, came into being. The Copernican mode was loaded with Polemic luggage, such as, the planets moving in a circular motion around the sun. The observations of Galileo Gaililei of Venus in 1609 provided proof that Venus could be on the opposite side of the sun – disproving the Ptolemic Theory further. Using astronomer Tycho Brahe’s pre-telescopic observations, Kepler was able to trace out the elliptical patterns of the planets as they orbit the sun. The Copernican Revolution fundamentally changed the way we think about our place in the world.

Isaac Newton combined mathematics of axiomatic proof with the mechanics of physical observation and established a coherent system of verifiable predictions in his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687). The Age of Reason sought to establish axiomatic philosophy as the foundation of stability. Enlightenment philosophers tend to have a great deal of confidence in humanity’s intellectual power both to achieve systematic knowledge of nature and to serve as an authoritative guide in practical life. The faith of the Enlightenment is that the process of enlightenment of becoming progressively self-directed in thought and action through the awaking of one’s intellectual powers, leads ultimately to a better, more fulfilled human existence. Because the established discourses of the Enlightenment are more or less arbitrary, they can be changed; and because they more or less reflect the interests and values of the powerful, it is necessary to think for oneself, to employ and rely on one’s own intellectual capacities in determining what to believe and how to act.

The Enlightenment occupies a central role in the justification for the movement known as modernism. After the end of World War II Enlightenment tradition re-emerged as a key organizing concept in social and political thought and the history of ideas. Postmodernism is a Western philosophy, a late 20th-century movement characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion of reason; and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power. In turn, postmodernism-counter enlightenment appeared. Michel Foucault (1926-1984) critiques the tendency of the Enlightenment tradition to explain everything according to a dominant mega-theory, so that everything must fit the master-narrative. He saw truth as more subjective and all disciplines created by elites who control the system. These elites determine, often based on self-interests, the standards of normality. Once one method has been selected over others, alternatives become deviant. This creates tension between the elites and the masses.1

The term metaphor derives from the Greek ‘metaphorá’ which means to transfer the quality of one entity to another. Modernist thinkers describe metaphors as mere ornaments of language and not a constitutive part of language and understanding. Postmodern scholars suggest that metaphors are basic to understanding, and consequently that they are not so much a form of speech but rather a fundamental form of thought. Metaphors can actually function as a constitutive part of communication as well as scientific inquiry. When viewed as a constitutive aspect of language, metaphors actively contribute to our understanding of experience rather than merely being mirrors that reflect reality. Thus postmodern scholars suggest that perceived realities may change as the metaphors used to explain reality change. One of the most dominant metaphors of the past 60 years has been meritocracy. Today it means people earn and realize opportunities due to hard work and commitment to improving oneself.

The economy of the 1950s and 1960s was about an unprecedented rise in middle class jobs: there was more room at the top. In 1958, Michael Young wrote a futuristic novel, The Rise of the Meritocracy, a satire on a society stratified by merit. Young coined the term, formed by combining the Latin root “mereō” and the ancient Greek suffix “cracy”, in his essay to describe and ridicule such a society. The story was intended as a warning: if society was viewed as perfectly meritocratic, then disproportionate awards are showered on the elite, and contempt is increasingly shown to those on the bottom. Young mocked the existing education system in Britain, arguing it was simply a centuries-old class system in sheep’s clothing. Typically lacking the best schools, underprivileged children routinely did badly on exams – the standardized intelligence tests that consequently determined their social position.2

Although all concepts are metaphors invented by humans (created by common agreement to facilitate ease of communication), Nietzsche observes, humans forget this fact after inventing them, and come to believe they are ‘true’ and correspond to reality.3 In the 1980s the word meritocracy was being used approvingly by a range of new-right think tanks to describe their version of a world of extreme income difference and high social mobility. From the efforts of these writers the word flipped its meaning. Meritocracy was adopted into the English language with none of the negative connotations. Neoliberals have promoted meritocracy as an Utopian system of fairness – but ‘merit’ has been manipulated to privilege the wealthy. For the past forty years meritocracy has been used as a smokescreen to justify policies that increase inequality. Donald Trump won the 2016 election with this proposed solution to inequality: meritocracy, capitalism and nationalism.

When did the change in beliefs from theories of 1500 to theories of 1700 cause a change in reality (with planets beginning to orbit the sun)? When did the meaning of meritocracy change between 1950s and 2000s (with social systems rewarding through wealth)? Do we construct realities? The distinction is between humanly-constructed realities (theories, paradigms, convictions) and human-independent realities (electrons, planets, social privilege). A humanly constructed theory claims to describe and/or explain reality. When we make claims based on a theory we are making truth-claims about the reality of what is happening now, or did happen in the past. Our truth-claims are true if they are correct, if they correspond to the truth of what actually is happening (or did happen) in reality; and our truth-claims are false if they are wrong, if they do not match the truth defined by reality.

Did reality change? Did the motion of planets change from earth-centred (in 1500) to sun-centred (in 1700)? Did meritocracy change from a social system in which the economic elite is favoured, (in 1958) to social system in which everyone is favoured (in 2008)? No. Did the truth change? No. Because truth is determined by reality – what was true in 1500 (the earth and the planets really moved around the sun) was also true in 1700, and what was true in 1958 (the social system favoured the economic elite) was also true in 2008. Did our truth-claims change with respect to planets? Yes. But with the respect to the reality of meritocracy, truth-claims did not change. This discordance is reflected in the population. This creates what Guy Standing in 2011 called the dangerous class – a group working below their capabilities precisely because they have no other option. This group is susceptible to rhetoric from politicians with simplistic solutions, which results in the election of politicians like Donald Trump.

The social and political contexts of meritocracy, which have been created through forty years of neoliberalism, now justify policies that increase inequality. Meritocracy has become a rationalization that allows the rich to abrogate any sense of duty to those less fortunate. In fact, meritocracy serves to justify the status quo – perpetuate the existing upper class – merit can always be defined as what results in success, thus whoever is successful can be portrayed as deserving success, rather than success being predicted by criteria for merit. If wealth accrued based on merit, one would expect wealth to be distributed according to the bell-shaped curve, which it is not. Meritocracy supports a growing oligarchy as demonstrated by the growth in income inequality and a reduction in economic mobility. Meritocracy is sustaining a myth that disguises economic inequality in North America and prevents progressive government initiatives to address the issue. The answer is a more equitable tax system in Canada and the US to distribute wealth more evenly.

1 Age of Enlightenment: Postmodernism http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Age_of_Enlightenment

2 Fox, Margalit. (25 Jan 2002) Michael Young, 86, Scholar; Coined, Mocked ‘Meritocracy’. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/25/world/michael-young-86-scholar-coined-mocked-meritocracy.html

3 Paul, Glenn. (Dec 2004) The Politics of Truth: Power of Nietzsche’s Epistemology. Political Research Quarterly 57(4):576b doi 10.2307/3219819

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Fragile States and Failed Policies: The Need For Inclusive Institutions

Posted on July 20, 2017 by greg

Today 50% of African countries are identified in studies as ‘fragile’ or ‘failed’ states. Since 9/11 concern has grown that not only were these failed states incapable of following the development path laid out by the neoliberal political agenda but – according to the most pessimistic voices – they might even come to destabilize the international system. This thinking led to the promotion of the concept of good governance to remedy that trend. This meant international policies designed specifically for failed states attempt to fit African states into parameters of the modern state, thus rebuilding them in their image. However, globalization constrains and conditions the state system, thus encourages the formation of states as well as their collapse. The institutionalization of structures at the global level impinges on the power that previously belonged to the nation state. This creates or aggravates conflicts within the nation state.

How does the concept of good governance impact many African states? The concept acts in defense of certain political formulae – one that perpetuates the image of these societies as passive vectors rather than political actors. Good governance processes and institutions should produce results that the people understand, and are in the best interests of the people. On the other hand, under neoliberal policies the state is to provide the appropriate environment for the market to operate optimally. But markets are competition-based institutions in which the domain of the state is reduced, while workers are subjected to stifling regime assessment and monitoring. Under the neoliberal theory that people can exercise choice through spending, the result is disempowerment of the poor and middle class. In the typical crisis of a failed state, the threat comes to the system because of the social conditions, which characterize it, and the types of conflicts that it generates.

Neoliberalism not only made the continent’s economic marginalization more acute, but also perpetuated policies of clientelism. Neoliberalism focused on the job of transferring policies to support programs designed to fit the standard notions of the state. However, there are other variables of international nature – the consolidation of certain elites in government due to their ties to the international community, or the opaque participation of multinationals in the running of the economy that affect policies. Consequences of such polices is the international community’s state-building record in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan and Somalia, all of which not only remain a far cry from achieving the Millennium Development Goals, but continue to feature amongst the list of top ten ‘failed states’. In 2016, the largest number of refugees from any single country coming to the US came from the DRC. Until there is a shift of focus to state and society, or on inclusive institutions – public access to information, public access to decision-making processes and access to justice – the present neoliberal response will continue to support the status quo in fragile states.

This consequence of the appearance of fragile state raises concern over: neoliberalism under US hegemony, the social significance of the new rules that it imposes, and its social costs and associated risks. The issues become the lack of understanding of how failed states work, and unintended consequences of international policies that may even have the opposite effect of that desired. The West’s military operation in Libya in 2011 – the spill-over effects of which are well-known to have contributed to the crisis in Mali – did little to spark greater self-scrutiny towards past policies. Precipitous in nature and officially restricted to a few short-term military objectives, the intervention in West Africa is likely to contribute to Mali’s political fragmentation, enhance its institutional ‘fragilization’, and spark a regional conflagration, than it is to bring about peace, prosperity and stability.

State fragility, with its repercussions on national development and international security, remains one of today’s most pressing global public policy challenges, partly because this phenomenon is considered the source of many of the world’s most serious problems. While foreign military contingents have incrementally left these war zones, ‘state fragility’ is certain to stay, both, in these polities (processes of civil government) and the world at large, partly because, ‘from a historical perspective, much of the developing world today is characterised by states in the process of formation’ – a process that is inherently prone to crises, conflict and fragility.

Having conceived of ‘fragile states’ as pathologic deviations from the contemporary molding of Western countries, it has invariably been neoliberal interpretations of the state that have guided the international community’s handbooks on how to ‘fix’ fragile states, even though ‘the inadequacies of neoliberalism have spawned a wide­spread questioning of this dominant worldview.’ We need to seek to rebuild the state while encouraging society to participate in the process – centered on social rights and civil rights. This means seeking domestic security in order to establish the internal and international stability necessary for market prosperity. The problem with this policy is the concentration of power in a few hands and class inequality, which leaves an abstract formula of the role in which civil society is expected to play as a counterweight to the state.

Furthermore, current approaches towards state building continue to commit the mistake of reducing state-building endeavours to questions of institutional capacity. Consequently, the international community’s agenda puts technical issues concerned with capacity building at centre stage. Yet, as governance is about the relationship between the state and society and as it is in the realm of ideas and sentiments that the fate of states is primarily determined, there is a need for ‘bringing the nation back in’. States are not hollow social constructs, but are intimately intertwined with the formation of national identities. Thus, the assertion that the goal of rebuilding societies should not be to impose common identities on deeply divided peoples but to organize states that can administer their territories and allow people to live together despite differences needs to be rejected, as this wrongly suggests that it is possible to ‘organize states’ while leaving the ‘identity’ of their populations untouched.1

The West seems to unquestionably continue to trust its ‘tried and tested’ policy: a cocktail made up of military intervention and neoliberal prescriptions for reconstruction, which entail a diktat of democracy, gender equality and free market mechanisms, amongst others. While all these neoliberal elements of a pluralist society might be desirable in and of themselves, the dominant actors of the international community need to appreciate that what is required to sustain states should not be confused with what is required to initiate them. States and societies need to find the space to reformulate their own kind of political organization, and they consequently require international policies that try to go beyond standard notions of the state.

Neoliberalism broadly describes a regulatory system, encompassing economic policies emphasizing market deregulation, privatization, and an altered role for the state. Neoliberals emphasize that the role of government is to create a good business climate rather than look after the needs and the well-being of the population at large. The fact that there is little international regulation has dire consequences for the safety of the people and the environment. Multinational corporations are responsible for the removal of traditional government accountability to a fixed population for much of politics. This creates a lack of ability of those affected by decisions to protect their legitimate rights and interests. The new corporate values of globalization normalize through a doublespeak, selling commercialization and free market choices as democracy while redefining the shape and functions of the state.

The UN said recently that the world is facing its worst humanitarian crisis since the end of World War II, with 20 million people in Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria facing starvation and famine. On the other hand, President Donald Trump is seeking to reduce his country’s contribution to United Nations programmes, as part of cuts to funding of US diplomacy and foreign aid in his administration’s budget proposal. Already, the US has cut funds used to finance access to birth control, abortion and sex education for women in developing nations. After Trump cut U.S. funding for such services, Melinda Gates notes, “Enabling women to time and space their pregnancies and providing access to treatment and prevention of infectious diseases is lifesaving work. It saves moms’ lives and it saves babies’ lives…”

Poverty is at the heart of Africa’s problems. One of the key consequences of Africa’s economic stagnation is how much income inequality has increased. Most of Sub-Saharan Africa is in the World Bank’s lowest income category of less than $765 Gross National Income (GNI) per person per year. In Sub-Saharan Africa, per capita GDP is now less than it was in 1974, having declined over 11 percent. Young people recognize the economic impediments they face stem from the way political power is exercised and monopolized by a narrow elite. In Africa poor people are trapped within extractive economic institutions. Western governments don’t like cutting their ties to dictators who open doors for international business, or help their geopolitical agendas. This can only be reversed by using financial and diplomatic clout to help create room for inclusive institutions to grow.

Rethinking current approaches towards fragile states is not only necessary to facilitate political stability and economic development, but also to curb the challenge of international terrorism, which is believed to thrive in states that experience fragility. Thus, rather than subjecting policies towards fragile states to a doomed ‘war on terror’ – a war that has been ineffective at best – state fragility should be taken seriously in its own right, if we want to prevent a country like Mali from becoming another Somalia. Aid can help. But it needs to be used in such a way as to help civil society mobilize collectively, find a voice and get involved with decision-making. It needs to help manufacture inclusive institutions. David Cameron explained, “long-term development through aid only happens if there is a ‘golden thread’ of stable government, lack of corruption, human rights, the rule of law and transparent information.”2

1 Balthasar, Dominik. (29 Jan 2013) ‘Fragile States’ and ‘Failed Policies’: Two Global Public Policy Challenges at Eye Level .http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/29/01/2013/gg2022-–-‘fragile-states’-and-‘failed-policies’-two-global-public-policy-challenges-

2 Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson (22 April 2017) Why foreign aid fails – and how to really help Africa https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/04/9824422/

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The Reality of Informational Neoliberalism And Diminishing Truth

Posted on July 10, 2017 by greg

It has been argued that reality is not an absolute, that each individual has his own perception of reality. Reality is the state of things, as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. “When truth is blurred by lies and misinformation, perception becomes reality and all is lost.” What people perceive is usually what they believe, and this is based on what they hear, see and think. John Locke observed, “One unerring mark of the love of truth is not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon will warrant.” The reality is that one must be willing to experience the discomfort often associated with truth if his objective is to achieve positive, long-term results.

Locke’s views on the fundamental nature of reality and our limited ability to grasp it include: we know that there is an external world but not much, if anything, about the nature of the world itself. According to Locke the only thing we perceive are ideas. As the correct answer to the question, Locke proposed the fundamental principle of empiricism: all of our knowledge and ideas arise from experience. Knowledge is the perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas. Thus, ideas come to us via our senses, which in turn can be turned into new ideas via reflection. External world skepticism is the view that you can’t know anything about the external world – you can only know about the internal world of your own mind. The precondition of thought, is political freedom, which involves a system of checks and balances.

Informationalism is an ideology that claims information has power when disseminated. Informationalism as part of the ‘information age’ played an important role in the global political economy in laying the groundwork for neoliberal ideology and globalization. These theories have painted utopian visions of the rise of knowledge-based economies embedded in globe-spanning telecommunication networks. The information-age theories have helped form the core of the neoliberal project, as they obscure behind a veil of teleological inevitability and technological determinism the political transformations which make global neoliberalism possible. This represents the rise of information as a weapon. Information can now be used as a form of web-based terrorism – as a platform to initiate propagandist attacks. This played out recently in the 2016 American election. Russian troll factories spread pro-Trump propaganda by setting up thousands of fake Twitter and Facebook accounts and shaping voter opinions through micro-targeting.

Technological determinism is a reductionist theory that presumes that a society’s technology drives the development of its social structure and cultural values. Along with the eroding national sovereignty over trade and labour laws, capital flows, and fiscal and monetary policy, the ascent of informational neoliberalism has served to undermine traditional citizenship in favour of market discipline and neoliberal hegemony. Paradoxically then, as an organic ideology ‘informational neoliberalism’ has been central to notions of globalization while it has undermined traditional modes of citizenship, most importantly the right to economic and political self-determination. The resurgence of capitalism and the subsequent rejuvenation of global class power since the 1970s are best described neither by technological determinism nor a self-propelled reorganization of capitalism, but rather through the hegemonic consolidation of two ideologies – informationalism and neoliberalism.1

Misinformation comes in many guises. It can come from social media or from works of fiction (if you now wonder whether people really extract information from fiction, think about the fact that fiction author Michael Crichton has been invited as a climate “expert” to testify before a US Senate committee). Sometimes misinformation is spread deliberately: claims that there is no evidence that humans are causing climate change have a clear aim and purpose. Unfortunately, the media often contribute to the spread of unsubstantiated myths because of a focus on “balanced” coverage. Alas, the “two sides of a story” don’t always deserve equal space because of an imbalance in evidence. Neoliberalism is supported by Adam Smith’s theory of economic determinism. Adam Smith tried to achieve in economics what Newton had achieved in physics. Smith’s concept of the invisible hand is an indirect intervention to counter instability of human reason to achieve social harmony by itself.

The now common idea that we can “check facts ourselves” is at best an illusion. The fact we can “look things up on the net” can give people the impression they understand something when in fact they are overlooking important domain-specific details, or are trusting the wrong sources. This ultimately leads to a decline in trust in true experts. It’s easy to get bogged down in a misinformation “echo chamber”. The same misinformation can appear on many linked websites, which may lead to the impression of corroborative evidence from multiple independent sources, when it is not. Another approach is being a skeptic in the true sense of the word – critically assessing evidence and questioning people’s motives – requires effort and time, and often we lack one or both of these. However, when people’s beliefs are very strong, these beliefs will bias information processing and lead to what is known as “motivated reasoning”. People with strong beliefs and motivations will preferentially attend to and interpret information in a way that supports their beliefs.

Most postmodernists agree that the Enlightenment project – with its lofty claims about the idea of universal truth and our ability to discover it – was a failure. Rather, postmodernists stress that no one possesses a “view from nowhere,” a “God’s eye” view of the world. We are all, alas, trapped within a certain perspective, a perspective informed by our own interests, beliefs, goals and aspirations. One cannot therefore speak of universal truth; truth is necessarily local, relativized to specific individuals or communities. We can no longer speak of facts – since we have no way of accessing the world independently of our own perspective. Postmodernism, claim the neoliberals, is a left-wing theory promoted to liberate oppressed communities from the dominance of the ruling classes. This was to prevent “hegemonic” communities – Corporate America, government, Big Science – from having the power to force their version of the truth on everyone else.

We are indebted to Donald Trump for bursting the informational neoliberal bubble. Trump has focused us on the real issue of the day. He is teaching us all about the power of dissemination of (mis)information. Mr. Trump and his surrogates have signaled that they intend to counter the media’s version of truth with their own alternative facts, the “truth” from their perspective. Trump’s election unmasked the diminishing truth in social media and the fraud of neoliberal economic change. His new economic vision was nothing more than national neoliberalism. He attracted a dispossessed and disenfranchised white, male working class, unsatisfied with neoliberal globalization and the insecurity and hardship it has unleashed, to support him. Once elected, he pivoted 180 degrees and appointed the wealthiest cabinet ever who are quite comfortable in bed with powerful multinational corporations with economic and political might that rivals that of many national governments. In other words, Trump’s election does not mean the end of neoliberalism.

There will be fusion of state and market interests under this emerging national neoliberalism. However, there will not be the appearance of heavy handed government dictates and interventions, but rather domestic privatization initiatives, appointments of businessmen to government posts, fiscal stimulus and the business community’s need for protection abroad will bring them closer. We now live in a world where truth is defined by those who can afford to spend the most money to have their version of it advertised widely. Nietzsche insists that there is no such thing as absolute truth, and argues instead that all thinking and perception comes from a particular perspective, and that different perspectives will produce different views of truth. There are only these views of truth, or interpretations; there is no objective reality beneath them, no independent standard that they refer to. Instead of using truth as the highest standard of value, Nietzsche argues, individuals need to develop their own powers of judgment and to produce ideas and ethics that will strengthen them and help them to live.

Paid trolls and ‘think tanks’ disseminate information supporting the oligarchs. The value accumulated by social media companies generally occurs in financial markets, rather than in direct commodity exchange. The stable class structure underlying Keynesian industrialism – with its secure working classes and its loyal middle classes – is now replaced by a social Darwinism survival of the fittest dictated by neoliberal informationalism where multitudes of insecure workers employed in cognitive sectors produce value to be siphoned off to the world’s financial marketplaces. George Orwell observed, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” We desperately need a balanced view. The challenge is to realize enduring ideals by means of new practices and reformed institutions in response to changing historical conditions. Without principles, we become enslaved to this or that determinist theory of history. In addition, without a theory of historical challenges and opportunities, the reality is we become subject to outmoded practices and anachronistic institutions such as neoliberalism.

1 Neubauer, Robert. Neoliberalism in the Information Age, or Vice Versa? Global Citizenship, Technology, and Hegemonic Ideology. tripleC 9(2): 195-230, 2011. http://www.triple-c.at

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The Debate on the Science Behind Economic Choices

Posted on July 1, 2017 by greg

The choices you face in the ordinary business of your life – buying clothing, deciding what to eat, or seeking a job all involve considerations of cost, scarcity, and tradeoffs with other options – are economic decisions. The Enlightenment of the 18th century opened up the floodgates of new ideas, new thoughts on everything from the way man saw government and his role in society to the way scientific ideas were conceived. During this period one of the major desires of the philosopher was to discover the underlying laws that govern society. David Hume and Adam Smith developed an empiricist doctrine of knowledge believing Newton’s theory of gravity applied to the human sciences. The choices you face in the ordinary business of your life – individual choices conscious or otherwise – fit into a higher order affecting not only those who make them but also their families, communities, countries, and even the world.

Francis Hutchison (1694-1745) was a proponent of moral sense theory, the position that human beings make moral judgements using their sentiments rather than ‘rational’ capacity. According to Hutchison a sense of unity among human beings allows for the possibility of other-oriented actions even though individuals are motivated by self-interest. The moral sense, which is a form of benevolence, elects feelings of approval in those witnessing moral acts. Hutcheson opposed ethical egoism, the notion that individuals ought to be motivated by their own interest ultimately, even when they cooperate with others in a common project. Adam Smith, Hutchison’s most famous student, wrote that moral behavior is, at core, the human capacity of sympathy, the faculty, that in Hume’s account, allows us to approve of others character and “to forget our own interests in or judgements” and to consider those whom ”we meet with in society and conversation” who “are not placed in the same situation, and have not the same interest with ourselves.”1

The Scottish philosophers, David Hume (1711-1776) and Adam Smith (1723-1790) were good friends looking for natural causes of the phenomena that we describe as moral. Their empiricist theories were based on experience and observation. The ‘moral subjects’ that Hume referenced in his book meant the human sciences in general, of which ethics is one branch. According to Hume we must restrict ourselves to what we can observe in the human sciences. In his writings, Smith explored political economy, essentially the laws governing human behavior. In a commercial society he emphasizes that economics is only one component of the human condition. The moral character of a people is the ultimate measure of their humanity. There is a relationship between morality and economics, and some of our actions ought to be motivated by a sense of duty. At the centre of Smith’s writings was the attempt to articulate the laws of human behavior.

Adam Smith believed that human activities were governed by discoverable principles in the same way that Newton argued that motion was explainable through principles. For Smith self-interest and competition are very important economic forces. Self-interest is the motivator of economic activity. Competition is the regulator of economic activity. Smith argued that people have a natural drive to improve their own lives. This self-interest he suggested propels markets to satisfy individual demands by producing the goods and services that people want. He called this the invisible hand – transforming the individual’s pursuit of gain into the general utility of society. He suggested that competition between businesses prevents exploitation of consumers by ensuring fair prices and quality products, encouraging constant economic innovation and satisfying customer demand. In short, competition keeps everyone honest, because consumers treated unfairly by one business can always patronize another instead.

The philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was a social Darwinist of the late nineteenth century who used Darwin’s theory of evolution to justify extreme laissez-faire capitalism as natural and right in the sense that free competition ensured the survival of the fittest. Spencer believed that human society reflects the same evolutionary principles as biological organisms do in their development. Spencer’s philosophy provided a foundation for an integrated, scientific approach to individualism. In particular, his emphasis on science caught the attention of anarchists of his day as progress was defined as ‘that form of society in which government will be reduced to the smallest amount possible, and freedom increased to the greatest amount.’ Spencer believed that the rich and the powerful become so because they are better suited to the social and economic culture of the time. In turn, the robber barons embraced his theory as it provided the necessary ‘science’ to support long workdays, low wages and child labour.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, existing economic theory was unable either to explain the causes of the severe worldwide economic collapse or to provide an adequate public policy solution to jump-start production and employment. British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) spearheaded a revolution in economic thinking that overturned the then-prevailing idea that free markets would automatically provide full employment. Private sector decisions can sometimes lead to adverse macroeconomic outcomes, such as reduction in consumer spending during a recession. These market failures sometimes call for active policies by the government, such as a fiscal stimulus package. What distinguishes Keynesians from other economists is their belief in activist policies to reduce the amplitude of the business cycle, which they rank among the most important of all economic problems. Therefore, Keynesian economics supports a mixed economy guided mainly by the private sector but partly operated by the government.2

Milton Friedman (1912-2006) advocated letting businesses flourish, since their profits will ultimately trickle down to lower-income individuals and the rest of the economy. The trickle down economic theory was rebranded in the 1970s to an ideology – supply side economics – the doctrine that tax cuts could be had for free (incentive effects would generate new activity hence more revenue) without causing budget deficits. Its creators never believed supply side economics worked – it was an ideology that was created to unite the right. In 1984, Charles Murray published Losing Ground. It was described by the New York Times Review of Books as a “persuasive . . . new variation on social Darwinism.” Its central thesis was that all government welfare programs should be abolished, supposedly because welfare hurt the very people it was intended to help by “rewarding bad behavior” such as “illegitimate babies.” Murray also called for ending food stamp programs. Murray’s work was used as the ‘science’ behind an ideology that supports slashing social programs.3

Postmodernism introduces the attitude of skepticism or distrust towards ideology and various tenets of universalism. Supporters believe knowledge and truth are products of social, historical and political discourses or interpretations, and therefore contextual or socially constructed. Postmodernism is still alive in economic theory – economic truths are socially constructed. Herbert Marcuse notes the working class is no longer the agent of social change. In the system today there is no longer a separation between the rich and the poor. At the centre are the workers who pay taxes for a system of ‘handouts and entitlements’ against the excluded who missed the benefits of 1960s and 1970s. These two fractions of the proletariat redefine the social question. Neoliberal capitalism has enlisted these two fractions of the proletariat into destructive competition against each other. The clash is no longer between labour and the privileged elite rather between a proletariat that pays taxes with an underclass that relies on a system of handouts and entitlements.4

The Enlightenment writers were concerned about the inequality in the existing system and introduced questioning and critical thinking to replace the dead weight of tradition and challenge the blind faith in institutions. The philosophers wanted to understand the rationale behind inequality, were particularly interested if there were natural reasons for it, or if inequality came wholly from social conventions. Once the reality of the consequences of the economic debacle of 2008 set in that pleasant retirement and the promise that one’s children would have more choices and a better life than their parents had been destroyed, many became angry and disillusioned. For the first time in history middle class children will likely end up poorer than their parents. In the second decade of the 21st century the middle class in Canada and the US has been stripped of jobs, income and security. It is about the rise of business power and the decline of labour power (as part of the era of globalization) along with the attacks of the right on the welfare state – with a consequent rapid rise in social, income and health inequalities.

We need to refocus: the symptoms of the Great Depression that Keynes correctly diagnosed are back, though fortunately on a smaller scale: chronic unemployment, deflation, currency wars, and beggar-thy-neighbor economic policies. The treatment includes preventing a deepening recession with a temporary program of increased government spending. Democracy is embraced because the working class, in particular, understands democratic activism to be the most effective tool they have to attack extreme inequality and maintain a check on the power of elites. If citizens only play a passive role then the real politics are shaped in private by interaction between elected governments and economic elites – elites who are not interested in the welfare of the classes beneath them. These choices would include electing candidates identifying policies to end big money’s grip on politics, an issue that lies at the core of the debate on the economy.

1 Adam Smith. http://www.iep.utm.edu/smith/

2 John Maynard Keynes http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Keynes.html

3 The Social Contract of the Neoliberals (23 Jul 2016) http://questioningandskepticism.com/social-contract-neoliberals/

4 Why Co-operation is Necessary. (15 Jan 2017) http://questioningandskepticism.com/co-operation-necessary/

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In A Post-truth Era Is Truth A Necessary Condition for Society to Change?

Posted on June 20, 2017 by greg

In this era of trickle-down economics with the increasing income disparity between the wealthy and the rest of society, a polarized debate has ensued on how to address the issue. Rousseau insisted that men must bear the moral responsibility for the kind of society they construct or accept. The purpose of politics is to restore freedom to us – through the general will – created through agreement with other free and equal persons. Today extreme individualism, social disintegration and amoral relativism create a climate where men elevate their personal interests above the common good. The legacy of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has been to dare to challenge the system, identifying extreme inequality as the hallmark of a dysfunctional economy, and highlight the failure of the legislators to protect 99% of the people. Today where does the middle class turn for answers for change to address the increasing income disparity in society?

Rousseau makes his main objective the emancipation of man from the conflicts, corruption and uncertainties of society. He saw the political community as the best means of effecting such liberation. Rousseau’s community is indistinguishable from the state. His idea of the ‘general will’ is the will of the political organization, which he constructs as an entity with a life of its own and apart from the individual members of which it is constructed. The general will aims at the common good – what is best for the state as a whole. As societies began to form, the division of labour parallels the beginning of moral inequality. To control tensions the rich trick the poor into creating a political society. The poor believe that this creation will secure their freedom and safety, but in fact, merely fixes the relations of domination that existed before, creating laws to establish inequality.

Essentially the people allow the government to have power over them; they consent to be governed. In return the government promises to protect the rights of the people. Rousseau believes government and societies are not devised to satisfy desires we antecedently have, rather they are brought into existence by the actions of people who deliberately act to create institutions and practices to satisfy their wants. Social change is an effect of human action, but not the intended effect, rather the unintended by-product that results from the sum total of human actions. Social institutions are actually the problem as they hold established ways of acting and thinking on people. Moral inequalities are characterized by the existence of different classes or the domination and exploitation of some people by others. In a state where the vulgarities of private interest prevail over the common interests of the collective, the will of all can be quite different from the general will.

Nietzsche contended that the individual must decide which situations are to count as moral situations. Existentialists believe that personal experience and acting on one’s own convictions are essential to arriving at the truth, and that the understanding of a situation is superior to that of a detached, objective observer. Nietzsche observes, “truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins. We still do not know where the urge for truth comes from; for as yet we have heard only of the obligation imposed by society that it should exist: to be truthful means using the customary metaphors – in moral terms, the obligation to lie according to fixed convention, to lie herd-like in a style obligatory for all…”1

Truth is sometimes a condition of life, but the value of truth is not necessarily easy to obtain. What is the value of truth over falsehood? Many now accept there is no need for truth at all times in all occasions. In fact, an untruth can indeed be a necessary condition of life. The fact that a belief is false is not and has not been a reason for people to abandon it, rather beliefs are abandoned based on whether they serve the goals of preserving and enhancing human life. So the debate or question is based not upon distinguishing what is true from what is false, but rather what is life-enhancing, and what is life-destroying. Using these definitions, then what people in society usually call truth has more to do with social conventions than reality.2 Nietzsche observes, “Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.”

A paradigm is our perception of reality, our view of the world. It is our interpretation of events based on previous teaching we have received. Kuhn denied that science is constantly approaching the truth. Kuhn observed, “each paradigm will be shown to satisfy more or less the criteria that it dictates for itself and to fall short of a few of those dictated by its opponent … no paradigm ever solves all the problems it defines…” In the 1970s the monetarists sought to resurrect the pre-Keynesian view that market economies are inherently stable in the absence of major unexpected fluctuations in the money supply. Because of this belief in the stability of the free market economics, active demand management (by increasing government spending) was believed unnecessary and indeed likely to be harmful. This paradigm did not solve all the problems it defines, for example, the failure of a pure monetary policy to stimulate the economy in 2001-2003.

Change introduced during the Reagan administration created a paradigm shift in the perception of how the economy should be managed. The initial supply side economics was never believed by its creators; it was promoted as a credible theory in order to create a political doctrine to unite the right. Eventually supply side economics was amalgamated with the ‘starve the beast’ theory. Starve the beast was used simply to unite the Republican Party, as reducing taxes was politically popular. Then this dogma of minimal government and minimal regulation was rebranded as trickle down economics – the doctrine that tax cuts could be had for free (incentive effects would generate new activity hence more revenue) without causing budget deficits. Profits will ultimately trickle down to the bottom indirectly benefiting those who do not directly benefit from the policy changes. Kuhn also noted that a paradigm wouldn’t give way until there is a new one to replace it.

We are aware that global corporation disinformation programs perfected by the tobacco industry spew various amounts of disinformation into the system. This includes the climate change denial tactics of the fossil fuel industry by introducing manufactured uncertainty by raising doubts about even the most indisputable scientific evidence, setting up so called independent front organizations to publically promote its desired message. They cherry pick scientific spokespeople whose interpretations of the peer-reviewed literature suggest to the media and the public that the debate amongst scientists continues, and the results are not definitive. Industries sponsor sophisticated research activities that include both funding of established research institutions, as well as funding of advocacy and ideological organizations to conduct disinformation campaigns – leaving public and law makers confused. With the election of Donald Trump we now have a better understanding of the process and the scope of the deliberate misinformation programs funded by the oligarchs.

We are in debt to Donald Trump for exposing the ugly network of lies that Rousseau predicted that creates the society in which we live. He pulled back the curtain on the metaphor of the invisible hand exposing the oligarchy that is responsible for the increasing economic inequality between the wealthy and the rest of society. The ideology of neoliberalism drives the social agenda and economic goals of the economic elites. Trump also illustrated how emotion drives decisions – facts are now secondary – how politicians promise change to get elected, then once elected do an about turn and cater to corporate money. Trump ushered in the post-truth era in which people are more likely to accept an argument based on their emotions and beliefs, rather than one based on facts. Now that it is no longer necessary to debate what is true from what is false; we can now focus on distinguishing what is life-enhancing, and what is life-destroying.

We turn to life-enhancing actions: This includes the freedom for everyone to reach their full potential – the opportunities one has to reach his or her potential is the most important measure of freedom. The OWS protesters provide the necessary truth to begin the process of replacing the existing economic paradigm – a government controlled by corporate money and the growing income gap between the very wealthy and the rest of society. We must not give up our freedom and allow our lives to be governed by ideology that limits our opportunities. It is necessary to challenge the status quo of neoliberalism with its causal determinism, and introduce changes such as progressive taxation that includes eliminating special tax breaks designed for the rich, and redistribute wealth more evenly. The relevant consequence of this change is the freedom that optimizes the human experience allowing individuals opportunities to reach their full potential in society.

1 The Perspectives of Nietzsche: Truth and Knowledge. http://www.theperspectivesofnietzsche.com/nietzsche/ntruth.html

2 Cline, Austin. (17 March 2017) Nietzsche, Truth, and Untruth: Evaluating Whether Truth is Better than Untruth. https://www.thoughtco.com/nietzsche-truth-and-untruth-250548

 

 

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The Political Effects of Economic Chaos

Posted on June 10, 2017 by greg

Class conflict and struggle occur, according to Karl Marx, because of the economic organization of most societies. Consequently, capitalism due to its internal contradictions, inevitably moves from crisis to crisis. Neoliberalism rose to prominence by representing the subsequent crisis of the 1970s as a crisis of Keynesianism, against which the neoliberal project could be advanced as the return to the natural order of market society. In this system the source of profit in exploitation is concealed, economic value is an expression of subjective preferences, rather than a measure of labour time. In the 1970s the Western world faced a devastating new problem: inflation. It took economic chaos to bring new ideas into government – neoliberal policies would counter the economic problems created by the 1970s oil crisis and runaway inflation. Economies would automatically self-adjust to full employment and it would be unnecessary to use fiscal policy to raise employment.

The Bretton Woods agreement was created in a 1944 conference of all of the World War II Allied nations. It took place in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. Up to 1971, most  countries promised that their central banks would maintain fixed exchange rates between their currencies and the dollar. After a rash of spending on the military and foreign aid during the Vietnam War, there was not enough gold to cover the amount of dollars in circulation. In response the Nixon administration pulled the US out of the Bretton Woods Accord – essentially abandoning the Gold Standard whereby the price of the dollar had been pegged to the price of gold, while other currencies were pegged to the US dollar. Other nations followed suit. In addition countries, led by the US, expanded their money supplies concerned that currency values would fluctuate unpredictably for a time. This in turn, led to the depreciation of the dollar and other currencies, followed directly by massive inflation and recession.

In the 1970s oil production in the US had started to decline; then two oil crisis created economic havoc. The first oil crisis occurred when OPEC (Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) proclaimed an oil embargo in response to US support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War. By the end of the embargo, the price increased from $3 per barrel to $12 globally, with the US prices significantly higher. The 1973-74 market crash was regarded as the first discrete event since the Great Depression to have a persistent effect on the US economy. The second oil shock occurred in the US due to the decrease in oil output in the wake of the Iranian revolution. While the oil supply only decreased by 4%, industry (the economic elite) manipulated the system driving prices much higher. The price of oil more than doubled to $39.50 per barrel over the next 12 months.

Economic chaos in the US consisted of a combination of double-digit economic contraction with double-digit inflation. In his 1980 campaign speeches, Ronald Reagan presented his economic proposals as a return to the free enterprise principles – a free market economy that had been in favor before the Great Depression and FDR’s New Deal policies. Reagan was elected on platform of trickle-down economics and a promise to make America great again. At the same time he attracted a following from the supply-side economics movement, which formed in opposition to Keynesian demand-stimulus economics. Basically corporate tax cuts were the best way to grow the economy. The long-term consequence of this change in policies has been the fact that the income gap between the wealthy and the rest of society continues to grow. The myth of trickle-down economics continues to provide a powerful ideological cover for neoliberal capitalism.

After 1948 Yugoslavia oriented its business mainly with western countries. The country experienced considerable prosperity in the 1960s, but became dependent on world trade. In the 1970s it was badly hit by a down-turn in the volume of goods exchanged, unable to import materials and unable to ship to the West. With the oil crisis migrant workers had to return home, and the government refused to introduce significant reforms and relied on taking out foreign loans. In the 1980s Yugoslavia was saddled with a large foreign debt, rising inflation, while the standard of living fell and unemployment rose dramatically. Reagan supply-side economics precipitated a recession in 1981-83; the effects were felt everywhere, not the least in Yugoslavia. In 1989, Yugoslav prime minister, Ante Markovic warned Bush economic reforms would bring social problems, an increase in unemployment to 20% and the threat of increasing ethnic and political tension among the country’s six republics and two autonomous provinces. A deep-seated economic crisis preceded the civil war.1

The oil crisis reduced the demand for the large gas guzzling cars that the US automakers were producing for sale. Customers turned to the smaller more fuel-efficient cars made in Japan. Japan surpassed US car production. In response to US government import quotas, Japan and eventually other foreign car manufacturers outsourced operations by opening assembly plants in the southern US as import automakers were not on friendly terms with labour unions from the Rust Belt. Niall Ferguson observes globalization evolved into products designed in California and manufactured in China. This made technology affordable while destroying jobs in the US. The principal beneficiary of this system since 1990 benefits primarily a communist one party system in which 300 million Chinese were brought out of poverty. This was associated with a significant erosion of living standards of middle and working class in Canada and the US.

By 2000, the oligarchy that looks after the interests of the big banks in the US had convinced the politicians of the need to keep the market unfettered by regulation – that controlling the banks was bad – creating the over-leveraged market that imploded in 2008. It was imagined that the world was governed by mathematical formulas – or more specifically by serious men in dark suits who understood complex formulas and the patterns playing out on their computer terminals. Everyone accepted the idea that deregulated markets were self-correcting. The illusion was that this system, a product of globalization, could self-correct as required. The ugly truth was that a few greedy bankers on Wall Street could just about collapse the world financial system. It was triggered by the consequences of policies championed by a small group of influential people. The financial sector took advantage of the system, empowered by reckless deregulation. Deregulation has been above all else, a means to reducing corporate business accountability to the public.

The drought in Syria that started in 1998 caused 75% of farms to fail and 85% of livestock to die between 2006 and 2011. Before the bloodshed of the civil war in Syria, the country’s economy was diverse. The agriculture sector accounted for 22 percent of the economy and 25 per cent of the employment in the country. The effects of the drought have been aggravated by a mismanaged water system. By 2013 a significant increase in inflation had occurred – one of the factors that contributed to the drop in the local currency is the government’s decision to quadruple the amount of printed notes compared to the end of 2010 that was facilitated in part by the Russian government. The regime of Bashar al-Assad failed to respond to the existing problems of unemployment and corruption. The drought created the chaotic situation and an opportunity for ISIS to thrive in the area.

Neoliberal narrative claims markets as superior computational devices, thus the best people to clean up the crisis are the bankers and financiers who created it in the first place. Consequently there is no need to consider further regulations. In a crisis, conflict between the integrity of the financial institutions, on one hand, and the well-being of citizens on the other, the former is privileged. This system claims the common good depends entirely on the uncontrolled egoism of the individual, and especially on the prosperity of the corporation, hence freedom for corporations consists of freedom from responsibility and commitment to society.

There is not one big reason Donald Trump won. His election promises represented an appeal to popular resentment, to so-called herd instincts. Trump sold the image of America in decline, a crisis that only he could handle. This means curtailing immigration and tearing up trade deals like NAFTA. Trump feasts on social divisions and has perfected harnessing the rage of the workers driven by the failure of neoliberal capitalism. He connected with those workers who felt they had been left behind. The oligarchs and their proxies take advantage of the structure of the Internet to control information that serves the interest of financial capital and globalized elites in the redistribution of wealth upward, helped secure Trump’s election. ‘Drain the swamp’ or tackling corruption in Washington – a goal tied to increasing transparency and decreasing the influence of lobbyists and major donors – presently eludes the Trump team.

Neoliberal doctrine explains the market ensures that factors of production are paid what they are worth, obviating the need for institutions of social protection and trade unions. A financial elite set in motion a process to reinvent government and have the market serve as a model for restructuring all social relations. The fabrication of trickle down economics provided the opportunity to dismantle the gains of the New Deal. It justified slashing funds for welfare programs to support a pro-growth agenda claiming centralized planning of big government doesn’t work because it creates a culture of dependency that can trap people. The evolution of the neoliberal project should be understood, not as a meticulous manipulation of social reality, but a series of increasingly desperate attempts to hold the very fabric of reality together. Neoliberalism has become an anxiety-ridden form of crisis management that is constantly attempting to cover over the gaps in its ideological contradictions amongst the economic chaos.

1 Gervasi, Sean. Germany, US and Yugoslavia crisis. (1992) https://www.tmcrew.org/news/nato/germany_usa.htm

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Anxiety Is Essential For Creativity

Posted on June 1, 2017 by greg

Kierkegaard reflected on the question of how to communicate the truths we live by – that is, the truths about ethics and religion. He wrote about his experiences with the chronic disquieting feeling that something not so good was about to happen – about his angst. Kierkegaard claims everyone harbors a fear of being alone, forgotten by God, overlooked by his friends and relatives. He concluded that it was in our anxiety that we come to understand feeling that we are free, that the possibilities are endless. Even though anxiety can ignite all kinds of transgressions and maladaptive behavior, we should recognize it as a dual force that can be both destructive and generative, depending upon how we approach it. Kierkegaard argues anxiety is essential for creativity – if there were no possibilities there would be no anxiety. The way we negotiate anxiety plays no small part in shaping our lives and character.

Plato assured us that reason (ego) could control our worse impulses; Freud brought forth evidence of the existence of unconscious forces determining man’s behavior and conscious awareness. The evaluation that below or beyond the rational mind existed an overwhelming repository of non-rational forces undermined the idea that reason could be used to establish an authoritative system of government and ethics. This meant that man was now constrained to live in an eternal struggle with his own nature, and that human reason, the characteristic identified that separated man from the rest of animals, was a recent concept. There exists a dynamic balance between the individual and society, Freud claims, created by deep-rooted instinctual impulses (in their unconscious) that cannot be rationally controlled. Freud observed, “A good part of the struggles of mankind centre around the task of finding an expedient accommodation – one, that is, that will bring happiness between the claims of the individual and the cultural claim of the group.”

As we have seen with Copernicus, Newton and Darwin, traditional beliefs were eroded by their scientific discoveries i.e. beliefs in centrality of the Earth and superiority of humans over the other creatures. Scientific activity stresses the rational side of human beings; there was a feeling with science, human beings would increase their mastery over the world. Nietzsche saw that in the 19th century the “highest values” had begun to “devalue themselves.” The Christian value of truth-telling, institutionalized in the form of science, had undermined the belief in God, disenchanting the world and excluding from it any pre-given moral meaning. In such a situation the individual is forced back upon himself. On the one hand, if he is weak this individual can fall victim to despair in the face of nihilism, the recognition that life has no intrinsic meaning. On the other hand, for a “strong” or creative individual nihilism presents a liberating opportunity to take responsibility for meaning, releasing life-affirming potential. Neoliberals leverage this message: “From adversity comes strength, from strength comes success.”

Since the disappearance of the feudal society the ruling classes have been increasingly ill served by their own ideologies. Those ideologies (as petrified critical thought) after having been used by them as general weapons for seizing power, end up presenting contradictions to their particular reign. Any attempt to modernize an ideology, like neoliberalism, tends to preserve the present, which itself is dominated by the past. Neoliberalism remains the dominant economic ideology of our times. For over three decades, economic reforms have adhered to the neoliberal principles of privatization, deregulation, and the dismantling of the welfare state, on the assumption that free competition would ensure the best of all possible worlds. Instead, neoliberalism should be interpreted as an anxiety-ridden form of crisis management that is constantly attempting to cover over the gaps and ruptures in its own ideological fabric caused by the contradictions that it is structured to conceal.

Neoliberalism rose to dominance by representing subsequent economic crises as crises of Keynesianism or developmentalism, against which the neoliberal project could be advanced as a return to the natural order of a market society. Freud noted civilization demands conformity and repression. The alliance to culture or society is only minimally deep. The proof is the widespread tendency of people to be able to violate cultural rules if they are quite sure they will not in any way be caught or punished. Freud claimed social structures of civilization demand many limits on the individual which clashes with fundamental and very deeply evolutionary instincts. This conflict between an individual’s deepest instincts to conform to any social system that he is likely to encounter will never be fully resolved. For Freud, society attempts to oppress the individual into its requirements, consequently the individual can never have full happiness. Neoliberalism works to dominate both nature and the individual.

John Kenneth Galbraith, an economist who warned of the dangers of unregulated markets and corporate greed, observed, “the modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy, that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” At the individual level neoliberalism insists that rationality, individuality and self-interest guide all actions. Neoliberals reform society by subordinating it to the market. The goal is to essentially erase any distinction among the state, society and the market. The major challenge of the neoliberals is how to maintain their pretense of freedom as non-coercion. Their answer is to treat politics as it were a market and promote an economic theory of democracy while redefining the shape and functions of the state. The system constantly proclaims anyone can make it if they try hard enough.

The neoliberals promoted minimal government and regulations which led to the looting of the public coffers by tax cuts and the accumulation of ‘public’ debt. Greedy decision-makers on Wall Street with a sense of entitlement chose not to apply critical thinking but to intentionally take advantage of people, which led to the melt down of the economy in 2008. Many in the middle class saw their comfortable retirement, their home equity, and their dreams destroyed. The neoliberal elite demand a dressed-up sophisticated economic theory be applied regardless of the outcome which has nothing to do with economics but everything to do with power. The neoliberal counter argument to failure is to claim even though the markets may be failing having government remedy market failure would even be worse, owing to bureaucratic inefficiencies and lack of market-styled incentives.

In a crisis conflict between the integrity of the financial institutions, on one hand, and the well-being of citizens on the other, the former was privileged. The neoliberal social contract proposed that unrestrained inequality in income and flexible wages would reduce unemployment, but in fact, throughout the rich world both inequality and under employment have soared. Today the middle class realizes that the entire structure of neoliberal thought is a fraud. The psychological defense mechanism used by the rich is splitting – a mechanism that diffuses the anxiety that arises from our inability to grasp the nuances and complexities of a given situation or state of affairs by simplifying the situation and thereby making it easier to think about; it also reinforces our sense of self as good and virtuous by effectively demonizing all those who do not share in our opinions and values.

In neoliberalism, governing occurs by providing individuals with choices and holding them accountable for the choices they make. This system has a diminishing appreciation that individual predicaments are a product of more than simply their individual choice, and includes access to opportunities, how opportunities are made available, or the capacity to take advantage of opportunities offered. The neoliberal context of employment is perpetually transitional – careers have disappeared. In a context of work built on short-term contracts, flexibility and mobility it becomes difficult to preserve long-term commitments and relationships. A society of individuals frequently switching jobs, relocating, and preoccupied with personal risk and self-interest is conducive to neither stable families nor cohesive communities. Where career is no longer a meaningful concept it is no longer possible for one to make and maintain the long-term commitments required of people to form their characters into sustained narratives.

The diagnosis of social anxiety is now commonplace – you become very anxious about what other people may think of you, or how they may judge you. Social anxiety is now the third most common psychological disorder after depression and alcoholism. SmithKline Beecham, makers of Paxil decided to promote it as treatment for social anxiety – bringing social anxiety into focus in the community. A multibillion dollar marketing campaign linked the disorder to all manner of interpersonal and job-related problems in a way that fashioned all social discomfort as disease. However, success in the competitive marketplace emphasizes the importance of networking, self-presentation and the belief in the ever present potential for opportunities; the required vigilance maintaining the kind of personal image that attracts them demands relentless self-monitoring. The problem is in the workplace of enterprise culture: anxious self-surveillance is both pathological and prescribed.1 The dilemma: Kierkegaard argues anxiety is essential for creativity.

Though our well being is inextricably linked to the lives of others, everywhere we are told that we will prosper through competitive self-interest and extreme individualism. Neoliberalism creates insecurity through the use of indicators and measures to assess the performance of an individual. What happens when metrics are applied to neoliberalism? The neoliberal era has not had a particularly good track record. The most dynamic period of postwar western growth was that between the end of the war and the early 70s, the era of welfare capitalism and Keynesianism, when the growth rate was double that of the neoliberal period from 1980 to the present.2

1 Sugarman, Jeff. Neoliberalism and Psychological Ethics. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 2015, Vol. 35, No. 2, 103–116 https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/teo-a0038960.pdf

2 Jacques, Martin. (21 Aug 2016) The death of neoliberalism and the crisis in western politics https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/21/death-of-neoliberalism-crisis-in-western-politics

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