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Neoliberalism – The 'Zombie Doctrine' at the Root of All Our Problems

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#25

Good point. This type of inverted representation is also well represented in Thomas Frank’s Listen, Liberal: or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People, in which he describes how both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama campaigned on strong blue-collar rhetoric, only to abandon any corresponding action once in office.

His thesis is that the Democratic Party’s leaders (read: DLC) rejected the traditional New Deal working-class orientation, choosing instead to favor the professional class. For example:

The kind of liberalism that has dominated Massachusetts for the last few decades isn’t the stuff of Franklin Roosevelt or the United Auto Workers; it’s the Route 128/suburban-professionals variety. Professional-class liberals aren’t really alarmed by oversized rewards for society’s winners; on the contrary, this seems natural to them―because they are society’s winners. The liberalism of professionals just does not extend to matters of inequality; this is the area where soft hearts abruptly turn hard. (p.195)

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#26

There is a “coherent” system. that is readily available. In fact it is the EXISTING SYSTEM. the best description is called Modern Monetary Mechanics, aka MMT. Neo-liberalism is a fraudulent diversion of economics away from reality and into political distortion. As with all mainstream economics someone has produced a model of how economics is supposed to work. Every single model has failed because the idea of humans being rational is not a sensible option, but they use it.
Mainstream economics is roundly disparaged as disreputable, even "a dangerous ideology pretending to be a “science” “[Bill Black]. But it has none the less become all pervasive throughout the planet. It obviously suits certain cohorts that this fraud be believed.
" The most important misperception is that MMT is in some way outlining an ideal or new regime that could be introduced. The reality is that MMT just describes the system that most countries in the world live under and have lived under since 1971” Bill Mitchell.

#27

The numbers of Union members that support or do not support the respective leaders of their Unions is a hard call to make.

As example here in Canada in the province of British Columbia Union MEMBER support for the NDP is high yet those same Union members have indicated to the NDP that if the NDP blocks megaprojects inside the province such as the site C dam and the infrastructure to support the export of LNG to foreign markets that are obtained by fracking the NDP would lose their support.

Now this does not necessarily mean of course that the Union members do not care about the environment or that they would not prefer other means to a livelihood other than labor on those various projects. It means the system is so co-opted by monied interests they see themselves as having no real choice.

The surrender of the “means of production” to the Capitalists and that one percent holds the people hostage. They are in many ways slaves to the system just as were those slaves on the Southern plantations and as such I do not see the logic of blaming the masses.

Capitalism is one of many tools the one percent uses to keep this system in place and as such , just as those others that you mention , has to be dismantled. They are all joined at the ism.

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#28

By the way the two in the photograph do look like Zombies.

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#30

“Every invocation of Lord Keynes is an admission of failure. To propose Keynesian solutions to the crises of the 21st-century is to ignore three obvious problems. It is hard to mobilise people around old ideas; the flaws exposed in the 1970s have not gone away; and, most importantly, they have nothing to say about our gravest predicament: the environmental crisis. Keynesianism works by stimulating consumer demand to promote economic growth. Consumer demand and economic growth are the motors of environmental destruction.”

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#31

“Unless he means specifically that we need to tailor a new system to harmonize with and support the functions of the ecology.”

I think that is what he does mean …

#32

I think a more cogent model for critique is the Market Model of Life …

Both capitalism and socialism are, as far as i can tell, materialist philosophies - the disagreement revolving around who owns what - again, as far as i can tell, neither has anything to say about the appropriate use of what is owned … neither is embedded in an environmental context …

Is the answer to the problems of a coal mine changing the ownership from private to a worker owned enterprise?

#33

The way i usually put it is that the problem is that we look upon “efficiency” and “productivity” as cardinal virtues, ends unto themselves, without considering what we are being “efficient” at “producing” - the example i use is the remarkable “efficiency” and “productivity” of Nazi death camps …

#34

Max - i think the early Christians had a model for communism … (smile)

#35

That’s exactly why I designated renewable energy projects as the target. And no, I don’t believe that necessarily is too hard on the environment …

#36

i think a major problem of “neoliberalism”, as an ideology or economic theory, is that it doesn’t overtly acknowledge that it “has to operate within the bounds of what is physically possible” - it’s practitioners, however, understand it all to well - “there are not endless resources, so we better gobble up what we can before they run out” …

I rather think that is what Monbiot is talking about …

#37

Hmmm - to find a cure - i guess perhaps that is one major concept that draws me to Stein - she speaks in that same language, starting as a med doc, now practicing “political medicine” …

And Herman Daly, for decades, has been talking about the absurdity of a system where the environment is a subset of an economy instead of vice-versa …

#38

It’s not so much that the DP “will do anything” to keep Sanders from being nominated - it is that he has chosen to shake hands with that tar baby, and is stuck with it … and sticks us with it as well …

#39

Yeah, the DP knows how to run folks who are good at “blue-collar” rhetoric, don’t they (smile)

#40

Well, would giving the “means of production” of the tar sands and the dams and pipelines to the workers solve that problem?

#41

So you define “consumer demand” as demand for renewable energy? But the problem is unless we cut consumer demand for energy in any form, we are screwing the environment …

#42

For me the point of George’s analytical appraisal of neoliberalism which I think does accurately describe the hegemonic ideology of the day and is distinct from classical versions of capitalism in that the social justice dimensions as espoused by Adam Smith in his accompanying companion to Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), that being the classic work: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) is entirely missing from neoliberal ideology.

Adam Smith himself promotes the need for sympathy/empathy and modifies his moral treatise up until his death. In this context, his overall vision of a modern society is a free market economy contained within a wider moral system based on the virtue of empathy. Neoliberalism departs from this overall picture of human development by choosing to omit entirely the moral dimension which George shows in his many examples.

Now that is clear, what is the solution? Well it is quite clear that the solution is empathy. Empathy for our fellow human beings whatever their personal creed, ethnic origin, race, class, sexual orientation, religion or any other distinguishable feature that creates diversity within the human race. And of course we need to develop empathy with all the non human beings too and if one wishes to go deeper still, than empathy with abiotic world and all of the other aspects of the global ecology that we depend upon for our collective survival.

So how does this translate as an alternative. Well if we are to develop systems that are based on empathy then it would seem appropriate to have a more policy-centred approach rather than a more ideologic-approach towards our politics, towards our economics and towards our social wellbeing and towards our global ecological well-being so rather than construct alternatives around ideology (which is not to say that ideology is bad) but to construct solutions which can take from different ideologies depending on the situation and the variables that we are encountered with. So for example let’s talk about the protection of our global ecology. Rather than having a dogmatic approach to preserving the global ecology which might eventually translate as green fascism and a highly regulated form of capitalism or neoliberalism, why don’t we start distinguishing between high impact, medium impact and low impact activities (as opposed to low carbon etc which in many ways hides the carbon footprint of the manufacturing stage and hides the carbon footprint of the contextual infrastructure in which the ‘low carbon’ technology is placed) so that as a means of creating sustainable human lifestyles at a global ecological level, we reward the low impact activities and to a large extent discourage high impact because we all know that the global ecology is something that needs to be shared by All Humans and non humans alike. So it would seem sensible that through some form of geological/biological survey that we are able to divide up and apportion some amount of the global ecology for human use and for non human use and then what is apportioned for the humans is then shared equitably by using different aspects of different ideologies depending on what part of the system is being focused on at the time.

For myself I would say that basic needs should in large parts be planned and constructed around a community work paradigm. Planning for our basic needs such as housing, food, health and water should be planned using more socialistic ideas and of course not of the state collective form of socialism but a socialism that is bottom up so a community socialism. Beyond basic needs and moving into the area of consumables and all the other aspects of our material life which promotes prosperity and a sense of being modern, then these could be organised around capitalist ideas using the free market since in the main free market principles are able to make efficiency gains and productivity gains in relation to resource use. But of course the appropriate regulations would need to be put into place in order to ensure that resources are shared equitably between basic needs and prosperity needs.

Overall if we are to Institute empathy as the overriding moral principle in the development of human systems, then empathy must be instituted to be able to promote ecological justice, social justice, economic justice and perhaps most importantly political justice, since the creation of alternate systems will foremost need political justice so that resources are shared fairly and equitably not only between humans and non humans but also within human groups too.

Ultimately, utilusing and educating ourselves to develop systems based on empathy would need to be applied at global level, since it is only at this level that the global ecology can be shared equitably between humans and non humans and then what proportion of the global ecology is determined as the appropriate share for human use is then shared equitably between humans in order to fulfill basic needs primarily and then prosperity needs secondarily within a framework of rewarding low impact and generally discouraging high impact using a mixture of both socialistic ideas and capitalistic ideas with full democratic participation in the allocation of resources being fundamental to this process.

In conclusion what perhaps is most fundamental to instituting systems that are based on empathy is not only the deployment of rational self interest in order to maximise the fulfillment of individual needs, wants and desires but also the deployment of rational self sacrifice in order to maximise the fulfillment of ecological needs, wants and desires. So it is both self interest and self sacrifice that are the keys to resolving our multiple crisises and so it is both self interest and self sacrifice that are the keys to managing a global ecology that serves the needs of all rather than just a few. How we do this will require collective action on a global basis and will require levels of sacrifice that many will find uncomfortable but this will be the only way to evolve ourselves to a post-neoliberal world.

#43

Yes. In a system where there no private property and all part of the commons all the stakeholders have a say as to how a given resource used. Thus the Workers wanting to mine those tarsands for oil could not ignore their co-owners and those wanting to protect that ecosystem

This is how our First nations peoples defend their own lands. Among the First nations peoples are those that want development and would welcome those pipelines and factories and LNG plants. Since unlike in Capitalism where all the OWNERSHIP is deemed to reside in the hands of a few, it is held in common by the entire tribe , those wanting that development can not just do as they please. In Privatizing the lands it would be much easier to push those projects through as the permission of the entire tribe no longer needed nor even its majority, Just get the permission of the few individuals deemed to own the land.

This is the main reason Stephen Harper wanted to change the Indian Act here in Canada. He recognized that as long as the reservation lands were deemed to be held in common by the tribe it would be very hard to force development in the same. His solution under the guise of “increased prosperity for the First nations peoples” was to privatize the lands. There are wealth inequalities on Reservations. Those that tend to be wealthier also tend to be the ones that support more devolpment of the lands in which they live in the way of pipelines and resource extraction.

There another factor at play as well and that the worker tends to live in the areas being explioted for resources. It is their health at risk and the health of their children. The investor on the other hand tends to live many thousands of miles away and is not affected by tailing ponds or poisoned waters. When the people as a whole own a resource in common and live in those areas they are not Oil companies or Forest Companies or Coal companies each one of which would want to explout that region for Oil or Lumber or Coal. They are indviduals and would be much more open to other methods to utlize the lands while earning an income.

The main goal of a Corporation is profits and more profits. Individual people do not have that as their sole concern.

#44

What silliness. I refuse to argue about ‘socialism,’ but it’s whole purpose and raison d’etre is to change mankind, remove the economic and social and emotional (psychological) and moral structures which condone and support the evil in man, and replace them with structures that affirm and inculcate their antithesis.

There is no socialism that does not make a better man, that is its sole purpose, and what fails, is not socialism. You can argue it has never existed, at least not in industrial times, but you cannot dismiss it as some kind of clinical economic-only rearrangement. I’d say the same in answer to Siouxrose1’s dismissal.

#45

Problems](Neoliberalism – The 'Zombie Doctrine' at the Root of All Our Problems):

I agree with George Monbiot that unnamed ideology accepted by people is power at its greatest and permeates all institutions. When it has “ism” attached, as well described in The Guru Papers, people believe they have a force to accept or argue against, but without a name, it is not see-able, only felt, by most people, who also understand it as normal. It gives rise to acceptance of factory-style schools based on competition and failure and other practices that limit critical thinking, and to hundreds of new terms to describe mental and emotional illness. It all works together.

English treasure, psychologist, professor and author, Dr. David Smail, saw from the early days of his practice the enormous psychological, emotional and physical toll taken on the health and well-being in general of people suffering under Thatcher, Reagan and beyond neoliberal economic policies, creating in people a huge perceived “need” for psychotherapy to fix their inner deficits and to develop “insight.” He called for helping people develop Outsight, not Insight, so they could better explain their problems and be freed of self guilt in this stacked system, self-guilt that added to their burden and fixed them with blinkers so to be unable to see their predicament. It is no coincidence, that psychotherapy, the world’s newest, by thousands of years, profession has grown in such importance in the past fifty years that few people today have not been impacted, in one way or another, by therapists helping them, from their perches of societal sanctioned power, know how to think about their problems. That therapists also too often use their power over people for blatent abuse can be attested to, as a tip of the iceberg, by the fact that thousands of people each month visit the TELL (Therapist Exploitation Link Line) website for help to understand and recover from abusive therapy that can occur once they have accepted the idea that they need to be “fixed” and open themselves up to all manner of harm that make their lives even worse. The more blind we are to the system controlling our lives, the more also accepting people become to limiting their own power for change. Change, as Bernie Sanders proposes, is seen as dangerous and impossible.