Someone in another thread wanted to discuss neoliberal ideas so I’ve edited an old post that I think will get the ball rolling and of course it is open to everyone. It seems to me that the political history of the 20th century (in the industrialised nations) has been to one degree or another about the curtailment of the adverse effects of 19th century exploitative capitalism (some call classical liberalism). People in many nations fought for voting rights, social benefits, safer working conditions, progressive taxation, and decent living wages. The result of that movement was that the economic benefits of production were much more distributed. Many people saw their wages grow and in the period between the end of WWII and 1970 many in Europe and the US gained middle class status and access to higher education. But from the 70’s onward a new iteration of classical liberalism was promoted in some of these nations often referred to as neo-liberalism. It was in many ways opposed to the ‘distributive’ systems that had developed. One thing it promoted was economic globalisation, which basically allowed back some aspects of exploitative capitalism by promoting the moving of production to nations that had not developed the more distributive systems away from those nations that had (in some cases undermining the manufacturing and unionised base of the distributive economies). In this way the long fought for distributive system has been undermined in those places where it had developed. Neo-liberals argue that to ‘compete’ in the global market the elements of the distributive system need to be dismantled what is needed they say is deregulation, the cutting of welfare, tax cuts that benefit the rich, lower wages, weaker government oversight etc etc. So what we are getting in is the dismantling of the distributive system in the developed countries while in some developing countries the conditions resemble what was happening in the west before people’s struggle to get rid of exploitation. So what can be done well as James K Galbriath has argued – “We must confront the global inequality crisis. For this, we must, in the final analysis, raise real wages in the countries with which our workers compete, expand their markets for our goods, and reduce their pressure on our wage structure” To me what neoliberal inspired right wingers seem to be aiming for is for a few to be able to exploit the many more easily across the globe. I think we need to fight again for social balance but this time not just on a local or national level but also globally. To counter the economic globalisation that has already taken place we need social globalisation to be brought in, and that means social global governance to counter the already in place economic global governance.
Hmmm 2013: The minimum wage 2015: The Need For Social Global Governance Western Civilization: Beyond Boundaries By Thomas F. X. Noble, Barry Strauss, Duane Osheim, Kristen Neuschel, Elinor Accampo I thought as much
With only one in ten Americans identifying themselves as Libertarian, and actually using the same definition for Libertarian as the Libertarian party itself, I'd have to say good luck to the Neo-Liberals attempting to define what they mean by inequality. Fuck em all, they refuse to share their words and play nice in any fashion whatsoever, with neither extreme representing democracy anymore. Both represent entrenched wealth, which has something to gain from either spending more taxpayer money or destroying the government entirely.
