by For 40 years, elites in rich and poor countries alike promised that neoliberal policies would lead to faster economic growth, and that the benefits would trickle down so that everyone, including the poorest, would be better off. Now that the evidence is in, is it any wonder that trust in elites and confidence in democracy have plummeted?... Trickle down or pissing on? I am not sure about his blanket recommendation to restore Enlightenment values. Enlightenment values led to bourgeois liberalism in which economic liberalism dominates social and political liberalism. Neoliberalism was simply the extension of bourgeois liberalism globally though yet an other empire in thin disguise. Bourgeois liberalism prioritizes economic liberalism over social and political liberalism based on the
Topics:
Mike Norman considers the following as important: democracy, Neoliberalism
This could be interesting, too:
Peter Radford writes Election: Take Four
Peter Radford writes Who brought us Trump?
Joel Eissenberg writes Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others
Matias Vernengo writes Podcast with about the never ending crisis in Argentina
For 40 years, elites in rich and poor countries alike promised that neoliberal policies would lead to faster economic growth, and that the benefits would trickle down so that everyone, including the poorest, would be better off. Now that the evidence is in, is it any wonder that trust in elites and confidence in democracy have plummeted?...Trickle down or pissing on?
“The class war,” said Keynes, “will find me on the side of the educated bourgeoisie.”This attitude is reflected presently in the resistance of the bipartisan Establishment that holds the reins of power jointly, passing them among themselves over election cycle, to the rising tide of populism that seeks to unseat them. This is also the attitude of the "deep state" that is now opposing populist-elected President Donald Trump in the US and Jeremy Corbyn in the UK.
As far as Enlightenment values go, the American founding fathers, held up as the epitome of Enlightnment values, saw now problem with including slavery in the US Constitution, and Thomas Jefferson, not only a slave owner but also a slave breeder, saw no contradiction in penning, "All men are created equal..." in the Declaration of Independence. George Orwell would later lampoon this sentiment with, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others," in his satirical allegory Animal Farm.
We don't need a return to Enlightenment values that were flawed from the beginning and now represent that Western values that the Empire and its vassals are trying to impose through neoliberalism. We need to revisit those values in terms of the 21st century. The 18th century is long past. It was an advance at the time, but looking back to it is not the way forward now.
The End of Neoliberalism and the Rebirth of History