Tag Archives: Neoliberalism

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...

At the simplest level, "it's the incentives, stupid." And incentives reflect underlying values and value structure that shape interests and the their pursuit. Foundationally, it about the level of collective consciousness. Want to change social behavior for the "better"? Raise the level of collective consciousness. But what are the criteria of "better"? How can they be determined – instrumentally by outcomes, deontologically on the basis of universally applicable rules), virtue based...

Across the West, usual suspects have been trying to impose the narrative that protests from Barcelona to Santiago have been inspired by Hong Kong. That’s nonsense. Hong Kong is a complex, very specific situation, which I have analyzed, for instance, here, mixing anger against political non-representation with a ghostly image of China. Each of the outbursts – Catalonia, Lebanon, Iraq, the Gilets Jaunes/Yellow Vests for nearly a year now – are due to very specific reasons. Lebanese and...

It is not common for an OECD county to shoot and kill 16 people in two days of socially motivated riots. (Perhaps only Turkey, in its unending wars against the Kurdish guerilla, comes close to that level of violence.) This is however what Chilean government, the poster child of neoliberalism and transition to democracy, did last week in the beginning of protests that do not show the signs of subsiding despite cosmetic reforms proposed by President Sebastian Piñera.The fall from grace of...

More than 46 years of initially military imposed neoliberalism has finally exploded into widespread frustration, protest and violence. This neoliberalism culminated in 2017 with twelve businessmen, among them Chilean President Sebastián Piñera, monopolizing at least 17% of the national GDP, demonstrating the huge gap in wealth equity. There is little doubt why the latest protests have exploded violently, with 18 dead so far – Piñera had declared war on his own people to protect his...

Neoliberalism is – literally – burning. And from Ecuador to Chile, South America, once again, is showing the way, Pepe Escobar writes. Strategic Culture FoundationBurn, Neoliberalism, Burn Pepe Escobar

The Brexit issue in Britain has been marked by many different estimates of GDP (income) loss arising from different configurations of the Brexit. The media is flush with lurid headlines about the catastrophe awaiting Britain. As regular readers will appreciate, I am not convinced by any of those predictions. But as I said the day after the Referendum in this blog post – Why the Leave victory is a great outcome (June 27, 2016) – that when I tweeted it was a ‘great outcome’ I didn’t say that...

Should be "neoliberalism" instead of "liberalism."New StatesmanWhy is “millennial socialism” on the rise? Because liberalism is failing Lea Ypi

A New York Times profile summarizes the work done by Luigi Zingales and the Stigler Center on regulating digital platforms and describes it as a necessary evolution in the traditional Chicago approach.... ProMarket — The blog of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business“The World Has Changed”: the New York Times on Luigi Zingales, the “Chicago School,” and the Threat of Tech MonopoliesSee also at ProMarketPresenting: The Stigler Center’s Report on How to Rein...

I have regularly noted how the UK Guardian, the so-called newspaper for progressives as opposed to The Times, which serves the Tories, has been a primary media instrument for propagating neo-liberal economic myths. It has also been part of Project Fear, which the Remainers thought would see the June 2016 Referendum resolved in their favour, and have ever since been moaning about the need for another vote – you know, democracy as long as it delivers what you want. But when the Tories...