Neoliberalism is a dead ideology – but the people still need to put the nails in its coffin

Nice little article by David Harvie (no not David Harvey!) – broadly optimisitc  –  he says that recent events show us that ‘Neoliberalism no longer “makes sense”, but its logic keeps stumbling on, without conscious direction, like a zombie: ugly, persistent and dangerous. Such is the “unlife” of a zombie, a body stripped of its goals, unable to adjust itself to the future’ (NB he’s clearly drawing here on Zombie Economics by John Quiggin.

He makes the very valid point that in our current legitimation crisis (NB that’s a link to Habermas’ book of that title – sometimes it’s nice to keep the classics in mind – nice summary of it at that link too) – ANYWAY, in our current legitimation crisis – as always the logic of the system becomes exposed – and what’s being exposed now is how the establishment of neoliberalism in the UK since the 1980s was linked to three things –

  • Firslty (already widely accepted I think) and most obviously – the dominance of the city and debt fuelled consumption – privileging the city above all else.
  • Secondly, corruption being endemic to the system- as evidenced in Hackgate and the MPs expenses scandal – I’d argue that this in turn rests on the fundamental idea held by elites that there is one rule for them and another for everyone else.
  • Thirdly, the politicisation of the police force – as evidenced in their initial failure to deal with Ian Tomlinson’s murderer and the criminals at NOTW, combined with their infiltration of the anti-capitalist movement. The later is also evidenced,  I’d argue, in the inreasing use of pre-emptive arrests of protesters, and their treatment of the occupiers of Fortnum and Mason.

These crisees need to form the basis of mass action here in the UK to finallybring this ideological system to its knees and put our economy back on a sound footing for the future – for the benefit of all rather than City Bankers and Tory Millionnaires.

 

 

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