Henry Giroux on the Rise of Neoliberalism

This is for anyone who might be interested in an interview with Henry Giroux on the subject of Neoliberalism. I think he writes and speaks eloquently and cogently on the subject and believe he is well worth taking the time and effort to read whether you agree with his assestment of the donimant social and economic paradigm of our time.

A brief background to neoliberalism - it has nothing to do with common meanings of liberal. It is a worldview that both right and left-light subscribe to and is based on economic ideas from the 19th century - so-called classical economics.

truth-out.org...

I think since the 1970s it's been the predominant ideology, certainly in Western Europe and North America. As is well known, it raised havoc in Latin America, especially in Argentina and Chile and other states. It first gained momentum in Chile as a result of the Chicago Boys. (meaning the Chicago School of Economics - i.e. neo-liberalism).

Milton Friedman and that group went down there and basically used the Pinochet regime as a type of petri dish to produce a whole series of policies. But I think if we look at this very specifically, we're talking about a lot of things.

We're talking about:

an ideology marked by the selling off of public goods to private interests;

the attack on social provisions;

the rise of the corporate state organized around privatization, free trade, and deregulation;

the celebration of self interests over social needs;

the celebration of profit-making as the essence of democracy coupled with the utterly reductionist notion that consumption is the only applicable form of citizenship.

But even more than that, it upholds the notion that the market serves as a model for structuring all social relations: not just the economy, but the governing of all of social life.

Before going on I'd read the above quote one - more - time --- Mr. Giroux doesn't dumb things down.

The consequences:

I think that as a mode of governance, it is really quite dreadful because it tends to produce identities, subjects and ways of life driven by a kind of "survival of the fittest" ethic, grounded in the notion of the free, possessive individual and committed to the right of individual and ruling groups to accrue wealth removed from matters of ethics and social cost.

One more and I'll leave you alone to pursue or not:

Democracy has really become two things for a whole range of anti-democratic politicians, anti-intellectuals, and the people who support these policies.

Democracy basically is a word they use, but they empty it, and invert its meaning to justify the most anti-democratic practices and policies, meaning that it's a term that has nothing to do with questions of justice, nothing to do with questions of rights, nothing to do with questions of legality.

As a matter of fact, it becomes a term of deception and diversion - a kind of counterfeit term that's used to justify a whole range of policies that actually are anti-democratic. It's oxymoronic.

The other side of this is that the financial elite and oligarchs despise democracy since they know that neoliberalism is the antithesis of real democracy because it feeds on inequality; it feeds on privilege, it feeds on massive divisiveness, and it revels in producing a theater of cruelty.

All you have to do is look at the way it enshrines a kind of rabid individualism.

It believes that privatization is the essence of all relationships. poster note - consider what this means

It works very hard to eliminate any investment in public values, in public trust.

It believes that democracy is something that doesn't work, and we hear and see this increasingly from the bankers, anti-public intellectuals and other cheerleaders for neoliberal policies.

Again the interview can be found at: truth-out.org...

a reply to: FyreByrd

Some of the comments are superb....

Like:

klauser • 11 hours ago
Neo-liberalism is another word for international fascism.

You could have picked up a hippie newspaper 45 years ago and read about unnatural corporate rights and power, endless war for money, fossil fuel poisoning. and environmental degradation.

In Germany and Scandinavia and other nations they did something about these things.

In the United States, the human garbage at the top overwhelmed the people with violence and propaganda for decades and it has now intensified until the nation is unrecognizable, a sick, neutered corporate state with a vast penal colony.

The craft foundation, culture and economy have been eviscerated. So, it's not the system, it's the people. The American people have no democratic election process and no representative government, whatsoever. They aren't intellectually or spiritually ready for self-rule or rational directions and priorities to save their posterity. They're more amenable to slavery, disease, and a greater war. Deep down, that is what they want.

Harsh - - -

We're talking about: an ideology marked by the selling off of public goods to private interests;
the attack on social provisions; the rise of the corporate state organized around privatization, free trade, and deregulation;
the celebration of self interests over social needs; the celebration of profit-making as the essence of democracy coupled with the utterly reductionist notion that consumption is the only applicable form of citizenship.
But even more than that, it upholds the notion that the market serves as a model for structuring all social relations: not just the economy, but the governing of all of social life.

Qualities only shades away from those of the Neo-Conservatives!
The truth is that the extremes of Liberalism and Conservatism are not polar opposites, but come full circle to meet in a grey area.
As the the article points out, it is this area in which dwells forms of Fascism.
And look, here is the ground occupied by the Globalists! So as political extremities gain more power in Government, so the Globalist agendas are eventually inserted to Government policy.
And we see from the US citizen's perspective, whomever is elected- regardless of party affiliation- serves not the Constitution, but Globalist, Corporate, ultimately Fascist ideologies.