the neoliberal vision of the future

[Jeff Robinson]

Not that you've been all that subtle tho? A lot of killing talk coming from you Jeff.

But I am subtle enough to appreciate the distinction between verbal pugilism and murderous intent tho.

 

[TruXta]

But I am subtle enough to appreciate the distinction between verbal pugilism and murderous intent tho.

You might be, others not so much.

 

[onarchy]

Let's just abolish government and tell industry to sort out its own educated, trained workforce, healthcare, roads, communications and military.

I have no idea why you are mixing peaceful activity (education, health care, roads, communications) in with forceful activity (military). The government should stay out of all peaceful activity, and only be the final arbiter of force to settle disputes and to protect peaceful people from violators.

Would they:

1. Get together and decide that the sensible way to do this would be for them all to pay into a pot and collectively purchase the infrastructure, employing a bureaucracy to administer that infrastructure, or

2. Fuck off to a proper grown-up country that understands the real reasons companies establish operations in their economies.

There is a third option that you don't consider: just like industry today is profiting from producing all the food, steel, clothes, copper, internet wires, electrical wires, coal, oil, electronics, medicines, phones, cars etc. industry would simply start making roads, health care, education and communications for profit too, and they would do a much, much, much better job than the government.

 

[TruXta]

Can anyone be bothered to demolish Onan's cod epistemology? I haven't the time til tonight.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

The concepts of socialists are very very bad because they don't correspond to reality, and if one actually tries to use these concepts to orient in reality one ends up walking off a cliff. That's why socialism always leads down the path of totalitarianism and destruction even though the socialist believes he is riding into the sunset. That's why socialists are wrong about almost everything and misunderstand almost everything that has to do with politics or economics. Their concepts are simply inefficient and sometimes directly wrong, with disaster as a direct and measurable outcome.

Tell you what, why don't you wait until after you've established your free state and it's become a thriving beacon and freedom and liberty before you start lecturing other people about political dead ends.

 

[Idris2002]

Idris, what makes you think that western capitalism ever had the capacity to accurately predict and plan for this future? I think that gives too much credit to the few people who're doing elite strategising as opposed to the vast majority of capitalists who're mostly focused on the next few quarters worth of earnings.

Well, to put it this way - it may have been Thatcher who popularised the phrase 'a property-owning democracy' but the idea itself had been knocking around Tory circles from the 1930s onwards. Well, they've sold off the social housing, got people on to the property ladder/treadmill, and yet their world remains in a state of chassis.

Or look at the tea party in the states - their dream is of escaping backwards into a wholly mythical and idealised past, not of creating 'morning in America' as Reagan did (or purported to be doing).

 

[Dillinger4]

 

[Idris2002]

 

[Bernie Gunther]

There's some interesting thoughts/ experience of small scale coalitions forming and acting here:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/theodore050411.html

Some interesting insight there besides the organisational stuff I was asking about.

While we might have had the "end of welfare as we knew it" in the United States -- a rolling back of welfare entitlement -- we had a simultaneous rolling forward of workfare strategies and state surveillance of the poor. In housing markets, where we've seen the razing of public housing developments, we've seen a rolling out of voucher systems and marketized/privatized systems of housing provision. Neoliberal urbanism and neoliberal statecraft haven't only been about dismantling inherited regulatory landscapes from a previous era; they have been about rolling forward a set of marketized, market-disciplinary forms of regulation and control. And that is seeping into evermore spheres of everyday life. That is the generative face of neoliberalism.

butchers source above, my emphasis

We've had a few right-wingers on here already trying to push the Daily Mail propaganda rationale for those forms of control I think.

 

[invisibleplanet]

onarchy - could you please make your own thread to discuss 'socialists' - the topic here is 'neoliberal vision of the future'

 

[8ball]

Let's just abolish government and tell industry to sort out its own educated, trained workforce, healthcare, roads, communications and military.

Would they:

1. Get together and decide that the sensible way to do this would be for them all to pay into a pot and collectively purchase the infrastructure, employing a bureaucracy to administer that infrastructure, or

2. Fuck off to a proper grown-up country that understands the real reasons companies establish operations in their economies.

They would:

3: Tie themselves in knots with mutual leasing plans leveraging the patch of infrastructure that sits on their own property against that which sits on someone else's until the whole shebang collapses and the system reverts to feudalism between rival gangs of road/drug/junta/ISP providers.

 

[TruXta]

Well, to put it this way - it may have been Thatcher who popularised the phrase 'a property-owning democracy' but the idea itself had been knocking around Tory circles from the 1930s onwards. Well, they've sold off the social housing, got people on to the property ladder/treadmill, and yet their world remains in a state of chassis.

Or look at the tea party in the states - their dream is of escaping backwards into a wholly mythical and idealised past, not of creating 'morning in America' as Reagan did (or purported to be doing).

A vision does not equal a plan tho. We might be talking at cross-purposes here, of course. BTW, what do you mean by "a state of chassis"? The only chassis I know has to do with cars.

 

[Idris2002]

A vision does not equal a plan tho. We might be talking at cross-purposes here, of course. BTW, what do you mean by "a state of chassis"? The only chassis I know has to do with cars.

Sorry, it maybe just an Irish thing, possibly invented by the playwright Sean O'Casey. He uses the phrase 'a state of chassis' in (I think) Juno and the Paycock, to express the view that the world is in a state of stagnation, decline, etc.

Maybe we are talking at cross-purposes here. Does a 'vision for the future' mean an utopian object of desire, like onarchy's fantasy Free state, or does it just mean new proposals for crushing the poor beneath an iron heel as in the bits bolded in Bernie's post above?

 

[Motmakt]

You're a buddhist who goes with the individualist clap-trap of Onar et al? Ever heard of anatta? For some reason I think you might have read about Buddhism and even spoken to some buddhists, but you haven't really understood what it's about.

Yes, i am obviously lying about my beliefs because of all the benefits i enjoy on this forum as a practicing buddhist
Freedom from disturbing emotions, liberation from the ego and ulitmately enlightenment is what buddhism is about. It's about happiness without attachment, it's about compassion for all living beings.
I did become a libertarian before i became a buddhist, but they are very compatible. Since i believe in using force only in self-defence, i see the libertarian view of the states rights and tasks to be the best way to implement freedom from violence. I don't believe i have the right to force you to do anything you don't want as long as you are peaceful. If we implemented a state based on this principle, we would experience a society as close to freedom as we can make. I don't believe anarchy would lead to more freedom, as i see the states role of protecting those who can't protect themselves too important.

 

[TruXta]

Sorry, it maybe just an Irish thing, possibly invented by the playwright Sean O'Casey. He uses the phrase 'a state of chassis' in (I think) Juno and the Paycock, to express the view that the world is in a state of stagnation, decline, etc.

Maybe we are talking at cross-purposes here. Does a 'vision for the future' mean an utopian object of desire, like onarchy's fantasy Free state, or does it just mean new proposals for crushing the poor beneath an iron heel as in the bits bolded in Bernie's post above?

Must be a bit of an Irish thing, never heard of it before. Interesting.

Anyway, vision for the future, what does it mean? IDK, I suppose it depends on your analytical lens. On the one hand we've got several competing visions of the future, some of which can be called neo-liberalist, some of which can't. I think it's worth trying to separate out those longer-term visions/rationalities/orders of worth/ideologies from actual mechanisms and policies, if only to see whether in fact neo-liberalism is more of a rhetorical process than a hands-on policy process.

 

[TruXta]

Yes, i am obviously lying about my beliefs because of all the benefits i enjoy on this forum as a practicing buddhist
Freedom from disturbing emotions, liberation from the ego and ulitmately enlightenment is what buddhism is about. It's about happiness without attachment, it's about compassion for all living beings.
I did become a libertarian before i became a buddhist, but they are very compatible. Since i believe in using force only in self-defence, i see the libertarian view of the states rights and tasks to be the best way to implement freedom from violence. I don't believe i have the right to force you to do anything you don't want as long as you are peaceful. If we implemented a state based on this principle, we would experience a society as close to freedom as we can make. I don't believe anarchy would lead to more freedom, as i see the states role of protecting those who can't protect themselves too important.

Stop trying to misrepresent me, nowhere did I say you were lying. I said you don't know jack about Buddhism. There's a difference. Speaking of Buddhism and freedom, what's your take on the Five Precepts? How do they square with peaceful free co-existence?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I think I go along with what I take to be the position of that article I was quoting. The neo-liberal vision, which comes from some of the same places as the fantasies of onarchy and his mates, but which actually controlled the levers of power for a couple of decades, is running out of ideological steam.

So the many projects for e.g. finding new ways to do primitive accumulation in the so-called 'developed' world and of demonising/imposing monetarised control regimes on the poor are still very much active, but nobody apart from a few weirdos (see above) actually believes the rhetoric anymore. Most people who were persuaded by it back in the day, can now see that it's a failed ideology and a cover for socialising losses. Right now though, nothing much appears poised to take its place ...

 

[rekil]

Sorry, it maybe just an Irish thing, possibly invented by the playwright Sean O'Casey. He uses the phrase 'a state of chassis' in (I think) Juno and the Paycock, to express the view that the world is in a state of stagnation, decline, etc.

It's a malapropism I think.

 

[8ball]

Most people who were persuaded by it back in the day, can now see that it's a failed ideology and a cover for socialising losses.

Those who still believe in the ideology (and had any shred of integrity) would have been arguing very hard against the socialisation of losses.

Not that they would ever have been listened to. Useful idiots who outlive their usefulness are easy to ignore.

 

[Idris2002]

It's a malapropism I think.

Begorrah, Oi tink you're right, so ye are.

 

[invisibleplanet]

Begorrah, Oi tink you're right, so ye are.

Now that's sorted, it's time for scoops

 

[ViolentPanda]

In the spirit of getting back to the pre-loon topic under discussion ...

So one interesting question becomes what sort of alliances might arise between different groups of people who feel compelled for whatever reason (immediate economic distress, environmental costs, outrage at injustice, attachment to values based on things other than profitability etc) to resist this reconstruction of all human values in terms of profit?

Difficult to predict, because degree of resistance will vary. People being motivated by a spectrum of behaviours from selfishness to altruism, we might take a punt on the primary immediate motivation for resistance being "immediate economic distress", but of course that doesn't preclude your other motives making an appearance.

One "alliance" I've noticed being punted by the usual suspects in their roundabout way is around "class", along the lines of "forget your class, act via your identity as a public servant/student/civil servant". I'm not sure this is helpful, insofar as you swap one set of problems for another that will probably benefit the classes unevenly.

 

[onarchy]

onarchy - could you please make your own thread to discuss 'socialists' - the topic here is 'neoliberal vision of the future'

I just wonder how on earth you can have a meaningful thread about the neoliberal vision of the future when you are wrong on virtually every aspect of politics, economics, history and philosophy? You're living in a parallel universe completely detached from reality and have zero understanding of it. Before you can have a meaningful discussion about the neoliberal vision of the future (or any political topic for that matter) you need to go into rehab to un-brainwash yourself.

I know this sounds pretty arrogant, but how many times have you ever even remotely considered the possibility that we liberals actually are correct and that YOU are the ones who are caught in some psychotic fantasy? Did that even occur to your once? Or are you so power arrogant that you will dismiss even the possibility that you could wrong about virtually everything?

 

[Dillinger4]

You are right. That does sound arrogant. Incredibly arrogant.

 

[fredfelt]

Has anyone actually directly answered the question yet?

There is no neoliberal vision of the future. It's essentially nihilist in its outlook.

 

[onarchy]

You are right. That does sound arrogant. Incredibly arrogant.

And yet, every single one in this thread assumes that *I* am wrong in virtually everything. Pretty arrogant, eh?

 

[Idris2002]

And yet, every single one in this thread assumes that *I* am wrong in virtually everything. Pretty arrogant, eh?

What was the author and title of the last book on Irish history you read?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Yep, also, if onarchy had anything meaningful to contribute, he'd be able to do it within the terms of reference of normal people talking about this stuff.

It's not like urbanites don't disagree with each other. They do frequently, and often call each other 'cunts' in the process.

What we don't often see here, because it's characteristic of fringe groups like Randites, extreme conspiracy nuts and UFO cultists, is someone failing to be able to engage at all, because they can't even discuss this stuff without major conceputal distortion and mangling of historical facts as their position would fall apart if they tried.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

And yet, every single one in this thread assumes that *I* am wrong in virtually everything. Pretty arrogant, eh?

It's not an assumption, it's based on what you write.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

And yet, every single one in this thread assumes that *I* am wrong in virtually everything. Pretty arrogant, eh?

There's wrong and wrong. If we were talking about say the date of the battle of waterloo, you might be wrong or you might be right, but we could easily sort that out.

You aren't wrong like that though, you're doing the equivalent of insisting that 5 is an even number based on a revelation from on high. Pointless to even get into it with you while you do that kind of stuff.