Silas Loom
Death to fireworks wankers
The aristocracy and church used to be major players in capitalist structures and now they are declining forces on the sidelines. Is that a problem? Is it really significant enough to merit a new term?
VAT on Private Schools Kicks In
- Thread starter Mr Retro
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The aristocracy and church used to be major players in capitalist structures and now they are declining forces on the sidelines. Is that a problem? Is it really significant enough to merit a new term?
RevolutionSound
Well-Known Member
Neo liberalism as opposed to the post war consensus. Both capitalism, but different in approach. Post war consensus made some concessions to organised labour. Neo liberalism so named as a modern version of classic liberalism. David Harvey's book "A Brief History of Neoliberalism" is a good read on this subject.
Silas Loom
Death to fireworks wankers
Yes, if it’s a meaningful term, it’s probably grounded in the decline of some legacy constraint on capitalism, and organised labour is a better shout than paternalism or religion.
Not quite deserving of chocolate though.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
And a crucial part of the post-war consensus was the idea that certain things are too important to be left to 'the market'. So we see the erosion of the idea of a public good or a commons.
JimW
支那暗杀团
They weren't in the sense of supporting the logic of the market becoming dominant, and that's considering those aristocrats that went all in with mines and so forth.
kabbes
First intersubjective, then internalised
Lbj, I think you’re describing financial capitalism (versus it’s predecessor, welfare capitalism) rather than neoliberalism. The two have gone hand in hand, sure, and are certainly natural bedfellows. But neoliberalism is simply the philosophy that the freedom of the individual takes primacy over all other considerations. This separates it from classical (or enlightenment) liberalism, which paired individual freedoms with individual responsibilities (classically including to God). Neoliberalism is all about freedom from as well as freedom to.
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
I'm not disputing that neoliberalism exists and is a different flavour of capitalism. I was just questioning whether the quoted definition was sufficient to distinguish the two.
BigMoaner
What A Load of Old Bollocks
I’ve always been strangely fascinated with private schools largely because they are so othered due to the fact that it was never an option for me growing up (or my kids).
Read this book. The whole system is grotesque:
Read this book. The whole system is grotesque:
Silas Loom
Death to fireworks wankers
That’s a philosophy which is easily identifiable: Nozick articulates it in Anarchy, State and Utopia. And there is no system of government or society in the world which looks anything like his preposterous ultraminimal state.
Nobody in any position of administrative power believes that any particular right or freedom takes primacy over the others, because they wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in their first decision-making role.
BigMoaner
What A Load of Old Bollocks
Yes liberalised markets and therefore the liberalised psyche, the two are two sides of the same coin. You can do anything you want to/can do! Completely of course separating the man from the island.
RevolutionSound
Well-Known Member
Hmmm, not really. Freedom from poverty?
kabbes
First intersubjective, then internalised
Yes, the world does not operate by pure neoliberalism any more than it operates by any other pure philosophy. But institutions increasingly embed neoliberal principles, which increasingly produces a neoliberal subjectivity — ie the sense that the world naturally operates via individual atomisation, and individuals should be allowed to get on with it. This is measurable on scales.
Taking it back to capitalism rather than neoliberalism per se, there’s a great paper too on how interacting with commodified objects rather than objects given meaning through joint intentionality results in a solipsistic rather than intersubjective self. I’ve attached it, should it be of interest.
Edit: my upload seems to have failed. I’ll come back to do that when I’m not on my phone.
BigMoaner
What A Load of Old Bollocks
Of course. But that’s the point. It separates us into self choosing totally autonomous subjects when actually reality is that the “self” is completely inseparable from the environment.
kabbes
First intersubjective, then internalised
You have freedom from poverty if you just choose it. You need to increase your human capital by deciding the most marketable paths.
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BigMoaner
What A Load of Old Bollocks
”.
Do you even lift, bro?
Silas Loom
Death to fireworks wankers
I was interested enough to download it, but I only get a blank front page. Does it work for anyone else?
I’m a good Jaynsian though, I’m prepared to believe that conceptions of the self evolve, and that language then evolves to reflect that, but that’s a question of evolutionary neurobiology adapting incrementally to societal change - radical changes in subjective experiences of selfhood require a bit more than a few minor adaptations in how capitalism works.
BigMoaner
What A Load of Old Bollocks
It’s a con we play on ourselves. There is very few kind of feudal masters of neoliberalism. Otherwise it wouldn’t be neoliberlaism.
Its feeling free from ideology while at the same time being completely unaware that even the content of our thoughts are informed by it.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Yes, that's what I meant by the naturalisation of the ideas and assumptions, the failure to even conceptualise the possibility of an alternative.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
BigMoaner
What A Load of Old Bollocks
yep, watch out for the buzz words of it too: “natural, evolution.” Often the people saying such words haven’t ever opened up a science book let alone studied evolution in any serious way. Because there is an assumption that we are free there follows that nature is “freely unfolding”. Well it is in anyway because everything is “natural” but what they actually mean is how things “should” be and are preordained to be while missing the reality that we are chained to a massive system of ideology, of ideas only. And I’d say for better and worse, there are good things about it to.
Silas Loom
Death to fireworks wankers
And how does this experience, for let’s say an exploited Deliveroo driver, differ from that of a mediaeval worker in the textiles gig economy?
BigMoaner
What A Load of Old Bollocks
Easier to imagine the end of the world as some have put it.
BigMoaner
What A Load of Old Bollocks
Not a lot, exactly.
one thinks he is free, the other is beholden.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Nice to see him referenced, but Jaynes got a lot of things wrong. He was spot on about the power of metaphors, though.
Silas Loom
Death to fireworks wankers
I know, and he’s horribly wrong on the actual neuroscience, but the underlying idea that gods used to be subjectively real, and the textual exegesis which demonstrates that, is absolutely irresistible.
And the only bit I need to be right for the current discussion is the rough speed of cognitive and social change.
Silas Loom
Death to fireworks wankers
Not a lot, exactly.
I think they probably both think they are free and that the social system which governs distributions of mopeds and of sheep is, if not inevitable, simply what they have to work with.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
He got me reading the Bible to check up on his theories! The bastard.
It took me years to work out exactly how he was wrong. You are right that the ideas are hard to resist.
BigMoaner
What A Load of Old Bollocks
The internal monologue is fascinating. Just sit and watch your own. It doesn’t take long to see that your own being is entirely interdependent. The next step then is seeing through it all somewhat. But step out of one ideology and you just fall into another, it’s the way we are
