08-11-2021, 01:04 AM
Neoliberalism is simply mirror-image Marxism -- the idea that people exist solely to enrich and indulge the economic elites or to enforce the will of those elites. Even if greater prosperity usually means more human happiness, such prosperity as neoliberalism engenders requires great suffering from the masses and has no idea of when to start sharing the rewards. Supposedly people exist solely for their own economic gratification, but neoliberalism in practice denies economic gratification to any but the elites. Such happiness as people have comes from better times as a store of utility.
The usual calculus of economics is that consumption (as what one pays) defines happiness, so paying $20 to use a recently-privatized toll road that one recently paid $4 to use is an improvement of $16. (Paying less and getting more is progress, which means that spending $200 to get a 32
flat-screen TV that could easily last twenty years without a repair in 2021 dollars is a huge improvement over paying $600 in 1981 dollars for a 25" console TV that one must call a repairman every four years to replace the picture tube. Getting more for less as the result of technological progress is boon. Paying more for something monopolized on the cheap so that its rapacious owner can extract every possible penny for use is oppression.
The neoliberals also ignore that marginal utility means more toward the bottom end in society. The gruel that prevents starvation is much more precious to its recipient than is the indulgent repast of caviar to some plutocrat. To add to this, the more inequitable the social order, the more it must rely upon threats and punishments instead of economic rewards to win compliance, such implying the need for extreme brutality in enforcing the rules.
The neoliberal ideology may have little more to offer the common man than pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die, which seems to contradict the self-indulgent behaviors that people commonly attribute to people who can buy all the pie that they want easily. As someone who takes the moral teachings of the Bible seriously, I interpret Thou shalt not steal" to also include "Thou shalt not exploit".
Donald Trump is the purest expression of neoliberal ideology, but he has shown a complete absence of any novelty in thought.
The usual calculus of economics is that consumption (as what one pays) defines happiness, so paying $20 to use a recently-privatized toll road that one recently paid $4 to use is an improvement of $16. (Paying less and getting more is progress, which means that spending $200 to get a 32
flat-screen TV that could easily last twenty years without a repair in 2021 dollars is a huge improvement over paying $600 in 1981 dollars for a 25" console TV that one must call a repairman every four years to replace the picture tube. Getting more for less as the result of technological progress is boon. Paying more for something monopolized on the cheap so that its rapacious owner can extract every possible penny for use is oppression.
The neoliberals also ignore that marginal utility means more toward the bottom end in society. The gruel that prevents starvation is much more precious to its recipient than is the indulgent repast of caviar to some plutocrat. To add to this, the more inequitable the social order, the more it must rely upon threats and punishments instead of economic rewards to win compliance, such implying the need for extreme brutality in enforcing the rules.
The neoliberal ideology may have little more to offer the common man than pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die, which seems to contradict the self-indulgent behaviors that people commonly attribute to people who can buy all the pie that they want easily. As someone who takes the moral teachings of the Bible seriously, I interpret Thou shalt not steal" to also include "Thou shalt not exploit".
Donald Trump is the purest expression of neoliberal ideology, but he has shown a complete absence of any novelty in thought.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.