[kictanet] Noam Chomsky and the Struggle Against Neoliberalism

[Alex Gakuru]

Taking a break from ICT websites.... 

http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/19990401.htm

Neoliberalism is the defining political economic
paradigm of our time - it refers to the policies and
processes whereby a relative handful of private
interests are permitted to control as much as possible
of social life in order to maximize their personal
profit. Associated initially with Reagan and Thatcher,
neoliberalism has for the past two decades been the
dominant global political economic trend adopted by
political parties of the center, much of the
traditional left, and the right. These parties and the
policies they enact represent the immediate interests
of extremely wealthy investors and less than one
thousand large corporations.

Aside from some academics and members of the business
community, the term neoliberalism is largely unknown
and unused by the public at large, especially in the
United States. There, to the contrary, neoliberal
initiatives are characterized as free market policies
that encourage private enterprise and consumer choice,
reward personal responsibility and entrepreneurial
initiative, and undermine the dead hand of the
incompetent, bureaucratic, and parasitic government,
which can never do good (even when well intentioned,
which it rarely is). A generation of
corporate-financed public relations efforts has given
these terms and ideas a near-sacred aura. As a result,
these phrases and the claims they imply rarely require
empirical defense, and are invoked to rationalize
anything from lowering taxes on the wealthy and
scrapping environmental regulations to dismantling
public education and social welfare programs. Indeed,
any activity that might interfere with corporate
domination of society is automatically suspect because
it would impede the workings of the free market, which
is advanced as the only rational, fair, and democratic
allocator of goods and services. At their most
eloquent, proponents of neoliberalism sound as if they
are doing poor people, the environment, and everybody
else a tremendous service as they enact policies on
behalf of the wealthy few.

The economic consequences of these policies have been
the same just about everywhere, and exactly what one
would expect: a massive increase in social and
economic inequality, a marked increase in severe
deprivation for the poorest nations and peoples of the
world, a disastrous global environment, an unstable
global economy, and an unprecedented bonanza for the
wealthy. Confronted with these facts, defenders of the
neoliberal order claim that the spoils of the good
life will invariably spread to the broad mass of the
population - as long as the neoliberal policies that
exacerbated these problems are not interfered with by
anyone!

In the end, proponents of neoliberalism cannot and do
not offer an empirical defense for the world they are
making. To the contrary, they offer - no, demand - a
religious faith in the infallibility of the
unregulated market, drawing upon nineteenth century
theories that have little connection to the actual
world. The ultimate trump card for the defenders of
neoliberalism, however, is that there is no
alternative. Communist societies, social democracies,
and even modest social welfare states like the United
States have all failed, the neoliberals proclaim, and
their citizens have accepted neoliberalism as the only
feasible course. It may well be imperfect, but it is
the only economic system possible.

Earlier in the twentieth century some critics called
fascism "capitalism with the gloves off," meaning that
fascism was pure capitalism without democratic rights
and organizations. In fact, we know that fascism is
vastly more complex than that. Neoliberalism, on the
other hand, is indeed "capitalism with the gloves
off." It represents an era in which business forces
are stronger and more aggressive, and face less
organized opposition than ever before. In this
political climate they attempt to codify their
political power and enact their vision on every
possible front. As a result, business is increasingly
difficult to challenge, and civil society (nonmarket,
noncommercial, and democratic forces) barely exists at
all......




       
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