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Forum Post: Neoliberalism: The Impossible Ideal

Posted 7 years ago on Nov. 16, 2016, 12:32 p.m. EST by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

Von Hayek begat von Mises. Von Mises begat Milton Friedman. Milton Friedman begat Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan with Ayn Rand. Von Hayek proclaimed that the economic rents, accruing to the rich ruling elite class at the exponential rate of compound interest, were beneficial to the human race and must not be taxed, regulated or inhibited in any way. The neoliberals so begotten, including the Clintons and the recreant Obama, have inferred since their ideological rebirths that trade agreements must support property right monopolization rents. Workers' right to survival must not impede the concentration of wealth.

The only recourse most of us have is to create our own money making enterprise and gather hundreds or thousands of times more than average for ourselves. When everyone has become rich no one will have to dirty their hands growing crops, digging ores, manufacturing goods or even doing material or useful services. We can all invest our inherited or created money and live by the work of our servants. Everyone will have the share they deserve.

A George Monbiot article at The Guardian traces some of the history that brought us to the place in which we live.

"... The book was 'The Constitution of Liberty' by Frederick Hayek. Its publication, in 1960, marked the transition from an honest, if extreme, philosophy to an outright racket. The philosophy was called neoliberalism. It saw competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. The market would discover a natural hierarchy of winners and losers, creating a more efficient system than could ever be devised through planning or by design. Anything that impeded this process, such as significant tax, regulation, trade union activity or state provision, was counter-productive. Unrestricted entrepreneurs would create the wealth that would trickle down to everyone...."

excerpted from: "Neoliberalism: the deep story that lies beneath Donald Trump's triumph" by George Monbiot

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/14/neoliberalsim-donald-trump-george-monbiot

Thanks for the tip, ImNotMe!

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12 Comments


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[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

So ''a new kind of economy is needed: fairer, more inclusive, less exploitative, less destructive of society and the planet. “We’re in a time when people are much more open to radical economic ideas,” says Michael Jacobs, a former prime ministerial adviser to Gordon Brown. “The voters have revolted against neoliberalism. The international economic institutions – the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund – are recognising its downsides.” Meanwhile, the 2008 financial crisis and the previously unthinkable government interventions that halted it have discredited two central neoliberal orthodoxies: that capitalism cannot fail, and that governments cannot step in to change how the economy works.

''A huge political space has opened up. In Britain and the US, in many ways the most capitalist western countries, and the ones where its problems are starkest, an emerging network of thinkers, activists and politicians has begun to seize this opportunity. They are trying to construct a new kind of leftwing economics: one that addresses the flaws of the 21st-century economy, but which also explains, in practical ways, how future leftwing governments could create a better one.'' From ...

spero ...

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 4 years ago

A Re-Awakening is Underweigh

Thanks for the link

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

Consider ''We must end Neoliberalism, or Neoliberalism Will End Us!'' by Fred Guerin:

spero ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

''Neoliberalism has engaged a fierce assault on what we call the sphere of social reproduction. That means all the activities and programs that support people and their reproduction: from birthing and raising children, elder care and the work that goes on inside the private household to things like public education, health care, transportation, retirement income, and housing. Neoliberalism has squeezed all of that. It says that women need to be working full-time in the paid workforce and at the same time that states need to cut spending on social programs as part of austerity and financialization.'' - from ...

respice, adspice, prospice ...

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 4 years ago

Death to Tory traitors to the American Revolution

https://twitter.com/AGKais1/status/1137094540018495489

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 4 years ago

Replying to @AGKais1

A large portion of the general public goes along with this because of an unhealthy unrealistic love affair with fantasy Royalty!

https://twitter.com/DKAtoday/status/1137160847548125184

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 4 years ago

How about Red China's newly acquired Parasol Island's love affair with Victoria which was not a fantasy Royalty? Is it realistic?

According to the inevitable law of competition, the stronger ones tend to win so eventually the strongest reign and things become stagnant to serve their interests. Then the numerous others eventually become fed up with their deteriorating livelihood and go revolutionary.

Congratulations to Red China for having become a developed country! The people in its richest city wanting more than being well-fed well-clad indicates that it has advanced to a higher level of development in Maslow's pyramid of human needs and wants. What counts is what Red China will do about it. Once extradition of any individual to any country from Hong Kong becomes law, the Privy Council should extradict Carrie Lam to stand trial in Guantanamera's newest Fuckgina facility. The U.S.S. Intrepid may see real action earlier than France, Germany, Poland, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, etc. having been overrun by Russia. Don't lose sight of that Big Red Button because Vladimir Pootin is ready for a shoot-out of the Cuban Missile Crisis kind - noblesse oblige. I'm itching to grab ahold of, if possible, but at least take a peek at what's under his underwear. Is he shitting there? This guy has muscles alright but does he have it where it needs to do the heavy heaving and lifting? Any 'testicle' is surely and naturally interested in the prowess of its neighbor (Sarah, don't get wet yet between your legs - hurry, get the red lipstick for the pig because there may very well be Russian ghosts around in Alaska still searching for the beef-stroganoff bomber sandwiches,) the erect up-on-high head of the Russian Federation. He needs a big Cuban cigar to blow smoke up into Donbass oblast. Hmm, Vladimir Pootin must be having a jolly good time master-debasing himself with the orange Stück stuck into the White-Washing Machine. Has the U.S. bought up all of Russia's long-range missiles already? It's just too bad that Werner von Braun is dead. Now we need to ride the Russian rockets just to get to drink liquid gold in the International Space Station with the Russians. What an intimate bromance this is: no greater love is there than this that we and our союз comrades drink all of our mixed-up urine together in orbital space. 干尿 or 干水?

Russia had first-strike capability as much as did the U.S. Anytime any side can end this World's habitability. The only difference is that we now have the orange Stück for stabilizing our 'Louisiana Saturday Night' spent in the White-Washing machine. I still know how to crawl under the table, cover my head, and stay away from windows upon sensing the warning of a nuclear attack underway. Most people hurt in and near Chelyabinsk wouldn't have been injured in God's first warning strike (0.5 Megaton-TNT-equivalent airburst at a low-entry elevation angle of 20° so the kinetic energy in the direction of the meteor's motion is attenuated by the factor of sin 20° = 0.342 in the directed vertically down towards the ground component) in recent memory if they had only learnt our kiddie stuff in school to duck under a table or a desk away from windows after the flash @6:52 and before the shockwave @7:10. I can use Lenin's string but not to unleash oblast, being a "responsive" 'testicle'.

I wonder why Pootin's not alarmed by Red China's missiles having moved into Xinjiang? Oh, he is but what can he do? Nothing there. I wouldn't be surprised that a part of Russia had to be sold to or annexed by Red China in the future. The population pressure is growing there just like Imperial Japan was prior to yet another one of its invasions into China. Qing dynasty owned a part of what is now Russia so if Red China had got Hong Kong back, the same argument should get Russia back. The Mongols previously also conquered to near Moscow and they were coming from China. If this logic of ownership based on historical occupation applies, there will be a lot of territorial conflicts.

After one month of living in "financial independence," I became discontent so I changed. Having a vision helped. Changing the philosophical outlook also helped. The restlessness largely disappeared after I had discovered the downside of travelling and acted accordingly. There were better ways than travelling to acquire information, facts, knowledge, and wisdom. Of course, some initial travelling is desirable to provide "the hooks" for hanging the new things on. A puzzle needing only a few pieces to be completed is easier done than one needing many pieces.

Two people can look at the same artwork and see very different things. Why? Seeing is far more than just looking! Many cameras can look well but they don't see well. Seeing is a strenuous exercise in information retrieval, evaluation, integration, reasoning, tailoring, etc.

When I was looking at an artwork at a younger less-informed age, I would be done in a moment so I wondered why someone else could look at it for a long time. Then I realized why! The observers were different! Once a sufficient number of puzzle pieces have coalesced, the puzzle becomes much more interesting and time seems to fly by too fast for the click-, click-, click-, click-ing of new pieces fitting into the puzzle. The interest level in one's mind can distort one's sense of the flow of time.

Russia is also reaching a higher level of development. Congratulations!

This is what our guitar wants to say, too: "We will demand an investigation into the fabricated criminal case, and all such cases in Russia."

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 7 years ago

It's like the Lake Wobegon miracle. "... where all the children are above average."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 7 years ago

''Countering Trump: Let's Build a People-Powered Democracy and Economy'', by Geof Gilbert:

Solidarity!

[-] 0 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

''Neoliberalism must be pronounced dead and buried. Where next? The neoliberal experiment – lower taxes on the rich, deregulation of labour and product markets, financialisation, and globalisation – has been a spectacular failure.'' from ...

better late than never?

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 4 years ago

Kameraden, los geht's!

日本帝国は同盟国でした

Russia meddled in the U.S. elections of 2016 so it believes that it is a new powerful nation like the old emerging Empire of Japan. "Down to Gorky Park," China's mainland is a newly developed breakaway kidnapped super-province which is following the glorious path of the Imperial Japanese Empire, biding its time awaiting the return and revenge of the Tigress Mom. Remember how the U.S. gained the Soviet Union's war technologies through the reunification of Germany, via East Germany's Deutsche Demokratische Republik. Think about and trace how the enemies of the U.S. had gained U.S. and its "allies'" war technologies. Iran has F-16 via Venezuela (and many F-14s) so the U.S. could similarly gain a Russian S-400 air-defense system by having Turkey purchase it for NATO as a "front country" should Turkey change its side again. Russia will sell NATO (including the U.S.) its S-400 air-defense system to shoot down their aircraft from their Syrian bases as well as for devising electronic counter-measures. Turkey should ask Russia for their Identify-Friend-or-Foe equipment to avoid the shooting down of Russian aircraft. In a similar vein, Japan is importing the deadly Ebola virus! Our Center for Disease Control and Prevention also import many different very deadly diseases' germs. DDR wasn't German but Russian. It's not democratic but totalitarian. It's not a republic but a single-party dictatorship. DDR = Russian totalitarian single-party dictatorship (those who had emerged from DDR such as Angela Merkel should know the truth unlike the younger generation of Germans who seem to forget why freedom begat prosperity.) Most so-called communist states had never ever shared their "power" (beware of countries with names having 'people', 'democratic', etc. in them; they are as economic as "Voodoo Economics" and as curvaceous as the Hahaha Laugher Curve of deferring massive tax increases to a later period to recover from the working class {rank and files, working stiffs, and Trumpanzees} the foregone-to-the-wealthy-ones revenues) with their own community of people so they were in fact liar states. Time for the wind of change to blow did tell who the liar states were and still are, now numbering fewer than the fingers on one hand. The only way they still survive is to keep their own people from knowing. When a body needs phosphorus, they present the carcinogenic arsenic, which is in the same group with phosphorus in the periodic table of the chemical elements. Here is a glorious example: the DPRK is the happiest country in the world! Yay, it's no wonder that our Otto Warmbier had craved for sneaking a peek at their secret for happiness. His getting into a coma and dying was nirvana (dust to dust and homecoming!) Although this video was from Russia with love, Russia-Today remained truthful in not claiming that Russia itself was much happier than the DPRK. Russia observes modesty, a virtue. My Mom made us a "Russian" soup which filled our stomachs full quite well and cheaply. I liked the potatoes, tomatoes, kidney beans, and salted vegetables in the soup. How authentically Russian it was I couldn't tell but the modest soup was good and tasty enough for a preschooler like me. Isn't it interesting that the Russian Tea Room is situated next to Carnegie Hall (which show Russian ballets sometimes perhaps)? "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" "Practice, practice, and practice [the Russian way]!" Remember to put Turkey under "BSL-4" containment (don't import it if the proper level of biohazard containment cannot be achieved) before taking apart the S-400 air-defense system to take a really good look inside and outside. After we had bought an electric wall clock, I took apart our mechanical bedside alarm clock to find what made it tick (spring-release mechanism), alarm (bell and hammer), and keep time accurately (with a coil-spring axle-connected spinning-top pendulum with a very sharp conical axle end.) I'd never figured out how to put it back together again. The Second Law of Thermodynamics and subsequently Apermanent Early-onset Tourette's Syndrome (AETS) hit the eight-year-old kid. I became radioactive (and nuclear-powered in swearing "Fukushima," at least for a while) from the clock-hands' pale-green nightglow radium paint. Hmm, Turkey must ask Russia for the owners' manuals, [azo-dye] blueprints, technical documentation, and all source code and tools for reversible engineering of the S-400 air-defense system in the case of our naturalized-Trumpanzian Chewbacca not knowing how to put it back together again. It'll be a lot better than having our Bam-Bam Baby trying to take it apart with its gavel. I got some fun parts from the dissected clock such as a long-spinning top, a round spherically shaped glass for drying chemicals in it, a small musical bell with a tiny hammer to strike it with, etc. I had wanted to coat the glass to make the reflecting mirror of a Newtonian telescope but I didn't know of Tollen's reagent. Learn what to do if you should catch a nuclear bomb by mistake or by design @8:36. This is Global Plutonium Association's Lesson Number Six. The easiest way to dismantle a nuclear bomb is to use it for its intended and designed high purpose. It takes a goodly nuclear bomb to neutralize a badly nuclear bomb. The bomb expert didn't disassemble the bombs found on a street but detonated them on the football/soccer field. Nation states can catch Tourette's Syndrome, too. The U.S. and Iran is one such dynamic duo. I hope that it's just the Apermanent Early-onset version, being the same as my kiddie AETS while I was grabbling with the very sexy mechanical [radioactive] alarm clock (stopped at two minutes before midnight when the earnest surgery began.) "One, Two..." The toddler asked, "Two already?" "Yes, 'Tis..."

What's beyond hydrogen bombs? Antimatter bombs, probably to calm the Earth with the peace and quiet of the post-crematory.

There was a humongous and beautiful tree of life growing in a "park" in an urban center with swings, slides, etc. for children to play with. The "park" was a strangely peaceful and quiet place to eat a breakfast on an early Sunday morning while the children played. Why is the tree so strangely out of place in the shadows of tall office buildings? Doesn't economics dictate the cutting down of that tree for more palaces of "development"? Why is the tree so humongous, tall, beautiful, and green? I saw bluish dark powdery dust on and near its roots.

I imagined guavas.

Transitional rules: Cemetery -> a revered macabre place stays vacant -> until a longtime later people died or forgot and started using it as a parking lot -> for the funeral home and the new crematory which popped up nearby to handle the overflowed workload of the cemetery -> sad ,,Rot scheint die Sonne" children whose dead relatives were being serviced and cremated nearby needed a place to play, cheer up a bit, and eat a snack -> thus came a "park" in the midst of the urban jungle with the tree of life in it -> ashes to leaves and no guava.

A couple drove their car to park there, walked a bit to the "park," read the signpost, and drove away shortly thereafter.

快乐的6月4日运动。

Beijing had a terrible battle-tank traffic jam so a volunteer-army's citizen tried to direct the traffic for the tank crews because the soldiers in the tanks were all wearing party-approved noise-cancelling earmuffs due to the extremely cold weather so they couldn't hear well the carefully choreographed marching directives. They need to learn from the Russians who could keep their ears unfrozen and still hear their marching directives. I can talk in Radio Moslem-Cow so that they will understand the moo-moo-elimination logic.

Why do the Moslem-Cow whooping cranes always raise their heads high and crank their necks in order to look down their beaks upon the red brine shrimp swimming in the pootinium-clad chamber pot as it rocks by them? Is it because the pot is relatively short? Or the cranes need to see them through their reading glasses as Mother Goose did when she read?

Kätzchen, liebes Kätzchen, wo gingst du hin?
In London besuchte ich die Königin.
Kätzchen, liebes Kätzchen, was machtest du da?
Ich fing ein Mäuschen unter dem Stuhl, haha!

Muttergans, ist das Freundschaft? Ist das wahr?
Ja, Freundschaft und Spiel, das ist doch klar!

The Clockwork Orange from Celebration, Florida "supports" a Brotherly exit. Clean the clock glass before creating Tollen's reagent.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

''We Are Witnessing Imperial Decline in an Age of Planetary Decline'', by Tom Engelhardt:

''Don’t try to deny it! The political temperature of this country is rising fast. Call it Trump change or Trump warming, if you want, but grasp one thing: increasingly, you’re in a different land and, whatever happens to Donald Trump, the results down the line are likely to be ever less pretty. Trump change isn’t just an American phenomenon, it’s distinctly global.''

''Let me say that the late Chalmers Johnson would have understood President Trump perfectly. The Donald clearly arrived on the scene as blowback — the CIA term of tradecraft Johnson first put into our everyday vocabulary — from at least two things: an American imperium gone wrong with its never-ending wars, ever-rising military budgets, and ever-expanding national security state, and a new “gilded age” in which three men (Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett) have more wealth than the bottom half of society and the .01% have one of their own, a billionaire, in the Oval Office.''

''Never before in history has the rise and decline of imperial powers taken place in the context of the decline of the planet itself. Try, for instance, to imagine what a “risen” China will look like in an age in which one of its most populous regions, the north China plain, may by century’s end be next to uninhabitable, given the killing heat waves of the future.''

''In the context of both Trump change and climate change, we’re obviously still awaiting our true transformative president, the one who is not a symptom of decline, but a factor in trying to right this country and the Earth before it’s too late. You know, the one who will take as his or her slogan, MTPGA (Make The Planet Great Again).''


Of course, I did not fully read all your reply or click on your embedded links but I have at least attempted a pertinent response. The question remains tho' - will U do the same & attempt to be brief & apt gripes?!

ad iudicium?