Neoliberalism, the conventional wisdom that has driven the international consensus about government is under attack. Jim Harding writes:
The libertarian view that the individual must relentlessly fight against interference from the government has mushroomed since the 1970s. That government intrusion in our lives must be fervently resisted gained credence from still popular writers such as U.S. Russian refugee, Ayn Rand. By 2009, the combined annual sales of her four novels exceeded one million. Her famous book, Atlas Shrugged, written in 1957 during the Cold War, topped more than 7 million sales after the 2009 financial crash.
The contemporary libertarian view, especially in the U.S., is greatly rooted in opposition to communism. It encouraged the reframing of freedom from authoritarian governments to mean freedom from government authority. The constitutional pursuit of "liberty" in the name of achieving "happiness" was easily slanted this way. The Republican Tea party broadened the support. Bernie Sanders' call for a universal single-payer health-care system, along Canadian or European lines, was met with libertarian attacks that this would make America socialist -- even if such a system can be shown to extend health care to everyone and reduce overall costs.
The libertarian view easily fed into the spread of neoliberalism. Perpetual global economic growth for profit was the new end-game. The freedom to accumulate grew along with the big-box stores. Mass advertising stimulated demand; wants were transformed into perceived needs. China was willing to produce almost anything that Walmart could successfully sell.
Neoliberalism was always fundamentally flawed. But the movers and shakers in western societies conveniently overlooked those flaws:
With their simplistic formulas for fiscal austerity, neoliberal politicians offloaded debt from the government onto families. We were left free to pursue private childcare, if we could find and afford it, but were not free from scarcity, high costs and family anxiety.
The growing private, for-profit market of consumer choices steadily undercut communitarian norms. It accelerated the growth of narcissistic behavior. The growth in identity politics has added to our confusion.
The libertarian view of "rights" has been much more influential than we want to admit. Rights can't exist without responsibilities. We can't expect to have our rights respected if we don't take responsibility to protect the rights of others. This pandemic creates a very new context for the politics of difference and the politics of resentment.
The coronavirus has underscored those weaknesses. And we are relearning lessons which we forgot:
Rather than us being protected from this pandemic by being free from a government authority, our freedom to continue to eat, to have electricity and heat, and to access healthcare if we need it, is solidly based on socio-economic infrastructures being quickly reorganized by authority that flows both ways.
Academic and scientific freedom from authoritarian or largely ignorant politicians facilitates the freedom to execute a rational pandemic strategy. International cooperation accelerates creating a vaccine. Local capacity to do testing and contact tracing is going to be essential to enable any easing of social isolation that won't, in turn, risk the virus returning to the wider province or country. Responsible, informed authority will enhance human freedom and security.
When this is over, will we forget what we have so recently relearned?
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6 comments:
The free market can work in many cases but it is a bit like children playing in a sand box; it needs a responsible adult to supervise the players.
When the adults start believing the children's simple stories hat they tell themselves in the sandbox we get things like neoliberalism.
One of my favourite quotes, and very apropos, watching the horrors in the USA
It is not the fault of our doctors that the medical service of the community, as at present provided for,is a murderous absurdity. That any sane nation, having observed that you could provide for the supply of bread by giving bakers a pecuniary interest in baking for you, should go on to give a surgeon a pecuniary interest in cutting off your leg, is enough to make one despair of political humanity.
George Bernard Shaw
THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA: PREFACE ON DOCTORS
1909
Shaw was an astute student of human nature, jrk.
If neoliberalism is finished - a thought I've heard too often - what do we have to fill the void? What else will hold us together? To what shall we rally?
You've probably seen aerial photos of Berlin in the summer of 1945, a once magnificent city reduced to rubble and ruins. It takes time to clear the streets, to haul away the rubble, and to construct new edifices in place of the old. Our edifices, our political economy, is a ruin.
Neoliberalism lost its utility many years ago. Ralston Saul wrote a book in 2005 heralding the "next great thing" that he imagined was just around the corner. We've waited and waited and waited until it became clear that neoliberalism was a tenacious old bird and wasn't going anywhere gracefully.
So, where do we go from here? There are so many questions that go unasked for fear of having to face the answer.
That's precisely the question, Mound. And I confess I don't know the answer. Call me a fool. But, if we do get an answer, I think it will come from ordinary folks who will push our so-called leaders in that direction.
I hope the answer will not be tyranny.
UBI is a start.
By the time this is over, Gyor, we may get there.
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