This series of posts investigates some of, what for most supporters of neoliberalism, are its unintended consequences. I am, however, not entirely sure that these unintended consequences were not predictable and were not intended by the power elites.
In particular, this series of posts focus on neoliberalism’s effects on liberty. Neoliberalism has been sold as increasing liberty and destroying the interfering State, but I argue that this is dubious at best, and that neoliberalism promotes the liberty of the power elites through capitalist plutocracy and declining liberty for everyone else.
The arguement proceeds by:
1) Discussing liberty and types of liberty. This is all very basic, but necessary to begin with. The suggestion is that changes which increase the liberty of the power elite and business, will not necessarily enable the liberty of other people. Liberty may need to be enabled to exist, rather than simply come into being through lack of restrictions on the ruling class. Furthermore, some argue that liberty involves self-knowledge and self-control, and that this is hard to gain in capitalism which encourages indulgence and false information, as a normal part of its operation.
2) We then look at Neoliberal ideas of liberty, and the reduction of liberty to action in a free market. The market allocates more freedom to those who are wealthy, and less to those who are not, and therefore boosts the opportunity for rule by wealth, or plutocracy. Capitalist markets make people dependent on jobs and obedience, turn liberty into consumption, and put extraction of profit before everything. Making the market both primary and good suggests that profit should be the main indicator of value, makes the interests of big business overrule all others, and strongly implies that people who demonstrate competence in the market are superior and should rule, which further encourages plutocracy.
3) Neoliberals demand a small weak state but they usually neglect to tell people that they mean a State which is weak at helping ordinary citizens, but strong in defending the power of wealth. They pretend that the State is the only form of oppression, but the weaker the State, the easier it is for big business to have disproportionate influence, and the more oppressed other people can become. Wealth enables plutocrats to buy and control all other sources of power from violence to information.
4) After setting out the problems and apparent dynamics of neoliberalism, I then discuss some suggestions for remedying the problems, including the Convention of the States process, and the people’s recapture of the State to break corporate power.
5) Finally there is a note on social mobility. I describe some of the problems with assuming that social mobility is a solution to plutocracy. Social mobility does not have to threaten plutocracy, if it does not threaten the modes of plutocracratic power – it might just change the personnel, at best, and it might not even do that, because the control of wealth is concentrated in so few hands.
Some Definitions:
Neoliberalism is a movement largely sponsored by the corporate sector through its funded think tanks (from the Mont Pelerin Society to the Cato Instute and IPA), media organisations (like the Murdoch Empire, but nearly all media is corporately owned, and sponsored, and neoliberal in orientation) and university chairs. The team-up between business and academics, just happens to consolidate corporate power and dominance. Neoliberalism involves a lot of talk of “free markets” but in practice involves the cutback of the participatory State that is mildly helpful to everyone, and the promotion of State protection for, and subsidisation of, the established corporate sector. It may actively promote the harm of ordinary people in order to reinforce the power and liberty of wealth.
In other words, neoliberalism seems to aim at making the State a tool of the wealthy ruling class. Those who promote the idea that the State is the sole problem, and the free market the sole solution, seem to act as unwitting supporters of this corporate take over of the State.
In practice, whatever they say to the contrary, neoliberals make profit the only good. If liberty conflicts with profit, then profit will win out. The short truth appears to be that neoliberalism has everything to do with maintaining established power and profit, and nothing to do with liberty or solving real problems.
In general, neoliberal, or other pro-capitalist politicians and theorists, do seem to find it easier to work with self proclaimed authoritarian fascists or religious fundamentalists than they do with democratic socialists, or people opposed to tyranny or oppression. The History of US foreign policy , and business support for Hitler, should pretty much demonstrate that. The tendency of capitalists to try and capture the State to suppress protest against their rule through hardening laws against protest (as is happening in Australia to stop climate change protest) also gives them that affinity. Arms manufacturers support military action, and massive unaccountable military spending, and this activity implies military action or threat of such action. Some argue that the US has engaged in quite a few wars to protect corporate oil supplies and property, not only to project the power of the plutocratic state.
Neoliberalism is often sold as conservatism but, as I have argued previously [1], [2], [3], it is not conservative at all, it aims at a radical transformation of society, and the destruction of all tradition that considers life and virtue is about anything other than profit.
Plutocracy is defined as as rule by wealth, and the direction of all policy to support the wealthy (or wealthy families) and increase their power and wealth, and to suppress, deliberately or otherwise, any other variety of power or counter-power.
Rather than being an accidental feature of capitalism, I would suggest that crony capitalism, attempts at State capture and the imposition of plutocracy are an inevitable feature of that system. I know of no capitalism which is: not full of cronyism and collaboration; does not involve attempts at state capture and buying politicians; setting inheritance rules so that families (like the Bush’s and the Trumps) retain their power for as long as possible; and implementing market regulations that favour their established patterns of behaviour while preventing others from rising to challenge them. This arises because humans “team-up” for the benefit of their identity groups. Neoliberalism encourages team-ups in business, and in the politicians that speak for it, but not elsewhere.
Final Remark
I apologise in advance for the length of these posts and the absence of much empirical documentation. The lack of documentation is excused because it would make these posts about the length of a book. Besides, some highly influential forms of neoliberal economics don’t even give a nod to empiricism in their formulations either, and at least I’m not attempting a general theory of human action.
Next: Casual Remarks on Liberty
Tags: Disinformation, neoliberalism, politics
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