Neoliberalism is not just an economic theory but a cosmology, and a political/ethical way of understanding humans and the universe. As such, it is extremely limited, and hence surprisingly weak in some ways.
Neoliberalism attempts to govern complexity and emergence by only attending to markets. It possibly rightly warns of the dangers of government planning and of concentrated government power, as (due to complexity) no government planning can be based on a total understanding of the world system (or ‘Gaia’), and governmental power can interrupt and disrupt beneficial processes. It tends to see all government action on behalf of ‘the majority of the people’ (such as livable minimum wages, social security etc) as leading to totalitarianism. Neoliberalism supports its position by suggesting that the market acts as both an information system and as a responsive system generating spontaneous and beneficial order. As such it tends to argue that markets can solve all problems, and that governments are necessarily sources of disruption, corruption and inefficiency, and should do little beyond supporting the market, enforcing contracts and providing military defence.
In order to make these claims neoliberalism ignores some important factors. It ignores the effects of corporate power and planning and riches, by assuming that rich people and organisations will not ally and plan together, organise to structure markets in their favour, or have enough power to affect the system. It denies that the power of riches could be as disruptive and ignorant as the power of government. It also does not appear to consider that attending to price systems as information systems emphasises price signals, profit and the power of others to disrupt profit, while suppressing or distracting people from other vital information. It lives within self-produced disinformation. It also downplays the possibility neoliberal corporately bought governments may be encouraged by market participants to support established markets and market players and throttle emergent or necessary change or correction.
In other words neoliberalism may well cut itself off from information vital to its sustainability, and interfere with systemic processes to disrupt its survival. It also seems to ignore the idea that Gaia is relevant to economies, and propose that markets have no limits which they should refrain from disrupting. Neoliberalism encourages a politics of unboundedness, which is not currently founded on fact. Neoliberals largely ignore climate change and ecological destruction, although they would acknowledge them as price signals. Limits are only known as far as they affect profits, and that might encourage (or not hinder) destructive practices to maintain profits.
Discussing neoliberalism’s success as a cosmology and method of preserving corporate power from challenges may give the impression that it is a system of total control. Neoliberalism may be a system which encourages a type of total control that reduces every possibility to some form of profit or capitalist organisation and evaluation. There is also the possibility of its followers using some kind of corporate fascism (as capitalists did in the 1920s and 30s) to maintain stability, but complexity means that control cannot be total, or feel total – it is distributed. Neoliberals my try so hard because they always fail to make everything capitalist.
Neoliberalism is vulnerable to its own success in removing visible opposition, the lack of perception it encourages, the interstitial gaps it produces and cannot recognise, and the resistance it generates. If many of the rich elites are concerned with escaping from the world crisis as suggested by Bourdieu and Rushkoff, then that is an indication they have no solutions they have any faith in, and hence that their weakness is growing.
There is also the possibility that some of the harmful effects of neoliberalism such as growing inequalities, massive ecological destruction and climate change are unintended consequences of its practices, rather than the product of deliberate evil (Keen #)[j1] . This possibility might also change the way we approach it.
Tags: Disinformation, neoliberalism
Climate, technology and chaos Blog 
Leave a comment