Neoliberalism Needs To Go

Neoliberalism Needs To Go – Second Thought

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Citations and Further Reading:

On neoliberalism

Presidential medal of freedom clip

Reader’s digest

Road to serfdom cartoons

Honduras

Trump tax laws

Manhattan institute Treasury secretary

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About Second Thought:
Second Thought is a channel devoted to education and analysis of current events from a socialist perspective. Welcome!

[Spiral.Dynamics]

“When the culture of any organization mandates that it is more important to protect the reputation of a system and those in power than it is to protect the basic human dignity of the individuals who serve that system or who are served by that system, you can be certain that the shame is systemic, the money is driving ethics, and the accountability is all but dead.”
-Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness

[lite]

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has no place selling hair care products with his name on them...

[peterbyrne]

I appreciate that this vid didn"t just focus on Thatcher/Reagan and included Clinton and Blair, as well as the whole EU project. Too often, neo liberalism gets fed into the Tesm Red Team Blue grinder that keeps us distracted from making any actual progress

[gabrielmaroto]

“ Fascism is always the bastard child of a bankrupt liberalism.” Chris Hedges.

[John-wlpg]

Hiya! PhD in Politics with a specialization in political economy (and did my thesis on neoliberalism in LatAm) here! This is a great video on the topic. Congrats! You really nail down how this is a third leg (and the inevitable liberal economic route) on ideologies that deal with the "state" (v collectivist views). It is very important to underline that Hayek and others were (at time silently) for dictatorship if it meant that democracy could be squashed and the market maintained. At the end of the day, these people were market absolutists; nothing mattered other than the market. A key element pointed out in your (great) video was that many thought markets were just as natural as Newtonian laws. This meant that markets are not just to be protected, but upheld. The state's main function should be to protect markets. This was in large part (as you mention) because they understood that markets are detached from the political. Hence, markets can provide a just result. Meaning, open markets and their results were a measure of what is just. There were thinkers who allegedly believed this (von Mises and Hayek had a minor falling out because of the passion behind these arguments) but many others are just in this because of the perks, as, in the end of the day, neoliberalism is a class project by the rich to overpower and extract from the poor in new forms and new areas (hence the formation of markers in untapped areas--health, education, etc). Neoliberalism is the antithesis to socialism, in sum.

[nomoimusic]

For me, neoliberalism isn't about having a small state; it's about a strong state that heavily intervenes in the economy to benefit the wealthy and corporations and works against the working class.

[justanotherstoutdrinker]

the neoliberal era should've ended after 2008 and the great recession. That showed that the neoliberal model wasn't the holy grail the neolibs wanted us to believe it was. The decline of general living standards across the western world, particularly in the US and UK, since 2008 is only further evidence that neoliberalism simply doesn't work. the "profit at any cost" and almost cult-like obsession with the free market has wrecked havoc on our economies. Most people can acknowledge that successful economies require a mixture of government direction/regulation and free enterprise; why can't these neolibs?

[Applemangh]

The Heritage Foundation: ruining everything, since forever.

[c-]

I remember reading Hayek for the first time in college and being shocked that anyone would think the market could ever be the ultimate expression of democracy

[botatobias]

As a Romanian, I'm proud of my country's post-Cold War resistance to the IMF. Five consecutive agreements that fell through, we didn't concede an inch more than we absolutely had to. Today, state-owned Romanian companies account for 7% of our GDP and the majority of our power-generation sector. :)

[bitmodels]

last time i was this early, the price of a dozen eggs was $2.50

[mrfenandes]

Props to the editing man. Those infographics are spot on. I do it for a living and am still blown away by how sleek they are. Top work!

[bear]

“Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all.” - John Maynard Keynes

"Historically, the most terrible things - war, genocide, and slavery - have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience." - Howard Zinn

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” - Frederick Douglass

"Capitalism denies the right to live. You have only the right to remain on the labour market." - Noam Chomsky

"Under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control." - Noam Chomsky

"Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are, in principle, under autocratic control. Thus, a corporation or an industry is, if we were to think of it in political terms, fascist, that is, it has tight control at the top and strict obedience has to be established at every level. [...] Just as I'm opposed to political fascism, I am opposed to economic fascism. I think that until the major institutions of society are under the popular control of participants and communities, it's pointless to talk about democracy." - Noam Chomsky

"Anarcho-capitalism (aka Far-Right "Libertarianism" - "PolarBear"), in my opinion, is a doctrinal system which, if ever implemented, would lead to forms of tyranny and oppression that have few counterparts in human history. There isn't the slightest possibility that its (in my view, horrendous) ideas would be implemented, because they would quickly destroy any society that made this colossal error. The idea of 'free contract' between the potentate and his starving subject is a sick joke, perhaps worth some moments in an academic seminar exploring the consequences of (in my view, absurd) ideas, but nowhere else." - Noam Chomsky

"Capitalism’s concept of competitive man who seeks only to maximize wealth and power, who subjects himself to market relationships, to exploitation and external authority, is anti-human and intolerable in the deepest sense" - Noam Chomsky

"Parasitic Capitalism and its Parasitic Capitalists, in time - literally Kill and Destroy ALL they touch and infest, for the Lust and Greed of the Authoritarian Parasitic Capitalist Fascist POS "Few" and their Evil “Vile Maxim!" ...

Parasitic Capitalism and its arrogance, corruption, abuse and insatiable evil greed is a disease, an addiction.

Parasitic Capitalism and the Authoritarian Parasitic Capitalist Fascist POS "Few" are the Real Evil Plague of and upon Nature, Wildlife, the Planet, "the People" (Humanity Globally) and All (biological) Life and (*both) Must be (completely) Abolished." - “PolarBear”

*Parasitic Capitalism and the Authoritarian Parasitic Capitalist Fascist POS "Few"

“You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul.” - Mahatma Gandhi

"Historically, the most terrible things - war, genocide, and slavery - have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience." - Howard Zinn

In the (True) words of Malcolm X: "Show me a Capitalist and I'll show you a Bloodsucker."

"The superior man does what is right; the inferior one, what is profitable" – Confucius

"The issue is Socialism versus Capitalism. I am for Socialism because I am for humanity. We have been cursed with the reign of gold long enough. Money constitutes no proper basis of civilization. The time has come to regenerate society — we are on the eve of universal change." - Eugene V. Debs

[raaedsyed]

Ain't it funny how one of the biggest nations would do this to itself rather than work towards common prosperity ehich would help keep it afloat for a few more decades?

[EagleM]

I think my first encounter with the term Neoliberalism was in Naomi Klein’s shock doctrine. The destructive history of that ideology is truly gruesome. And continues to be so, until we smash it.

[Threxis]

neoliberalism is a gateway to neo feudalism.

[goosie]

It sad when someone as a 13 year old in the mid 90s could see how terrible these economic policies and ideas were when so many others couldn’t or ignored the obvious red flags.

[Andre-qoek]

i would generalize "neo-liberal" as "liberal rights" for corporations.
when corps became people, gaining rights and a voice like people do. but of course with out all the pesky accountability stuff.

[jsull]

Basically, neoliberalism is privatizing the gains & socializing the losses

[mygetawayart]

The greatest accomplishmet of neoliberalism was making everybody believe they're the endpoint of civilization, as in: its most stable, evolved and advanced state. That anything before it is the past and that we're now living in an era of enlightenment outside of history.
To put it in *perspective* (pun intended), neolibealism sits on one corner of an equilateral triangle, where the other two are fascism and communism. The greatest magic trick neoliberals ever performed was flipping that triangle on its side, in a way that it looks like a segment. Neoliberalism therefore looks perfectly balanced at the centre of it, and not just another corner.