Tag: Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism

The Transformation of Australian Society: A Neoliberal Perspective – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Neoliberalism is a disguise for what has existed throughout the 19th Century in Australia when people living here were defined as deserving and undeserving. The deserving rich were granted Indigenous land leases the poor were allowed charity as long as they were white and Christian exceptions were even made for some Jews, Muslims, Irish and Catholics but never for blacks. It was a perspective not radically different today.

Neoliberal policies have led to a shift in the Australian welfare state policy agenda favouring the free market, small government, and reduced social expenditure. These policies have resulted in the retrenchment of the welfare state, with the introduction of forms of conditional welfare that require participants to conform to behavioural or attitudinal tests to keep eligibility for certain payments. Consequently, even individuals with a university degree now struggle to secure full-time employment.

Source: The Transformation of Australian Society: A Neoliberal Perspective – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Australia

Australians Under 40 Must End Neoliberalism for Good

Australians under 40 face an uncertain future and lower living standards than their parents or grandparents enjoyed. To bring us back from the brink, Australia needs to end the neoliberal consensus.

Source: Australians Under 40 Must End Neoliberalism for Good

Australia

We are not America – Pearls and Irritations

Planet Earth globe. Australia, Oceania and Southeast Asia.

Australians must see the culture war distractions for what they are: a protection for a profoundly broken system. It is time we reclaimed our proud social democrat past. Those with the levers of power must look accurately at what neoliberal ideologues have done to the US and Britain, and reject both colonial masters for our own healthier path.

Source: We are not America – Pearls and Irritations

Informed Comment

The Perils of Pious Neoliberalism

Amid extreme wealth inequality, Vijay Prashad considers the appeal of reactionary new religious traditions that measure salvation in the present balance of your bank account.   By Vijay Prashad

The International Labour Organisation’s “Global Wage Report 2022–23” tracks the horrendous collapse of real wages for billions of people around the planet.

The gaping distance between the incomes and wealth of 99 percent of the world’s population from the incomes and wealth of the billionaires and near-trillionaires who make up the richest 1 percent is appalling.

During the pandemic, when most of the world has experienced a dramatic loss in their livelihoods, the 10 richest men in the world have doubled their fortunes. This extreme wealth inequality, now entirely normal in our world, has produced immense and dangerous social consequences.

If you take a walk in any city on the planet, not just in the poorer nations, you will find larger and larger clusters of housing that are congested with destitution.

They go by many names:

bastis, bidonville, daldongneh, favelas, gecekondu, kampung kumuh, slums and Sodom and Gomorrah. Here, billions of people struggle to survive in conditions that are unnecessary in our age of massive social wealth and innovative technology.

Source: The Perils of Pious Neoliberalism

ALP Government,

Jobs Summit should not be a rubber stamp for neoliberalism

The Jobs and Skills Summit will give the opportunity to confront the failures of neoliberalism, especially the belief that rapid population growth is required for our prosperity, writes Kieran Simpson.

Source: Jobs Summit should not be a rubber stamp for neoliberalism

American Dream, American Politics

Is the World Throwing Off the Chains of Neoliberalism? | The Smirking Chimp

Most Americans, however, are waking up to the damage Reagan’s 40-year-long experiment with Friedman’s neoliberalism has done to America. In these days of dark news ranging from the rise of great power militarism to a crushing new wave of Covid, there are green shoots growing through the cracks: neoliberalism is finally being replaced by social democracy around the world and in many states in America. “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind,” Thomas Paine told us in 1776. “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” Our work has just begun.

Source: Is the World Throwing Off the Chains of Neoliberalism? | The Smirking Chimp

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- Rape, The LNP & Cluedo

Fighting Fake News with REAL 16/2/21; Neoliberalism and the continuing income and wealth gap;

Informed Comment

Thinking economists are grappling with why their profession has made our lives worse
Illustration: Andrew Dyson

By sanctifying selfishness, it has undermined community-mindedness and the role of co-operation in advancing our mutual interests. Voting has become a simple matter of “what’s in it for me and mine”, while businesses and industries have been licensed to lobby for preferment at the expense of everyone else. “In recent decades the balance between these instincts [of competition and co-operation] has become dangerously skewed: mutuality has been undermined by an extreme individualism which has weakened co-operation and polarised our politics,”

Since the late 1970s, however, Americans have talked less about the common good and more about self-aggrandisement; less “we’re all in it together” and more “you’re on your own”. There’s been “growing cynicism and distrust toward all the basic institutions of American society – governments, the media, corporations” and more.

Thinking economists are grappling with why their profession has made our lives worse
LNP, LNP Economic Management

Coalition plans on track — corporate slice of the nation’s pie hits all-time high

The process of shifting wealth and income from the poor and middle to the rich continues apace. Alan Austin examines the latest national accounts. FOR THE FIRST TIME since 1959, when Australia first published detailed national accounts, the share of all income going to corporations has risen above 30%. Simultaneously, the share for employees has fallen below 50% for the first time ever.

Coalition plans on track — corporate slice of the nation’s pie hits all-time high
Informed Comment, Uncategorized

Australia doesn’t need Reagan and Thatcher’s neoliberal economics of misery | Van Badham | Opinion | The Guardian

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan pictured in 1988.

via Australia doesn’t need Reagan and Thatcher’s neoliberal economics of misery | Van Badham | Opinion | The Guardian

Uncategorized, Work, Working Poor

Economists back wage freeze 21-19 in new Economic Society-Conversation survey

Screenshot_2020-06-08 Economists back wage freeze 21-19 in new Economic Society-Conversation survey

Years of flatlined wages and now a request for more? The well off haven’t faced this and have seen a rise in their income. So why are the Economists voting for those the worst off to carry the load yet again? The threat do you want to keep your job? Well, we saw the increasing precariousness of work and now it’s being asked even more needs to be done. It’s a threat that we’ve seen repeatedly with a variety of excuses over and over again  (ODT)

via Economists back wage freeze 21-19 in new Economic Society-Conversation survey

China, Uncategorized

China Is Not the Enemy — Neoliberalism Is

In China, as around the world, the pandemic is calling for far-reaching social and economic change. The direction this will take is subject to fierce struggles; and the outcome will also depend on our reading of how societies have dealt with the COVID-19 outbreak and the lessons we draw from it. Instead of exceptionalizing and othering China, progressives around the world have to see beyond the logic of nationalism and recognize the interconnectedness of our fights. The enemy in this pandemic is not China but inequality and the logic of profit over people.

via China Is Not the Enemy — Neoliberalism Is

LNP, Uncategorized

COVID-19 highlights failures of neoliberalism and privatisation

via COVID-19 highlights failures of neoliberalism and privatisation

Informed Comment

We have forgotten what is important let alone how to fight for it – » The Australian Independent Media Network

The result of this headlong pursuit of continuous growth is a concentration of wealth in the hands of a few while the vast majority are mired in poverty. At the same time, environmental degradation in the pursuit of profit, and the waste produced by billions of consumers, is destroying the planet.Neoliberalism purports to reward individual effort, completely ignoring the fact that we don’t all start from the same place.

Source: We have forgotten what is important let alone how to fight for it – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Food for Thought

immorality neoliberalism

The Immorality of Neoliberalism. 62457.jpeg

If we speak of liberalism, or neoliberalism, in today’s society, it’s usually in a negative sense. And that is remarkable, because liberalism was originally intended to ‘liberalize’ the citizen, that is, to free him from the ruling elite. How then did modern liberalism become a new instrument of oppression? And why is it time to take a new look at this prevailing system?

via immorality neoliberalism

Informed Comment

immorality neoliberalism

The Immorality of Neoliberalism. 62457.jpeg

If we speak of liberalism, or neoliberalism, in today’s society, it’s usually in a negative sense. And that is remarkable, because liberalism was originally intended to ‘liberalize’ the citizen, that is, to free him from the ruling elite. How then did modern liberalism become a new instrument of oppression? And why is it time to take a new look at this prevailing system?

via immorality neoliberalism

Money

Can Australia’s socially democratic Left defeat neoliberalism?

Here in Australia, the “No” case in the same-sex marriage debacle is spending five times as much as the “Yes” campaign.Prominent reactionaries like Senator Eric Abetz and former Prime Minister Tony Abbott are leading the “No” defence of the indefensible with lies and nonsense.

Source: Can Australia’s socially democratic Left defeat neoliberalism?

Brexit

Destructive neoliberalism was the root cause of #Brexit

Source: Destructive neoliberalism was the root cause of #Brexit

Australia

The Canadian Plan That Could Help Australia Beat Neoliberalism – New Matilda

With other western democracies starting the challenge the dominating and devastating ideology, it’s time for the same to happen in Australia. The good news? There’s already a road map, writes, Liam McLoughlin. Neoliberalism has been named and shamed. A recent piece in the Guardian by George Monbiot, called Neoliberalism – the ideology at the rootMore

Source: The Canadian Plan That Could Help Australia Beat Neoliberalism – New Matilda

Media

A new study suggests financial journalism has been captured by a small coterie of elites and by a newsroom culture that favours neoliberalism.

Why we can’t trust journalists to explain finance

Why we can’t trust journalists to explain finance

American Politics

The American left won the culture wars, but neoliberalism destroyed the battlefield.
Australia

Megalogenis’ paean to neoliberalism — faith versus evidence

Megalogenis’ paean to neoliberalism — faith versus evidence.

TPP

The TPP and neoliberalism

The TPP and neoliberalism.