roachboy

well...that part was probably the only thing in the post i would keep.
the whole of neoliberal ideology is built around it--not the actual politics, but the ideology.
particularly in the states.

for example, the idea that transfers of wealth are an end in themselves that function to punish the beleagured "successful" folk and not to compensate for the atomizing effects of capitalism in the interest of building a higher level of social stability only makes sense from a petit bourgeois viewpoint.

that you would look to the fiction of nation to provide a sense of community while at the same time assuming that a mobilized, active population is somehow a threat--that too is classically petit bourgeois.

this "logic" extends to a denial of the public--that is to a denial of the possibility of collective mobilization, which is a constant feature of relations to the state---which by extension has to be understood (in part) as a mechanism for making otherwise private functions partially accountable to the public.

that capitalism as a whole can be seen as a collection of atomized individuals who owe nothing to the system that enables them to extract profit, that the system maintains itself through the agency of some god and not through the active and ongoing intervention of particular mechanisms, most of which are, like it or not, associated with the state--again, same class outlook....

neoliberalism is not that old as an ideology--it is something that emerged full-blown from the reagan-thatcher period. its implications are being worked out now--it functions as a response to the instabilities introduced into the nature and function of nation-states by globalizing capitalism, as a pretext for reducing the risks associated with uncertainty for the political class by enabling them to withdraw the state from a range of areas.

it is not an ideology that you can associate with the history of capitalism as a whole, with the development of american capitalism, with the relative position of american capitalism in the global context. it relies on a wholly fictional pseduo-history of capitalism to legitimate itself. but the history of actually existing capitalism is one of constant modifications of social and economic relations through mechanisms of law and institutions (state functions)....without it, capitalism would have collapsed a century ago.

you cannot have radical social instability and capitalism together.
you cannot have for any amount of time a radically stratified social system and a viable capitalismfor any amount of time.
neoliberal ideology is a short-term fix sold as if it were otherwise, a con the central issues of which function to conceal the operations being undertaken.
like i said above, it is about reducing the political risks of uncertainty during the transition into a different kind of globalizing capitalist system, the nature and implications of which are really not clear.

easiest way to sell that is to convince folk that a blinkered petit bourgeois framework enables them to describe the world.
why work to blind folk when you can get them to blind themselves?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite