Neoliberalism as perpetual war
Neoliberalism as perpetual war
“The only way forward, the only way to save our planet and our civilization, is a rebirth of history. We must revitalize the Enlightenment and recommit to honoring its values of freedom, respect ....
“Naomi Klein states that the three policy pillars of neoliberalism are “privatization of the public sphere, deregulation of the corporate sector, and the lowering of income and corporate taxes, paid for with cuts to public spending”. — Naomi Klein, Canadian author and Journalist, The Shock Doctrine, and This Changes Everything.
“The only way forward, the only way to save our planet and our civilization, is a rebirth of history. We must revitalize the Enlightenment and recommit to honoring its values of freedom, respect for knowledge, and democracy”.
The momentous world crisis we are going through now is both WW lll and a historic turning point, and what will hopefully be, as Joseph Stiglitz states above an “Enlightenment”, or the Italian word a Renaissance, or rebirth as happened 400 years ago, as Europe moved from the Middle Ages to the era of Modernity.
What is happening now certainly qualifies as a truly global World War III and nothing less! The wars of the 20th century were continental where empires fell. Now we are in a war that is existential to the planet’s existence and the consequences, as in the 20th century, will be with us for decades to come.
What is happening now is both, but an Enlightenment cannot blossom fully where the chaos of perpetual war prevails. An Enlightenment can only gain momentum when rationality returns and the psychosis of war is buried — “…and {we} recommit to honoring its values of freedom, respect for knowledge, and democracy”.
Furthermore, we are at a point in history where war, especially major wars, must be avoided at all costs. Diplomacy, mediation and reciprocity must be dominant values in the new world order. The world’s cultures and economies are so thoroughly integrated and inter-dependent there is no elbow room for war. The term Pyrrhic wars has a whole new urgency in the 21st century. We have seen from the 20th century that the reverberations of war spin through cultures for decades after and do indeed lead to further wars. What is now WW lll was putting down roots even before WW ll ended, seventy years ago.
We must also remind ourselves that the military and economic warfare now so prevalent, not only pre-empts the war on climate change it drives the world economy into deeper crisis.
If all of this is going to end happily with a better more progressive, more egalitarian world order there must be a rigorous political will for fundamental change. We aren’t even at the starting point until we re-establish the equilibrium of peace. The most pressing priority now is to correctly and honestly address the causalities of this war; the immediate causes, recent historic causes, and the fundamental causes. Neoliberalism as a fundamental cause of this cataclysm among so many others.
Immediate causes:
American regime change in Ukraine in 2014 — The “NATOization” of Ukraine from 2014 to 2022 — Failure of European signatories to enforce the Minsk agreements — Failure of NATO to negotiate security agreements long sought after by Russia — Failure of NATO states, especially Britain, France, Italy and Germany to veto war against Russia when it was clearly against their best interests to do so.
Recent historic causes:
Emergence of Chinese and Russian economies — Eastward expansion of NATO — NATO’s agency as an American imperialist lackey — America’s colonization of Europe. Europe’s failure to act in its own best interest.
Fundamental Causes:
America’s century long obsession to conquer both Russia and China — American Imperialism and its drive for global hegemony — American exceptionalism — The PNAC, The Wolfowitz Doctrine and Full Spectrum Domination — Imperialism — Colonialism — American triumphalism at the end of WW ll and at the 1991 collapse of the USSR — America’s pervasive global presence as a militarist warfare state — Neoliberalism.
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Neoliberalism is… “fascism, capitalism with the gloves off”
I first became aware of Neoliberalism when I read Noam Chomsky’s book Profit Over People. The introduction was written by Robert W. McChesney. Not only did he provide a very good definition, he outlined the effects it has on societies, and this was over twenty years ago.
As McChesney states in his introduction:
“Earlier in the twentieth century some critics called fascism“capitalism with the gloves off,” meaning that fascism was pure capitalism without democratic rights and organizations. In fact, we know that fascism is vastly more complex than that. Neoliberalism, on the other hand, is indeed “capitalism with the gloves off.” It represents an era in which business forces are stronger and more aggressive, and face less organized opposition than ever before”. — Robert W. McChesney(1)
He then describes for us what happens when a political democracy becomes a neoliberal democracy. Canada is today a protypical neoliberal democracy where we have abdicated national sovereignty, our economic sovereignty, and our political democracy . The end result is:
“That is neoliberal democracy in a nutshell: trivial debate over minor issues by parties that basically pursue the same pro-business policies regardless of formal differences and campaign debate. Democracy is permissible as long as the control of business is off-limits to popular deliberation or change; i.e. so long as it isn’t democracy. The neoliberal system therefore has an important and necessary byproduct — a depoliticized citizenry marked by apathy and cynicism.”
This explains very nicely why Canadians have become — “a depoliticized citizenry marked by apathy and cynicism”.
“Neoliberalism works best when there is formal electoral democracy, but when the population is diverted from the information, access, and public forums necessary for meaningful participation in decision making.
In other words absolute sovereignty is transferred to corporations, elected politicians serve as corporate lackey’s, the public are disenfranchised and elections become trivial exercise in a pseudo-democracy. This is the Canada of 2023.
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Neoliberalism as a fundamental cause, an insidious malignancy — an ideology — that has been growing in the Collective West fostered and imposed on the world by Washington. Its roots back date to 1938 with the Mount Pellerin Group and came into full fruition in the Reagan — Thatcher era. Neoliberalism- and the so called “free market economy” about economics, but is actually economic fascism capable of destroying whole cultures where our sovereignties and our democracies are laid to rest.
As McChesney aslo states in his introduction:
“We are shy of using the term fascism in the denialist West as we cannot face the harsh reality that Hilter’s fascism packed it’s bags and hopped across the Atlantic. It was the fascist virus the Dulles brothers, and so many others imported from Europe even before WW II ended.”
When neoliberalism blossomed WW III became inevitable, as a scheduled event( we are now learning, and we are dancing dead-eyed in the garden of the ruins.
China and Russia are not the enemy, they are escapees. They have seen what berserk neoliberalism has done to the collective West
and they want no part of it, for very good reasons.
The starting point for the long road to remediation is a rational equilibrium
Read More here:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot