Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #Neoliberalism
Most recents (24)
#Neoliberalism has decimated labour rights, imposed rigid limits on fiscal deficits, given massive tax breaks & bailouts to big capital, sacrificed local production for multinational supply chains, & privatized public sector assets at throwaway prices.
bostonreview.net/articles/why-n…
bostonreview.net/articles/why-n…
No matter who comes to power, no matter what promises are made before elections, the same economic policies are followed.
Since capital, especially finance, can leave a country en masse at extremely short notice—precipitating a financial crisis if its “confidence” in a country is undermined—Govts dare not upset the status quo, so pursue policies favourable to finance capital & indeed demanded by it. 
You know how "#realist" is a synonym for "#asshole?" As in, "I'm not a racist, I'm just a #RaceRealist?" That same "realism" is used to discredit democracy, among self-styled "#LibertarianElitists," who claim that social science proves democracy doesn't work - and can't work.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/ana…
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pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/ana…
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You've likely encountered elements of this ideology in the wild. Perhaps you've heard about how our #CognitiveBiases make us incapable of deliberating, that "reasoning was not designed to pursue the truth. Reasoning was designed by evolution to help us win arguments."
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When students of statistics are introduced to creating and interpreting models, they are introduced to George Box's maxim:
*All models are wrong, some are useful.*
It's a call for humility and perspective, a reminder to superimpose the messy world on your clean lines. 1/
*All models are wrong, some are useful.*
It's a call for humility and perspective, a reminder to superimpose the messy world on your clean lines. 1/
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2023/04/03/all… 2/
pluralistic.net/2023/04/03/all… 2/
Even with this benediction, modeling is forever prone to the cardinal sin of insisting that complex reality can be reduced to "a perfectly spherical cow of uniform density on a frictionless plane." 3/
In a @TheProspect op-ed, "What Comes After Neoliberalism?" @rkuttnerwrites writes "we’ve just about won the battle of ideas. Reality has been a helpful ally…Neoliberalism has been a splendid success for the 1%, an abject failure for everyone else":
prospect.org/economy/2023-0… 1/
prospect.org/economy/2023-0… 1/
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2023/03/28/ima… 2/
pluralistic.net/2023/03/28/ima… 2/
Kuttner's op-ed is a report on the @Hewlett_Found's recent "#NewCommonSense" event, where Kuttner was relieved to learn that the idea that "the economy would thrive if government just got out of the way has been demolished by the events of the past three decades." 3/
As tech reaches terminal #enshittification, so hollowed that they're barely able to keep end-users or business customers locked in, capital's running the final #rugpull, where all value is transfered from those who make things for a living to those who own things for a living. 1/
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2023/03/21/tec… 2/
pluralistic.net/2023/03/21/tec… 2/
"#ActivistInvestors" have triggered massive waves of tech layoffs, firing so many #TechWorkers so quickly that it's hard to even come up with an accurate count. The total is somewhere around *280,000* workers:
layoffs.fyi 3/
layoffs.fyi 3/
A thread on 'Brave New World' and the link between #hedonism & #eugenics:
Aldous Huxley was right: eugenics and hedonism are inextricably linked. 'Brave New World' is about a eugenic society that designs human beings for specific social stations and jobs. 1/10
Aldous Huxley was right: eugenics and hedonism are inextricably linked. 'Brave New World' is about a eugenic society that designs human beings for specific social stations and jobs. 1/10
Everyone has a genetic destiny and a pre-ordained role in the labor force. 'Brave New World' is also, in equal measure, about a hedonistic society in which people only care about pleasure, sex, material things, 'feelies,' doing drugs, and having orgies. 2/10
They don't care about relationships, art, philosophy, ethics, or love. Those things go hand in hand. When you are genetically designed to fill a certain social role, you're not a person, you're a thing. You're a cog in the machine. 3/10
"This long Malthusian cycle brewed the ideological alchemy of Good #Science and the Civilizing Project. Each moment produced new scientific and imperial regimes that simultaneously mapped, secured, and justified ever more extensive and violent...
scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/emancipations/… #society
scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/emancipations/… #society
... appropriations of unpaid #work/energy for capital. Every moment of enclosing waste (the commons) involved grand movements creating #waste on the frontiers. In this long #history of natural law, Good #Science has been mobilized not only as a “productive force” but as the...
... ideological cement for securing the “general interest”. Thus decisive ideological function for successive #class compacts between ruling strata and the scientific, administrative, and military strata ...
THREAD
#Austerity isn't an 'economic necessity', it's a cruel political choice.
Austerity policies since 2010 haven't been substantially reversed or retracted in recent years. In fact, they've often been levelled at the most marginalised social groups.
theconversation.com/austerity-has-…
#Austerity isn't an 'economic necessity', it's a cruel political choice.
Austerity policies since 2010 haven't been substantially reversed or retracted in recent years. In fact, they've often been levelled at the most marginalised social groups.
theconversation.com/austerity-has-…
In 2019, cuts in total expenditure on welfare & benefit payments alone were expected to total £37 billion a year by 2020. Millions are struggling with the #CostOfLivingCrises, & a further £28 billion of cuts to public funding were announced in the Govt’s November 2022 budget.
Perpetual cumulative cuts to welfare, education, social & healthcare services have caused 330,000 deaths & shape daily lives & social relationships. The effects continue, across time & generations, worsening existing inequalities relating to gender, race, class, age & disability.
'Critical theories of neoliberalism (CTNL) & their significance for left politics', by Matthew Lepori.
A thoughtful discussion article attempting to synthesise a very wide-ranging critique of #neoliberalism in order to build left-alliances.
A thoughtful discussion article attempting to synthesise a very wide-ranging critique of #neoliberalism in order to build left-alliances.
It's not open access, I'll just thread a few extracts.
There is no battle between those studying #neoliberalism as a political economy (‘Marxian’) & those studying it as a governmental project designed to constitute particular types of social & political subjects (Foucauldian).
There is no battle between those studying #neoliberalism as a political economy (‘Marxian’) & those studying it as a governmental project designed to constitute particular types of social & political subjects (Foucauldian).
Some analysts treat neoliberalism as an ideology & class project emerging in reaction to falling rates of profit, this economic ‘trigger’ is not explained through structural-economic contradictions but through politics eg strikes, inflationary policies, & an open global economy.
Simon Springer's 2016 book, 'The Discourse of Neoliberalism: An Anatomy of a Powerful Idea' explores the internal workings of capitalism’s most infamous contemporary offspring by dissecting the diverse scholarly interpretations of #neoliberalism in HE.
rowman.com/ISBN/978178348…
rowman.com/ISBN/978178348…
The book offers a discursive understanding wherein political economic approaches to neoliberalism are joined with poststructuralist interpretations in an attempt to overcome the ongoing ideological impasse that prevents the articulation of a more vibrant solidarity on the Left.
Reading neoliberalism as a discourse better equips us to understand the power of this variegated economic formation as an expansive process of social-spatial transformation that is intimately bound up with the production of poverty, inequality, and violence across the globe.
#THREAD
30 terrifying dystopian free-market fundamentalist ideas for 2030, suggested by #TuftonStreet's Mark Littlewood, IEA Director General, Emma Revell, Head of the Free Market Forum, Annabel Denham, IEA Director of Comms, & Sam Collins, FMF Marketing & Outreach Director.🇬🇧😬
30 terrifying dystopian free-market fundamentalist ideas for 2030, suggested by #TuftonStreet's Mark Littlewood, IEA Director General, Emma Revell, Head of the Free Market Forum, Annabel Denham, IEA Director of Comms, & Sam Collins, FMF Marketing & Outreach Director.🇬🇧😬
#TuftonStreet's opaquely funded IEA's dystopian 'Free Market Forum' has over 60 Parliamentary supporters - including many of the hard-right ideological extremists you would correctly assume to be among them.
Matthew Elliott is on the Advisory Council. 😬
freemarketforum.org/parliamentary-…
Matthew Elliott is on the Advisory Council. 😬
freemarketforum.org/parliamentary-…
The IEA's Free Market Forum grew out of their 2010 Free Enterprise Group, & 2017 FREER.UK, all providing a platform for newly elected MPs to discuss free market policy "solutions" to absolutely everything.
Liz Truss is a central figure. 😬
Liz Truss is a central figure. 😬
My thread of yestrdy on neoliberalism has had lots of engagement. So I thought I wd create a second one. My aim is to help us be able to SEE ths insidious, invisible ideology that we & our children all live in. We are like fish, swimming in water we can't make sense of. A THREAD.
2. If you missed yestrdy's thread, here it is. I tried to help us make sense of the current extreme proposals for economic growth. Why do they seem so disconnected from the needs of 'real people'? Answer: That decoupling is the aim of neoliberalism.
3. Many of you may have heard of t speaker named @simonsinek . If you follow @TIGERS_UK , they talk about Sinek's concept of t #GoldenCircle alot. It differentiates between the Why, the How & the What. They use his Circle to stay in conscious touch w/ their purpose, their values.
#Neoliberalism/#UK: "In #Britain, there is the added factor of a move to the political Right that even exceeds the radical #neoliberal changes of the 1980s Margaret #Thatcher era. This coincides with severe socio-economic challenges ...
opendemocracy.net/en/truss-cost-…
opendemocracy.net/en/truss-cost-…
... that simply do not fit in with that neoliberal agenda – meaning that the #UK is heading for a crunch among wealthy states over the viability of an economic model that could have worldwide implications."
"Supported by the Tufton Street brigade of neoliberal freethinkers and their wider global community of hundreds more think tanks within the Atlas system, the government has worked hard to maintain the market fundamentalist view."
Terms & phrases to look out for during the #ToryLeadershipContest, as used EVERY DAY by right-wing politicians & pundits, right-wing media, the alt, hard & far-right, Spiked, The Spectator, & a global network of billionaire funded free-market think-tanks:
link.medium.com/LMfODfYUJrb
link.medium.com/LMfODfYUJrb
The Right's creative, divisive, & profoundly misleading use of language has evolved over the last forty years, emerging hand-in-hand with deregulated free-market capitalism, which Britain's next PM will continue & accelerate with the introduction of antidemocratic Charter Cities.
The manufactured war on woke is a distraction, designed to keep voters divided. Under cover of COVID, wealth has been transferred from poor to rich on an unprecedented & unimaginable scale, eroding democracy & resulting in hardship, conflict, mass death & environmental collapse.
#THREAD
In Chapter 2 of 'The road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making of the Neoliberal Thought Collective', edited by Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe, Keith Tribe clarifies the ways in which Friedrich von Hayek’s revisionist history of British liberalism was accomplished.
In Chapter 2 of 'The road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making of the Neoliberal Thought Collective', edited by Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe, Keith Tribe clarifies the ways in which Friedrich von Hayek’s revisionist history of British liberalism was accomplished.
Tribe claims that Hayek misleadingly presented the increasing weight of government in the British economy as a result of the intrusion of Germanic ideas (Hegel, Marx, List, etc.) rather than as a result of industrialization & imperialism.
Whereas political freedom traditionally was regarded as a prerequisite of economic freedom in the British liberal tradition, economic freedom was now advocated as quintessential to preserve a new kind of political freedom of (limited) individual choice.
The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making of the Neoliberal Thought Collective (Eds Mirowski, P & Plehwe, D).
Modern #neoliberalism was born at the "Colloque Walter Lippmann" in 1938, but came into its own with the 1947 founding of the Mont Pèlerin Society.
uberty.org/wp-content/upl…
Modern #neoliberalism was born at the "Colloque Walter Lippmann" in 1938, but came into its own with the 1947 founding of the Mont Pèlerin Society.
uberty.org/wp-content/upl…
The Mont Pèlerin Society's original membership was made up of transnational economists and intellectuals, including Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Karl Popper, Michael Polanyi, & Luigi Einaudi.
From this small beginning, their ideas spread throughout the world, fostering, among other things, the political platforms of Margaret Thatcher & Ronald Reagan & the Washington Consensus, & leading to the potentially catastrophic & #neofascist present.
The evidence is crystal clear: the happiest countries are the most equal ones. People in countries like Britain, where there are high levels of #inequality, are easily manipulated by political & media elites, who fuel division by identifying & demonising scapegoats.🇬🇧
#RwandaPlan
#RwandaPlan
The "general recipe for creating highly satisfied citizens: ensure that state institutions are of high quality, non-corrupt, able to deliver what they promise, & generous in taking care of citizens in various adversities".
The opposite of Britain then.🇬🇧
The opposite of Britain then.🇬🇧
The UK's political & media elite conceal from Brexit supporters & "patriots" the truth about their hero Winston Churchill's role in both the European Convention on, & Court of, Human Rights - designed to protect people from Govts like ours. 🇬🇧
#RwandaPlan
#RwandaPlan
Want to thank @Bindestriche for the retweet. Inspired the need to vent my thoughts in this🧵
An article on Peter #Thiel & his vision, to me a sign: we need to reclaim our #future & not let #techgurus take over.
Let’s start to look at our daily routines: fast pace thru … 1/21
An article on Peter #Thiel & his vision, to me a sign: we need to reclaim our #future & not let #techgurus take over.
Let’s start to look at our daily routines: fast pace thru … 1/21
… #digital tools for working, shopping, researching, studying. communicating & more, made possible by mostly #SiliconValley’s tech companies for a “convenient” life. And I wonder if this is really the concept of the #goodlife that I dreamed of in my childhood? …2/21
..& will it be favored by unborn generations? It seems we are letting a certain type of tech vision take over.
Let me try to look behind that future that seems to be favored now:
As I see it the few leading tech companies now are mainly white men in their 30‘s & 40‘s … 3/21
Let me try to look behind that future that seems to be favored now:
As I see it the few leading tech companies now are mainly white men in their 30‘s & 40‘s … 3/21
'#Neoliberal feminism is defined by individualism, choice, & agency; the “muting” of vocabularies to address structural solutions to gender inequality, & an identity packaged & styled as positive & desirable, but which lacks real substance or explanation.'
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
Under neoliberalism, 'feminism' has become a flattened “cheer word”, which, while holding “positive value… does not necessarily pose any kind of challenge to existing social relations”, aligns with the growth of “popular feminism”, & affords easy cultural & political capital.
We live in a country where Sexist in Chief, Boris Johnson, despite his long & very well-documented history of the most grotesquely misogynist writing, speech, cheating & other acts, can actually claim to be a feminist!
#Diskurs #Neoliberalism
Sehr geehrte @jagodamarinic auf @dlfkultur hat heute eine Stipendiatin aus #Frankreich die Nichtwaehler des Herrn #Macron als "irrational" diffamiert & die Bezeichnung von Arroganz bei Macron als "Unterstellung" diskreditiert
Sehr geehrte @jagodamarinic auf @dlfkultur hat heute eine Stipendiatin aus #Frankreich die Nichtwaehler des Herrn #Macron als "irrational" diffamiert & die Bezeichnung von Arroganz bei Macron als "Unterstellung" diskreditiert
In einer Podcast - Folge von
#LakonischElegant wurde durch Menschen mit Expertise aus #Frankreich dargelegt, daß dieser Ruf der #Arroganz keineswegs aus der Luft gegriffen wurde & daher als #Resonanz zu verstehen ist.
So hat #Macron #Armutsbetroffene als "Die Zahnlosen" verhöhnt
#LakonischElegant wurde durch Menschen mit Expertise aus #Frankreich dargelegt, daß dieser Ruf der #Arroganz keineswegs aus der Luft gegriffen wurde & daher als #Resonanz zu verstehen ist.
So hat #Macron #Armutsbetroffene als "Die Zahnlosen" verhöhnt
#Warum ich dies schreibe?
Aktuell hat eine "#Ernährungsexpertin" der @spdbt in #Deutschland #Armutsbetroffene als #Menschen mit falscher "Einstellung" kategorisiert, sollten Sie Hunger leiden.
#Gaslighting
#Neoliberalismus
Aktuell hat eine "#Ernährungsexpertin" der @spdbt in #Deutschland #Armutsbetroffene als #Menschen mit falscher "Einstellung" kategorisiert, sollten Sie Hunger leiden.
#Gaslighting
#Neoliberalismus
"Today, when the left’s political timidity and #authoritarianism has stripped it of all credibility as a democratic political force, it is more significant that the right also finds it very difficult to resist the lure of #vulnerability claims."
braveneweurope.com/peter-ramsay-v…
braveneweurope.com/peter-ramsay-v…
"The old imperial myth of Britain standing up to foreign tyrants is once again being wheeled out in respect of Ukraine, but the context has changed. The critical point ... is that the fear-mongering style of politics developed during the Cold War...is all conservatives have left"
"All the old commitments, once proclaimed by conservatives, to traditional virtues, such as faith, family, sacrifice, duty, deference to hierarchy, have decayed in practice into a fear-driven politics in which liberals, socialists and foreigners are constructed as threats ..."
@ThomasKnorra Die Gegner des #BGE werfen selbigem nicht ohne Grund genau dies vor, was durch die #Agenda2010 realpolitisch ausgelöst wurde:
#SozialeSegregation & eine Entwertung von #Aktivität.
Befürworter der #Agenda2010 setzen auf eine Welt bunt kaschierter #Ungleichheit.
#Pluralismus
#SozialeSegregation & eine Entwertung von #Aktivität.
Befürworter der #Agenda2010 setzen auf eine Welt bunt kaschierter #Ungleichheit.
#Pluralismus
@ThomasKnorra Es gibt einen echten #Pluralismus und dieser stellt sich gegen jede Ausprägung und Form von systemischer #Ungleichbehandlung!
Und dem gegenüber stellt sich ein Trend, welcher gerne auf "#Vielfalt" setzt, ohne dies wörtlich zu nehmen!
Horizontal versus Vertikal
Und dem gegenüber stellt sich ein Trend, welcher gerne auf "#Vielfalt" setzt, ohne dies wörtlich zu nehmen!
Horizontal versus Vertikal
@ThomasKnorra Was diese #Menschen der #Realpolitik aus den letzten 15 Jahren meinen, wenn sie das Wort"#Vielfalt" tendenzioes umdeuten, bezogen auf konkrete Handlungen, meint immer nur einen selektiven #Pluralismus auf horizontaler Ebene:
Das heißt innerhalb einer oekonomischen Schicht!
Das heißt innerhalb einer oekonomischen Schicht!
#Germany - a) in terms of the #security aspect, this is a result of Western #hegemony managed by the US, in case b) of #energy supply, this is a question of geopolitical point of view, how to consider it: if you see 30 years provocations as a necessary part of it, ....
(1/4)
(1/4)
... and you provoke the split between #CentralEurope and #Russia (#USA/#NATO), whatever the cost, you are right, but with what we are currently experiencing as a result (#Ukraine), and if you are c) fixated on #exports and #neoliberalism ... (2/4)
#THREAD
#Neoliberalism has been a cataclysmic failure:
Taxes for the rich have been cut, & regulation reduced or privatized
Worker, consumer & environmental protections have been removed
Deregulation produces not competition, but market concentration
prospect.org/economy/neolib…
#Neoliberalism has been a cataclysmic failure:
Taxes for the rich have been cut, & regulation reduced or privatized
Worker, consumer & environmental protections have been removed
Deregulation produces not competition, but market concentration
prospect.org/economy/neolib…
Economic power has resulted in feedback loops of political power, in which elites make rules that bolster further concentration
Wealth distribution is vastly more unequal, yet economic growth is slower & more chaotic than during the era of managed capitalism
Wealth distribution is vastly more unequal, yet economic growth is slower & more chaotic than during the era of managed capitalism
Daily life has become more of a struggle for hundreds of millions of ordinary decent people
The economic collapse of 2008 was the result of the deregulation of finance, costing the US economy upwards of $15 TRILLION (vastly more globally)
The economic collapse of 2008 was the result of the deregulation of finance, costing the US economy upwards of $15 TRILLION (vastly more globally)
