*Update 6 October 2018*. This article encapsulates the issues beautifully: ‘In one sentence, Noam Chomsky helps expose how fascists are taking power around the world‘.
*Update 28 June 2017*. This handy guide nicely debunks capitalist myths: ‘Lies That Capitalists Tell Us‘.
Neoliberalism doesn’t work! Thanks to Eddie Gibbons for designing this. Feel free to share it, as long as you link to this page.
It’s time we debunked the myths peddled by neoliberal cheerleader Rupert Murdoch and the like.
Poor-hating bigotry peddled by tabloids
Everything below I have mentioned repeatedly on this blog and/or my Facebook account. I thought it was time for me to compile the items as a handy resource, having recently been reminded of the distressing reality that many people have no understanding at all of what is going on. The incident that triggered this was one of those pointless Facebook exchanges where I was confronted by the poor-hating bigotry of those who have completely swallowed the scapegoating propaganda of the far-right tabloids and project their poisonous vision onto all they see, impervious to evidence.
Anecdotes better? Persecution of asylum seekers.
In circumstances like that, the facts are useless, and I would probably have done better to relate the details of my own direct experiences (what it is really like to be on benefits) and those of people I have met – such as asylum seekers fleeing horrific persecution (in lands sucked dry by our multinationals) and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, only to face abuse and persecution in this sceptred isle, while living on a pittance.
Nonetheless, facts are facts, and they need to be widely disseminated. If people chance on them by themselves rather than being confronted by them in mid-rant, perhaps they stand a chance of registering. (I wish they were taught in schools, but our present neoliberal overlords would never allow that!)
Here’s the toolkit!
A) Know thine enemy: what is neoliberalism?
Click on this for a definition of neoliberalism. (Scroll down the page to see the five points.)
What is destroying people’s lives and the environment on which we all depend has various names.
I like Bruce K. Alexander’s “hypercapitalism”, but “neoliberalism” is perhaps the term in commonest use.
Here’s a nice summary of the “philosophy” we are up against. Click on the link and scroll down the page to read the five points. Also see what is described as “The London Orthodoxy Approach” on the Common Weal website.
and if you encounter those who deny neoliberalism’s very existence, then refer them to this: ‘Yes, neoliberalism is a thing. Don’t let economists tell you otherwise‘.
B) Myth #1: “Job-creators need tax breaks”.
This nails it! I wish we could force every politician and editor of mainstream media outlets to watch Nick Hanauer’s myth-busting talk in the video below. They have been found out!
And here’s a brilliant video on the corrupting effects of wealth on morality:
Neoliberalism in a nutshell
C) Myth #2: Things have got better and trickle-down works
In fact we have a far more unequal society now than we did a couple of decades ago. The super-rich are pulling way ahead and the rest of us are getting worse off. The videos below apply consecutively to the USA and UK but much the same can be seen in other developed countries. Here’s a great new site providing simple ‘posters’ about the causes and effects of inequality, and here’s what Oxfam says: ‘Inequality has run so out of control, that the 85 richest people on the planet own the wealth of half the world’s population’.
And these are the effects of such inequality. Click on the image below for a treasure trove of striking data.
Graph modified from the Equality Trust website showing that health and social problems are worse in unequal countries. Click on the image to visit the site and learn more.
D) Myth #3: There is a major problem with multi-generational wilful worklessness and benefits-scrounging
Here’s the truth about benefit fraud, and many of the popular myths about “benefits scroungers” are debunked in the article below. Click on the image below to read it.
Click on this image to get the facts on benefits.
And here’s an excellent and humorous piece from a US perspective!
So who are the real scroungers? Geroge Monbiot nails it in this Guardian article: ‘This cash for grouse scandal shows how Britain has become a plutocrats’ paradise‘.
E) Myth #4: Companies that issue shares are subject to market discipline and are the most efficient…
Click on the image below to watch a great video in which David Erdal shows that, in fact, employee-owned companies are generally better for society in every way! (You will be taken to another post on this blog where you will also have the option to read a summary of his talk.)
Work for many feels like rape/prostitution, but it needn’t be this way! Click on this image to watch David Erdal’s inspiring talk on employee-ownership.
F) Myth #5: Choice is a good thing – the more the better!
I, for one, do not want to waste my valuable time and energy making essentially meaningless choices between often mediocre products. I want a good cup of coffee, a good local school, a good public transport system, and I do not want to have to compare and choose.
G) Swiss army knives to add to your toolkit!
Swiss army knife #1
Here’s a brilliant essay summarising what is wrong and the reason for scapegoating the disempowered: Inequality, Ideology and Independence.
‘ It is because there is a scramble for resources and wealth, rather than a plan of investments and social security, that toxic politics can take root. Because we live in a divided society between the rich an poor, the ideological infrastructure must make a reckoning with how it can justify poverty. Instead of taking aim at the root of the problem, it seeks to identify vulnerable, often voiceless sections of society, to scapegoat. Don’t look here, look over there at the immigrants taking your job. That formulation represents a most intellectually dishonest position, but it is necessary. A system based on massive economic inequality, cannot at the same time .allow itself to become the focus for peoples frustration.
‘So, for all the stoked hate, and after doing everything possible to commend the super rich to us as part of a strategy to generalise increased wealth across the whole of society, Britain has failed its people in favour of buffeting a tiny elite. It didn’t have to be like this.’
Swiss army knife #2
This short video will give you a great overview of what is wrong with the neoliberal system:
Swiss army knife #3
Click on this image to read a summary of ’23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism’.
Here’s my review of 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism and here’s a summary of it. It’s a great book demolishing 23 myths propagated by ‘free-market’ enthusiasts. While it still advocates economic growth, it defeats pretty much all the other destructive dogma pushed by neoliberals. Please read it.
Here is the author’s website and the book’s Facebook page.
Swiss army knife #4
Here’s a great essay by Jane Jones: The War on the Commonweal: Making a Stand in 2014.
Lastly, a word about Scottish independence…
This is the image I submitted to the National Collective.
All the mainstream UK parties are clearly hell-bent on pursuing a destructive neoliberal course, tangled inextricably with the USA and the massively powerful military-industrial complex (warned against by Eisenhower). Here in Scotland we have a fantastic opportunity to break away from this and realise the visions espoused by such inspiring movements as:
Please visit their websites and see what could be! I shall certainly be voting for independence on 18 September 2014. We have nothing to lose (except the horrors of ongoing neoliberalism) and everything to gain!
And finally… here’s Resurgence magazine’s inspiring site, if you want to know what an entire world without neoliberalism could be like and how we might get there!
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