George Monbiot explains how neoliberalism has robbed us…
Thatcherism and Reaganism were not ideologies in their own right: they were just two faces of neoliberalism. Their massive tax cuts for the rich, crushing of trade unions, reduction in public housing, deregulation, privatisation, outsourcing and competition in public services were all proposed by Hayek and his disciples. But the real triumph of this network was not its capture of the right, but its colonisation of parties that once stood for everything Hayek detested.
Bill Clinton and Tony Blair did not possess a narrative of their own. Rather than develop a new political story, they thought it was sufficient to triangulate. In other words, they extracted a few elements of what their parties had once believed, mixed them with elements of what their opponents believed, and developed from this unlikely combination a “third way”.
It was inevitable that the blazing, insurrectionary confidence of neoliberalism would exert a stronger gravitational pull than the dying star of social democracy. Hayek’s triumph could be witnessed everywhere from Blair’s expansion of the private finance initiative to Clinton’s repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act, which had regulated the financial sector. For all his grace and touch, Barack Obama, who didn’t possess a narrative either (except “hope”), was slowly reeled in by those who owned the means of persuasion.
As I warned in April, the result is first disempowerment then disenfranchisement. If the dominant ideology stops governments from changing social outcomes, they can no longer respond to the needs of the electorate. Politics becomes irrelevant to people’s lives; debate is reduced to the jabber of a remote elite. The disenfranchised turn instead to a virulent anti-politics in which facts and arguments are replaced by slogans, symbols and sensation. The man who sank Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency was not Donald Trump. It was her husband.
The paradoxical result is that the backlash against neoliberalism’s crushing of political choice has elevated just the kind of man that Hayek worshipped. Trump, who has no coherent politics, is not a classic neoliberal. But he is the perfect representation of Hayek’s “independent”; the beneficiary of inherited wealth, unconstrained by common morality, whose gross predilections strike a new path that others may follow. The neoliberal thinktankers are now swarming round this hollow man, this empty vessel waiting to be filled by those who know what they want. The likely result is the demolition of our remaining decencies, beginning with the agreement to limit global warming.
Those who tell the stories run the world. Politics has failed through a lack of competing narratives. The key task now is to tell a new story of what it is to be a human in the 21st century. It must be as appealing to some who have voted for Trump and Ukip as it is to the supporters of Clinton, Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn.
Trump manipulated those who globalisation has left behind.
As Michael Moore pointed out months ago, the Democrats didn’t explain how they would help the 30million white uneducated male voters get ahead.
Those are the voters who have seen their factories closed down and jobs shipped off to Mexico. They are the voters competing with illegal migrant labour. They are the voters who have to enrol in the Army and have bits of their body blown off. They are the voters who come back to veteran services that are underfunded.
Trump articulated their rage and he has reaped an unthinkable victory. If the progressive left can’t look past their own cosmopolitan elitism and understand why poor white people would reject neoliberalism, then we’ve failed as a movement.
The pressure to support Clinton because she was a woman and the myth her gender would be good enough for progressives was a false narrative…
One conclusion we can draw from recent commentary is that mainstream feminist politics has some soul-searching to do. Many feminist writers shifted their politics to the right by supporting Clinton. Rather than discussing the failings of a structure that rules for the wealthy and political elite, they argued that integrating a woman into this structure represented feminist progress. Many effectively sided with power over people.
…and the flawed social media forces within mainstream media that didn’t see this are now clear…
The forces that drove this election’s media failure are likely to get worse. Segregated social universes, an industry moving from red states to the coasts, and mass media’s revenue decline: The disconnect between two realities shows no sign of abating.
…journalists who spend all day chatting with each other on Twitter & congregating in elite social circles are to blame for our collective ignorance.
The one word that almost every political pundit in America has not uttered as they scramble to explain their ignorance is ‘class’.
Were there racists and sexists voting for Trump, of course there were, but Trump didn’t win because of them, he won because white working people who have been left behind by globalisation voted for him. Attacking them as racist and sexist when 54% of white women voted for Trump, when many of these voters voted for Obama twice and when 50% of union families voted for Trump is deeply counter productive.
The lessons from Trumpism and how to defeat it by offering a genuine counter to neoliberalism seem utterly lost on the Left as they go into collective shock and ‘hug boxing‘.
Have I got a scam for you
Interestingly enough, this attempt to activate the angry white vote in NZ was something that has already been attempted. Cameron Slater and Simon Lusk were caught trying to do this in 2012…
National Party had high-level concerns over member’s influence
Confidential minutes of a National board meeting in March reveal high-level concerns over the influence of party member Simon Lusk in the party.
But Prime Minister John Key, who was absent from the board meeting, suggested he did not share that view: “I don’t have any great concern.”
Mr Lusk, who is based in the Hawkes Bay, has been a campaign strategist and adviser to MPs at various times and runs his own private candidates college that is not sanctioned by the party.
In an embarrassing leak, the March minutes have been obtained by Labour MP Trevor Mallard, who in the past has accused Mr Lusk of having orchestrated the Act leadership coup against Rodney Hide.
The minutes reveal that senior whip Michael Woodhouse reported to the board he had spoken to MPs with “an involvement” with Mr Lusk.
“He [Mr Woodhouse] has let them know that it is not appropriate for any MPs to engage with any alternative candidates’ school that is not sanctioned by the party,” the minutes said.
“He said this has been understood by all.”
It also said Mr Woodhouse had had a”disturbing discussion” with Mr Lusk and that Mr Woodhouse believed that it highlighted Mr Lusk’s motivations and “a very negative agenda for the party”.
…the idea was to wipe out weak National MPs and replace them with hard right ones by activating the angry white vote in NZ.
Lusk and Slater’s problem was in the activating of the angry white vote, Bryce Edwards has been writing up a storm with his thoughts on anti-establishment forces that could become politically revolutionary in NZ, but the fundamental problem for Bryce and Lusk/Slater is the one ingredient Trump and Brexit had – fury.
In NZ, who has neoliberalism hurt the most?
Gen Xers, precariat workers and beneficiaries.
Gen Xers were robbed first by neoliberalism, the precariat are the manifestation of neoliberalism and beneficiaries are permanently trapped by it.
So how does that translate into fury and political revolution?
I would argue very easily and that Gareth Morgan could be the unlikely contender to not only generate that fury, but reap from it politically.
One of the most interesting pieces of research brought up by those studying the precariat is that they don’t see the hegemonic structures of power in a society. They don’t look at their shit work conditions and connect it to John Key, they only look directly above them and see their arsehole boss. I would argue that beneficiaries are exactly the same, it’s not John Key they curse, it’s the WINZ Officer who makes their life hell, it’s the CYFs worker who takes their kids, it’s Housing NZ who kick them out, it’s the Ministry of Social Development who put them up in a motel and then hand them a $50 000 bill.
Over 1000 beneficiaries turned up to the Auckland Action Against Poverty beneficiary clinic set up outside WINZ earlier this year. That’s a 1000 people so upset with the current system they begged advocates to help them.
It’s the neoliberal welfare state stupid.
Imagine if Morgan launched a damning attack on the Welfare State, held up the horror that is CYFs, held up the abomination that is Housing NZ, held up the appealing manner people are treated by WINZ and he did it with intemperate and inflammatory language.
How would beneficiaries respond?
If Morgan attacked the State services that have been degraded by neoliberalism while promoting a Universal Basic Income, how many beneficiaries, members of the precariat and Gen Xers who live from tiny contract to tiny contract would suddenly sit up and listen?
Labour can’t criticise the deplorable way people are treated by the Public Service because they need the Unions on board. National won’t criticise them because they want the Public Services to be awful to stop people using them. But Gareth Morgan could.
At first I thought Morgan’s appeal would just be urban, educated male voters who vote National out of default because they are made to feel guilty for having a penis by Labour and Green activists, but if Morgan promoted a UBI off the back of intense criticism of those public services that make those using them feel sub-human, imagine the rush to support Morgan.
- Criticise CYFs for failing children and their families.
- Criticise the Child Support system that sees so many Fathers in debt that they will never pay.
- Criticise ACC and their corrupt ways of not paying people who are hurt.
- Criticise Housing NZ for kicking people out into the street.
- Criticise WINZ for the way they dehumanise beneficiaries.
- Criticise Ministry of Social Development for their inane and counterproductive policies.
Morgan has been attacked for having a UBI that is too low, but for Gen Xers and Precariat workers who get nothing from the current neoliberal welfare state, that’s not an issue and if you talk to many beneficiaries, not having to deal with the social services and the constant threat of having their benefits taken from them would be worth a lower rate.
There is a deep anger from those who have been forced to use a neoliberal welfare state and those who earn a pittance too much to even be eligible for them.
Those are the ones who have been left behind by neoliberalism and it is there that Gareth Morgan would have his best chance of sparking a political revolution.
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