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0 pointssonnyblarney7y ago0 comments

That's not really neoliberalism, moreover, nobody is getting banned for that word.

Neoliberalism is more of an academic, economic concept, it's not inherently anti-community, it just happens to be.

McDonald's and Starbucks don't want to wipe out civic cohesiveness etc., but it just might happen in some situations wherein everyone ends up working for 'large corps' instead of local businesses etc..

The opposite political ideology is called 'Communitarianism'. It does not have a current identifiable place in America politics.

The Christian Democrats (i.e. Angela Merkel in Germany) are of this philosophy, it's more of a culturally conservative kind of socialism, it puts families, communities, people and the wellbeing of said groups at the centre of political and economic objectives. It's done in a localist manner (in the same way the Catholic Church has given great local leeway to parishes etc.), i.e. local context matters more than top-down authorities etc..

Whether you buy into it or not, I suggest it's really sad that it's missing from the American dialogue because a lot of that is just what we need right now.

Inherently localist ideals have a hard fight against more globalist ones (neoliberalism, state socialism) for obvious reasons ... if there were more established Communitarian ideals, I'll bet Donald Trump would not be president right now.

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NeedMoreTea7y ago· 2 in thread

Well, it is an economic school of thought, but you hugely under play the connection. Neoliberalism can't work without the abolition of community and promotion of personal responsibility. Community breaks down by disassembling any collectivist groups and giving them over to the market and the now powerless individual. Personal responsibility is often disenfranchisement - nearly all our freedoms came about through collective action and organised civil disobedience.

The personal freedom to buy your social housing (without building more), have a personal pension with individual charges (with no attempt to ensure "enough" pension or group benefits), the privatisation of community and state assets and on and on. The removal of community power by constraining the rights and budgets of local government, centralising ever more then privatising or closing in the search of market solutions and smaller government. At a higher level it enabled the rise of globalisation.

There was absolutely need to re-balance in the seventies and constrain the unions. Effectively abolishing them was perhaps too much seeing today's gig economy and zero hours contracts. Another example of personal responsibility! After thirty years neoliberalism appears to be a means to restore the pre-war gilded age inequalities whilst completely forgetting why the post-war consensus (social security, society and Bretton Woods) came about.

Hopefully Communitarianism will get its chance soon.

sonnyblarneyOP7y ago

Not all unions are 'good' ... so abolishing bad unions was not 'neoliberalism' ... it was simply 'anti socialist' or getting rid of some of the bas parts of the system.

Government sector Unions for example need to be reformed.

And FYI 'personal responsibility' existed long, long before neoliberalism as an ideal.

Communitarianism fundamentally requires 'personal responsibility' as one cannot 'help the community' until one has 'one's own house in order' so to speak. It goes even further: Communitarianism implies that 'personal responsibility' actually includes responsibility towards the community.

My grandparent owned a large lumberyard and employed people fairly, and in their retirement, spent several days a week visiting retirement homes, playing music, entertaining, 'doing stuff' in the community etc.. That's communitarianism.

But yes - neoliberalism does require the 'breakdown of the community' in the classical sense. They would be happy if we were replaced with docile, human drones that work, consume, and don't have opinions.

NeedMoreTea7y ago

Don't think for a moment all unions were good. A good selection were militant trouble makers thinking little of the good of their members. The miners in the UK came firmly in that category.

The Air Traffic union in the US seems, from this side of the Atlantic, much less clear cut. They seemed to be a middle class, white collar union. Reagan supported them during campaign, then after election crucified them.

Nonetheless both cases were the start of the neoliberal changes and the neutering of unions good, bad and indifferent.

I should have made myself clearer, I meant personal responsibility and choice as political catch phrase. It was the well worn 1980s selling point and justification of many of the changes and privatisations. Many of them in areas that were generally accepted as having a place in society, such as social housing etc. Which is not at all the same as real personal responsibility and civic duty.

My own parents did similar - neither of them talked about it much or felt any need to show anyone what good they were doing. They quietly did it as part of their beliefs, contributing to the community.

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