Generally a very good
presentation on how an ideology that lies behind a major economic problem ended
up stronger as a result and promoting the idea that to cure the problem we need
to do more of what caused the problem.
The book presents how mainstream
economist failed to see the crisis coming as they rely on a faulty ideology
that doesn’t fit reality; neoliberalism. The book gives a good summery of neoliberalism
as a thought collective; essentially like a distributed holonic system rather
than as a singular monolithic club. This distributed, or “Russian doll”
structure as the book describes it, doesn’t just effect economics but invades
our culture at many levels, thus contributing to its survival. It gives an
interesting example of how the ideology has rooted itself in our culture through
looking at the occupy movement; one part of the book that I thought gave a very
interesting view of how things work (or don’t) in our individualistic society today.
The book presents the neoliberalist
ideology and its foundation and history. From which, it becomes possible to see
why neoliberalism fails. For example, neoliberalism sees people as rational agents
that aim to maximise their own utility. This idea originates in the early days of
game theory and failed empirical testing even then. The idea failed every time
it got implemented; from the famous body count in the Vietnam War to UK health
policies in the 1990s. Research in behavioural economics has shown that people
do not act as rational agents that aim to maximise their own utility. A phenomena
that economist understood way back in the 19th century (see the work
of Thorstein Veblen for example). We can see another foundational error of neoliberalism
with their ideas of a “free market” as “pure information” and as a self-organising
system. Although I would agree that markets do have the characteristics of a
non-linear, chaotic, dynamic system and can self-organise I do not think it self-organises
as neoliberals think it should. It will, through a processes of covariance, stabilise
around a minority owning most of the system (i.e monopolies). Neoliberalism
then argues for the state to maintain the free market. However, that to me,
becomes a tacit admission that the markets don’t work as neoliberalism says
they should and this forms an example of, what the book calls, “double think”,
and other examples of double think inhabit neoliberalism.
Another foundation of
neoliberalism that does not agree with reality has to do with equality. Neoliberalism
argues for inequality and for the rich benefiting all. However, this stands against
a wealth of information that say the more equal a society the better it does (see
“The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better” by Richard Wilkinson).
Neoliberalism says
that we cannot understand nature nor the markets and, therefore denies climate
change and the economic crisis. Any “perceived” problems just means we haven’t
got enough of a free market, thus “more free market” becomes the solution to all
ills. The book describes this behaviour as “cognitive dissonance”; a type of stupidity. Taking stupidity as an adaptive-maladaptive
behavioural pattern where we knowingly (or, at least, have the capacity to
know) that our actions will harm ourselves or others we can understand neoliberalism
as stupidity in action. As we have a wealth of evidence to say our current
socioeconomic system has started to destroy our plant and threatens our own existence
we, therefore, need to change our system.
Neoliberalism fails. It fails every time it gets implemented. It fails again and again! Yet it propose do more of the same? Taking the definition of insanity as
doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, we can see
that now neoliberalism has gone beyond stupidity and has entered the realm of
insane stupidity.
If I had to mark this
book down for anything I would say the author don ‘narf waffle! I think he
could have said what he had to say in a book a third of the size!
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