neoliberalism

Protesting tax office workers hang a banner from the finance ministry in Athens on Monday, March 20, 2017, that reads: “Reduction of tax free limit means new cuts to salaries and pensions. Stop Austerity.” (AP/Thanassis Stavrakis)
GREECE– The Greek government recently reached a new agreement with the so-called “troika” of lenders—the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund—on new reforms that are slated to go into effect in 2019.

Mural at the Communist Party headquarters in Lisbon

Mural at the Communist Party headquarters in Lisbon

Alternativism has given alternative media something to think about in America. The new regime in Washington DC has activated a veritable tsunami of grieving voices spitting hatred at their ‘populist’ billionaire President as he commences to re-shuffle his deck of cards. The new boss-man tweets his own superlatives in the small hours of the night revealing his indifference to the superlative-ridden cant of his predecessors. The ‘new broom’ possesses its own brand of cant which is currently being fed into an alternative lexicon…and it sure has lots of snap, crackle and pop.

Gates and other venture philanthropist’s have ‘pioneered’ and ‘seeded’ new education markets through direct funding and by shaping ‘education reform’ policies. Charter schools are an essential component of this mission… allowing impact investors to be the drivers of the education reform industry’s final mission: to fully dismantle public education by way of “anywhere, anytime learning” and “personalized” technologies.

The BBC and the financial crisis: interview with Dr Mike Berry
by Ian Sinclair
Open Democracy
3 February 2017
Dr Mike Berry, a Lecturer at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, co-wrote Bad News From Israel (2004) and More Bad News From Israel (2011) with Professor Greg Philo.

As I looked at the photos of women’s marches in Washington DC, San Francisco and all over the world on January 21, I was struck by one thing. Whiteness. The marchers were predominantly white – even in places like Nairobi. Not only were they white, they looked like they were upper middle class – able to afford the finest warm clothes and designer outfits, down jackets, sporting iPhones to record themselves. When interviewed they appeared to be educated and articulate. All of this raised alarm bells in me. Even before the march I had reservations.

We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the ‘right ‘, a Fascist century. Now liberalism is preparing to close the doors of its temples, deserted by the peoples who feel that the agnosticism it professed in the sphere of economics and the indifferentism of which it has given proof in the sphere of politics and morals, would lead the world to ruin in the future as they have done in the past.

Are we witnessing the unfolding of the last chapter of the Tories’ plan to privatise the NHS? The first step was taken by the Tory government under Margaret Thatcher in its National Health Services and Community act in 1990. This act introduced the internal market and competition, instead of cooperation, within the NHS. The Health and Social Care Act of 2012 pushed the marketisation and outsourcing of health and social care to private health providers to new levels.

Donald Trump’s victory has spurred commentary about the “death of liberal democracy,” but the seeds of that demise were planted in the 1980s amid elite orthodoxy in favor of neoliberal economics, argues Mike Lofgren. By Mike Lofgren The election of…Read more →