The first step is admitting you have a problem.
The Sydney Morning Herald — (international readers: wait, come back! I promise this is relevant to you too!) — recently published a superb article by author, architecture critic, essayist, columnist and speaker, Elizabeth Farrelly, about the pernicious effects of neoliberalism, appropriating a line now made famous by student and school-shooting survivor, Emma Gonzales, ‘calling BS’ on the vested interests destroying our countries and cities from the inside out.
“Why do we keep drinking the Kool-Aid?” she asks.
“It’s the tired old neo-lib insistence that a smaller slice of a bigger pie is better for everyone. Why? Trickle down. Voodoo economics. The evidence is in, and it’s against them.
“Neo-liberalism dramatically worsens inequality. We’re near the end (I like to think) of a 40-year Western-democracy experiment in neo-liberal ideology.”
Farrelly is correct, (there really isn’t a single word out of place in the entire piece) and I am pleased that the SMH, and hopefully other publications like it, are starting to realise that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. And America. And Australia. And the UK. And Chile. And Venezuela. And the Middle East. Really there is barely a country that hasn’t been touched by the disenfranchising effects of neoliberalism.
But what seems to be missing — both from the piece, and from the publication — is a recognition that it is the very words they have been printing that have convinced us to invest emotionally in what we now know to be a lie. A lie that was used to sell us on the terms of our own enslavement.
Why do we keep drinking the Kool-Aid? Coz you keep feeding it to us.
Neoliberalism has been the main source of sustenance across the mainstream press for nigh on 70 years. Below is a guide for how to identify the lie and avoid drinking the Kool-Aid.
(And on the off chance that there is an editorial director, manager or editor reading this, how not to publish the Kool-Aid in the first place).
Lies start with the language we use
Words matter. The words we use to describe the economy become our reality.Use the wrong ones and the economy becomes a golem that has the potential to destroy the world. And like a golem, words can both summon and destroy it.
To quote philosopher and author, Damon Young: “If stories are powerful forms of comprehension and encouragement, then they are also powerful forms of misunderstanding and coercion.”
It is possible to be complicit in the lie and not even know it. Because recognising the lie requires some basic understanding of how government spending — and money more broadly — works. (I have written about this here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).
Countless think tanks have been setup to inject language into policy, regulation, media and business, controlling the message by permeating their ideology into almost every aspect of developed life, from politics, technology, money to how we think about ourselves.
This is an organised project that has been more than 70 years in the making, perpetuated and sold by think-tanks all over the globe. This includes the Institute for Economic Affairs in the UK, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute in the US, the Fraser Institute in Canada, and the Stockholm Network in Nordic countries who all artfully tweak their rhetoric to suit the cultural particulars of the local population, but that adhere to almost a single objective: the complete takeover of the state by the market.
Neoliberalism has been the main source of sustenance across the mainstream press for nigh on 70 years. Below is a guide for how to identify the lie and avoid drinking the Kool-Aid.
(And on the off chance that there is an editor or manager reading this, how not to publish the Kool-Aid in the first place)...
