Skeletons in the Neoliberal Cupboard – By Thomas Klikauer, Norman Simms (Counterpunch) / Mar 4 2021
Promoted by the likes of Friedrich Hayek, Augusto Pinochet, Milton Friedman, Margaret Thatcher, Roland Reagan, Alan Greenspan, etc. une idée fixe of neoliberalism has been around since the 1980s. The key elements of this ideology are the support for fiscal austerity, rampant deregulation (i.e.: pro-business re-regulation), free trade, less taxes for the rich and corporations, privatization, reduction in government spending, anti-unionism, a tendency to endanger democracy, the elimination of workers’ rights, and uncontrolled environmental vandalism.
And neoliberalism also has many other skeletons lurking in a cupboard. Largely, this is not what the prophets of neoliberalism want you to know. Well, it is bit of a Rumsfeld moment. There are many things we know about neoliberalism that they think we don’t know. But there are things we do not know about neoliberalism. Finally, there are things the fortune-tellers of neoliberalism do not want us to know.
Now we will expose some of these secrets, the things the demagogues of neoliberalism do not want us to know.
One thing neoliberalism is advocating is the idea that every individual acts – almost all the time – out of pure self-interest. What the henchmen of neoliberalism do not want us to know is that people have other motives than the one-dimensional mindset of neoliberal crusaders want us to believe. Some of these motives are patriotism, community spirit, solidarity, altruism, noblesse oblige and wanting to return something to the society.
CONTINUE > https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/03/04/skeletons-in-the-neoliberal-cupboard/
