Review: “The Invisible Doctrine”

George Monbiot and Peter Hutchinson call out neoliberalism for what it is.

The biggest scam and economic failure of the past forty years. A mockery of economics that reduces every element of society to a transactional net outcome at a constantly lower cost. That turns every citizen into a customer.

Everything has a price. Especially government. Neoliberalism allows special interests to buy political parties and politicians, to buy laws that best serve their advantage. Neoliberalism has seen the wholesale destruction of government services and support while providing uncharted wealth and protection for the rich and powerful.

Neoliberalism has exploded inequality to the point where almost every city and town on earth has homeless people. Politicians no longer serve the people. They serve their donors and their post-politics careers.

Neoliberalism controls your life, diminishes your life. Presumes you only want to compete rather than cooperate, that the market is your holy grail. Eliminate price controls, deregulate capital markets, lower trade barriers, privatise government services, bring on austerity. Fracture state influence in the economy.

It’s what every political party everywhere promises. It’s not a question of left or right. It’s a question of degree. Neoliberalism has become the only political playbook.

Which is absurd given it doesn’t work for the people. Before neoliberalism, the state generated economic growth by enhancing the spending power of those at the bottom. Neoliberalism has generated economic growth by pushing workers to the limit, accelerating resource extraction and inflating asset values and household debt.

Neoliberalism is incapable of solving its own problems. Why? Because by definition problems cannot be solved using the same level of thinking that created them.

Neoliberalism is an incendiary device. It’s burning us alive. It’s destroying us.

It’s high time we replaced it with something that works.