After Consider The Meek's song "The People's Introduction to Neo-liberalism" was voted number 1 on punkradiocast.com's TOP 40, many people have written in to ask what the song means.
I wrote this song after reading "People over profit" by Noam Chomsky. In this book, Noam Chomsky discusses how a very concentrated few restrict the public arena in a very organized and effective manner to increase personal profit.
In this short article, I will try to explain as briefly as possible how this all works. However, I encourage people who really want to face the reality about what their current role in society is, to read "Profit over people". It helped me a lot and changed how I personally live my life today.
Neo-liberalism, in the book, is described as the "defining political economic paradigm of our time". Basically, it is the economic system that has taken over the world and manifests itself in social networking and the social affairs in our everyday living. Real democratic establishments such as libraries, parks, clubs, art houses and places where real human interaction is encouraged, without a commercial agenda, are being replaced by shopping malls, complexes and other platforms geared towards the corporate market. The internet has certainly revolutionized the neo-liberal idea as human interaction is increasingly becoming something through a digital format, and not through real human interaction itself.
Democratic societies are perfect for the neo-liberal course to work because it needs citizens to be depoliticized, yet still feel they live in a "free" society. This "freedom" however, is restricted to a freedom to consume. The meaning of "Democracy" has been manipulated so that the Free Market policies ensure corporate interests to proceed. Corporations have enormous power to manipulate the democratic political process and media. It then diverts our concentration on real issues and restricts our decision making because of the controlled information people are receiving. The results are massive inequalities throughout society, marginalizing people into categories of socio-economic class.
On a political arena, citizens are powerless politically, as they are socially. And merely become spectators to an electoral system that very rarely is in response to the people's real needs. Unlike genuine democracy, the political process of starting a political party that has any real chance of having any impact on society is next to impossible. This leaves citizens with usually a two party state where they can choose between one power and another, which isn't much different than a one party communist state.
Our role is an important one for neo-liberalism to flourish. We are the necessary by-product of neo-liberalism that keeps feeding the corporate interests through our diverted concentration to consume. Neo-liberalism turns "citizens" into "consumers". Citizens of the neo-liberal society, should be just wealthy enough to consume, but not enough to have any real impact on decision making about society itself.
Public political debates are usually about minor issues or issues that don't directly nourish legitimate needs. The important issues that determine the structure of society or the organization and distribution of resources is not. In fact, the very fabric of society is left to market trends.
The government's role in this is to maintain order and of course protect private interests on so many levels. By "protect", I mean enforce laws and market ideals so that the concentrated minority, who have major investments in not more than 1000 corporations, have less competition. "Competition", is an interesting word to use by a corporation. I'm guessing it refers to anything that gets in their way to create more profit.
Governments will ensure this doesn't happen through organizations like the WTO. The other central role is ensuring the important "byproduct" stays hooked, pays taxes, remains socially and politically powerless, and doesn't begin being concerned about the social injustice and inequality for others or themselves.
While all this sounds hopeless for the citizen, one thing people should remember is neo-liberalism has become globalized because of this very reason. Neoliberals maintain the idea that there is a trickle down effect where the spoils of the extremely wealthy will spread throughout society. And people have become deluded into thinking they will be rewarded if they remain the "good citizen".
It's important that we first understand the role we play as the consumer for neo-liberalism, and then we can begin to empower ourselves in many ways, like starting a punk band….
Kev Lee