Why the neoliberal consensus doesn't work

[Squigglenob]

Such is the lure of the "serious mind" who swears by Tom Friedman and David Brooks, and whose preferred mold of politician is Joe Lieberman and Olympia Snowe. The system is working, these people imagine, but for a frustrating inability of the infants in Washington to hammer out the details. It is assumed that we have a political problem, not at economic one. The only economic problem on the horizon is a long-term deficit that can be handled at the margins with a few modest tax increases and cuts to the over-expanded safety net of the otherwise comfortable middle class.

The problem, of course, is that the economic system is not functional. It's broken. Something has happened over the past forty or so years that has fundamentally altered the economic landscape. While the causes of this change are long debated, the symptoms are quite clear. Productivity continues to increase overall. The gross domestic products of most nations both developed and developing continue to rise, if somewhat more slowly than desired. Yet unlike in previous decades or even centuries, the vast majority of the public is not sharing in the gains from this increase in productivity and growth. The awards are now going to a very few.

Wages for both the poor and the middle class are stagnant. Opportunities are dwindling. And even though it's still possible for a poor person who gets incredibly lucky or has a single great business idea to shoot into the stratosphere of the economic elite, those people are extremely few in number. As a general rule, social mobility is now more stratified and rigid than nearly a century. Jobs are increasingly available only to those with at least 22 if not 26 or more years of education, often at six-figure price tags that can never be fully paid off. Not everyone can attain that level of education; fewer still can afford it; and even fewer still will even have jobs available for them once they complete the gauntlet--particularly not with those who used to retire in their fifties or sixties working well past retirement age.

Corporate profits and stock markets are at record highs. The rich have never been better off. But everyone else is struggling more than ever, with no light at the end of the tunnel in sight.

Read the rest by David Atkins at Hullabaloo.

[blkmusclmachine]

1. .

.

[awoke_in_2003]

2. Whether they choose to call themselves...

Neo-libs, third way, or DLC, they are enemies if the people.

[RainDog]

3. k&r n/t

[libdude]

4. Neoliberal, not what I thought

While thinking of the various terms used to frame a political philosophy neoliberal is to me one of those that may not be as it seems. A new modified form of liberalism, maybe not. There is a term that is not a revised form of liberal, but one that contains the following ideology and practices,
The rule of the market.
Cutting public expenditures for social services.
Deregulation.
Privatization.
Eliminate the concept of " public good " or
" community ".

Perhaps Friedman and Brooks belong to this type of neoliberal advocates. Convince people that the problem is a political one, that becomes the focus instead of the long term issues that have been been evolving in the economic both on the national and on the inter-national level.
This type of neo-liberalism is central to the Republican party and unfortunately has found some home in the Democratic party.

[bemildred]

5. It's not supposed to "work", that is not it's purpose.

It's supposed to funnel money to the top, to the corporations, for that it works great.

[TheKentuckian]

6. This is the only plausible form of "working" there is for this scam.