#endneoliberalism

Occasionally on twitter when I advise about my blogs I have started using the hashtag #endneoliberalism, but I have not really explained what this means and what needs to replace it. This is an effort to answer that complex question.

I support fair trade (no market mechanisms), allowing governments to intervene to put Gaia before people before profits. However fair trade has never happened - maybe when there was barter. Trade has to be conducted in a sustainable way, whilst that sounds Utopian Gaia can provide for people if we are not greedy. If all things were equal I would allow the markets to rule - as they do in our local markets to a certain extent (supply and demand), but with the huge accumulations of wealth this free market cannot happen on a macro scale. Therefore the function of international government has got to be the control of the accumulation of capital in the interests of Gaia and then ordinary people, because Gaia cannot provide for the level of accumulation and destruction of resources that is at the basis of neoliberalism.

I wanted to include references as to a clear understanding of what neoliberalism was, and included these two clips to explain - neoliberalism in two parts from an American perspective 1 and 2. It gives the historical perspective but is not sufficiently critical. Maybe it is of use. The clips clearly show the economic system moving towards the interests of accumulation into what is called neoliberalism. But the explanation is not simple.

Here George Monbiot discusses Neoliberalism - the Ideology at the Root of All Our Problems "Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that "the market" delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning." These ideas are contained in the clips.

Under neoliberalism the 1% just continue to get richer whilst people get poorer. And Gaia is being destroyed. With a strategy of Gaia before people before profits there are sufficient guidelines to #endneoliberalism.