{"id":383042,"date":"2018-10-31T03:12:38","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T02:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/why-a-neoliberal-society-cant-survive\/"},"modified":"2018-10-31T03:12:38","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T02:12:38","slug":"why-a-neoliberal-society-cant-survive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/why-a-neoliberal-society-cant-survive\/","title":{"rendered":"Why a Neoliberal Society Can\u2019t Survive"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Nathaniel St. Clair<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Humans are complicated creatures<\/a>. We are both cooperative and sectarian. We tend to be cooperative within in-groups (e.g., a trade union) whilst competing against out-groups (e.g., a business confederation). But complex societies such as ours also force us to cooperate with out-groups \u2013 in neighbourhoods, at work, and so on. In social systems, natural selection favours cooperation<\/a>. In addition, we are biased toward ethical behaviours, so cooperation and sharing are valued<\/a> in human societies.<\/p>\n

But what happens when we are forced into an economic system that makes us compete at every level? The logical outcome is societal decline or collapse.<\/p>\n

NEOLIBERAL DOGMA IN THE 20TH CENTURY<\/strong><\/p>\n

In \u201cThe Individual in Society<\/a>,\u201d Ludwig von Mises, teacher of Friedrich Hayek (the granddaddy of modern neoliberalism), wrote that in a contractual society, the employer is at the mercy of the mob. But in a self-interested market economy, \u201c[t]he coordination of the autonomous actions of all individuals is accomplished by the operation of the market.\u201d So, in this fantasy-world, employers can fire workers and replace them with cheaper ones without incurring the social costs associated with contractual societies.<\/p>\n

Particularly after the 1970s, this kind of thinking began to permeate the culture of \u201cfree market\u201d planners in Ivy League economics courses.<\/p>\n

Robert Simons of the Harvard Business School notes<\/a> that economics is by far the dominant academic discipline in…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo by Nathaniel St. Clair Humans are complicated creatures. We are both cooperative and sectarian. We tend to be cooperative within in-groups (e.g., a trade union) whilst competing against out-groups (e.g., a business confederation). But complex societies such as ours also force us to cooperate with out-groups \u2013 in neighbourhoods, at work, and so on. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-383042","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}