This becomes patently obvious when one tracks actors - dozens of people
who envisioned, decided, approved, designed, implemented and maintained
particular mechanism of social engineering.
None of them were even aware of these ideologies that are claimed to
govern their actions. They acted based on prevailing beliefs, personal
interest and available tools. Of course, a claim can be made that the
invisible hand of the ideology they never heard of guided them, but
that's nonsense. Ideology is not law of science, and can never predict
anything. It's a viral implant that's supposed to modify one's behavior
- but you need to get infected first! Otherwise it would be a scientific
theory, and it's not.
So this parallel construction where neoliberalism is a puppet master is
total nonsense. I think that the concept of neoliberalism is the last
gasp of 'left' thinkers, a desperate attempt to remain relevant and
offer explanations.
Frankly, I simply do not understand some posts on nettime. I get the
words, I'm reasonably sapient, but there is a total vacuum inside:
circular references, name dropping, banking on the supposed shared
consensus, an empty elaborate ritual, like a religious chant whose
purpose is to reinforce, not mean. It's not even a cargo cult - there is
no backbone of intent.
I know apres Harvey the left thing to do is draw a straight line from
the Chicago School to Chile et al., as if all 'ruling elites' had to
do was devise a program and administer it on the world. But that's bad
history as well as bad theory and is closer to rightwing
conspiricizing ("inter-elite conflicts") than Marxist analysis.
Does this bad theory matter ultimately? Probably not, but only because
people resisting the current world tend to not care when intellectuals
(or is it soothsayers?) notify them that the endgame is here. Just as
the intellectual/philosophical reasonings behind neoliberalism came
only after their policy tenets were implemented, so left conjunctural
analysis tails popular movement, but usually does it poorly and misses
the point.
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