{"id":22524,"date":"2017-01-14T14:15:48","date_gmt":"2017-01-14T19:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=22524"},"modified":"2017-01-14T14:15:48","modified_gmt":"2017-01-14T19:15:48","slug":"to-confront-power-one-must-first-name-it-neoliberalism-and-the-sustainability-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=22524","title":{"rendered":"To confront power, one must first name it: Neoliberalism and the sustainability crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"post-title entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/resourceinsights.blogspot.ca\/2017\/01\/to-confront-power-one-must-first-name.html\">To confront power, one must first name it: Neoliberalism and the sustainability crisis<\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"post-header-line-1\">Recently,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.mprnews.org\/updraft\/2017\/01\/wisconsin-censors-accepted-climate-science-on-dnr-webiste\/\">Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker ordered references to human-caused climate change be deleted from the state Deparment of Natural Resources website<\/a>. Scientific findings concerning the natural world have become an embarrassment for the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Neoliberalism\">neoliberal<\/a>\u00a0world view. The answer in this case seems to be to delete them.<\/div>\n<div class=\"post-body entry-content\">\n<p>But what is the neoliberal world view and why is it important to understand? Paraphrasing theologian\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Walter_Wink\">Walter Wink<\/a>\u00a0British writer\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/George_Monbiot\">George Monbiot<\/a>\u00a0explains that in order to confront power, one must first name it. The power Monbiot has in mind is the power of those enacting the neoliberal agenda. He explained\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=X2Tc8Yv92Mk\">in a talk<\/a>\u00a0last year that this ideology is embraced by leaders of both the political right and left throughout much of the world.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/X2Tc8Yv92Mk\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>More disturbing is that few people are aware of this fact, and fewer still can define what neoliberalism is. It&#8217;s important to understand that this ideology animates much of the governing class on the planet. It&#8217;s important because this ideology almost completely opposes doing anything serious about climate change or any of the other environmental and social ills which afflict us.<\/p>\n<p>First, neoliberalism should not be confused with modern-day liberalism which is generally associated with tolerant social policies and governmental intervention in and regulation of the economy. To the contrary, neoliberalism harkens back to 19th century\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Classical_liberalism\">classical liberalism<\/a>. Neoliberals champion a return to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Laissez-faire\">laissez-faire economics<\/a>\u00a0by means of the privatization of public services and property, fiscal austerity, deregulation and, of course, free trade.<\/p>\n<p>Neoliberalism was first enunciated in the late 1930s as a response to fascism and communism. Only later did neoliberal ideas find their full expression in the presidency of Ronald Reagan and the government of Britain&#8217;s Margaret Thatcher. For obvious reasons neoliberal ideas have been championed and lavishly supported by wealthy corporate interests.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To confront power, one must first name it: Neoliberalism and the sustainability crisis Recently,\u00a0Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker ordered references to human-caused climate change be deleted from the state Deparment of Natural Resources website. Scientific findings concerning the natural world have become an embarrassment for the\u00a0neoliberal\u00a0world view. The answer in this case seems to be to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[14702,141,6112,4752,482,6996,4967,14701,4730],"class_list":["post-22524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","category-survival-2","tag-classical-liberalism","tag-climate-change","tag-george-monbiot","tag-kurt-cobb","tag-liberalism","tag-neoliberalism","tag-resource-insights","tag-scott-walker","tag-wisconsin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22525,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22524\/revisions\/22525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}