"As a university lecturer I often find that my students take today’s dominant economic
ideology – namely, neoliberalism – for granted as natural and inevitable. This is not
surprising given that most of them were born in the early 1990s, for neoliberalism is
all that they have known. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher had to convince people
that there was “no alternative” to neoliberalism. But today this assumption comes
ready-made; it’s in the water, part of the common-sense furniture of everyday life,
and generally accepted as given by the Right and Left alike. It has not always been
this way, however. Neoliberalism has a specific history, and knowing that history is
an important antidote to its hegemony, for it shows that the present order is not
natural or inevitable, but rather that it is new, that it came from somewhere, and that
it was designed by particular people with particular interests."
—Jason Hickel, 2012
Hickel is a lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science
Similarly, my students take "democracy" for granted and as natural and inevitable. They get surprised when I ask: how do you call a 'liberal democracy' that includes: (global) social injustice in the name of the 'free market', exploitation, obscene inequality, corruption, arms sales, media monopoly, invading countries, debt enslavement, support of authoritarian regimes, uneven development, weakening or banning of trade unions, a capitalist system that created climate change, etc?
Some students feel uncomfortable at even hearing such a questioning. It disturbs their comfort zone and want to close the brackets and go back to our lesson.
—Jason Hickel, 2012
Hickel is a lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science
Similarly, my students take "democracy" for granted and as natural and inevitable. They get surprised when I ask: how do you call a 'liberal democracy' that includes: (global) social injustice in the name of the 'free market', exploitation, obscene inequality, corruption, arms sales, media monopoly, invading countries, debt enslavement, support of authoritarian regimes, uneven development, weakening or banning of trade unions, a capitalist system that created climate change, etc?
Some students feel uncomfortable at even hearing such a questioning. It disturbs their comfort zone and want to close the brackets and go back to our lesson.
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