Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Symbolic Violence and the Naturalisation of Power Relations   A student's take of Bourdieu's ideas on the subject.

The IMF and the World Bank The myth of "helping the poor" and "development" "The joint IMF–World Bank comprehensive approach to debt reduction is designed to ensure that no poor country faces a debt burden it cannot manage. To date, debt reduction packages under the HIPC Initiative have been approved for 36 countries, 30 of them in Africa, providing $76 billion in debt-service relief over time. Three additional countries are eligible for HIPC Initiative assistance." 
 Back in 2008, some analysts showed that the HIPC initiative had failed, and failed miserably. 
Let's take just one aspect behind the failure. "The creteria used for country selection excluded the mostly highly populated developing countries (for example, Nigeria — 120 million inhabitants — which was on the very first list in 1996) and kep only small countries that are both very por and heavily indebted... The countries where the majority of the world's poor people live are

Italy's Ides of March

Even before the advent of neoliberalism, the capitalist economy had thrived on people believing that being afflicted by the structural problems of an exploitative system – poverty, joblessness, poor health, lack of fulfillment – was in fact a personal deficiency. Neoliberalism has taken this internalized self-blame and turbocharged it. It tells you that you should not merely feel guilt and shame if you can’t secure a good job, are deep in debt, and are too stressed or overworked for time with friends. You are now also responsible for bearing the burden of potential ecological collapse. Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals

Walmart: an exmaple of neoliberalism hijacking of social movements Also An in-depth analysis by Nancy Fraser

The evolution of neoliberalism in Tunisia 1980-2107

"By 2003, the Libyan government had entered into relations with the International Monetary Fund, privatizing a number of state-owned enterprises. In 2004, Libya opened up 15 new offshore and onshore blocs to drilling. Campbell also chronicles the burrowing actions of the “Western-educated bureaucrats [who] worked to bring Libya into the fold of ‘market reforms,’ and the deepening commercial relations with British capital.”  In 2007, British Petroleum inked a deal with the Libyan Investment Corporation for the exploration of 54,000 square kilometers of the Ghadames and Sirt basins. It also signed training agreements for Libyan professionals, helping create a base for neoliberalism within the government. By 2011, 2800 Libyan professionals were studying in the United Kingdom, learning “Western values” of destatization and thus the removal of the possibility for production and power to be responsive to the demands of the people.  Libya under Qadhaffi was mercurial, but against the

The youthquake that wasn't

"By contrast with their forebears in the 1960s and 1970s, British students today appear to be politically disengaged. While French students can still be found on the streets protesting against neoliberalism, British students, whose situation is incomparably worse, seem resigned to their fate. But this, I want to argue, is a matter not of apathy, nor of cynicism, but of reflexive impotence . They know things are bad, but more than that, they know they can’t do anything about it. But that ‘knowledge’, that reflexivity, is not a passive observation of an already existing state of affairs. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Reflexive impotence amounts to an unstated worldview amongst the British young, and it has its correlate in widespread pathologies. Many of the teenagers I worked with had mental health problems or learning difficulties. Depression is endemic. It is the condition most dealt with by the National Health Service, and is afflict

The New Spirit of Capitalism

"... the strongest evidence that Trump’s electoral victory was not an uprising of the forgotten working class against economic distress brought about by neoliberalism and globalization is the evidence that  Trumpism is a pre-existing condition.  It has unfortunately been with us all along, as the resurgence of atavistic  revanchist white supremacism helps to make clear." Well, this piece has made me question a few things. Trumpism: A Pre-Existing Condition, Not a Response to Neoliberalism and Globalisation

Britain's National Health Service "Patients are dying in corridors" " Since 2010 the budget has been rising at about 1% a year on average whereas  traditionally the NHS got over 4%." Deliberate policies to completely privatize the sector? I think so so. People like Richard Branson have already put a foot in it. They must be rubbing hands. Remember, everything is subject to commodification, especially in the most aggressive neoliberal capitalist countries. Patients 'dying in hospital corridors'

Morocco Justice and/or Development

Capitalism's crisis of care and an excellent analysis here From progressive neoliberalism to Trump — and beyond

Couscous, capitalism and neoliberalism in Tunisia

"It imperative that loyalty to a state be secured, and the nation is the means. Workers have often been asked to accept rises in interest rates, cuts in wages and services, or participation in imperialist wars, but never for the benefit of capitalism, always for the benefit of a particular nation, for “the national interest”. It is not only the state which makes such appeals. The organisations of the working class themselves reinforce reformist class consciousness within a national context. At the most elementary level this is because such organisations are unwilling to challenge the nationalism within which political discourse is conducted, for fear of being labelled unpatriotic. More importantly, however, it is because they seek either to influence or determine policy within the confines of the existing nation-state. Typically, therefore, nationalism is invested with the contradictory character of the reformist world view." The National Question, Class and the European U

" Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals" For "neoliberalism" just read capitalism or a phase of it.

Settler-colonialism and neoliberal capitalism ( Scroll down to read it)