Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Results of Neoliberalism


For the past two weeks our diocesan bulletin has treated the subject of Neoliberalism. The writer is a priest who is responsible for the formation of the young. He finds it more of a problem than Postmodernism. Neoliberalism is also known as the  'age of the market' or  'age of  competition'. From the 1980s it began taking hold in our society, and today it is deeply imbedded.  

Competition has found a home in the society because it is believed to improve the goods and services. The underside that follows will make our young people pay the price in the years to come. 

Neoliberalism breaks down the solidarity of our society and secondly drains us of our natural resources. He uses the sociologist Richard Sennett's words which acknowledges the positive aspects of   Neoliberalism but also the evils that followed: loss of freedom and self respect, fear, and a resignation to the present reality giving birth to passivity.  

The children try to better their classmates in getting good grades, and to attain these grades they come home from the academies late in the evening. The young people are preparing their list of specifications, for their personal history, to find work. Those who have a job in their thirties fear losing them. Those in their forties are thinking of going to an academy to learn English to make sure they will have a job as the young people enter the labor force.   

The writer gives us some suggestions and alternatives the  society needs to make. Excessive competition needs to be controlled. Maintain the  good elements and decrease the bad and work for a  change in the way we do politics to improve the situation. Work for a better welfare system, and say farewell to the supremacy of competition and materialism. We need to do away with the egotistical society we have made and form a new culture.

He finishes his article with two proposals: help the weak in society to have a new start. Secondly, we need a deep  study of the cultural of Neoliberalism and what it is doing to the society.