Subtitled ‘The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life)’, and providing 57 pages of bibliography indicating the sources of research, this small book may be counted as one of the most important pieces of work to arise in the current situation.
It’s clear most people remain unaware of the threat posed by the doctrine once known as ‘Neoliberalism’ but now existing without any specific name in order to disguise its continued presence. This philosophy, embraced by many secretly-funded academic organisations and financial advisers posing as neutral, is, in fact bankrolled by a group of billionaires and millionaires desperate to hang onto their greedily acquired wealth.
The authors explain, in detail, how this idea came about and the disasters it has caused along the way, from the initial establishment of Capitalism on the then uninhabited island of Madeira (Portuguese for ‘wood’) in the 1420s, through to the modern extreme version begun in 1938 when the term ‘neoliberalism’ was coined.
Having established the history, they go on to explain how this doctrine has become accepted by very many ill-advised governments worldwide and by universities, supported by the right-wing press under the ownership of oligarchs and press barons.
That the end point of the doctrine must result in the destruction of life on Earth as we know it is not considered a problem by those who fund and promote the ideas. They are the truly wealthy, the parasites who prey on everyone else to feed their greed and insatiable desire for more wealth than they can possibly use in a lifetime.
You will need to read the book to understand exactly how this appalling situation has been able to develop into a system that currently effectively runs the entire world but benefits only the very few at the cost of all others, including you.
Most reasonable people are aware of how extreme right-wing politics is destroying what was just beginning to develop into a unified and generally democratic world, much needed in our troubled times. You will no doubt be unsurprised to know the following names are heavily involved in the system: Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro, Narendra Modi, Scott Morrison, Benjamin Netanyahu, Rodrigo Duterte, Recep Erdogan, Viktor Orban and many more such deeply flawed people. We all know their true natures. Allowed to rise to dominate politics, supported by billionaires and millionaires, neoliberalism is a true friend of those politicians desiring domination through dictatorship.
In a review of this sort it is impossible to deal adequately with the reality of the threat to life that self-serving, largely corrupt, and often incompetent individuals pose to the whole of humanity. You do need to read the book. I find myself still reeling from the information received.
[Any review is a personal opinion. No reviewer can represent the view of anyone else. The best we can manage is an honest reaction to any given book.]
Stuart Aken 
Thanks for the review, Stuart. I think part of the issue may be that we haven’t protected democracy enough or continued to ensure its health. There will always be the likes Johnson and Trump but so many people are swallowing their dreck. Then again, people are often so gullible and will believe anything, especially if it feeds into their prejudices and “explains” why they aren’t as rich as they think they should be. Yes, definitely a complicated topic; I’ll take a look for that book.
One thing I do know: Trump is a total fascist and if he gets elected, we will be stuck next to a total mess that at best, might descend into civil war and at worse, will support Russia’s attempts to access our Arctic territories. He’s already talking about building a northern border wall Ugh.
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Yes, the book goes into the attitude to democracy among the oligarchs and very wealthy, who dislike democracy because they cannot control it in the way they can an appointed autocratic leader.
I agree, Trump is a fascist and will undermine many of the rights of workers and ordinary people if he is elected a second time. A combination of indoctrination by America’s extraordinary version of Christianity by wealthy pastors, and the poor education of those people in science and politics will rob the very people who support him of their democratic and employment rights, but they, of course, cannot see that danger.
We have, at least, gained a Labour Party in power, they are still influenced by the neoliberal doctrine, unfortunately, but I feel they may be more open to persuasion to change over time. Whether we have enough time for that to happen before the neoliberal doctrine brings about the climate emergency remains to be seen, of course.
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Yes, you seem to have a good leader now after years of poor ones. We have an election coming in 16 months and little to choose from. The incumbent is a dithering prevaricator while the opposition leader is Trump lite (who would love to be Trump heavy).
I just saw a couple of excerpts from one of Trump’s recent campaign speeches where he mentions “fixing the mess” so that “you don’t ever have to vote again.” Scary stuff.
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Not the leader I would’ve chosen, Lynette. I’d have preferred the Green Party to be our government, but they are still too small to play an important part. Our voting system means we often have to vote tactically, and I did this in order to unseat our Conservative MP who had a pretty safe seat. In the end, we got rid of this self-serving career politician by only 183 votes, so I’m pleased I voted tactically.
Labour is better than the Tories, but still mired in the same old financial and pre-climate emergency policies. But, at least they do have the public services as important.
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Our system is almost identical to yours: parliamentary democracy, first past the post, King Charles, etc, so we often have to vote strategically, too. Our Tories are being lead by a Trump mini-me, a real piece of work, (also a career politician) so voting strategically against that wacko will be the name of the game.
Because of deficiencies in our system, we’re frequently stuck bouncing between two bad choices. At least you have something better than you had. The Greens don’t get a lot of traction here either. Four or five seats scattered across the country, most of them in B.C. I would vote for them too, but trying to keep out the “other motivated” is what a lot of us do instead.
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FPTP is anti-democratic, favouring the will of political parties rather than that of the people, so it will take a lot to change this to the more democratic PR. Most of Europe has managed that already.
As for Charles, high time our monarchy was altered to a purely ceremonial role, without any power and with minimal funding by the taxpayer. Again, that’ll take a long time to change.
Until then, Lynette, looks like we’re stuck with a poor system, eh?
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One of our present PM’s campaign pledges was to look at electoral reform (most Canadians want, at the very least, ranked ballots to prevent vote splitting), but once elected, he began dodging the issue until the media really held his feet to the fire over it and he finally said that there was no consensus on how to change it, and that was that. It will take a very unselfish politician to change a system that’s so entrenched and biased.
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Unselfish politicians are in very short supply these days, Lynette. There are times when insurrection starts to look like the only option!
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