Thoughts on SABOTAGE Day 60
“Democracy funded and fueled by corporate power … disenfranchises the
individual, provoking some to search for empowerment through identity politics,”
writes English economist Mary Wrenn.
“The argument set forth suggests that
individuals construct, reinforce, or escalate allegiance to identities as a
coping mechanism, some of which manifest in violent identity politics.”
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aging Caged
If the singularity of identity or perceived identity—in terms of race,
creed, color, sex, sexuality and variations on the theme, national/ancestral origin or that particularly modern obsession DNA) is all you can see or want to see
in self and others.
If such “identity” is that by which you wish
to be seen, named and contained, you are lost—and a “loss” to society. Such obsessive
narrowing of mind, place and grouping cages, imprisons, renders useless to a world in need of new and fresh ideas, true progress.
Segregating, battling over “identity”; and allowing oneself to be caged
and contained in “identity” by clever ideologues bent on robbing you and enriching
themselves is one of the great tragedies of the modern era.
The selfish sacrifice
of society—giving up this essential entity of care, this life-giving, empowered and empowering, replenishing collective — is a manifestation of SABOTAGE.
Economic Ideological Selfishness
Use and abuse of
"Identity" against Society
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abid Individualism
Economist Mary V. Wrenn, Professor William Waller
“The core ideological drive of neoliberalism—its villains and principal
proponents politicians and business interests—is the individual over the
collective…
“Under neoliberalism, the market mentality dominates all other spheres
of living; collective social identity is circumscribed by neoliberalism ….”
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Thnic Caging
Mary Wrenn
“… Agency within neoliberalism (bears) certain ethnographic markers …
to sustain the system.”
Within the context of neoliberalism, agency “requires tailored cultural
mechanisms and artefacts (artifact) to construct and support a self-referential
yet non-authentic agency.”
[British “artifact”; also artifact: a product of
artificial character (as in a scientific test) due usually to extraneous (as
human) agency (Merriam-Webster)] [Ethnic: race,
culture; ethnology: a science dividing human beings into races and their
origin, distribution, relations, characteristics; ethnography studies and systematically
records human cultures
“No such thing as Society”
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Economist and writer Frances
Coppola
The philosophical movement led by Ayn Rand “emphasized individualism
over everything else – what historically has been denoted ‘selfishness.’”
“One of neoliberalisms core tenets, the primacy of the individual, was “embodied”
in former British Prime Minister Margaret “Thatcher’s famous aphorism, ‘There’s
no such thing as society’, which implies an underlying singular human
rationality, when in reality people are guided by a multitude of behaviors and
emotions.”
An unlivable, unendurable, level of inequality has been “facilitated by
centrist politicians who use neoclassical economics to deliver economic
extremism.” And under the economic ideology of neoliberalism “a tiny proportion
of people” have come to “own most of the world’s wealth.”
The void in human existence, society, collective, community gives rise to fear
and uncertainty and then “populist right-wing [or other winged] forces, who maintain an uneasy status
quo, but cannot deliver,” Coppola says.
“A form of political stasis [stagnation] permeates society indicative of a culture
in nostalgic retreat, devoid of new ideas: … trying to hang on to what we have”
and “looking back towards people whose political heyday was in the 1970s;
rather than trying to look for political leaders in the new generation and
saying, ‘Do they have fresh ideas?’”
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ay forward
Executive Director of the
Institute for New Economic Thinking Eric Beinhocker
“Populist movements do contain some racists, xenophobes, genuinely
crazy people, and others whom we should absolutely condemn,” Beinhocker writes;
“but they also contain many normal people (whose) ... issues aren’t just
economic.
They are also social and psychological.
They have lost dignity and respect, and crave a sense of identity and belonging.…
“They also feel that their political leaders and institutions are
profoundly out of touch, untrustworthy, and self-serving. And finally they feel
at the mercy of big impersonal forces – globalization, technology change,
rootless banks and large faceless corporations.”
Remember (Wrenn bears repeating): “Democracy funded and fueled by corporate power … disenfranchises the
individual, provoking some to search for empowerment through identity politics. … Individuals construct, reinforce, or escalate allegiance to identities
as a coping mechanism—some of which manifest in violent identity politics.”
Self-SABOTAGE!
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dealism's better
Beinhocker recalls an essential truth
that lights the way forward.
“All of the science shows that deeply ingrained, reciprocal moral behaviors
are the glue that holds society together …. We must all push forwards together.”
“Periods of progress are usually characterized by idealism, common projects we can all aspire to.
Populism is a zero-sum mentality—the populist leader will help me get more of a fixed pie.
Idealism is a positive-sum mentality—we can do great things together.
Idealism is the most powerful antidote to populism.
Sources
Mary Wrenn, 2014. “Identity, Identity Politics, and Neoliberalism,”
Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 61(4), pages
503-515, September.
https://ideas.repec.org/a/voj/journl/v61y2014i4p503-515.html
Mary V. Wrenn, 2015. "Agency and neoliberalism," Cambridge
Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 39(5), pages 1231-1243. https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/cambje/v39y2015i5p1231-1243..html
“Care and the Neoliberal Individual” by Mary V. Wrenn, Senior Lecturer
in Economics, University of the West of England; and William Waller, William R.
Kenan Jr. Professor of Economics, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
“Neoliberalism – An Idea Swallowing The World… what 40 years of
neoliberal economics has done to us and our political landscape.” By Renegade
Inc with economist Mary Wrenn and economist and writer Frances Coppola
Eric Beinhocker. “It’s Time for New Economic Thinking Based on the Best
Science Available, Not Ideology: A new narrative for a complex age” http://evonomics.com/time-new-economic-thinking-based-best-science-available-not-ideology/
Eric Beinhocker is the Executive Director of the Institute for New
Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
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