Neoliberalist economics always promise us a better future, three years on Thursday. You just wait (its proponents say) give it a chance to work, and all will be well. Except it never quite comes good.
What you’ll never catch a neoliberal doing is talking about how well their joke theory did in the past.
But if I may, I’d like to gently tweak the past/future thing tonight, and ask you all to imagine what a neoliberal past would’ve been like. In other words, there is no 1832 Reform Bill, no rise of Socialism, and therefore no Maggie Thatcher or Milt Friedman: the neoliberal zero regulation-cum-decisive markets thing became accepted as the only way to run the railroad some time in 1814, after the trauma of the Napoleonic Wars. There is no 1929 Crash, no New Deal, no New Frontier.
This is sort of a variation on the Frank Capra It’s a Wonderful Life theme – what would’ve happened if the good guy had never lived?
There would be no Grand Coulee Dam. And thus a much slower expansion of US industry.
No NASA space exploration. And thus no accelerated development of computer power, or satellite-aided mobile phones.
No National Health Service. And thus far fewer advances in heart and brain surgery. No stereotactic radiosurgery at all, which now saves thousands of lives every year throughout the EU. No massive advances in cancer treatment between 1957 and 1975.
No US National Science Foundation to have breakthrough discoveries about post-stroke care.
No Russian Space Research Institute to send a probe containing microbes to Phobos. This experiment, if successful, could prove the viability of various organisms’ ability to exist in the vacuum and temperatures of space.
No UK Royal Society taking fuel waste and attempting to make it edible.
No Aswan Dam funded by the Egyptian Government to accelerate economic growth during the 1980s.
No bouncing bomb to destroy the German Dams in 1943, and crucially cripple Nazi war industries.
No BBC to give geniuses the time and money to develop their art without worrying about short-term ratings. For example, the Goon Show, Monty Python, Dad’s Army, Tony Hancock, Morecambe & Wise, David Frost and Peter Cook.
Do you know what we would’ve had instead of these vital projects? I will tell you: bigger dividends for the shareholders, 75% of British citizens terrified by medical bills, Bourses roaring ahead based on no fundamentals to support that growth, taxpayers propping up mad investment schemes, and…hang on a minute…that’s what we’ve got today.
Under a Government stuffed with neoliberal fanatics.
Well I never.
Earlier at The Slog: Supporting Britain by appointing foreigners
The Slog 