It Ain’t Just America
The world is vomiting up a toxic mix of neoliberal capitalism, globalization, and technology
Thoughts from comedian/writer Matt Ruby. Want more? Sign up here to get my newsletter.
Brexit. Trump. Le Pen in France. It’s happening all over the world. We need to stop thinking we’re special. It’s bigger than America. The world is vomiting up the toxic mix of neoliberal capitalism, globalization, and technology it has been fed for years.
Turn over “American” issues and look at what’s underneath…
ISIS is barely a threat, it just helps Lockheed, Halliburton, and the military-industrial complex sell us more Mother of All Bombs. #profits
Every time there is a school shooting, gun manufacturer stocks go up. #profits
The police keep shooting black people because cops are the tip of a privatized prison industry that needs more bodies for it’s vacant beds. (Speaking of, guess where we’ll put all of these immigrants before deporting them? You got it!) #profits
Think women need to Lean In? Professor Nancy Fraser explains, “Mainstream feminism has adopted a thin, market-centered view of equality, which dovetails neatly with the prevailing neoliberal corporate view. So it tends to fall into line with an especially predatory, winner-take-all form of capitalism that is fattening investors by cannibalizing the living standards of everyone else. Worse still, this feminism is supplying an alibi for these predations. Increasingly, it is liberal feminist thinking that supplies the charisma, the aura of emancipation, on which neoliberalism draws to legitimate its vast upward redistribution of wealth.” #profits
Climate change? Healthcare? Big Pharma/Agra? C’mon, you know. They’re brutalizing the planet, feeding us poison, and then shoving pills down our throats to numb the pain. #profits
The 1% keeps getting more while the rest of us barely get by. Manufacturers can’t possibly compete with China, Bangladesh, etc. Technology was supposed to make our lives easier and more efficient but now everyone has to work multiple jobs, rent out their apartment on weekends, and be a taxi driver on the side.
Think Facebook and tech will solve our jobs problem? Um, Facebook (worth $416 billion) has only 17,000 employees while GE (worth $257 billion) has 333,000 employees — yet everyone is asking how to make GE more like Facebook rather than vice versa. Because EFFICIENCY.
“We’re driving over a cliff!”
“Yes, but look how efficiently we’re doing it!”
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