Michael Gurstein on Thu, 28 Apr 2016 18:00:11 +0200 (CEST) |
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Re: <nettime> Guardian > Monbiot > Neoliberalism -- the ideology at |
To add to these distinguished commentaries... I think that in examining "neo-liberalism" as an ideology it is worthwhile to also see it as a political program with quite direct real world correlates and moreover one which for a significant period of time was dominant in the World Bank and the IMF through its unconscionable and now largely discredited imposition of the SAP's (Structural Adjustment Programs) which laid waste to the social fabric of much of sub-Saharan Africa and significant parts of Asia. It also provided the basis for the very widespread program of privatization of the teleco services throughout the developing world and as I tried to show in the blogpost I recently circulated re: the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) is the program currently being promoted by the USG and its allies for the management and regulation of the Internet throughout the Developing World. What is rather more insidious and of even greater and longer term (and historical) consequence is the attempt through more or less direct intervention by the US State Department and the NTIA and their allies in the "Technical Community" (the IETF, IANA, ISOC, etc.), the corporate sector (Google, Facebook, etc.) and civil society (APC, and other of the "Internet Freedom" partners) to ensure that a neo-liberal regime is built into the very fabric of the global Internet through the (non) structuring of global Internet Governance (I've discussed this and documented this at considerable in my blog (and over the last several years shared it on this e-list) --search on "Internet Governance" at http://gurstein.wordpress.com). Among other things that are noteworthy about these latter initiatives is the degree to which the Technical Community and virtually all of the directly involved Civil Society have been either complicit or active contributors to these efforts. (Also, of course it is of note that these initiatives have been taking place while the internal "governance" of the Internet via the FCC has taken a rather more interventionist and socially aware set of directions.) M -----Original Message----- From: nettime-l-bounces@mail.kein.org On Behalf Of Brian Holmes Sent: April 28, 2016 5:12 AM To: nettime-l@kein.org Subject: Re: <nettime> Guardian > Monbiot > Neoliberalism -- the ideology at There have been great points in this debate (notably Allan's and David's), yet still it leaves me totally unsatisfied. I'm amazed how no one seems to care about the history of ideas, and with all due respect there's no way I can accept Florian's claim that ultimately, neoliberalism is what people think it is -- in other words, it's some kind of popular meme. No, it has a long and complex history with diverging and reconnecting strands that can be excavated, reconstructed, examined and evaluated. History matters and the devil is in the details. <...> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: