Alex Himelfarb
That’s the central question. In the book, I explore a debate I’ve had with a close friend for years: Do we need a total collapse of our systems before we can rebuild, which is his view, or can we avoid the worst and make a turnaround? The issue is not whether change will come, but how much suffering we’ll endure before it happens.
I retired from public service and came back to Canada just after the financial meltdown. And there were books all over the place proclaiming the end of neoliberalism. Now you can find them languishing in bargain bins.
There was a shake-up — people’s confidence in the system was deeply shaken. I think historians will have a very clear sense that the world changed. The world changed in part because the system’s fragility and hypocrisy became glaringly apparent. We saw the contradiction in bailing out banks and auto firms and businesses while neglecting mortgage holders and workers.
The world changed in part because the system’s fragility and hypocrisy became glaringly apparent.
We saw the fragility; we saw the hypocrisy. People realized neoliberalism wasn’t delivering on its promise. Nobody was buying anymore — if they ever did — the notion that wealth somehow trickles down. And the idea that some companies were too big to fail showed how terribly badly privatization and deregulation had failed us — how instead of promoting competition, we had actually promoted corporate concentration and enormous corporate power. There was every reason to think that was the kind of situation that would bring about some kind of paradigm shift. But it didn’t.
Then there was the pandemic. And if you recall, everybody was talking about “building back better.” The pandemic showed how woefully unprepared we were to deal with these crises. And it also amplified the fault lines and cracks in the system. It…
La suite est à lire sur: jacobin.com
Auteur: Alex Himelfarb
