
Neoliberalism is creating loneliness. That’s what’s wrenching society apart - smacktoward
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/12/neoliberalism-creating-loneliness-wrenching-society-apart
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mayoff
It is ironic that “neoliberalism” consists of _economically_ liberal ideas
commonly considered conservative today: privatization, fiscal austerity,
deregulation, free trade, and reductions in government spending.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism)

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alienjr
What's so ironic in that? This was the agenda of the liberals since the
Scottish Enlightenment.

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nibs
The irony is that liberal today means the government takes more money, and
gives it to "the people". Which is not remotely classical liberal.

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alienjr
Maybe in your country. In mine liberal still means liberal.

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Pica_soO
And anyone standing in isolation is evil and dangerous? This article is
partially correct in its observations, but in the end, you can smell the labor
camps, the piles of dead, the ideology alternatives (left,right& religious)
want to erect to pressure anybody who ventures away from their ideal back into
the fold and shift the blame of the problems they produce.

I rather have a community lottery, forcing lonely people living together with
one another for at least some hours a day, if they are unable to proof they
socialize voluntarily in person on daily basis.

That part is unavoidable, as proven by the swedish social catastrophe. This is
not something abstract, this is something quite real, join a fire brigade and
door-openings into this abyss become your daily work.

In driving the individuals apart, both the liberal and the right wing side
work hand in hand. The one side supports a system that allows contact
avoidance, the other one pitches people against one another.

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drspacemonkey
What is "the Swedish social catastrophe", and what does a fire brigade have to
do with it?

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Pica_soO
Sweden and norway have some of the most established social welfare states, its
a example of how wealthy and "healthy" a society can become. And its rife with
isolation, according to the health statistics of the state (sweden).

And if you join a voluntary fire brigade in a country such as germany, you
spend quiet alot of the alarms not fighting fires or helping with accidents,
but with the opening of doors of run-down socially isolated people. Its almost
always neighbours complaining about the smell.

Not so long ago, total isolation was a prison sentence and a torture.

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emblem21
Neoliberalism, the resurrection of Victorian age globalism but under the
banner of the USD, does not create lonliness. It creates forced integration,
race-to-the-bottom labor wages due to that forced integration, and debt
slavery for those who can no longer produce due to an endless parade of
cheaper humans somewhere else. And if you can't find them cheaper? Drop bombs
on a country until they become cheap again.

It creates fractured states who run to political measures in the hopes to
restructure and weather the storm. But that fails as well.

And the mass media that reinforces this configuration has you caring about
people you'll never meet and demonizing people within 500 feet of you.

Lonliness is the first step to seeing the absurdity of it all, and that type
of criticism is verboten, which is why articles like this try to treat
lonliness like a curable disease.

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liamcardenas
Neoliberalism \- Definition: Classical Liberalism

