The more I read, the more I become drawn to the pessimists’ side. Really. *sigh*
“The third element in the U.S. transition entailed an ideological assault upon the media and upon educational institutions. Independent think tanks financed by wealthy individuals and corporate donors proliferated the Heritage Foundation in the lead to prepare an ideological onslaught aimed at persuading the public of the commonsense character of neoliberal propositions. A flood of policy papers and proposals and a veritable army of well-paid hired lieutenants trained to promote neoliberal ideas coupled with the corporate acquisition of media channels effectively transformed the discursive climate in the United States by the mid-1980s. The project to get government off the backs of the people and to shrink government to the point where it could be drowned in a bathtub was loudly proclaimed.
With respect to this, the promoters of the new gospel found a ready audience in that wing of the 1968 movement whose goal was greater individual liberty and freedom from state power and the manipulations of monopoly capital. The libertarian argument for neoliberalism proved a powerful force for change. To the degree that capitalism reorganized to both open a space for individual entrepreneurship and switch its efforts to satisfy innumerable niche markets, particularly those defined by sexual liberation, that were spawned out of an increasingly individualized consumerism, so it could match words with deeds.”
— David Harvey in his 2007 “Neoliberalism as creative destruction”
And can we say that this US-driven global phenomenon is not happening in Indonesia? Sadly the answer is it ishappening in Indonesia, too.
The picture was found here.
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