I have an MBA and understand how neoliberals convinced the rich, business owners and some governments to support their position. All those groups stuff to gain tremendously from their success. But I have never been able to figure out how they tricked average citizens and governments with supposedly strong democratic values to support their theory. It seems like they simply lied that everyone would benefit, but they didn’t. At this point, especially after the 2008 crash, neoliberal theories have been debunked but they are still being pushed as viable? Why? 40+ years of economic data shows that trickle-down economics has really been trickle-up economics all along. But neoliberals continue campaigning as if this is not true. If we really want to learn from their “win” we need to understand how average people and governments who claim democracy as a paramount virtue continue to support neoliberal policies that ultimately undermine their interests.
Yes, neoliberalism is the most successful social change movement of the 20th century.
And you’re right, we can learn from how they did it. By my reading, one of the key factors was the billionaire Koch brothers recognizing that if they were to get public uptake of their values of ‘liberty and small government’ (instead of the then popular social values in America of Roosevelt’s New Deal), they would have to affect public mindsets.
They pushed, as you say, to shift the Overton window. Actually, they pushed to get their values into public thinking and policy. There’s a difference. They consciously aimed to shift public mindsets.
The League of Evolutionary Catalysts is a vehicle to support a community of practice of regular people who are aware communicating to inspire thoughtful public will to dramatically reduce industrial production (and answers slow the economy) in order to preserve our ecological life support systems.
Calling for the changes we need is insufficient. We need to mobilize millions of conversations that go beyond our own progressive thought bubbles. The League provides innovative communication tools for this.
The hour is late. We are headed for ecological collapse and a hothouse Earth, and there is a high probability of nuclear war. Work with us!
Thanks for this important piece of writing, Jeremy.
We need a broad strokes vision for the future that can motivate all of us in our various movements and, like the organs in our bodies, work together and see that all of our work is important.
And learning from everyone, even our enemies, is always a good idea.
Great historical summary and outline for ongoing action within a vital long-term vision!
I especially appreciate the important inclusion of deliberative democracy as one of the vital conditions for making transformation happen, and in peaceful ways. Https://CompassionateCitizens.us
This is an incredibly helpful summation, thank you. I like to say: “if you want to learn how to spread an idea fastest, never ask the good guys, ask the devil”. There is a core meme in Neoliberalism, the bait that almost everyone swallowed: the meme of “Freedom”. Who doesn’t want freedom, right? The trick was to conflate freedom for individuals with freedom for corporations, as if they are the same. (You could argue they are mutually exclusive). That’s how they got us non-corporate folk to support and praise the system that is devastating us. The mortal flaw: we do not have a philosophy that limits freedom as power increases. That has been made taboo. Blasphemy. What a chillingly brilliant psyop.
One of the challenges is the presumed trade-off of the individual and group. Thus individualist liberty vs social duties. This is wrong, much of what makes life worthwhile is social. To solve the dilemma I suggest a couple of metaphors, the organism and ecology: both rely on the parts remaining healthy for the whole to be healthy.
In your book, The Patterning Instinct your thesis is that worldviews - the set of beliefs, values, etc mediated through a cultures’ language - shape the path a civilisation takes.
The Mont Pelerín strategy was to orchestrate the widespread dissemination of a suite of seemingly commonsense ideas and metaphors that together constituted the neoliberal ideology. In other words, a memetic revolution.
By setting up their think tanks and invisibly disseminating these simple memes continuously through the media over two decades these ideas became widely accepted as obvious common sense amongst politicians and the wider community.
if there is to be any hope of avoiding Eco Social collapse then those of us wishing to make this a reality should in my view adopt the essence of the Mont Pelerín strategy with an orchestrated strategy of memes conducive to the sustainability and well-being of the whole web of life.
Memes conveying our human nature as cooperative, caring, loving etc, our total dependence on the web of life, the fragility of our world, the demolition of much of the prevailing worldview, (an extensive well thought out set of memes).
The rollout of the strategy would have to be very intense and involve very high profile and respected figures around the world, social media, mainstream media, game apps that educate and cultivate these memes and a lot more detail to be developed obviously.
The first step would be identifying well to do like-minded individuals who can help to fund such a memetic revolution and a dedicated funded group to develop all aspects of the strategy.
Activists have been working along the lines you suggest for half a century to little avail unfortunately. What we need is to mind-shift humanity into a life affirming worldview that can give hope that there will be a future and a decent one at that. After all, isn’t that what most people (other than the exploiters) truly want?
I think you are glossing over the central asymmetry: one network ran on concentrated capital from benefactors with direct financial stakes in the outcome. That's not a detail. That was the engine of success.
Goodwill and shared values among distributed actors is a genuinely different proposition, and history doesn't offer many examples of it sustaining the kind of decades-long coordinated pressure that actually shifts power. The cathedral metaphor is inspiring, but cathedrals were also built by institutional church money. The harder question the piece doesn't answer: what holds the coalition together when there's no shared material interest and the setbacks come?"
Hi Jeremy, once again you have done it, your amazing energy, your determination to facilitate a quantum leap in human conscious and your understanding and documentation of all that has come before. By "quantum" I mean the seemingly impossible transformation or evolution from the self-enclosed, separated, defensive-aggressive and fearful Me into the all-inclusive and all-caring We. While the latter has always been integral to the minds and hearts of the enlightened few, it has never been central to the vast majority and the actions and beliefs of the "ruling class' with which that majority resonates. Your courageous endeavor and that of like-minded individual and groups worldwide, brings to mind the Hundredth Monkey phenomenon, another manifestation of a quantum leap; once a sufficient number of individuals hear and demonstrate the qualities necessary to form an Eco Civilization, that civilization is already underway. How we get from one side of the impenetrable barrier of the Me to the other side of the We defies any scientific explanation. It remains one of the mysteries of God, Energy, the Universe or whatever you wish to call it. Long live that mystery and your contribution to it. For my part, a contribution to our Eco Civilization Coalition says it all. Thank you for providing that opportunity. Peter
Wonderfully elucidated! But you mention the 'triumph' of neolibralism as 'devastating'. Can you expand on why you think so specifically? Maybe a previous work of your expounds upon this, in that case please point me towards that.
In my opinion you should not be so averse to the ideas of Hayek and Mises. Hayek especially would agree in spirit with the 'distributed processing' flavour of Eco civilization that I am picking up from reading your work.
More importantly you cannot simply dismiss the immense impact of people like Hayek and Mises (not sure if it's true for Milton Freidman) had on countering the authoritarian tendencies that sprouted so frequently and were characteristic of the central planning mania of 20th century. Surely a world ruled by the Soviet Union even if not literally but a one dominated with strong authoritarian global governments of either communist or fascist varieties, would, in my opinion, been an infinitely worse alternative than what we have now. Do you not agree about this?
Morever, even if one disagrees with the ideological inclinations of certain scientists (and yes I consider economics a science), one can still appreciate the pure analytical contributions of these people. The pure analytical contributions of marx in his system of dialectics is an impressive achievement of the human mind regardless of one's ideological inclinations. Similarly the immense scientific impact of the foundational work done by the Austrians in their methodological system of praxeology is an unparalleled analytical achievement.
Any view of Eco-civilization could benefit immensely by taking inspiration from the praxeological methodology
This offering is the missing gap in our Centenary Festival of Holism and Evolution. Thank you so much. Claudius van Wyk https://www.holosearthacademy.org/
Excellent! The strategies and tactics used can be adopted. Changing hearts and minds seems obvious, but it really is foundational. If you are a little older, you might remember all the cowboy themed shows and commercials' - the rugged individualist was sold to us (as was the Welfare Queen) . Changes often start in the culture.
I have an MBA and understand how neoliberals convinced the rich, business owners and some governments to support their position. All those groups stuff to gain tremendously from their success. But I have never been able to figure out how they tricked average citizens and governments with supposedly strong democratic values to support their theory. It seems like they simply lied that everyone would benefit, but they didn’t. At this point, especially after the 2008 crash, neoliberal theories have been debunked but they are still being pushed as viable? Why? 40+ years of economic data shows that trickle-down economics has really been trickle-up economics all along. But neoliberals continue campaigning as if this is not true. If we really want to learn from their “win” we need to understand how average people and governments who claim democracy as a paramount virtue continue to support neoliberal policies that ultimately undermine their interests.
Yes, neoliberalism is the most successful social change movement of the 20th century.
And you’re right, we can learn from how they did it. By my reading, one of the key factors was the billionaire Koch brothers recognizing that if they were to get public uptake of their values of ‘liberty and small government’ (instead of the then popular social values in America of Roosevelt’s New Deal), they would have to affect public mindsets.
They pushed, as you say, to shift the Overton window. Actually, they pushed to get their values into public thinking and policy. There’s a difference. They consciously aimed to shift public mindsets.
The League of Evolutionary Catalysts is a vehicle to support a community of practice of regular people who are aware communicating to inspire thoughtful public will to dramatically reduce industrial production (and answers slow the economy) in order to preserve our ecological life support systems.
Calling for the changes we need is insufficient. We need to mobilize millions of conversations that go beyond our own progressive thought bubbles. The League provides innovative communication tools for this.
The hour is late. We are headed for ecological collapse and a hothouse Earth, and there is a high probability of nuclear war. Work with us!
https://www.evolutionarycatalyst.net
andrew.gaines@evolutionarycatalyst.net
What a wonderful initiative that you have undertaken. I am surely interested in such an endeavour and would like to be a part of this!
Would 9:00 AM Barcelona time this Tuesday, 2 June work for a Zoom call to get acquainted and consider possibilities?
My Zoom link is
https://zoom.us/j/4338939903
Cheers,
Andrew
Thanks for this important piece of writing, Jeremy.
We need a broad strokes vision for the future that can motivate all of us in our various movements and, like the organs in our bodies, work together and see that all of our work is important.
And learning from everyone, even our enemies, is always a good idea.
Great historical summary and outline for ongoing action within a vital long-term vision!
I especially appreciate the important inclusion of deliberative democracy as one of the vital conditions for making transformation happen, and in peaceful ways. Https://CompassionateCitizens.us
We not only CAN learn from it - we HAVE to learn from it.
a great read Jeremy - too many highlights to post - the kind of stuff that helps the big thinkers keep thinking big.
This is an incredibly helpful summation, thank you. I like to say: “if you want to learn how to spread an idea fastest, never ask the good guys, ask the devil”. There is a core meme in Neoliberalism, the bait that almost everyone swallowed: the meme of “Freedom”. Who doesn’t want freedom, right? The trick was to conflate freedom for individuals with freedom for corporations, as if they are the same. (You could argue they are mutually exclusive). That’s how they got us non-corporate folk to support and praise the system that is devastating us. The mortal flaw: we do not have a philosophy that limits freedom as power increases. That has been made taboo. Blasphemy. What a chillingly brilliant psyop.
One of the challenges is the presumed trade-off of the individual and group. Thus individualist liberty vs social duties. This is wrong, much of what makes life worthwhile is social. To solve the dilemma I suggest a couple of metaphors, the organism and ecology: both rely on the parts remaining healthy for the whole to be healthy.
Great writing. And I reckon if Ecocivilsation appeals to millions of people there's got to be some funds available somewhere too.
Hi Jeremy
In your book, The Patterning Instinct your thesis is that worldviews - the set of beliefs, values, etc mediated through a cultures’ language - shape the path a civilisation takes.
The Mont Pelerín strategy was to orchestrate the widespread dissemination of a suite of seemingly commonsense ideas and metaphors that together constituted the neoliberal ideology. In other words, a memetic revolution.
By setting up their think tanks and invisibly disseminating these simple memes continuously through the media over two decades these ideas became widely accepted as obvious common sense amongst politicians and the wider community.
if there is to be any hope of avoiding Eco Social collapse then those of us wishing to make this a reality should in my view adopt the essence of the Mont Pelerín strategy with an orchestrated strategy of memes conducive to the sustainability and well-being of the whole web of life.
Memes conveying our human nature as cooperative, caring, loving etc, our total dependence on the web of life, the fragility of our world, the demolition of much of the prevailing worldview, (an extensive well thought out set of memes).
The rollout of the strategy would have to be very intense and involve very high profile and respected figures around the world, social media, mainstream media, game apps that educate and cultivate these memes and a lot more detail to be developed obviously.
The first step would be identifying well to do like-minded individuals who can help to fund such a memetic revolution and a dedicated funded group to develop all aspects of the strategy.
Activists have been working along the lines you suggest for half a century to little avail unfortunately. What we need is to mind-shift humanity into a life affirming worldview that can give hope that there will be a future and a decent one at that. After all, isn’t that what most people (other than the exploiters) truly want?
https://globaljusticeproject.wid.world
I think you are glossing over the central asymmetry: one network ran on concentrated capital from benefactors with direct financial stakes in the outcome. That's not a detail. That was the engine of success.
Goodwill and shared values among distributed actors is a genuinely different proposition, and history doesn't offer many examples of it sustaining the kind of decades-long coordinated pressure that actually shifts power. The cathedral metaphor is inspiring, but cathedrals were also built by institutional church money. The harder question the piece doesn't answer: what holds the coalition together when there's no shared material interest and the setbacks come?"
Hi Jeremy, once again you have done it, your amazing energy, your determination to facilitate a quantum leap in human conscious and your understanding and documentation of all that has come before. By "quantum" I mean the seemingly impossible transformation or evolution from the self-enclosed, separated, defensive-aggressive and fearful Me into the all-inclusive and all-caring We. While the latter has always been integral to the minds and hearts of the enlightened few, it has never been central to the vast majority and the actions and beliefs of the "ruling class' with which that majority resonates. Your courageous endeavor and that of like-minded individual and groups worldwide, brings to mind the Hundredth Monkey phenomenon, another manifestation of a quantum leap; once a sufficient number of individuals hear and demonstrate the qualities necessary to form an Eco Civilization, that civilization is already underway. How we get from one side of the impenetrable barrier of the Me to the other side of the We defies any scientific explanation. It remains one of the mysteries of God, Energy, the Universe or whatever you wish to call it. Long live that mystery and your contribution to it. For my part, a contribution to our Eco Civilization Coalition says it all. Thank you for providing that opportunity. Peter
Wonderfully elucidated! But you mention the 'triumph' of neolibralism as 'devastating'. Can you expand on why you think so specifically? Maybe a previous work of your expounds upon this, in that case please point me towards that.
In my opinion you should not be so averse to the ideas of Hayek and Mises. Hayek especially would agree in spirit with the 'distributed processing' flavour of Eco civilization that I am picking up from reading your work.
More importantly you cannot simply dismiss the immense impact of people like Hayek and Mises (not sure if it's true for Milton Freidman) had on countering the authoritarian tendencies that sprouted so frequently and were characteristic of the central planning mania of 20th century. Surely a world ruled by the Soviet Union even if not literally but a one dominated with strong authoritarian global governments of either communist or fascist varieties, would, in my opinion, been an infinitely worse alternative than what we have now. Do you not agree about this?
Morever, even if one disagrees with the ideological inclinations of certain scientists (and yes I consider economics a science), one can still appreciate the pure analytical contributions of these people. The pure analytical contributions of marx in his system of dialectics is an impressive achievement of the human mind regardless of one's ideological inclinations. Similarly the immense scientific impact of the foundational work done by the Austrians in their methodological system of praxeology is an unparalleled analytical achievement.
Any view of Eco-civilization could benefit immensely by taking inspiration from the praxeological methodology
This offering is the missing gap in our Centenary Festival of Holism and Evolution. Thank you so much. Claudius van Wyk https://www.holosearthacademy.org/
Excellent! The strategies and tactics used can be adopted. Changing hearts and minds seems obvious, but it really is foundational. If you are a little older, you might remember all the cowboy themed shows and commercials' - the rugged individualist was sold to us (as was the Welfare Queen) . Changes often start in the culture.