What is Neoliberalism? What does it mean to be "bougie"

Neoliberalism is a umbrella term for a lot of things

Disclaimer: this was written very hastily and has yet to be edited in any way. One thing you will notice about this blog, is it is written on the fly. Politics for people in the precariat is not easy. Currently I am using WiFi in a community centre to get this done. There will be spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. I post my drafts early due to the urgency of current affairs. We can't afford to wait just to satisfy grammar Nazis. I'll get back to this later. I've got work to do.

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So what is neoliberalism? I'll try to be frank. I'll give you my unfiltered opinion on it. What do I think about neoliberalism to myself, if I weren't to put any filters on it. So primarily neoliberalism is a way of thinking that has it's roots in neo classical economics. It's not easy to point out exactly one social phenomenon and say “that's neoliberlism” because it is kind of an umbrella term for a complete ideology. There is political aspect to it, with neo classical economists guiding policy at all levels of most organasations worldwide, from private institutions to all levels of government. There is a cultural aspect to it that governs how we think, live and die. Now it's difficult, especially for those who see themselves as reasonable and unbiased, to accept that one is brainwashed. And neoliberalism is a special kind of brainwashing because it sounds a lot like common sense. In fact most of the things we say and do that I would call neoliberal behaviour is common sense. The problem is it's always out of context. It is my firm belief that what we have done is left a lot of old ideas that used to be common sense fall out of the public consciousness without any kind of thought or debate. And I believe this to be because of a deliberate political campaign (or perhaps more appropriately a political/economic experiment) that has been going on now for around four decades. The purpose was to make “economic rationality” the basic ethic for living in everyday life. In particular, neo classical economic thinking. It's ideas saturate the media on both sides of politics. I ask you, if a propaganda campaign can get feminists smoking cigarettes (one of the first very successful ad campaigns, they called them “torches of freedom”), or can get people believing a car is a “freedom machine”, why would you not believe a forty year campaign with such complete saturation of all media wouldn't have an affect on how you think? Of course it has. And it takes a little work to undo that. A lot of work actually. It's taken me fifteen years of constant reading. The problem is, even once you know the truth, it's hard to accept. Even for me. People may say this is the “politics of envy”. That this is my excuse for avoiding the workforce for so long. But like all good neoliberals, they've got it all out of context, and so they've got the causation wrong. I fulfilled my part of the social contract. I did the work. THEN and only then was I compelled to turn to politics. That's the essence of it. Having a lot of “common sense” things to say about a person with no context. No connection to the real world. In neo classical economic models they have to approximate a few things about a human being to make their models work. So in their models there is only one kind of person. Call them homo economicus. They self-made made. This man makes his decisions, and their failures and achievements in a glass jar. There is no community around them. No friends or family. The self made man follows certain patterns of behaviours. They alwys seek maximum value in all of their decisions. They do not make irrational decisions. They do not make compassionate decisions. Like a businesman, every actor in these models has to be always seeking to gain and advantage. Neoliberalism also has a cultural aspect. Neoliberalism in culture is when people actually behave this way. Even sometimes to the point of detaching themselves from their humanity while they watch their own loved ones suffer and die of economic deprivation. That is not common sense. That is not how communities have worked in the past. That is neoliberalism. Neoliberalism leads us to commit what sociologists call fundamental attribution errors. That means you fail to have a balanced perspective on a person or an issue. Everybody's life is a constant push and pull between the forces in your life you cannot control, and those that you can. For those that people so wisely ask one to focus on – namely the one's you can control – focusing on one's personal input into that is a wise and sensible thing to do. What is unwise and not very fair or sensible is to completely ignore the other side. The context. The environment. The way people treat different people. To completely ignore peoples real world barriers or to completely ignore peoples benefits and opportunities is to commit a fundamental attribution error. Fundamental attribution errors can also work both ways. People who hear this often point this out. It is true - and the left needs to understand this too – that to only focus onone's environments and setbacks and not at all on their own responsibilities is to commit a fundamental attribution error. Because you're robbing tha tperson of their agency. You're saying they are purely a product of their environment. So to be neoliberal is to be always commiting fundamental attribution errors by doing on of two things. One, failing to admit to your own privileges while judging the choices of others or yourself.Two, failing to fairly and equitable compare setbacks when judging the choices of others or yourself. If you do either of these two things, a person has every right to say you are being a little “neoliberal”. That is not to say you can't make judgements. We have to. We do it every day. The idea is to be balanced and fair in our judgements. To try not to be, as they say “one eyed” about it. So what do I mean by “bougie”. There are a lot of complex ideas that I use proxy words for. If I were to use the actual word it would make no sense to them without a lot of explaiantion. “Bougie” is one of them. I know it's not very polite. I know it can be a bit snarky, and I do use it to vent. But if you fully understood what I meant by it, I think any thinking person could see I'm actually letting people off pretty lightly when I say that. And if it stings, it's probably for a good reason. And you probably deserve it. I am trying to make a political point. And if I say that usually what I'm annoyed about is quite serious, and I'm feeling unable to articulate it. And, by the way, if class doesn't exist, it shouldn't bother you anyway, should it? Bourgoius is an olf French word meaning middle class. What's insulting about that. You are middle class, aren't you? So what do I mean by it? I mean bureaucratic class or salariat. People with stable jobs and income and rights and benefits who are highly bureaucratised and the vulnerable people they see fit to lend a hand with bureaucracy and bureaucratic culture. They elderly and disabled men, women and children under the care of bureaucratic people in the salariat. That's what I'm calling people when I say bougie. Because they are they people I consider a “dangerous class”. They, in my mind, are the parasites in the community. They, in my mind, are the thieves in the community. Hate corporate interests lobbying government? They are the enablers. The bureaucratic and social enforcers. They hold all the keys, as they say, and guard all they doors. They have the police, the military and the entire modern surveillance apparatus at their disposal and they use it without mercy. So excuse me if I call people bougie once in awhile. It's exhausting. Ihave to live through it. I'm on the other side of the cameras, do you understand? Being teased about being bougie is the least of your worries. So what kind of behaviour does a bougie person exhibit? Well, like neoliberalism it's it's own culture. And in it's place it's not so bad. It's office culture. And in an office, here's the big secret. Everybody has to behave in a hierarchy as if it's a meritocracy, but secretly everyone knows it's not. People don't rise according to their ability in a bureaucracy, they never did. You rise according to your ability to convice yur superiors that you rise according to merit. Because if you outperform your superiors you're not going to be rewarded. You're going to embarrass them. And in a bureaucracy if you behave as if people DON'T rise according to merit, mate, you're GONE. So in a bureaucracy there's always two ways of thinking. It's like Orwellian doublethink. You've got to constalty go about your work knowing things are one way, but behaving as if they are another way. There's the official narrative, and there's the way things (give a knowing tap on the nose) really are. The problem is that this kind of thinking has permeated a whole class of people, the salariat. And that is a very dangerous thing, because these are very highly cognitive people who are very confident in their way of thinking, who do not see themselves as biased. It will be very hard for them to accept that they have brought this toxic behaviour into their homes. Into their family lives. Into their souls. THAT'S what I mean by “bougie”. It is also why I restrict myself to saying that without explanation. I say it out of frustration when I know people are behaving one way knowing full well it's another and there's nothing I can say about it. If you don't want to go about your life being neoliberal, stop committing fundamental attribution errors. If you don't want to be “bougie” stop thinking one thing and doing the opposite. Simple.