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Thursday March 28, 2024

Neo-liberalism damaging countries’body-politic: UK academic

Karachi The present era of neo-liberalism is proving to be harmful to political systems of the world which were breaking down one after the other. This view was expressed by Geoffrey Brown, a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, while addressing the students and staff of Szabist on

By Anil Datta
January 27, 2015
Karachi
The present era of neo-liberalism is proving to be harmful to political systems of the world which were breaking down one after the other.
This view was expressed by Geoffrey Brown, a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, while addressing the students and staff of Szabist on Monday.
The title of his talk was “Public policy in the era of neo-liberalism, government, austerity, and the ‘War on Terror’’’.
In a neo-liberal world, he said, the number of beneficiaries from the government’s largesse would continue to fall drastically. Economic inequality, in his view, was worse than ever before.
Referring to the outcome of the recent election in Greece which had brought a left-leaning government to power, Brown said it would be a big test for the efficacy of the neo-liberal system.
Citing Pakistan’s example, he said the country had been periodically devaluing its currency since 1972. However, the European Union (EU) did not devalue the Euro and hence Greece, being part of the EU, could not do so. “Greece’s GDP is down by seven percent and 40 percent of the electorate voted for left-leaning party,” said Brown. “The next six weeks would be crucial because it remains to be seen whether the country will be able to pay up her debts or would default.”
Spain, said Brown, was facing the same threat, the one from neo-liberalism, where half the young people didn’t have jobs and the Catalans in the north-east were clamouring for independence. This, according to him, was also giving rise to right-wing political parties who were painting the religious minorities, including Muslims, as radicals and blaming them for all the ills in their respective societies. “A surge of xenophobia has been generated,” he remarked. “In the neo-liberalism system, economic policies are marked by a fear of the minorities, be they racial or ethnic, and this often produces a violent reaction.”
In this context, Brown cited the example of emergence of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in the UK whose policies were against immigrants and non-white people. “Neo-liberalism is also endangering the environment,” opined the academic and referred to the unmitigated burning of fossil fuels on account of increased consumerism and industrial competition, besides frantic destruction of the globe’s forest cover. He blamed deforestation for the subsequent deluges of 2010 and 2011 in Pakistan. “There’s a direct correlation between economic inequality and social dysfunction,” he said. Unfortunately, he said that multinational oil companies were far too powerful and subverted efforts to come up with more environmentally-sound fuels.