Neo-Liberalism

1. "Neo-liberalism is an ideology that serves the interests of the wealthy only, while sending the poor into even greater poverty. In fact, it could be argued that rather than representing an ideology, it is a euphemism for the sheer self- interest of the ultra-wealthy." Discuss in depth. Use objective indicators to evaluate the first sentence of the statement.

One the one hand, while it is true that the worlds richest people have gotten even richer in recent years (especially during and post-Covid 19 pandemic) and more than 700 million people still live on less than $2.00 per day (the UNs international cutoff amount for extreme poverty), the fact remains that the vast majority of the nine billion humans alive today enjoy a quality of life that is far better than ever before in history (World poverty statistics, 2022).

This outcome means that while neo-liberalism is an ideology that serves the interests of the wealthy, it also serves the interests of much of the rest of the global population in lesser degrees along a continuum.

For instance, the most recent update from the World Bank (2022) indicates that the global poverty rate declined about 28 million people during the 2-year period from 2017 through 2018, and this decline has been sustained for multiple years. It should be noted, however, that the rate of decline in global poverty slowed somewhat during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and its corresponding negative effects on the global economy, but it continues to decline year-to-year (Aguilar et al., 2022). In addition, even impoverished people are living longer than ever before in history, albeit with significant differences between affluent and developing nations. For example, Roser et al. (2022) point out that, Since 1900 the global average life expectancy has more than doubled and is now above 70 years. The inequality of life expectancy is still very large across and within countries. in 2019 the country with the lowest life expectancy is the Central African Republic with 53 years, in Japan life expectancy is 30 years longer (para. 3).

On the other hand, though, neo-liberalism misses the mark by assigning the blame for those humans who remain impoverished today, suggesting that their expectations have been set too high in view of their circumstances. For instance, according to Dixon (2012), neo-liberalism theorizes that poverty's causal explanation is grounded in the inappropriateness of the hopes, aspirations, and goals of those living in poverty (p. 203). Likewise, neo-liberalism also holds that poor people either lack the work ethic and motivation that is required to succeed in the 21st century. In this regard, Dixon adds that neo-liberalism also moralizes that the poor have a moral obligation to critically assess the consequences for themselves and others of their decisions not to work even when work is available, for which they should be held responsible (p. 203).

The key to parsing these aspects of neo-liberalism is the term even when work is available....

…best that politicians can do is wring their hands and lament the inevitability of the worlds end, as long as it occurs long after they are dead. This is not a new phenomenon and this reaction is simply part of the frail human condition which places a higher priority on satisfying self-interests to the exclusion of everything else.

In fact, the same forces that have driven globalization are largely responsible for this compartmentalization of responsibility for the global commons. If there were no national borders and everyone lived under a single world government (shudder), it would be a far easier matter to mobilize the political wherewithal that is needed to address the growing threats to the earths environment. Indeed, as former U.S. President Ronald Reagan once famously observed in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 1987, Perhaps we need some outside universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world (as cited in Koenig, 2018, para. 3).

While the existential threat represented by global warming does not originate outside this world, it does affect everyone on the planet. Combating climate change and saving the worlds environment are clearly global issues that outweigh petty political differences. Only time will tell, however, if political leaders around the world finally come to understand the true magnitude of this existential threat and come together to address the problem…