“While facts alone can never determine what is right, ill-considered notions of what is reasonable, right and good may change the facts and the circumstances in which we live; they may destroy, perhaps forever, not only developed individuals & [capital], but also traditions, institutions and interrelations without which such creations that we now enjoy could hardly have come into being or ever be recreated." --Sigmund Freud
"If, as our instincts and sentimental yearnings often make us wish to do, were applied to wider civilization, we would destroy it…if we were to apply the rules of the extended order to our intimate groupings, we would crush them."--F.A. Hayek
“The complexity of the human condition—of character, passion, conscience, not to mention the course of external events----rules out any simple humanist utopia.”—John Carroll
“Sapere aude” (dare to know).”—Emanuel Kant
The purpose here is to describe the fundamental methods neo-liberalism employs to maintain its commitment to its ideology. A belief system that not only ignores the evidence and results of its premises and actions but, also one that presupposes the permeability of both human and systemic nature that can therefore be remade into its desired image. It is a belief system that, when judged on its own merits, is obviously defective. Neo-liberalism, incorrectly thinking itself something new, unique and random, chafes at the thought that it is possible that its ideology can be critically analyzed, described and soundly categorized as we’re about to do. For it to think that it can't be, well, that would be a repudiation of such disciplines as psychology, philosophy, political science, sociology, theology, science, the law, history, organizational behavior, economics and praxeology.
First, let's state the postulates:
* Neo-liberalism's motivating purpose is self-justification and meaning through self-aggrandizement, self-anointing and self-absolution.
* Neo-liberalism, to achieve the above, inevitably evolves into a nihilistic/relativistic belief system that needs to blame others.
* Neo-liberalism, to work, requires a system of collectivism inflicted on the masses by elites, possible only thru big government and collectivism.
* Big government and collectivism requires, in an arbitrary manner, equal outcome for all but the ruling elite.
* Equal outcome, given imperfectability, impermeable human nature, is impossible and diametrically opposed to freedom and must center on the lowest common denominator.
* Loss of freedom always results in a proportional downward spiral into what is technically defined as a form of tyranny, the exact opposite of Neo-liberalism's stated goal of individual enhancement.
So, why do some apparently smart people hold this dangerous intellectual currency?
From the beginning, the Neo-Liberal ethos is one that aims simultaneously at political and social collectivism, one the one hand, and moral anarchy on the other. Before going on, let's state here for the record, Neo-liberalism has absolutely no relationship to the Classic-Liberalism. The major differences include that the Classic version, and not the Neo one, believes in the rule of law; the universality of certain principles transcendent in origin from beyond man; the limits of government; in private property; free markets; individual responsibility effort and individual rights (note, not group rights, which is significantly different and dangerous to freedom and the individual).
cont'd...
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