AlfredoL reviewed Invisible Doctrine by George Monbiot
Review of The Invisible Doctrine by G. Monbiot and P. Hutchinson
5 stars
The neoliberal doctrine was first defined and developed during and immediately after WW2 by Ludwig Von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. The core article of faith is that
... greed and selfishness light the path to social improvement, generating the wealth that will eventually enrich us all.
It follows that the state is the enemy, by collecting taxes, regulating the activity of for-profit corporations, and redistributing wealth through equitably provided public services.
From the beginning this was much more than a theory. It was an ambitious political program, since the state can only be cut down by taking over government, which in a democracy means winning elections. Therefore the doctrine had to be installed in the minds of the general population. Its core tenets have to come to be seen as natural laws that cannot be questioned just like gravity or the need for air cannot be questioned.
As the word …
The neoliberal doctrine was first defined and developed during and immediately after WW2 by Ludwig Von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. The core article of faith is that
... greed and selfishness light the path to social improvement, generating the wealth that will eventually enrich us all.
It follows that the state is the enemy, by collecting taxes, regulating the activity of for-profit corporations, and redistributing wealth through equitably provided public services.
From the beginning this was much more than a theory. It was an ambitious political program, since the state can only be cut down by taking over government, which in a democracy means winning elections. Therefore the doctrine had to be installed in the minds of the general population. Its core tenets have to come to be seen as natural laws that cannot be questioned just like gravity or the need for air cannot be questioned.
As the word was spread through "think tanks" and lobbyists, financed by some of the world's richest people and businesses, like Dupont and General Electric, or the secretive Koch Brothers, a curious thing happened: the very term "neoliberalism" disappeared. It became the invisible doctrine of the title.
Monbiot and Hutchinson explore in detail the far-reaching effects of neoliberalism, establishing the image of the state as the enemy of the people, normalizing greed, defending the destruction of the environment considered to be a mere "externality" cutting into profits, and undermining democracy itself:
... when Friedrich Hayek visited General Pinochet's Chile in1981, he told a journalist that he preferred a 'liberal dictator' to 'a democratic government devoid of liberalism'.
Margaret Thatcher claimed that "there is no alternative". Monbiot and Hutchinson disagree. In the last two chapters they look at the ideas of Murray Bochkin (The Next Revolution, Verso, 2015 ) about deliberative, participatory democracy and its implementation in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and other instances of particpatory decision-making. and the ancient idea of the commons, which today includes community forests and gardens, community broadband and energy cooperatives, and open-source software. The common thread is the devolution of decision making to the community.
The Invisible Doctrine is the work of a journalist and a filmmaker, and their writing style is agile and passionate, as one would expect. It is also very well researched, with extensive notes and references to pursue. I am grateful for their work, and I think you will be too.
