Neoliberalism

The political notion of individual rights and the primacy of the market.

In the 1980s, governments rolled out an ideological onslaught to legitimise the neoliberal agenda. In the 2020s there is a new ideological shift towards a great reset – again being driven by neoliberalism; this time, its collapse.   The market remains dominant but there is an implicit shift towards authoritarianism - social control - within the context of managing the economic crisis.

One example is health care in the United States. In 1975, the US health system was pretty normal among advanced societies — roughly the same outcomes, roughly the same costs. Then came the split forced by neoliberalism. In 2020, it’s twice the costs of comparable societies and has some of the worst outcomes, some so extreme that mortality is increasing and life expectations declining. At the same time, the corona virus situation introduced dramatic emergency public health measures (enforced vaccination, lockdowns, corporate-driven "solutions" in the form of vaccines, etc) whose repercussions on health are yet to be counted.