an ensemble of economic and social policies that promotes the primacy of the market and individual self-interest, unrestricted flows of capital, deep reductions in the cost of labor, sharp retrenchment of the public sphere, and withdrawal of government from providing for social welfare (45).
From this we can see the epistemologies of neoliberalism as a drive to make all the spaces within the public sphere (libraries, parks, roads, ect..) adhere to market forces. For example, the No Child Left Behind law brought a market style drive to education. If schools are not performing well than resources are taken from that school, further letting it fail. This is similar to a corporation that may cut labor or resources from a division of the company that is underperforming. Some conspiracy theorist may believe this market style approach to education is an effort to privatize education with federal tax dollars. This brings about the emergence of charter schools or federal education vouchers for students to attend an alternate school.
Who benefits from intense privatization of public services? Lipman offers insight by saying that a large amount of wealth will transfer from middle and low class families to the very wealthy (47). Lets look at this through an example; if a park is purchased by a rich capitalist they can decide to charge the public to use it. Therefore this will ensure that the wealthy capitalist makes a profit off a once public space.
If neoliberalism had its way this would occur:
Lets look at this from
an educational perspective. There has been a lot of debate over privatization of education in the United States. Lets look at the extreme case in which a soft drink company owns a district. The soft drink company can then supply materials that ensure the continuation of consumers of its products. Lets also consider the owns of the soft drink company happen to be very religious. Therefore they have the ability to impose its religious objectives onto the students.Those who are most effected by neoliberal ideologies tends to be students of color. The students of color will not be given the rules to enter the culture of power. In addition, by the wealth going from the poor to the very wealthy this will increase the separation of wealth and further make the poor poorer.
Where neoliberal tends to deal with a weakened state, neoconservatism tends to call for a strong state. According to M. Apple’s essay, “Whose Markets, Whose Knowledge?”, the issues of neoconservatism “is especially true surrounding issues of knowledge, values, and the body” (47). In terms of education, Apple continues to state that a neoconservatism would want to call for “mandatory national and statewide curricula” and “a ‘return’ to higher standards” (47). This neoconservative perspective does not look at multicultural education as a means to achieving higher standards.
From this we can see how both the neoliberal and neoconservative perspectives see the world as black and white. They see the world as both the public and private spheres. When responding to society crises the solution tends to come only from the public or the private and little attention is given to those solutions outside these spaces. Therefore for a more complete society we need to look beyond neoliberalism and neoconservatism to see the solutions that benefit us all.
Both neoliberalism and neoconservatism look at the individual as the only unit in the society and do not take into consideration the power of society. From many indigenous societies we learn that the focus is the health of the tribe and all situations deal with how they affect the tribe. Therefore we can see how our society can be easily caught up into neoliberalism because capitalism deals greatly with the individual efforts rather efforts of the collective. Certainly efforts of the collective are much more powerful and speak to the multicultural society that we live in. Therefore this is why there is such resistance to neoliberalism; it widens the economic gap and it is mono-cultural.
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