If any government is serious about fighting inequality instead of boosting and buttressing it, it must start by listening to the people who bear the brunt of inequality, writes Dr John Falzon in this reflection on the rise of neoliberalism.
In 1996, at the height of the global outbreak of the neoliberal disease, French writer, Viviane Forrester wrote, in The Economic Horror: “A battle is brewing against the excluded. They really take up too much space… they are not excluded nearly enough.”
The battle is no longer brewing. We are in the thick of it. Neoliberalism was never just an idea. It is a crusher of souls, a destroyer of lives. One of the key reasons for its historical success is that it has produced a dominant discourse that justified structural exclusion by convincing significant sections of the working class that they are different from those who are being cast off and cast out. Until it was their turn.
