One of the main traits of the neoliberalism that has reigned supreme these past decades is its focus on individualism. No longer are we a society, but instead we're mere individuals who have to solve our own problems, fight for our own survival and strive for our own wealth. Neoliberalism has us all going solo...
source: YouTube
No wonders then that many of us, especially the elderly who remember times when there was still a sense of community, feel that society has become a harsh place. Starting in the late 1970s and early 1980s many western governments, most notably in the U.S. and Great Britain, started with the mantra of free markets and individualism. Ronald Reagan said that the government isn't the solution, but the problem. And Margaret Thatcher said that there is no such thing as society. Under the guise of individual freedom, freedom of choice and voting with your dollars or British pounds, they began advertising the so called free markets and the wholesome cure of privatization. Everything that was once seen as a shared responsibility delegated to the democratically elected government, was now up for sale to be taken care of by private corporations; the public transport system, education, children's playgrounds, healthcare, even large parts of the military are now replaced with private mercenaries. The markets, was their promise, are efficient and would produce better services at lower costs; everybody would win...
I hope that by now we all see that this is simply not true. First, voting with our money is the most undemocratic thing imaginable. Replacing "one person, one vote" with "one dollar, one vote" leads to the simple conclusion that people with more dollars have more votes. And second, making everything individualized is just a way for big business to make a hell of a lot of money. Individualizing our problems just means that every individual now has to buy their own solution. Capitalists make much more money when they can solve a problem by having each and every one of us pay for their own solution. Here's a quote from a video I saw a while ago that perfectly illustrates this:
"For example, a robust public railway system on light rails and subways using renewable energy might be more environmentally friendly and cost effective, but that doesn't nearly bring in the profits that car culture does, with everyone having to buy their own car and their own gas and oil and coolants and break fluid and steering fluid and insurance, and buying all the replacement parts and buying an entire new car when the time comes."
The same goes for all the other services we all need; having each parent pay for a private education for their children is way more expensive than a publicly funded education system. Treating the modern mental illnesses as individual problems, rather than symptoms of shared societal problems, makes Big Pharma loads of money as they sell record numbers of pills. And, as the above quote shows, the environment pays dearly for our individualist fundamentalism. This neoliberal implementation of individualism doesn't make us free; it does the exact opposite as it encapsulates us all in our own economic hell or, if you're part of the one percent, heaven. This idea of "rugged individualism" is killing the lower rungs of the social ladder, not to mention the environment. But all it is, in the end, is just another ploy to maximize growth and profits. Watch the video, but keep in mind that this is not a strictly American thing: it's happening everywhere, even here in "social democratic" Europe...
American Individualism Is Killing Us
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