The union leadership’s went to the new neoliberal administrator to discuss the yearly cost-of-living salary increase. We all know what happened to the cost of living, so they thought they had a productive conversation ahead of them.
As usual, the union leaders asked the administrator what was the salary increase he was considering. The administrator, who already gave himself a raise and is using university money to build a covered parking spot for the new vehicle he bought with university money amidst our huge budget crisis, said in a nasty voice, “The salary increase I have in mind is zero point zero percent.” Then he left.
The union people are shocked. They thought the “diverse” administrator would be pro-labor. He’s ultra progressive, he says all the right words, he respects everybody’s pronouns. So he can’t possibly be a neoliberal bastard who hates workers, right?
The previous top administrator was not diverse. He was as un-diverse as it gets. But he got us our salary increases punctually. He protected us from lockdowns, from vaccine mandates, from hiring freezes. We let the Board of Trustees get rid of him and welcomed an ultra-progressive diverse dude from California. He immediately proceeded to fire workers, cancelled half of summer classes, created mega complex bureaucratic procedures for everything, and told us we are lazy, overpaid, and too numerous.
Pronouns and budget cuts are one side of the same neoliberal coin. Wokeness (leftism, progressivism) means our standard of living worsens and we are told its our own fault because we are bad. It seems harmless to humor a few “Hate has no home here” posters and a couple of “How to Be Anti-racist” workshops but they always lead to budget cuts, layoffs, and disrespect.
Clarissa's Blog 
I suppose next he can demand an apology and give himself a bonus for having to deal with such nasty racists.
https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/face-up-to-anc-failure
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That’s absolutely where it’s going. The union leader is very white, so he’s very screwed. What can he possibly do or say that won’t get him accused of opposing the administrator for racist reasons?
Isn’t it sad that these strategies are so recognizable so widely? Yet people still get caught every single time.
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Have you read School of Darkness by Bella Dodd? She was a teacher’s union leader and prominent Communist. When she finally becomes a member of the American politburo, she discovers that everything she was interested in – she was in it to help the poor and oppressed – was simply a smoke screen, that the Communist party in America merely adopted whatever policies they thought most likely to cause trouble to the state, with no intention to actually doing anything about it. When she asks the chairman why this is so, she is told: we’re not here to patch up the status quo, we are here to destroy it. In other words, all talk of helping people was just talk, actions were always about destroying institutions and the people in them.
Some things never change.
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Well die-card Stalin-type Communists actively will seek to destroy any non-communist system because that is required in order to then implement a dictatorship of the proletariat, which will then be able to bring about communism (in their minds). And THEN, the people will be helped greatly. Trying to help the people within the existing system is not communism, and thus not worth it to them.
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why would he use university money to buy a new car during his own budget freeze? seems like you professors need to go on strike.
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Right? A brand-new Tahoe because the Tahoe we had from the previous administrator is 2 years old and that’s unacceptable. Royalty doesn’t ride in such ancient vehicles.
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Just curious, but what do you mean exactly when you say the administrator was “diverse/not diverse?” Also, just my opinion, but neoliberal doesn’t mean anti-worker.
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I had to edit your comments because you put your email in the visible part.
The former administrator was white and the new one is black. “Diverse/not diverse” is Newspeak terminology for not white/white.
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Cripes, Brave New World it is, I see.
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“neoliberal doesn’t mean anti-worker”
How has neoliberal ever been pro-worker?
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We had this slogan in the USSR: “Everything for an individual; everything to the glory of an individual.” We used to quip that yes, it’s true, and we all know the name of that individual.
Our neoliberal administrator is doing everything to benefit himself, and I guess he’s a worker. So for that specific worker things are going great.
The rest, though, are screwed.
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That is very interesting; I thought the USSR emphasized the collective…?
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Maybe I didn’t translate well. The word used in Russian is человек which means human being.
You are right, “individual” sounds weird in the context.
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Because neoliberalism is about free-enterprise, markets, and freedom overall, which is very pro-worker. It is about reducing excessive government regulations, taxes, and the excessive parts of the social welfare state (such as the parts that pay people not to work to just ride the system), but is not totally against such things because they are needed for a helping hand, worker safety, product and consumer safety, environmental safety, etc…
The opposite would kind of be like saying, “Since when has Progressive ever meant pro-freedom?” because so many Progressives have been for all manner of taxes, regulations, outright socialism and even communism. OTOH, again those things are needed to some degree and being for them doesn’t make one a socialist or communist and anti-market.
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Thing is, this freedom of enterprise and markets only extends to a small number of already gigantic and wealthy companies. As we’ve seen during COVID, Walmart was free to operate. It the multitude of small and medium businesses that perished were not. It was the same during the global economic crisis of 2008-9. Big banks were bailed out. The rest of us were free to go stuff ourselves. It’s freedom for a small minority of already wealthy people at the expense of everybody else.
Look at the migrant crisis. The freedom of a few employers to pay $5 wages comes at the expense of millions whose lives are disrupted to service this freedom. What is it that you and I gain from this freedom? Honestly, nothing that I can see.
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I would actually argue that those examples are violations of the spirit of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is supposed to be about the small and medium-sized enterprises as well. Having policies that benefit Big Business at the expense of smaller and medium-sized businesses are not neoliberalism. Bailing out the big banks most definitely was not neoliberalism, IMO.
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” violations of the spirit of neoliberalism”
Sure, and the Great Leap Forward and the Gulag and the Khmer Rouge were all violations of the spirit of communism….
Mirowski, who’s written a lot about neoliberalism, claims it’s not laissez faire or classically capitalist at all, it’s about the government helping big business thrive.
Small businesses and employees are simply not a concern.
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Neoliberalism is not about aiding of Big Business to survive. That is what many who claim to be neoliberals in business and government will do, but to do it requires doing the opposite of neoliberalism. It’s like the businessmen and politicians who claim to be pro-free enterprise when they really are not, as they will violate such in order to aid their business buddies and their own interests. That many hijack the word neoliberal doesn’t make them neoliberal. “Neoliberal” is more akin to being “pro-democratic government.” Like with neoliberalism, lots of politicians who claim to be such are very corrupt and do all manner of things to undermine the democratic process so as to retain their power. Corrupt politicians violate the spirit of democratic government and corrupt politicians and businessmen violate the spirit of neoliberalism. That politicians violate such does not mean neoliberalism or democratic government are themselves oppressive.
By contrast, violent communists do not violate the spirit of communism. Violence is built into communism, because the only way to pursue it is with violence. The Great Leap Forward, Gulag, and Khmer Rouge thus don’t really work as comparisons. Because unlike neoliberalism (and democratic government), which can be implemented very well so long as the political and business community are not too corrupted, communism can never be made to work. To try and make it work requires statism and violence, because you have to eliminate those pesky non-communists who want to own their own property and businesses, so you have to imprison them and/or kill them.
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Exactly. Let’s look at reality. In spite of its talk of freedom, neoliberalism thrives best in semi-dictatorial regimes, from Pinochet to Putin and Trudeau.
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Went on Twitter and immediately found this example of freedom:
Venmo and PayPal are exercising their freedom to impose their ideology that serves the interests of a tiny minority. Venmo and PayPal are free. But what about us? How do we gain freedom from their ideological stranglehold?
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I agree, however again I’d argue this is not neoliberalism, this is more statism. They have a right to do so I believe, because others can start competitors that provide a similar service but which does not discriminate. But in terms of the spirit of neoliberalism, which favors freedom, they are not adhering to it.
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” not neoliberalism, this is more statism”
Neoliberalism is basically statist in nature, Reagan used the power of the state to destroy the air traffic controllers union. Thatcher used the power of the state to enact greater centralization than the UK had ever seen. Neither were small government types.
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Would have to disagree there. How is neoliberalism statist? It is all about reducing the power of the state. Reagan disputed the air traffic controller’s union for going on strike which led to their going bust, but that is a more nuanced issue. He didn’t just set out to do it. Not sure what you mean about Thatcher using the state to enact greater centralization as she enacted privatization. Both she and Reagan were small government types.
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“what you mean about Thatcher using the state to enact greater centralization ”
This comes from talks with Brits in Poland in the late 1990s… they all spat when her name was mentioned (though she was still popular in Poland).
Among other things, they mentioned how many services that were previously localized were centralized in London during her tenure so that (IIRC) getting a drivers license was more expensive and took longer because everything had to go through a centralized system.
“Say one thing, do another” was the recurring theme. I don’t know British reality well enough to comment on the specifics.
And federal debt tripled under Reagan… not so small government.
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The debt did triple under Reagan, but the economy also grew by about 50% larger. The reason for the debt was because Reagan had to up the defense budget to rebuild the military and to counter the Soviets, and the Democrats at the same time would not allow any cuts to social programs. So yes he did increase the debt, but not by being a big government person.
I will have to research more on the Thatcher issue, but it is also possible she did both big and smaller government (privatization and centralization of existing government services).
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