13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Time to save human race running out, July 21, 2005
This review is from: The Terror of Neoliberalism: Authoritarianism and the Eclipse of Democracy (Cultural Politics and the Promise of Democracy) (Paperback)
This book is essential, but be warned, it is almost relentlessly grim.
As it should be, for it paints the United States as a country spinning away from any semblance of an actual, functioning democracy and into a web where capitalism is the new democracy and public participation in the phenomenon that shape our lives is largely removed or rendered a cynical joke. Giroux examines neoliberalism as the main 'philosophy' or force that has driven the USA toward a more private society where the social contract is chipped away, job, life, and health security are weakened to strengthen authority, inequality has gone through the roof, and of course, money rules. That it's now easier to imagine the end of the world before the end of the current strain of capitalism (which has pretty much replaced democracy) just about says it all.
Giroux covers the erosion of public debate, where the complete corruption of terms neutralizes discussion and discourages thinking ('conservative', 'liberal', 'terrorism', etc, etc), the slow death of public space, public service, and the obsessive privatization of life, and other major phenomenon you never hear about in the news because you'd probably want to kill yourself, or do something about it.
He's certainly not off point, if anything, he's rightfully disgusted about the state of affairs. Where is the outrage, he asks. As for the Bush administration, it's not new, it's just more extreme in its vision of an 'ownership society' and in the empty rhetoric of 'rugged individualism' and 'freedom from the government' that is, of course, a weapon against the common schlep who can only increase their human value by positioning themselves as profit-generators. The poor subsidize the rich, absorbing risk while the dough pours into the same few pockets. Everybody else can rent themselves out to whoever decides to keep jobs in the USA, where we endlessly consume while producing less and less. And the government, well, it's this terrible, meddlesome, flabby entity that should be cut down to size because it's restricting all of us. Unless, of course, that same government works overtime to protect the rich from the market forces that would destroy them as it bails out failing companies, enacts tariffs, and gives huge breaks to those who need it least so that we can all survive but hiring ourselves out to the same folks. If you're lucky, maybe you can work at a nice suburban office park that your favorite credit card or cell phone company has decided to establish in your area.
Judging by this sober assessment, the US of A is heading down the tubes, and fast. What does one do? The time to act is now, it seems, though our choices are fewer and fewer. When we're all sitting in front of a computer for 8-10 hours a day doing intellectually bankrupt work for pathological institutions that threaten to toss us out because we don't fit into their Excel columns, cost too much to take care of because of a massively inefficient health care system, and are subject to huge phenomenon that nobody really bothers to address in the pursuit of cash, I guess we can all hope we're near the blast radius when mankind decides to finally blow up the world.
Not the most cheerful book, it's a cold, hard look at what has happened to the state of democracy in the USA, and how the forces of capital have boxed and wrapped every facet of life, destroying anything the founding fathers had in mind. Time to go live in the woods.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
An Unstructured Tangential Jeremiad, November 11, 2007
I have read most of Chomsky, Bauman, Parenti, Klein, Berman and Johnson amongst others. That being said, the politics (dissident, progressive, left-leaning) are not an issue for me. What is at issue is the deplorable writing style and unstructured ranting that defines this horribly written book. The Chapters are meaningless as each subject or topic is subject to tangents ranting on everything from George Forman's shilling of electric grills to reality TV being an indictment of the me-first competitive nature that now (only now?) defines America. Again, the left leaning progressive politics are not an issue for me. Yet, I will not suffer apologist politics that seeks blame of everyone and anyone but those who are affected. I will not succumb to a political belief that aggressively seeks to place blame always on the footsteps of American culture and politics. There is a lot to dislike about the US right now, but not everything, as this author would have you believe.
Furthermore, I don't think he has a clue of what Neoliberalism is. I've read Chomsky's take, and Wallach's in depth study, and after reading Giroux the stark leaps in logic, and the undocumented, unreasoned, unsubstantiated, and unbelievable indictments of everything wrong with America being accredited to neoliberalism reads like the ranting of an old, guilt-laden white hippy. A good author, or teacher as it were, has you leaving his/her book with an entire new manner of understanding, or contemplating. Giroux has you walking away contemplating whether you should bother finishing the disjointed screed. The best parts are the quotes lifted from Bauman. Buy Bauman!
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