Neoliberalism and Apartheid Economy

They are the negros of our "world class economy" . . . the pariahs in our market fundamentalism dreams
While we are chasing our own version of American Dream, joining the bandwagon of globalization, and pursuing our place in a world-class community, here are pictures of the other side of us all, to whom we -- the market winners and worshipers -- always makes claims that we are hearing them (but never listening), looking at them (without ever seeing), talking to them (yet, without speaking) . . . Because we are too far high, in our five-star neoliberalism dreamland.

The fact is . . . we are moving toward (what Richard Freeman puts it) an "apartheid economy" . More and more portion of Indonesian population has been progressively excluded from the economy, by the instrumental rationality of neoliberalism and market forces, marginalized from the never-ending circuit of money-commodity-more money, doomed to become the pariah or decaying sub-population of our fast modernizing Indonesian economy. They've been treated as subhuman, the "negros" in our "world-class economy". Their kids have been separated from the kids of our "world-class schools and universities", they've been denied from the rights for descent and civilized public health services.
The invicible hand of the sacred market made the "unmarketable poor" invicible . . .
They've been evicted from their houses and sidewalks miniscale mall, for the rich need more space for luxurious housing, convenience traffic, and picturesque American-style urban sceneries -- they are forbiden from wandering into our "world-class" malls or shopping arcades that once were public spaces. Their demands, for better wages and treatments, tend to be supressed, and silenced by labeling them as the ghost of long-gone communists movement -- all for the sake of creating a better investment climate.

Indeed, the invicible hand of our market treats them without human face. On the contrary, the invisible hand made the "unmarketable have-nots" invicible. They are the negros of the Indonesian neoliberal seconomy, and are the pariahs in our market fundamentalism grandnarrative.
p.s.
The chance is getting slimmer each day that they can be reinserted into our world again . . . and the clock of a time bomb is tickling

Approaching the end of our future

Happy New Year,
But what does a new year means?
we are simply a bunch of strangers, in a world we never made . . .
and each of us is "no more free than a slave crawling North on the deck of a ship sailing South" (thanks to Sartre).
. . . for the next stop is clear and near:
the shores of ourselves
where we have to wander overland
into a borderless non- existence . . .
(a thought from the last day of 2007)

http://picasaweb.google.com/dedynhidayat

Merry Christmas for a friend

Merry Christmas!Nollaig Shona Dhuit!Kellemes Karácsonyi Ünnepeket!Joyeux Noël!Feliz Navidad!Buone Feste Natalizie!Fröhliche Weihnachten!Ajmel altehani bemonasebt almīlad wa helol alseneh aljedīdah!I’d Miilad Said Oua Sana Saida!Krismas ki subhkamna!

Though we do not travel the same path
May those warm and bright lights
Guide us all along our journey home
To the same old house of our greater soul
(X-mas day, 2007)

On the ideology of neoliberalism

Like communism, neoliberalism too, promotes its own utopia, an idealized classless society where every human being has equivalent capacity to become enterpreneur , and where there is a level playing field on which individuals compete in line with the logic of market rationality. Neoliberalism -- which market fundamentalists such as Margaret Thacher, and the late Daniel Singer, among others, memorialized as TINA, There Is No Alternative (to "market dictatorship") -- conceals a moral standard which is inherently tainted by victim-blaming ideology; its social compassion (if any) for the poverty-related human suffering is never free from smug questions such as: Why don't they try hard enough to participate in the market? Why wouldn't they learn the logic of the free market ? Why should we be expected to pay for their failures and suffering? (December, 23, 2007)

Jakarta under neoliberalism

Excerpt from Paul Treanor http://web.inter.nl.net/Paul.Treanor/neoliberalism
. . . as you would expect from a complete philosophy, neoliberalism has answers to stereotypical philosophical questions such as "Why are we here" and "What should I do": We are here for the market, and you should compete. Neo-liberals tend to believe that human exist for the market -- not the other way around: certainly in the sense that it is good to participate in the market, anf that those who do not participate have failed in some ways.

In personal ethics, the general neo-liberal vision is that every human being is an entrepreneur managing their own life, and should act as such

. . . then a world will come into existence in which not just goods and services, but all human and social life, is the product of conformiy to market forces . . .

http://picasaweb.google.com/dedynhidayat

On God and Jokes

God is a comedian artist who sits back after the day of creation. All God does now is "paring his fingernails" (thanks to James Joyce), watch us, and kill us when we stop joking. For that very reason, we must never, ever stop joking, everyday, even on holidays too, till the day we die. Yet, do not ever run nor hide from God, and become atheists -- 'cause atheists have less holidays ... (December 1, 2007)

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh (Voltaire)

On Presidential Candidate

Today is an era in which every Presidential candidate declares unconditional war against the greatest of evils and the the worst of crimes: poverty.

Yet, make peace with neoliberalism seems to be high on the agenda of every newly elected President during the first days in the office.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dedynhidayat/TheFutureInBlackWhite

On Political Jokes

Breaking News:

SBY Postpones Thinking about Economic Development until 2009.

Unofficial Borrowitz Report, Nov. 27, 2007: Saying that it was too early to assess whether the nation's economic condition is improving, President SBY said today he and all of his economic team would postpone thinking about economic development until 2009 after his reelection.

Political jokes is society protecting itself against the insanity of politics and politicians

On Trusting

Never trust
any philosophy which is too grave to laugh,
any ideology which is too proud to weep,
any religious faith which does not bow before humanity
( . . . with an apology to James Joyce)

On Remembering the Past

Let today embrace the past
with remembrance,
for the struggle of society against the evil of power
is the struggle of memory against forgetting . . .

On Market Fundamentalism

Market fundamentalists believe that "the market" is the best guiding instrument by which society should allocate its scarce economic resources and organize their economic lives to achieve a state of never-ending economic growth. "Market is God and economic growth is gospel . . . therefore leave things to the market"
Those fundamentalists always argue that "the market" is simply out there -- outside society, outside history, neutral in front of any power interests`. It's a natural and inevitable social fact which can be called as objective mechanism to allocate society's economic resources

The question is: Where did "the market" come from?

Market fundamentalists simply ignore the fact that "market" is socially constructed.
Yes, "market" is always a social construction, in the sense that its construction involves interactions and interplay among various social groupings which is characterized by assymetris of power and resources distribution. As long as they do not have equal power or economic footings, their interaction and interplay will take place in an "unlevel playing field", and the socially constructed market will represent the interest of the dominant group.

. . .

Market fundamentalists fail to see any correlation between neoliberal free market
and poverty, human misery, and "natural" disasters.
If they acknowledge the link between neoliberal market and poverty, they tend
to explain that it's because we are "not free market enough".