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Written by: Kamran Mofid

Published: 13 October 2016

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I believe these wise, informed and timeless words by Bertrand Russell are at the heart of neoliberalism and the greedy fat cat capitalists. Hence, their love and passion for de-regulation, self-regulation and privatisation of everything and everybody under the sun.

Today I read a very interesting, albeit, very sad article, on neoliberalism and the huge increases in global loneliness, depression and suicide, which I thought I wish to share with you.

However, before that, I want to take you a few years back to 2003, when I had written a short booklet,  mainly on the rise of global neoliberalism and the concurrent rise in ‘Business with no Ethics’. Let me quote you a passage or two from that said booklet, very relevant to a better understanding of the article which I wish to share with you a bit later:

“…The  benefits  of neo-liberal  globalisation  are  limited  and  are based   on   individualism,   greed,   self-interest   and   economism (which  regards  human  societies  primarily  as economic  systems in which financial considerations alone govern choices and decisions).  Other  fundamental values such as faith,  spirituality, justice, love, compassion,  sympathy,  empathy  and  co-operation are neglected.

Individualism, valued  by neo-liberals  as a force  for  good  in global capitalism,  in fact has a major destructive  impact on well- being. A lack of appropriate sources of social identity  and attachment results in a tendency  to promote unrealistic  or inappropriate  expectations of  individual   freedom   and  autonomy. Much  unhappiness   is often  associated  with  people  who  have suddenly become super-rich,  whether  by winning the lottery, inheriting  a fortune, or by fraud.

Neo-liberal  capitalism  is also anti-democratic; it is extremely harmful   to   the   noble   principles   of  democracy.   Democracy believes in equality: it gives one  vote to each person  regardless of status,  colour  or creed.  It does not  matter  what  that  person is, intelligent  and  educated  or  illiterate, well-informed, or  not. Neo-liberalism  aims to reward  only the  most  talented  and  suc- cessful,  thus  clashing  with  the  most  fundamental principle  of democracy.

By promoting individualism  and self-centredness, neo-liberal- ism also runs contrary  to the principles  of community  and society. What matters is individual preference. The suggestion is that those who squander their riches on conspicuous consumerism are just as worthy  as those who use their  wealth  to help the needy.

The following  is a revealing expansion  of the above:

What the Richest Men in the World Don't Know

In 1923,  a very important meeting  was held at Edgewater  Beach Hotel in Chicago. Attending this meeting were nine of the world’s most ‘successful’ financiers and businessmen. Those present  were: the President  of the largest independent steel company;  the President  of the  largest  utility  company;  the  President  of the  largest gas company;  the greatest  wheat  speculator; the President  of the New York Stock Exchange;  a member  of the President’s  cabinet; the greatest ‘bear’ in Wall Street; the head of the world’s greatest monopoly; and the President  of the Bank of International Settlement. This, we must admit, was a gathering of some of the world’s most successful men – or at least men who had found  the secret of making  money.  Twenty-five  years later  (1948)  let us see what had happenedto  these  men:  the  President  of  the  largest  independent   steel  company   had  died,   bankrupt,  having  lived  on borrowed money for five years before  his death;  the President  of the  largest  utility  company   had  died  a  fugitive  from   justice, penniless  in a foreign  land;  the President  of the largest gas company was insane; the greatest wheat speculator  had died abroad  – insolvent;  the  President  of  the  New  York  Stock  Exchange  had recently  been  released  from  Sing Sing penitentiary; the  member of the President’s cabinet had been pardoned from prison  so that he could  die at home;  the greatest  ‘bear’ in Wall Street had died
– a suicide;  the head  of the world’s greatest  monopoly  had died
– a suicide; the President  of the Bank of International Settlement had died – a suicide

All these men learned  well the art of making money but none of them  learned  how  to  live,  commented  the  original  compiler of this list. It seems that  the business world  (who  should  know better, given what was described above) has changed not one iota. For  them  economic  growth,  the  corporate bottom  line and  the pursuit of self-interest are what matters most. More recent observations also show that the self-interested  pursuit of wealth brings only misery. Since 1950  there  has been much economic  growth and  wealth  creation  in the  West,  but  also a tenfold  increase  in the incidence  of depression  and a massive rise in the number  of people  suffering  from  sub-clinical  neuroses,  anxiety  and  pro- found  self-dissatisfaction…”

What a powerful and telling story! A lesson to all those neoliberals that think whatever matters most is money and money and loads of it!

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