Alternative Globalization Addressing Peoples and Earth

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In essence, neoliberalism
renders national governments
powerless to
protect public goods and
services. It thus places the
utmost importance on
private capital and
so-called unfettered
markets to allocate
resources efficiently and
to promote growth.
Consequently, it cancels
the welfare function of
the state.
The Champagne Glass Economy
Top 20% 83%
of the world’s wealth
Next 20% 11%
of the world’s wealth
Bottom 60% 6%
of the world’s wealth
Neoliberalism’s facade of scientific soundness has captured the commitment
of many global institutions, governments and academia. Neoliberalism
assumes
• that only those who have property or may participate in contracts have
a right to participate in the economy and society. But God’s gifts are
for the use of all to live, not for the few to accumulate wealth; 9
• a world where individuals and corporations are motivated by their
self-interest and where society is merely an aggregation of those
self-serving individuals. But economic relations are always embedded
in people’s social, cultural and political realities;
• that everything and everyone’s labour can be owned and traded for a
price in the market. But creation, including humankind, has a spiritual
essence, a God-given intrinsic value and purpose that cannot be
commodified;
• that economic growth through “free” markets is paramount;
neoliberalism claims that only through this economic model can poverty
be eliminated, sustainable development ensured, gender equality
achieved and the millennium development goals finally met. Yet
people’s concrete experience shows that market-driven economic
growth is inequitable, unsustainable and irreconcilable with economic
justice and a caring economy;
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Cf. U. Duchrow/F.J. Hinkelammert, Property for People, Not for Profit: Alternatives to the
Global Tyranny of Capital, WCC, Geneva 2004. Here, p. 69, see the telling quote of Friedrich
v. Hayek, one of the fathers of neoliberal ideology: “A free society needs morality that is
ultimately reduced to the maintenance of life – not the maintenance of all life, as it could
be necessary to sacrifice individual life in order to save a greater number of lives. That is
why the only rules of morality are those leading to a ‘calculation of life’: property and
contract”.