I do not wish to give the impression that I have gone quite mad and taken up religion, but there is a very interesting passage from the Bible that I wish to use as a metaphor for neoliberal free market economics, and this is neatly complimented by criticisms levelled at this economic model by religious leaders. I am doing this because the situation we find ourselves in as a result of the neoliberal market experiment is moral and political as well as economic. In chapter 11 verse 31 of the Biblical Book of Daniel, we read,
“And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate”.
The Jewish Encyclopedia tells us that this verse refers to a historical incident in 168 BC when on Kislew (Nov. – Dec.) 25, under orders from the Greek king of the Seleucid Empire Antiochus 1V Epiphanes, the Temple of Jerusalem was desecrated when ‘the abomination that maketh desolate’ was set up on the altar of the burnt offering and the Jews were required to make obeisance to it. My 8th Edition copy of Young’s Analytical Concordance published in 1939, tells me that the word ‘abomination’ in Daniel 11.31 comes from the Hebrew word ‘shiqquts’ which means, abominable, a detestable thing. This particular abomination was reputed to be a statue of either Zeus or Jupiter. Thus, the abomination that maketh desolate was an idol, a false god that brought desolation to the very core of a people’s culture and directly attacked their fundamental belief system. It was designed to humiliate and subjugate them under an alien set of beliefs and norms, to destroy their existing society and culture. Thus, to the Jewish people this representation of a false god, implanted at the very heart of their most holy place, was a pollutant, an abomination, a detestable thing, designed to render the Jewish way of life desolate. I find this description of a historical catastrophe for the Jewish people a very suitable analogy for the desolation caused by the abomination that is modern free market neoliberal economic and political theory and practice. Neoliberalism is an idol, a false god that has attacked and transformed traditional British cultural norms and values, and, as our very own Antiochus Epiphanes, the blessed Thatcher so brutally told us, was an instrument for the destruction of our society. It is a pollutant that was designed to corrode and eat away at our modern sanctuary of strength, the Welfare State, with the ultimate goal of destroying it. It is an ideology that has brought desolation to British society, that seeks to destroy that society leaving a remnant collection of individuals and families with little or no social ties to each other, with no meaningful norms and values other than those prescribed by the neoliberal political and economic elite and who are motivated solely by the selfishness and greed that is promoted by a particular type of market individualism that elevates injustice to a moral imperative. And, as I continually tell you, all this was quite deliberate and unleashed upon us consciously by a corrupt gangster elite.
We were greeted this week with the revelation from Parliamentary archives that, despite Thatcher endlessly claiming that the NHS was safe in Tory hands, she actually provoked what was described as a riot within her Cabinet by her insistence on the privatisation of both the NHS and our education system. Her crusade to destroy the welfare state and reduce the working class to the level of a modern form of slavery was relegated, because of opposition to its brutality (from which the modern day Tory party has recovered), from an imperative to a long-term strategy that we see beginning to reach fruition with the NHS reduced to such a crisis that privatisation will be presented as the only alternative. Thatcher's planned destruction of British society and state was only delayed, not abandoned. With your permission I will continue with some religious observations because on many things I find myself in the unusual position of being at one with the Catholic Church. I know you may find this strange coming from me, but, as I have told you, I am not an 'ist' and do not believe in 'isms' and am quite prepared to give credit wherever it is due, whether that is Adam Smith, Karl Marx or the Catholic Church etc. On 29th June 2009, the Catholic Church published a Papal Encyclical "Caritas in Veritate" by Pope Benedict XVI. In it he wrote
"Economic activity cannot solve all social problems through the simple application of commercial logic. This needs to be directed towards the pursuit of the common good, for which the political community in particular must also take responsibility. Therefore, it must be borne in mind that grave imbalances are produced when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution."
This was an early criticism of the free market from the Church and was followed in November 2013 by a ringing denunciation of neoliberal ideological theory and practice in an Apostolic Exhortation published by Pope Francis entitled "Evangelii Guadium" in which the Pope said
“Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape……Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “disposable” culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers”.
He continued
“One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with money, since we calmly accept its dominion over ourselves and our societies. The current financial crisis can make us overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human person! We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.”
I welcome such comments, regardless of who makes them. This post must surely be self-explanatory and I will end here as it is already too long, but as usual, you have been warned, and I have powerful allies now, though the papacy may not welcome me, I welcome them to a good cause, the ultimate end to the poison that is the free market, a poison that is economic, political, moral and spiritual.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
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