David Harvey: unless there is some real new thinking, another crisis is inevitable

globinfo freexchange

Chris Hedges spoke with David Harvey about the repeated crises of the capitalist system, which generate further instability, especially since the early 70s where we have the rise of financial capitalism and neoliberal ideology.

As Harvey points out:

Interestingly, in almost every crisis there has been a good deal of re-evaluation of exactly how to think about the economy, how to think about the relationship between state power and politics and all this kind of stuff.

Since 2007-08, is hardly any new thinking at all. And actually, we're trying to hang on. And we are trying to hang on because the oligarchy - which has all of the money, all of the power - is actually in a situation where it does not want any change. And until we confront the oligarchy, we're not going to find a way of exiting from this, apart from repeating what happened in 2007-08.

And the interesting thing when you look back, before 2007-08, and you see big financial crises in Argentina, in Brazil, and an earlier one in Southeast Asia, Russia, Mexico, there is actually a long history of crises ever since 1970s. And they got deeper and deeper and more problematic. That's where we are headed to, unless there is some real new thinking.

But I don't see new thinking in the universities. The economics departments are just full of neoliberal, or sort of corporatist types. I don't see it in politics. We're beginning to see some 'enough is enough' arguments emerging. What we haven't seen yet is 'enough is enough' of this capitalist fraud.

As has been described previously, during the last four decades or so, the dominant neoliberal ideology has penetrated in the minds of entire generations, shaping their cultural characteristics. Essentially, a significant part of the Generation X as well as the entire Generation Y (Millennials) was born and raised inside the cultural totalitarianism of neoliberalism with radical individualism, economic cynicism and uninterrupted consumerism as key characteristics. This cultural totalitarianism is actually the Matrix of our times.

In order to escape that Matrix, we need to build a radical new thinking. We need a cultural revolution, generated from the minds of the many to serve their actual needs and successfully deal with all the big challenges of the close future. The other way is to remain enslaved inside this cultural totalitarianism, created by the big banks and corporations, which already pushing societies further towards enormous dead ends.