Paul Verhaeghe, senior professor of clinical psychology and psychoanalysis at Ghent University in Belgium, has argued in a recently published essay that neoliberal economics brings out the worst in human beings.
He finds that thirty years of neoliberalism, and the privatisation and free-market misery that comes with it, have taken their toll on people’s values and even their personalities.
Verhaeghe takes the checklist of psychopathy devised by the foremost expert on the subject, Robert Hare, and relates it to the personality traits necessary to be successful in what he calls “meritocratic neoliberalism”.
What the system favours, among other things, is a capacity to lie convincingly without guilt, which leads to never taking responsibility for one’s behaviour. Sounds like, say, Scott Morrison?
It also promotes the idea that being successful in the time of neoliberalism depends on individual talents and efforts, so that those who fail are best seen as scroungers on the social security system.
Verhaeghe thinks a changed economy reflects changed ethics and brings about changed identity, and that neoliberal economics brings out the worst in us. Yet he doesn’t take into account the solidarity economy that exists in spite of it.
But a reading of the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) report into poverty released on October 12 lends much weight to Verhaeghe’s contention at the state level.
Based on data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics surveys for 2011-2012 and previous years, the report finds that poverty in Australia is growing. There are an estimated 2.548 million people, 13.9% of the population, living below the internationally accepted poverty line of 50% of median income, which is $400 a week for a single adult.
Those most affected include 602,604 children (17.7% of all children); 61.2% of those unemployed who are living below the poverty line; those on income support such as the Newstart Allowance, Youth Allowance, Parenting Payment, Disability Support Payment, Carer payment and age pension, and the working poor who make up 33.2% of those below the poverty line.
ACOSS CEO Dr Cassandra Goldie said: “In particular, the child poverty rate should be of deep concern to us all, with over a third (36.8%) of children in sole parent families living in poverty. This is due to the lower levels of employment among sole parent households, especially those with very young children, and the low level of social security payment for these families.”
Goldie criticised the low level of other social security allowances that fell below the poverty line. She said there was a danger that budget cuts, such as one now before the Senate reducing the indexation of the age pension, will inevitably result in higher poverty rates.
She said: “These overall findings are a wake-up call for us as a community and shine a spotlight on the current policy directions of the federal government. It provides an opportunity for the government to work with the whole community to reconfigure its first budget and national policy priorities around the urgent need to address poverty in Australia.”
The opportunity is certainly there. But this government, and the opposition for that matter, has long had a commitment to neoliberal policies that are intended to achieve exactly the results that ACOSS reports.
Just this week, all Australians receiving the age pension received a letter from Prime Minister Tony Abbott himself, which denied the government is cutting pensions — another good example of the neoliberal trait of lying without guilt.
As Verhaeghe points out, neoliberalism is an economic doctrine that is preoccupied with profit. The only known antidote is a sustainable economy that puts people before profits.
Like the article? Subscribe to Green Left now! You can also like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.