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What mechanisms generate the tendency for most people to acquiesce (or even assent) to neoliberalism? Alpesh Maisuria discusses

Image courtesy of interviewee. February 21, 2024

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This video video appears to be a transcript of a discussion about neoliberalism and its impact on inequality, particularly in the context of education and society. The speaker expresses their academic interests in education, sociology, and politics, highlighting their critique of neoliberalism over 25 years. They argue that neoliberal policies have led to increased inequality globally, evidenced by wealth statistics in the UK and the rise of food banks, which signify widespread poverty even amid rising wealth for a small elite.

The speaker outlines the fundamental components of neoliberalism: marketization (commodifying all aspects of life), self-interest and competitive individualism, and a laissez-faire approach to governance that results in minimal state intervention in social issues. They stress that these elements contribute to profound societal inequalities and challenge the notion that technology and advancements will alleviate these issues.

In terms of education, the speaker advocates for a critical approach that encourages individuals to reflect on their experiences and aspirations for a more equitable society. This video video involves three provocation questions aimed at fostering awareness and prompting discussions about the world as it is, as it could be, and the barriers to achieving that vision.

The speaker concludes by emphasizing the role of educators in cultivating critical thinking and awareness while acknowledging the risks involved in challenging the prevalent neoliberal narrative. They advocate for working within the "cracks" of the neoliberal system to promote change and foster awareness of inequalities, ultimately encouraging the development of alternate visions for a more just world.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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My academic and personal interests lie in the disciplines

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of education, sociology, and politics,

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and a little bit of, methodology, critical realism.

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Um, those are my general interest areas, academic

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and personal interest areas.

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Um, and my work focuses on the utility that education has,

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for inequality.

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When I say education, I don't mean just schooling,

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but education much more broadly.

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More specifically, my, my primary concern for the best part

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of 25 years of being in academia has been the

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critique of neoliberalism.

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What we've seen is, exponential increases of

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ever higher levels of inequality.

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And at the same time, we've seen more entrenchment

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of neoliberalism in all aspects of life globally.

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So quite clearly, there's a connection

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between rising inequality and deepening neoliberalism.

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And so the, you know,

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it doesn't really matter which measure we look at

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for inequality, whether that be wealth, assets, income,

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life expectancy.

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What we are seeing is that there are more,

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where there is more neoliberalism, there is more inequality,

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irrespective of how you measure inequality.

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Now, proponents of neoliberalism, for the best part

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of 40 years or so, going on 50 years now, have tried to

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persuade us that the combination of a,

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a market economy, individualism

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and a small state will benefit everyone.

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But the reality is really rather different.

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And we can take just three headline inequality statistics,

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this year in the uk.

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Um, the first one is

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after 40 years, four years of neoliberalism

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and the promises, the top 1% share

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of net income rose to a new high in 2019,

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and it continued to increase.

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So the trend was, always there,

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and it was increasing to a high point in 2019 to a point

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where the second headline is instructive here.

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By 2022, the richest fifth

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had an income more than 12 times the amount earned

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by the poorest fifth.

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I mean, we're talking about staggering levels

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of ever increasing inequality.

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The third headline statistic is, if the wealth

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of the UK super rich continues to grow

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at the same rate, at the same rate as it has been

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by 2035, just over 10 years away, the wealth

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of just 200 families, 200 families will be larger

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than the UK's whole GDP.

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Just 200 families will have a combined wealth more

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than the entirety of close to 80 million people.

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I mean, what we're talking about is unconscionable levels

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of inequality, income inequality.

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So neoliberalism means that there's

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continuous and exponential concentrations of wealth.

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And at the same time, what we've seen,

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particularly exacerbated by Brexit, and, and,

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and COVID-19, is that we now have Food Bank Britain.

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So you get the rich becoming extremely rich, untouched

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by the fallout and the,

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and the cost of living crisis from Brexit

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and untouched by the Covid Pandemic

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and all the problems that's brought.

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We've got Food Bank Britain, in, in,

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even in the richest parts of Britain,

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you'll find food banks.

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Now, also, it's important to recognize here that food banks

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are administered by charities and individuals.

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So it's on a voluntary basis, okay?

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Everywhere in the country, irrespective

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of whether you're in the cots walls

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or in the, you know, the poorest parts of East London

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or, you know, parts of Scotland,

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food banks are absolutely everywhere.

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And this wasn't the case not so long ago.

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So you've got visual markers

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of the concentrations of wealth.

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Whilst you've got concentrations of poverty

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that can easily be seen as well.

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Food Bank Britain is here,

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and it doesn't look like it's going anywhere very fast.

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And that, you know, accompanying food banks, we've also got,

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mass homelessness.

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Um, wherever you go, even in the richest parts

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of West London, you'll see homelessness

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where homelessness did not exist.

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And so you got on the one hand,

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the rich becoming ever richer through,

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neoliberalism.

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And I'll talk more about that in a moment.

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And also, at the same time, the poor falling through,

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falling through the floor

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and becoming ever poorer to the point

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where there's no food left.

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And we're talking about here, the fifth

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richest economy on planet Earth.

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It's just that the, the, the, that the wealth is not,

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is not divided fairly or equally.

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I mean, so the UK has one of the highest levels

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of income inequality in Europe.

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Um, and the UK is also one

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of the most neoliberal countries on earth.

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Certainly, I would probably say it's more neoliberal than

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any other country in Europe.

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Only the USA is worse in terms of inequality.

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And the USA is perhaps

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the most neoliberal country in the world.

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So you can see neoliberalism accompanies,

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or you could even say determinants inequality.

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I've tried to get across the idea so far in this interview

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that neoliberalism is a mechanism for more inequality.

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But it's important to recognize,

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and most people don't actually, particularly the, the,

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the younger generations that don't recognize

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that neoliberalism has not been here forever.

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It's a relatively new thing. It's a new ideology.

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In fact, you know, with my students, I used

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to play a game with them and, and,

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and basically, what can you imagine more the end

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of capitalist neoliberalism or an alien invasion?

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And, you know, kind of the alien invasion is much more,

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is much more conditionable to my students than the end

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of neoliberal capitalism.

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And that's when I've explained

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what neoliberal capitalism is.

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The end of history, you know, as a, as Frank,

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Fama said, has really come in terms of consciousness for,

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for younger generations.

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So capitalist neoliberalism is, as I said, is,

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is a relatively new, ideology,

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an ideological system in the,

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in the history of the human race.

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And it's important to recognize that it hasn't come

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around naturally and organically.

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Capitalist neoliberalism is, has been purposefully created

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by several generations of the,

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of the global ruling elite over a long period of time.

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I mean, close to three, perhaps over 300 years now,

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you know, we had, we've had feudalism, we've had pre,

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preindustrial capitalism,

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we've had industrial capitalism, post-industrial capitalism,

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and now we've got this new phase,

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which we can call neoliberalism,

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straightforwardly neoliberalism.

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And it's got a dominance in every part of our lives.

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It drives politics, culture, economy,

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and all social relations.

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Therefore, if we're serious about understanding inequality

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and how it can be addressed, we must, not only scholars,

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but everybody, political commentators, the,

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the public at large must understand that inequality.

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To understand inequality, you must also understand

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and critique neoliberalism.

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So we've gone through this kind of, 300 year,

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history of capitalist development,

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and we've ended up at neoliberalism.

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Um, and, it, it, it's not something which is natural.

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It's not just something which is born out of,

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kind of nature.

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It is something which has been created,

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and anything that can be created

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by human beings can generally be undone

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by human beings as well.

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Before going on to talking about critical education,

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let me just say something about the components

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of neoliberalism and capitalist neoliberalism.

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Capitalist neoliberalism is primarily what,

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people in sociology

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and economics call, call a mode of production, okay?

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Primarily, it's not only capitalist.

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Neoliberalism is not only a mode of production,

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it it's a way of, it's a social

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and cultural way of being as well.

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It's about politics too.

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But economic mode of production is

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what capitalist neoliberalism is.

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And to put it into a nutshell, it's about

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how value is created value

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and how value is created specifically through labor power.

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So when we're talking about value,

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we're talking about financial value and exchange value

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and use value, okay?

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So what we really regard very highly in a capitalist,

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neoliberal, economy is how much profit something can be,

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something can make value, exchange value,

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and profit is always through labor power.

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So the ability of people to work, the work that we

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as human beings do, produces outputs.

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And it doesn't matter whether you work in the public sector

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or the private sector, you are still producing value

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through your labor power.

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And we produce profit

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or the potential for what we call exchange value,

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which you can just simply call profit, okay?

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Through our output.

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So that might be levels of service,

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or it might be a tangible product

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or a commodity, like an engine or something like that.

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So as an academic, I produce value, and I pro

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and I produce not only a service values

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and exchange value in service that I pro that,

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that I provide through my teaching and books

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and things like that, but I also provide,

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I also create value, a financial value for,

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for publishing houses and, and so forth.

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Now, all these outputs that we produce

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through our labor power, commodified

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for a financial profit, okay?

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That's what neoliberal capitalism is.

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Producing an exchange value

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or placing an exchange value on everything that we produce

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through commodifying it.

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Contemporary neoliberalism has some basic components

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that need to be explicated to understand

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what I've just said there.

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If you take a hammer

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and put a hammer, a sledgehammer

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through the ideology called catalyst neoliberalism,

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it falls into three components.

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Neoliberalism is not hard to understand.

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It's, you know, it's dead straightforward,

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but the, you know, people who are in charge will tell us,

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you know, global, kind

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of the global ruling elite will say, leave it to us.

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You know, we're not ideals. We're just kind of pragmatic.

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We, we just want the best, in terms of,

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growing the economy and efficiency and all these things.

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Don't worry about neoliberalism, we'll deal with that.

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But I say to my students, no, it's absolutely essential

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to understand what neoliberalism is.

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Okay? And if you take that hammer to this idea of neo

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or this ideology of neoliberalism, it'll fall into three,

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three components, okay?

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The first one is marketization.

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So this is about a process of making everything a commodity,

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something that can be bought or sold on the marketplace.

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This can be a virtual marketplace

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or it can be a real life marketplace, okay?

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Everybody is a consumer, okay? In in neoliberal capitalism.

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And so we've got choice and competition with marketization.

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Consumers have choice of where to spend their money,

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and there's competition between providers

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of services, of products.

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You can, you can choose, and that's what marketization is.

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Schools are in a marketplace.

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Um, and so this means that schools are no longer part

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of the welfare state.

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Schools are no longer, part of what we might call,

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the commons or common goods of public services.

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So everything is subject to being a commodity, subjected

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to being a commodity in a marketplace.

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Okay? That's the first component of neoliberalism.

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The second component of neoliberalism is a promotion

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of self-interest and competitive individualism.

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This is about encouraging individuals to be self-centered,

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primarily self-centered.

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Uh, the former prime minister of the uk, Margaret Thatcher,

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who was one of the cheerleaders of neoliberalism,

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really made a global, economic force,

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said that there's no such thing

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as society only individuals, okay?

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It's a famous phrase in a little lone,

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little known magazine,

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but it really kind of gets to the crux of what we mean

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by self-interest and individualization effectively,

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or essentially what we have is the promotion

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of greed being good.

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Uh, and, and that's the kind of economy and, and, and, and,

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and, and, social relations that we have.

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Okay? So we've got, firstly marketization,

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secondly, self-interest.

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And finally, what we have as a third component

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of neoliberalism is this idea of a lassez fair

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approach to political governance.

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Laer is broadly about kind of leaving alone,

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so pulling back the frontiers of the state, okay?

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Leaving market forces to decide who and what will survive.

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It's about survival of the fittest.

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And when we're talking about survival of the fitness,

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we're talking about individuals.

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Some people will die of hunger, some people will die of

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poor, poor health

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because they can't afford, you know, medication

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and things like that, especially in a place like the us.

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Um, but we're also talking about survival

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of the fittest in terms of institutions.

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So universities are in a competitive,

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a fiercely competitive marketplace in England,

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where there are tuition fees and the, and, and,

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and some universities will be allowed

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to basically fail just like any other private sector

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profit making company.

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So what we've got is the government effectively saying,

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we are not going to, interfere

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and bail out, institutions.

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We're gonna let the strongest, the so-called strongest

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survive, and the weakest will simply fade away.

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And that's market forces working.

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So you can see market forces and laissez-faire,

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and self-interest all working together, interdependently.

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So this is promotion of a small state.

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You know, conservatives with a big C will always say,

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you know, we're gonna, we're gonna let people be free.

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We're gonna, we're gonna give the autonomy to individuals

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and, and institutions such as schools to run themselves.

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'cause we don't want to interfere.

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But the reality is that the insti, that the institution

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of the state is needed in order

16:06.305 --> 16:08.325
to help the poorest in society.

16:09.065 --> 16:12.365
Um, and that's why, you know, I talked about earlier,

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I talked about food banks.

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Um, these are individuals

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who have not made any poor decisions necessarily.

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They might be in a ill state of health.

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Uh, they might have simply run into bad times,

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but they've ended up with no, no ability

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to find food or shelter.

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Okay? So this is all about laissez-faire,

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pulling back the frontiers of the state.

16:31.795 --> 16:34.245
There's no, the UK government is not really interested,

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at least the Westminster government is not really interested

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in helping, alleviate in terms of a long-term

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strategic plan, homelessness or food poverty.

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So this is about let it be the role of the state.

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Therefore, in this las FA third component, the role

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of the state is simply to create the infrastructure

16:55.145 --> 16:59.125
for neoliberalism and market forces to survive and thrive.

16:59.465 --> 17:02.285
So, as I say, these three components work interdependently,

17:02.825 --> 17:04.645
and you'll be able to see it all around you.

17:04.645 --> 17:07.045
This is what I ask my students to, you know, just try to see

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where you can see marketization,

17:08.965 --> 17:10.965
where you can see the promotion of self-interest

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and where there is a, a last affair approach to governance.

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So, I mean, some people have said to me, you know,

17:18.825 --> 17:22.445
but we've got the advent of technology, ai,

17:22.465 --> 17:24.165
and the fourth industrial revolution.

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And as, contributors to the encyclopedia of Marxism

17:28.325 --> 17:30.805
and education, have noted, there's,

17:30.805 --> 17:32.405
there's at least two chapters in there,

17:32.405 --> 17:34.165
which explicitly talk about AI

17:34.465 --> 17:36.245
and the fourth industrial revolution.

17:37.375 --> 17:41.005
These developments in technology will simply strengthen

17:41.665 --> 17:44.805
the hegemony and the components of neoliberalism.

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They won't alleviate inequality. That's not the role.

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You know, it, it will, it will,

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it will do the opposite to that.

17:52.825 --> 17:55.925
Um, in terms of then critical education,

17:57.535 --> 18:01.475
I'm dedicated to advancing the promotion of what I conceive

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as a critical education.

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And I do this through, I do this promotion through a series

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of practical methods to use in social relationships.

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And these could be with students, it could be

18:15.155 --> 18:16.515
with colleagues, it could be with family,

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it could be somebody that you meet in the pobo, a cafe.

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You can, you can use this method

18:21.215 --> 18:23.755
and this method of critical education that I'm trying

18:23.755 --> 18:25.995
to promote in my work,

18:26.995 --> 18:29.485
rest on three broad provocations

18:30.305 --> 18:34.725
to instigate an understanding and critique of neoliberalism

18:35.145 --> 18:37.085
and the inequality that it breeds.

18:37.825 --> 18:40.965
And so the three provocations are as follows.

18:41.475 --> 18:44.915
Firstly, what is the world like for you?

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So this is about getting people to understand

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or try to think about and reflect on

18:51.955 --> 18:55.515
what the world looks like for you, how you experience it.

18:56.575 --> 18:59.275
And this, I always follow up with, questions.

18:59.305 --> 19:02.795
Well, what do you think the world like is for other people?

19:03.755 --> 19:05.235
'cause actually, you know, with this promotion

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of the self-interest, we don't really, we don't really try.

19:08.335 --> 19:10.795
We, we don't consciously think about the way

19:10.795 --> 19:12.835
that other people are experiencing the world.

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You know, empathy and solidarity are things which are kind

19:15.955 --> 19:17.115
of, you know, in the past,

19:17.175 --> 19:18.795
we don't talk about those things anymore,

19:19.095 --> 19:20.115
at least not explicitly.

19:20.495 --> 19:21.675
So what's the world like for you?

19:22.025 --> 19:23.715
What do you think the world is like for others?

19:23.775 --> 19:27.075
So this is a straightforward kind of reflection on yourself

19:27.095 --> 19:28.955
and your place in society and others,

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and their place in society.

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The second provocation is

19:34.465 --> 19:36.355
what do you want the world to be like?

19:37.095 --> 19:39.195
So this is about, you know, trying to think about, well,

19:40.135 --> 19:43.475
if this world is not as good as we want it to be,

19:43.845 --> 19:45.835
inequality will always come, you know,

19:45.865 --> 19:49.475
come up in discussions, social injustice, racism, class,

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you know, in inequity.

19:50.935 --> 19:52.075
All of these things come up.

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Then the question is, well,

19:54.065 --> 19:55.555
what do you want the world to be like?

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What would it look like in, you know,

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in your, kind of, in your ideal?

19:59.575 --> 20:01.675
And then this is followed up with, well,

20:02.185 --> 20:03.675
what do you think other people

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may want the world to look like?

20:06.375 --> 20:08.995
And again, this is about kind of reflecting beyond yourself.

20:10.055 --> 20:13.995
And the third provocation is, well, what keeps you

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from trying to remake the world in this image

20:17.995 --> 20:19.195
that you want it to be?

20:19.535 --> 20:21.835
And obviously the follow up question there is then, well,

20:22.105 --> 20:26.155
what keeps other people from remaking the world in this way

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that they might want it to be?

20:28.455 --> 20:31.235
And so it's about reality, it's about idealism,

20:31.375 --> 20:34.355
and it's about practicality, about how to, how to go forward

20:34.705 --> 20:35.715
with these thoughts.

20:36.335 --> 20:40.115
And I must say in 25 years, I've not heard anybody,

20:40.505 --> 20:42.395
whether it be students or family members,

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or you know, kind of people who, who I meet outside

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of my workplace say, the world is perfect as it is,

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and we don't want anything to change.

20:49.835 --> 20:53.005
Yeah, I mean, even the people who I speak to, who are,

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you know, doing well in life, they're successful,

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whether they be rich

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or they'd be professionally successful, whatever, you know,

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they can still see inequality.

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They can still see this inequality at a level which is

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unacceptable and unconscionable to them.

21:07.185 --> 21:11.405
So this is, this is a method of doing critical education.

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And the task for critical educators,

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as I explain in my work, including, you know,

21:17.925 --> 21:20.325
I go into some kind of level of detail in the encyclopedia

21:20.325 --> 21:23.765
of Marxism and education in a chapter, in that the task

21:23.865 --> 21:26.805
of the, critical educator is twofold.

21:27.345 --> 21:31.085
And that is to focus on mystification and feasibility.

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So the first one there is to reveal mystification.

21:37.615 --> 21:42.035
So these are thinking about the mechanisms that cloud does

21:42.055 --> 21:43.915
as individuals and other people

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from a meta reflection on the world as it is

21:49.535 --> 21:52.155
what's stopping us from really understanding reality?

21:53.095 --> 21:54.275
That's what this is about.

21:54.305 --> 21:56.355
It's about revealing the ideology

21:57.015 --> 21:59.275
behind things like inequality.

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Only then, once you grasp the, the problem,

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only then can action be taken to really think about

22:08.895 --> 22:11.555
how we can move forward to try to remake the world.

22:11.655 --> 22:14.595
How can we move forward to alleviate inequality

22:14.735 --> 22:16.115
or inequity and education?

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What can we propose as suggestions, policy suggestions,

22:20.535 --> 22:23.395
to make the education system much more fairer?

22:24.735 --> 22:28.395
So that's revealing the ideology behind mystification.

22:29.055 --> 22:33.315
Second, to promote an alternative, it's not enough just

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to kind of think about the world as it is, as it is.

22:35.795 --> 22:37.075
It's about kind of moving forward.

22:38.895 --> 22:41.595
And this is, you know, the key word here is feasibility.

22:42.305 --> 22:43.795
Many people think, you know,

22:44.735 --> 22:46.555
and we're conditioned, this is not natural.

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We're conditioned to think that this is it,

22:49.065 --> 22:50.195
this is the end of history.

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There is no other ideology that can,

22:53.075 --> 22:56.355
that can help us in this, in, in, in this state.

22:57.415 --> 23:00.875
Um, and we, you know, the education system is geared up

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to promoting this type of consciousness

23:03.185 --> 23:05.075
that we've arrived at the end of history.

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And there is no alternatives to it.

23:07.715 --> 23:11.155
Margaret Thatcher, again, Tina, there is no alternative.

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That was her, that was her slogan.

23:13.575 --> 23:17.915
You know, she basically saying, so social democracy,

23:18.865 --> 23:22.355
socialism, communism, those ideologies, which are part

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of history, we've arrived at the end of history,

23:24.575 --> 23:27.155
and it is neoliberalism from now on in.

23:27.375 --> 23:29.155
And we've been conditioned to think that

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through the education system, through the media,

23:31.275 --> 23:33.395
through general, through general life.

23:33.735 --> 23:38.395
And what this does is it takes us away from thinking about

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alternatives and thinking about, well, hang on.

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What can we do about inequality? It makes us apathetic.

23:46.665 --> 23:47.845
It de it, it, it,

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it paralyzes us from imagining a better world.

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We can only imagine a better world for ourselves,

23:54.105 --> 23:55.125
but not for other people.

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And we might imagine a better world for ourselves by

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becoming more credentialized

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or, you know, playing the lottery or something like that.

24:02.825 --> 24:05.405
But equality is not something that can be touched.

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And this is a conditioning of neoliberalism

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and neoliberal education.

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So, to, to kind of finalize this at the heart

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of critical education,

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and the way that we can understand,

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inequality is the Marxist idea

24:21.395 --> 24:23.445
that humans create history,

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but not in the conditions of their choosing.

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So what I mean by humans create history.

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So that means we are individuals

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and we've got the ability to change things

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because we as human beings have created the status quo

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through politics, through culture, through the way

24:43.005 --> 24:44.445
that we interact with education.

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You know, teachers are really,

24:46.825 --> 24:49.165
really important individuals in this.

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Okay? So teachers have the incredible responsibility of

24:55.315 --> 24:57.325
educating the next generations.

24:57.715 --> 25:01.365
Okay? So if teachers can instill an element

25:01.425 --> 25:04.165
of critical education into their learning

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and teaching, well that is, you know, kind

25:07.005 --> 25:09.005
of providing a little pinprick,

25:09.005 --> 25:10.805
providing some kind of consciousness.

25:11.265 --> 25:13.005
So teachers can create history,

25:13.065 --> 25:14.525
as can all other human beings.

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But teachers have to be careful, as do everybody else.

25:19.755 --> 25:23.005
Because to be anti neoliberal to go against

25:23.555 --> 25:25.765
this hegemony is dangerous.

25:25.825 --> 25:29.045
You start to become a threat to the status quo.

25:29.425 --> 25:31.045
And as soon as you become a threat

25:31.065 --> 25:33.565
to the status quo, you can be targeted.

25:33.785 --> 25:35.125
So you could be, you know,

25:35.125 --> 25:39.245
you can be reprimanded in terms of, pay being docked,

25:39.545 --> 25:42.165
not being promoted, being seen as a troublemaker,

25:42.585 --> 25:44.125
or even worse, losing your job.

25:44.185 --> 25:46.405
If you lose your job, that means you can't afford

25:46.405 --> 25:47.885
to pay for your fuel.

25:47.945 --> 25:49.525
You can't afford to pay for food.

25:49.785 --> 25:52.525
You might lose, the shelter that you've got.

25:52.905 --> 25:54.965
So there's, there's, there's great risk,

25:55.505 --> 25:57.085
but the rewards of trying

25:57.085 --> 25:59.245
to create history are personal rewards,

25:59.265 --> 26:01.565
but also leaving this kind of legacy.

26:02.185 --> 26:04.405
So humans can create history,

26:04.505 --> 26:06.245
but not in the conditions of their choosing.

26:06.525 --> 26:08.725
'cause neoliberalism makes it very, very difficult

26:08.985 --> 26:10.365
to go against the grain.

26:10.985 --> 26:13.765
But there's another phrase here, which is important as part

26:13.765 --> 26:16.125
of critical education, which is that

26:17.185 --> 26:20.325
you are in neoliberalism, so you can't step outside of it.

26:20.685 --> 26:23.005
Teachers, academics, people who work in the media,

26:23.535 --> 26:26.005
we're all in neoliberalism, whether we like it or not.

26:26.165 --> 26:28.925
'cause neoliberalism is all encompassing, you know,

26:29.265 --> 26:31.925
it is pretty much closed off and anything else.

26:32.785 --> 26:36.135
Um, but you've gotta be against it at the same

26:36.135 --> 26:37.375
time as being in it.

26:37.795 --> 26:42.175
So you can work in the cracks. You have to be, I say to,

26:42.715 --> 26:45.645
To people, especially teachers, you have to, and,

26:45.645 --> 26:48.245
and other academics, you've gotta work in the cracks.

26:48.405 --> 26:50.605
'cause neoliberalism, whilst it's ubiquitous,

26:50.675 --> 26:51.765
it's all around us.

26:52.185 --> 26:55.445
It closes, it, it, it, it's not hermetically sealed.

26:55.445 --> 26:58.005
There's always spaces to do critical work.

26:58.475 --> 27:00.445
This interview is an example of that.

00:00 - My academic and personal interests lie in the disciplines of education, sociology, and politics, and a little bit of, methodology, critical realism. those are my general interest areas, academic and personal interest areas. and my work focuses on the utility that education has,

00:21 - for inequality. When I say education, I don't mean just schooling, but education much more broadly. More specifically, my, my primary concern for the best part of 25 years of being in academia has been the critique of neoliberalism. What we've seen is, exponential increases of ever higher levels of inequality. And at the same time, we've seen more entrenchment of neoliberalism in all aspects of life globally.

00:55 - So quite clearly, there's a connection between rising inequality and deepening neoliberalism. And so the, you know, it doesn't really matter which measure we look at for inequality, whether that be wealth, assets, income, life expectancy. What we are seeing is that there are more, where there is more neoliberalism, there is more inequality, irrespective of how you measure inequality. Now, proponents of neoliberalism, for the best part

01:29 - of 40 years or so, going on 50 years now, have tried to persuade us that the combination of a, a market economy, individualism and a small state will benefit everyone. But the reality is really rather different. And we can take just three headline inequality statistics, this year in the uk. the first one is after 40 years, four years of neoliberalism and the promises, the top 1% share

02:06 - of net income rose to a new high in 2019, and it continued to increase. So the trend was, always there, and it was increasing to a high point in 2019 to a point where the second headline is instructive here. By 2022, the richest fifth had an income more than 12 times the amount earned by the poorest fifth. I mean, we're talking about staggering levels of ever increasing inequality.

02:42 - The third headline statistic is, if the wealth of the UK super rich continues to grow at the same rate, at the same rate as it has been by 2035, just over 10 years away, the wealth of just 200 families, 200 families will be larger than the UK's whole GDP. Just 200 families will have a combined wealth more than the entirety of close to 80 million people. I mean, what we're talking about is unconscionable levels of inequality, income inequality.

03:26 - So neoliberalism means that there's continuous and exponential concentrations of wealth. And at the same time, what we've seen, particularly exacerbated by Brexit, and, and, and COVID-19, is that we now have Food Bank Britain. So you get the rich becoming extremely rich, untouched by the fallout and the, and the cost of living crisis from Brexit and untouched by the Covid Pandemic and all the problems that's brought.

04:04 - We've got Food Bank Britain, in, in, even in the richest parts of Britain, you'll find food banks. Now, also, it's important to recognize here that food banks are administered by charities and individuals. So it's on a voluntary basis, okay? Everywhere in the country, irrespective of whether you're in the cots walls or in the, you know, the poorest parts of East London or, you know, parts of Scotland,

04:30 - food banks are absolutely everywhere. And this wasn't the case not so long ago. So you've got visual markers of the concentrations of wealth. Whilst you've got concentrations of poverty that can easily be seen as well. Food Bank Britain is here, and it doesn't look like it's going anywhere very fast. And that, you know, accompanying food banks, we've also got, mass homelessness.

04:56 - wherever you go, even in the richest parts of West London, you'll see homelessness where homelessness did not exist. And so you got on the one hand, the rich becoming ever richer through, neoliberalism. And I'll talk more about that in a moment. And also, at the same time, the poor falling through, falling through the floor and becoming ever poorer to the point

05:23 - where there's no food left. And we're talking about here, the fifth richest economy on planet Earth. It's just that the, the, the, that the wealth is not, is not divided fairly or equally. I mean, so the UK has one of the highest levels of income inequality in Europe. and the UK is also one of the most neoliberal countries on earth. Certainly, I would probably say it's more neoliberal than

05:55 - any other country in Europe. Only the USA is worse in terms of inequality. And the USA is perhaps the most neoliberal country in the world. So you can see neoliberalism accompanies, or you could even say determinants inequality. I've tried to get across the idea so far in this interview that neoliberalism is a mechanism for more inequality. But it's important to recognize, and most people don't actually, particularly the, the,

06:26 - the younger generations that don't recognize that neoliberalism has not been here forever. It's a relatively new thing. It's a new ideology. In fact, you know, with my students, I used to play a game with them and, and, and basically, what can you imagine more the end of capitalist neoliberalism or an alien invasion? And, you know, kind of the alien invasion is much more, is much more conditionable to my students than the end of neoliberal capitalism.

06:54 - And that's when I've explained what neoliberal capitalism is. The end of history, you know, as a, as Frank, Fama said, has really come in terms of consciousness for, for younger generations. So capitalist neoliberalism is, as I said, is, is a relatively new, ideology, an ideological system in the, in the history of the human race. And it's important to recognize that it hasn't come

07:22 - around naturally and organically. Capitalist neoliberalism is, has been purposefully created by several generations of the, of the global ruling elite over a long period of time. I mean, close to three, perhaps over 300 years now, you know, we had, we've had feudalism, we've had pre, preindustrial capitalism, we've had industrial capitalism, post-industrial capitalism, and now we've got this new phase, which we can call neoliberalism,

07:55 - straightforwardly neoliberalism. And it's got a dominance in every part of our lives. It drives politics, culture, economy, and all social relations. Therefore, if we're serious about understanding inequality and how it can be addressed, we must, not only scholars, but everybody, political commentators, the, the public at large must understand that inequality. To understand inequality, you must also understand and critique neoliberalism.

08:28 - So we've gone through this kind of, 300 year, history of capitalist development, and we've ended up at neoliberalism. and, it, it, it's not something which is natural. It's not just something which is born out of, kind of nature. It is something which has been created, and anything that can be created by human beings can generally be undone by human beings as well.

08:55 - Before going on to talking about critical education, let me just say something about the components of neoliberalism and capitalist neoliberalism. Capitalist neoliberalism is primarily what, people in sociology and economics call, call a mode of production, okay? Primarily, it's not only capitalist. Neoliberalism is not only a mode of production, it it's a way of, it's a social and cultural way of being as well.

09:23 - It's about politics too. But economic mode of production is what capitalist neoliberalism is. And to put it into a nutshell, it's about how value is created value and how value is created specifically through labor power. So when we're talking about value, we're talking about financial value and exchange value and use value, okay? So what we really regard very highly in a capitalist,

09:52 - neoliberal, economy is how much profit something can be, something can make value, exchange value, and profit is always through labor power. So the ability of people to work, the work that we as human beings do, produces outputs. And it doesn't matter whether you work in the public sector or the private sector, you are still producing value through your labor power. And we produce profit or the potential for what we call exchange value,

10:25 - which you can just simply call profit, okay? Through our output. So that might be levels of service, or it might be a tangible product or a commodity, like an engine or something like that. So as an academic, I produce value, and I pro and I produce not only a service values and exchange value in service that I pro that, that I provide through my teaching and books and things like that, but I also provide,

10:52 - I also create value, a financial value for, for publishing houses and, and so forth. Now, all these outputs that we produce through our labor power, commodified for a financial profit, okay? That's what neoliberal capitalism is. Producing an exchange value or placing an exchange value on everything that we produce through commodifying it. Contemporary neoliberalism has some basic components

11:22 - that need to be explicated to understand what I've just said there. If you take a hammer and put a hammer, a sledgehammer through the ideology called catalyst neoliberalism, it falls into three components. Neoliberalism is not hard to understand. It's, you know, it's dead straightforward, but the, you know, people who are in charge will tell us, you know, global, kind

11:45 - of the global ruling elite will say, leave it to us. You know, we're not ideals. We're just kind of pragmatic. We, we just want the best, in terms of, growing the economy and efficiency and all these things. Don't worry about neoliberalism, we'll deal with that. But I say to my students, no, it's absolutely essential to understand what neoliberalism is. Okay? And if you take that hammer to this idea of neo or this ideology of neoliberalism, it'll fall into three, three components, okay?

12:14 - The first one is marketization. So this is about a process of making everything a commodity, something that can be bought or sold on the marketplace. This can be a virtual marketplace or it can be a real life marketplace, okay? Everybody is a consumer, okay? In in neoliberal capitalism. And so we've got choice and competition with marketization. Consumers have choice of where to spend their money, and there's competition between providers of services, of products.

12:45 - You can, you can choose, and that's what marketization is. Schools are in a marketplace. and so this means that schools are no longer part of the welfare state. Schools are no longer, part of what we might call, the commons or common goods of public services. So everything is subject to being a commodity, subjected to being a commodity in a marketplace. Okay? That's the first component of neoliberalism. The second component of neoliberalism is a promotion

13:15 - of self-interest and competitive individualism. This is about encouraging individuals to be self-centered, primarily self-centered. the former prime minister of the uk, Margaret Thatcher, who was one of the cheerleaders of neoliberalism, really made a global, economic force, said that there's no such thing as society only individuals, okay? It's a famous phrase in a little lone, little known magazine,

13:45 - but it really kind of gets to the crux of what we mean by self-interest and individualization effectively, or essentially what we have is the promotion of greed being good. and, and that's the kind of economy and, and, and, and, and, and, social relations that we have. Okay? So we've got, firstly marketization, secondly, self-interest. And finally, what we have as a third component of neoliberalism is this idea of a lassez fair

14:20 - approach to political governance. Laer is broadly about kind of leaving alone, so pulling back the frontiers of the state, okay? Leaving market forces to decide who and what will survive. It's about survival of the fittest. And when we're talking about survival of the fitness, we're talking about individuals. Some people will die of hunger, some people will die of poor, poor health because they can't afford, you know, medication

14:51 - and things like that, especially in a place like the us. but we're also talking about survival of the fittest in terms of institutions. So universities are in a competitive, a fiercely competitive marketplace in England, where there are tuition fees and the, and, and, and some universities will be allowed to basically fail just like any other private sector profit making company. So what we've got is the government effectively saying,

15:20 - we are not going to, interfere and bail out, institutions. We're gonna let the strongest, the so-called strongest survive, and the weakest will simply fade away. And that's market forces working. So you can see market forces and laissez-faire, and self-interest all working together, interdependently. So this is promotion of a small state. You know, conservatives with a big C will always say, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna let people be free.

15:52 - We're gonna, we're gonna give the autonomy to individuals and, and institutions such as schools to run themselves. 'cause we don't want to interfere. But the reality is that the insti, that the institution of the state is needed in order to help the poorest in society. and that's why, you know, I talked about earlier, I talked about food banks. these are individuals who have not made any poor decisions necessarily.

16:18 - They might be in a ill state of health. they might have simply run into bad times, but they've ended up with no, no ability to find food or shelter. Okay? So this is all about laissez-faire, pulling back the frontiers of the state. There's no, the UK government is not really interested, at least the Westminster government is not really interested in helping, alleviate in terms of a long-term strategic plan, homelessness or food poverty.

16:45 - So this is about let it be the role of the state. Therefore, in this las FA third component, the role of the state is simply to create the infrastructure for neoliberalism and market forces to survive and thrive. So, as I say, these three components work interdependently, and you'll be able to see it all around you. This is what I ask my students to, you know, just try to see where you can see marketization, where you can see the promotion of self-interest and where there is a, a last affair approach to governance.

17:15 - So, I mean, some people have said to me, you know, but we've got the advent of technology, ai, and the fourth industrial revolution. And as, contributors to the encyclopedia of Marxism and education, have noted, there's, there's at least two chapters in there, which explicitly talk about AI and the fourth industrial revolution. These developments in technology will simply strengthen the hegemony and the components of neoliberalism.

17:45 - They won't alleviate inequality. That's not the role. You know, it, it will, it will, it will do the opposite to that. in terms of then critical education, I'm dedicated to advancing the promotion of what I conceive as a critical education. And I do this through, I do this promotion through a series of practical methods to use in social relationships. And these could be with students, it could be with colleagues, it could be with family,

18:16 - it could be somebody that you meet in the pobo, a cafe. You can, you can use this method and this method of critical education that I'm trying to promote in my work, rest on three broad provocations to instigate an understanding and critique of neoliberalism and the inequality that it breeds. And so the three provocations are as follows. Firstly, what is the world like for you? So this is about getting people to understand

18:49 - or try to think about and reflect on what the world looks like for you, how you experience it. And this, I always follow up with, questions. Well, what do you think the world like is for other people? 'cause actually, you know, with this promotion of the self-interest, we don't really, we don't really try. We, we don't consciously think about the way that other people are experiencing the world. You know, empathy and solidarity are things which are kind of, you know, in the past,

19:17 - we don't talk about those things anymore, at least not explicitly. So what's the world like for you? What do you think the world is like for others? So this is a straightforward kind of reflection on yourself and your place in society and others, and their place in society. The second provocation is what do you want the world to be like? So this is about, you know, trying to think about, well,

19:40 - if this world is not as good as we want it to be, inequality will always come, you know, come up in discussions, social injustice, racism, class, you know, in inequity. All of these things come up. Then the question is, well, what do you want the world to be like? What would it look like in, you know, in your, kind of, in your ideal? And then this is followed up with, well,

20:02 - what do you think other people may want the world to look like? And again, this is about kind of reflecting beyond yourself. And the third provocation is, well, what keeps you from trying to remake the world in this image that you want it to be? And obviously the follow up question there is then, well, what keeps other people from remaking the world in this way that they might want it to be? And so it's about reality, it's about idealism,

20:31 - and it's about practicality, about how to, how to go forward with these thoughts. And I must say in 25 years, I've not heard anybody, whether it be students or family members, or you know, kind of people who, who I meet outside of my workplace say, the world is perfect as it is, and we don't want anything to change. Yeah, I mean, even the people who I speak to, who are, you know, doing well in life, they're successful, whether they be rich

20:56 - or they'd be professionally successful, whatever, you know, they can still see inequality. They can still see this inequality at a level which is unacceptable and unconscionable to them. So this is, this is a method of doing critical education. And the task for critical educators, as I explain in my work, including, you know, I go into some kind of level of detail in the encyclopedia of Marxism and education in a chapter, in that the task of the, critical educator is twofold.

21:27 - And that is to focus on mystification and feasibility. So the first one there is to reveal mystification. So these are thinking about the mechanisms that cloud does as individuals and other people from a meta reflection on the world as it is what's stopping us from really understanding reality? That's what this is about. It's about revealing the ideology behind things like inequality. Only then, once you grasp the, the problem,

22:05 - only then can action be taken to really think about how we can move forward to try to remake the world. How can we move forward to alleviate inequality or inequity and education? What can we propose as suggestions, policy suggestions, to make the education system much more fairer? So that's revealing the ideology behind mystification. Second, to promote an alternative, it's not enough just to kind of think about the world as it is, as it is. It's about kind of moving forward.

22:38 - And this is, you know, the key word here is feasibility. Many people think, you know, and we're conditioned, this is not natural. We're conditioned to think that this is it, this is the end of history. There is no other ideology that can, that can help us in this, in, in, in this state. and we, you know, the education system is geared up to promoting this type of consciousness that we've arrived at the end of history.

23:05 - And there is no alternatives to it. Margaret Thatcher, again, Tina, there is no alternative. That was her, that was her slogan. You know, she basically saying, so social democracy, socialism, communism, those ideologies, which are part of history, we've arrived at the end of history, and it is neoliberalism from now on in. And we've been conditioned to think that through the education system, through the media, through general, through general life.

23:33 - And what this does is it takes us away from thinking about alternatives and thinking about, well, hang on. What can we do about inequality? It makes us apathetic. It de it, it, it, it paralyzes us from imagining a better world. We can only imagine a better world for ourselves, but not for other people. And we might imagine a better world for ourselves by becoming more credentialized or, you know, playing the lottery or something like that.

24:02 - But equality is not something that can be touched. And this is a conditioning of neoliberalism and neoliberal education. So, to, to kind of finalize this at the heart of critical education, and the way that we can understand, inequality is the Marxist idea that humans create history, but not in the conditions of their choosing. So what I mean by humans create history.

24:30 - So that means we are individuals and we've got the ability to change things because we as human beings have created the status quo through politics, through culture, through the way that we interact with education. You know, teachers are really, really important individuals in this. Okay? So teachers have the incredible responsibility of educating the next generations. Okay? So if teachers can instill an element

25:01 - of critical education into their learning and teaching, well that is, you know, kind of providing a little pinprick, providing some kind of consciousness. So teachers can create history, as can all other human beings. But teachers have to be careful, as do everybody else. Because to be anti neoliberal to go against this hegemony is dangerous. You start to become a threat to the status quo.

25:29 - And as soon as you become a threat to the status quo, you can be targeted. So you could be, you know, you can be reprimanded in terms of, pay being docked, not being promoted, being seen as a troublemaker, or even worse, losing your job. If you lose your job, that means you can't afford to pay for your fuel. You can't afford to pay for food. You might lose, the shelter that you've got.

25:52 - So there's, there's, there's great risk, but the rewards of trying to create history are personal rewards, but also leaving this kind of legacy. So humans can create history, but not in the conditions of their choosing. 'cause neoliberalism makes it very, very difficult to go against the grain. But there's another phrase here, which is important as part of critical education, which is that

26:17 - you are in neoliberalism, so you can't step outside of it. Teachers, academics, people who work in the media, we're all in neoliberalism, whether we like it or not. 'cause neoliberalism is all encompassing, you know, it is pretty much closed off and anything else. but you've gotta be against it at the same time as being in it. So you can work in the cracks. You have to be, I say to, To people, especially teachers, you have to, and, and other academics, you've gotta work in the cracks.

26:48 - 'cause neoliberalism, whilst it's ubiquitous, it's all around us. It closes, it, it, it, it's not hermetically sealed. There's always spaces to do critical work. This interview is an example of that.

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