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The real road to serfdom

By Marko Beljac - posted Monday, 5 January 2015


Yet the people of the world strangely object to this, and this objection increasingly takes the form of autonomous forms of direct political action.

At the forefront of these actions, even if unconsciously, one is able to discern the use of anarchist ideas on direct action and self governed assemblies to frame dissent.

As the global popular uprising proceeds the coercive power of the state steps in to do what the coercive power of the state does best, all the while our neoliberals nod sagely under the bust of Smith and other representatives of the liberal pantheon.

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The neoliberal vision in reality is a vision of a society dominated by corporate power, for which the vast bulk of the population in an increasingly regimented fashion are compelled to rent themselves, one were most are deluded through propaganda into feverishly consuming corporate goods even though they are neither wanted nor needed, where concern for others is left for manufactured reality television contestants, that extends a helping hand through corporate subsidy and bailout only to the rich, that destroys the ecological substance of life and subjects much of the organic world to bondage, that thinks nothing of wrecking countries for generations so long as there's a buck to be made, and which at the slightest dissent and protest batters down with great force and vigour through coercive state power.

Many a moniker has been articulated in the last 30 odd years to describe the ever closer approximation of our world to this vision.

Permit me to add one more.

Serfdom.

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About the Author

Mark Beljac teaches at Swinburne University of Technology, is a board member of the New International Bookshop, and is involved with the Industrial Workers of the World, National Tertiary Education Union, National Union of Workers (community) and Friends of the Earth.

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