Neoliberalism Has Made Us All Unsafe

What is safety under neoliberalism? From East Palestine, Ohio to Turkey, we get a devastating answer.

by Sophia A. McClennen, Salon

Remember the days of Occupy Wall Street? In September of 2011, activists descended on the Wall Street area of Manhattan to protest rising economic inequality and the controlling role that money was playing in politics. The movement spread globally. Before long the phrase “we are the 99 percent” became infamous.

It was a motto that effectively described the neoliberal caste system. Under neoliberalism, the goal was deregulation, privatization, the cult of the free market and a focus on profit over people. During its debut decades, from the 1980s to the 2010s, neoliberalism’s most visible damage was economic and political.

Turkey earthquake, February 2023, help turkey

Remember that the Occupy protests were a direct response to the financial crash of 2007-2008, which had been brought on by the massive deregulation of the banking industry. As banks neared insolvency, they were often bailed out, leaving the public to take the brunt of the economic collapse.

Today, like then, we are witnessing a form of collapse caused by neoliberalism. Collapsed buildings, collapsed bridges, collapsed railways

First neoliberalism made us broke. Now it’s killing us.