Greg Lindsay's Blog

March 17, 2017  |  permalink

Neoliberalism Explained on Open Source Radio

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This week, I received an unusual but irresistible request: appear on WBUR Boston’s podcast Open Source to help host Christoper Lydon unpack the word “neoliberalism” alongside CUNY’s Corey Robin, “Labor of Love” author Moira Weigel, and queer activist Yasmin Nair. Neoliberalism has been the world’s modus operandi since 1979, and might best be described as “markets in everything” – all the world’s a transaction, or should be. Lydon asked me to hold forth on the global supply chains, the aerotropolis, Uber, and cities, and I did so with my usual torrential speed. You can read WBUR’s description of the program here:

In recent weeks, our comments section has been filled with request to define a term we use constantly on this show: neoliberalism. For people who like buzzwords parsed and spelled out, this hour’s for you.

There are countless avenues that neoliberalism can lead us through: from the dismal science of efficiency and austerity to the dismal politics in Washington on both sides of the aisle. In our neighborhoods, neoliberalism may mean the defunding of our public schools as well as the deregulation of our public services. It’s driving impulse may be the ruthless privatization of everything in existence: from parking meters to prisons. It’s affective influence can transform our personal relationships, both intimate and platonic; gamifying our everyday relationships and turning the dating pool into a competitive market. Through the co-option of feminist and anti-racist struggle, it can disguise class enemies as “woke” allies. Through the commercialization of our artistic works and the corruption of our scientific research, it can convert our greatest human achievements into metrics on a spreadsheet.

So, instead of pursuing a single definition in this show, we’ve enlisted an all-star cast of public thinkers to discuss where they see neoliberalism creeping into their daily life and work.

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Greg Lindsay is a generalist, urbanist, futurist, and speaker. He is a non-resident senior fellow of the Arizona State University Threatcasting Lab, a non-resident senior fellow of MIT’s Future Urban Collectives Lab, and a non-resident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Strategy Initiative. He was the founding chief communications officer of Climate Alpha and remains a senior advisor. Previously, he was an urban tech fellow at Cornell Tech’s Jacobs Institute, where he explored the implications of AI and augmented reality at urban scale.

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