How neoliberalism fuels the racist xenophobia behind Brexit and Donald Trump

[applegrove]

How neoliberalism fuels the racist xenophobia behind Brexit and Donald Trump

by Ben Norton at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2016/07/01/how_neoliberalism_fuels_the_racist_xenophobia_behind_brexit_and_donald_trump/

"SNIP..............


The International Monetary Fund — the leading international evangelist of neoliberalism, an institution that has forced countries throughout the world, particularly those in the Global South, to adopt neoliberal “structural adjustment” programs — recently admitted in a study that neoliberalism is “oversold.”

IMF economists concluded that neoliberal policies, like those that have been implemented by the U.K., have increased inequality, which in turn hurts long-term growth and stability in the economy.

The “evidence of the economic damage from inequality suggests that policymakers should be more open to redistribution than they are,” researchers said, noting that, in some cases, the consequences “will have to be remedied after they occur by using taxes and government spending to redistribute income.”

“Fortunately, the fear that such policies will themselves necessarily hurt growth is unfounded,” the IMF economists added, acknowledging that taxing the rich and boosting government spending will not necessarily hurt growth.


..............SNIP"