"They are the working class 'sublated' – improved upon and replaced. They may be as clueless as to strategy as the workers of the early nineteenth century were, but they are no longer in thrall to the system. They are enormously dissatisfied with it. They are a group whose diverse interests converge on the need to make postcapitalism happen, to force the info-tech revolution to create a new kind of economy, where as much as possible is produced free, for collaborative common use, reversing the tide of inequality. Neoliberalism can offer them only a world of stagnant growth and state-level bankruptcy: austerity until death, but with an upgraded version of the iPhone every few years. And the freedom they cherish is perennially hemmed in by the neoliberal state – from the NSA’s mass surveillance techniques to those of the Chinese internet police. Above their heads, politics in many countries has become infested by a kleptocratic mafia, whose strategy is to deliver growth at the price of suppressing freedom and expanding inequality."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from the United KingdomRadio personalitiesJournalists from EnglandPeople from ManchesterTrotskyists
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Mason_(journalist)
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Paul Mason (journalist)
Paul Mason (born 23 January 1960) is an English journalist and broadcaster. He was Culture and Digital Editor of ', becoming the programme's Economics Editor on 1 June 2014, a post he formerly held on 's ' programme. He is the author of several books, and a visiting professor at the .
11 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Paul Mason (journalist) →
Related Quotes
"Globalisation was an unstoppable natural process; free-market economics simply the natural state of things. But when …"
"An economy based on information, with its tendency to zero-cost products and weak property rights, cannot be a capita…"
"This new generation of networked people understand they are living through a third industrial revolution, but they ar…"
"The economy is already producing and reproducing a networked lifestyle and consciousness, at odds with the hierarchie…"
"A basic income paid for out of taxes on the market economy gives people the chance to build positions in the non-mark…"
"What happens to the state? It probably gets less powerful over time – and in the end its functions are assumed by soc…"
"Once the Internet of Things is rolled out, we are at the real takeoff point of the information economy. From then on,…"
"They are cynical about human rights. They don’t like immigrants or the European Union. They want the state to be stro…"
"When Reagan and Thatcher came to power, "authoritarian populism" was a term academics used to describe their politics…"
"For the big-mouthed racist right, theirs is a rebellion in favour of order. For them, as in the 1930s, all variations…"