From
David Harvey's A
Brief History of Neoliberalism
Part
5 - Cultural take over of New York by the neoliberal doctrine and the
enormous negative impact
The
city’s elite institutions were mobilized to sell the image of the
city as a cultural centre and tourist destination (inventing the
famous logo ‘I Love New York’). The ruling elites moved, often
fractiously, to support the opening up of the cultural field to all
manner of diverse cosmopolitan currents. The narcissistic exploration
of self, sexuality, and identity became the leitmotif of bourgeois
urban culture.
Artistic
freedom and artistic licence, promoted by the city’s powerful
cultural institutions, led, in effect, to the neoliberalization of
culture. ‘Delirious New York’ (to use Rem Koolhaas’s memorable
phrase) erased the collective memory of democratic New York. 11 The
city’s elites acceded, though not without a struggle, to the demand
for lifestyle diversification (including those attached to sexual
preference and gender) and increasing consumer niche choices (in
areas such as cultural production).
New York
became the epicentre of postmodern cultural and intellectual
experimentation. Meanwhile the investment bankers reconstructed the
city economy around financial activities, ancillary services such as
legal services and the media (much revived by the financialization
then occurring), and diversified consumerism (gentrification and
neighbourhood ‘restoration’ playing a prominent and profitable
role).
City
government was more and more construed as an entrepreneurial rather
than a social democratic or even managerial entity. Inter-urban
competition for investment capital transformed government into urban
governance through public–private partnerships. City business was
increasingly conducted behind closed doors, and the democratic and
representational content of local governance diminished.
Working-class
and ethnic-immigrant New York was thrust back into the shadows, to be
ravaged by racism and a crack cocaine epidemic of epic proportions in
the 1980s that left many young people either dead, incarcerated, or
homeless, only to be bludgeoned again by the AIDS epidemic that
carried over into the 1990s. Redistribution through criminal violence
became one of the few serious options for the poor, and the
authorities responded by criminalizing whole communities of
impoverished and marginalized populations.
The
victims were blamed, and Giuliani was to claim fame by taking revenge
on behalf of an increasingly affluent Manhattan bourgeoisie tired of
having to confront the effects of such devastation on their own
doorsteps.
The
management of the New York fiscal crisis pioneered the way for
neoliberal practices both domestically under Reagan and
internationally through the IMF in the 1980s. It established the
principle that in the event of a conflict between the integrity of
financial institutions and bondholders’ returns, on the one hand,
and the well-being of the citizens on the other, the former was to be
privileged.
It
emphasized that the role of government was to create a good business
climate rather than look to the needs and well-being of the
population at large. The politics of the Reagan administration of the
1980s, Tabb concludes, became ‘merely the New York scenario’ of
the 1970s ‘writ large’.
The
translation of these local conclusions of the mid-1970s to the
national level was fast-moving. Thomas Edsall (a journalist who
covered Washington affairs for many years) published a prescient
account in 1985: ‘During the 1970s, business refined its ability
to act as a class, submerging competitive instincts in favour of
joint, cooperative action in the legislative arena. Rather than
individual companies seeking only special favours . . . the dominant
theme in the political strategy of business became a shared interest
in the defeat of bills such as consumer protection and labour law
reform, and in the enactment of favourable tax, regulatory and
antitrust legislation’.
Comments
Post a Comment