The Netflix original series “Stranger Things” has popularized the term “the upside-down,” and some have begun to employ the concept to understand and critique contemporary American politics and the era of Trump. “Stranger Things” is set in the 1980’s, and I think applying the upside-down to the politics of the 1980’s and Ronald Reagan is more on point.
While the period from 1932-1980 was filled with systemic policies and individual acts of racism and sexism, it was also marked by a philosophical shift in the role of government as it related to workers (as least white, male workers), the poor, and the environment. The policies enacted during this time frame improved the lives of millions and opened opportunities for many in the white working class. Having reaped the benefits of those programs, the people who took advantage of those opportunities then set about dismantling that very system, insisting that they became successful by pulling up their own bootstraps, all by themselves.
I’ve become fixated on the year 1980. When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, it marked a significant shift in governmental philosophy and economic policy-making. Reagan, along with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and economists like Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics, ushered in a new era, the era of Neoliberalism. Not to be confused with the political philosophy of Liberalism, Neoliberalism is a conservative economic philosophy focused on liberating capitalism from government restraints. As Reagan once quipped, “Government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem.” We have been stuck in the upside-down ever since.
Neoliberalism is Laissez-Faire on steroids. The blessed trinity of Neoliberalism is privatization, deregulation, and union busting. Evaluated according to these criteria, Neoliberalism has been a phenomenal success.
Since 1980 an incredible amount of wealth has been created, and it has disproportionately enriched a tiny segment of the population and starved the public sphere of funding. This era of free market fundamentalism has a corresponding theology, and its advocates fiercely defend it as any cult member would. Facts, history, and data are irrelevant to those who subscribe to this trickle-down ideology. There is virtually no historical evidence that deregulation and cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations actually leads to job creation and rising wages. What history shows us is that instead of reinvesting in the economy what actually happens is a hoarding of wealth and a concentration of political power.
Democracy is now subservient to capitalism. We are upside-down. We are no longer in charge of capitalism; capitalism is in charge of us. Private consumption is crowding out the public good. We are no longer primarily citizens; we are workers and consumers. In fact, we’ve been lead to believe by the cult of Neoliberalism that capitalism and democracy, that consumer and citizen, are synonymous. This is profound ignorance.
Neoliberalism is not here to stay, and it’s just a matter of time till this era ends and is replaced by something else. But if the something else takes us deeper into the upside-down, the impact on this nation and the world will be disastrous.