The philosophers of the Enlightenment and the liberals of the French Revolution wanted three things above all: bread, freedom of conscience and the abolition of privileges.
The right to a decent life should not be merchandised. Having a roof over your head and bread should not be monetized. Revolutionaries marched for bread. It was the notion of subsistence that was conveyed. Today, we could be asking for water and unpolluted food, why not a basic income?
Back then, you could be imprisoned for speaking out. At the Bastille, those who didn’t have the right to freedom of expression were detained. There were limits to the freedom of speech, such as calling for hatred or depriving others of their freedoms.
They also called for the abolition of privileges on August 4, 1989, so that the most qualified could become professionals. Back then, you bought your position.
Nowadays, people have to pay for housing and food, or else they’re tramps. Because Reaction has told them “all work deserves pay”.
Reaction hides behind the idea of freedom of expression to spread hatred. Eric Zémmour should be in prison because he called for hatred. He used freedom of expression to justify himself. Trump is using that same freedom of expression to deflect accusations about the Capitol riots.
Reaction suggests that if you succeed it’s because you deserve it and that those who failed deserve it. Everything I’ve earned is mine and I can do what I want with it. Solidarity is therefore, in their view, unjust. The destruction of nature is therefore possible. This is an enormous lie. They deny that they have been helped by the country’s infrastructure and organization. It’s a distortion of the ideas of meritocracy as they were conceived during the Revolution.
This is the neoliberalism invented by Milton Friedman in 1957, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1976. The great misfortune of neoliberalism is that it uses the words and arguments of the liberal revolutionaries to turn them against them. It’s a tool for entertaining people’s hatred of the real culprits, themselves.
After Roosevelt’s New Deal in the USA in 1933 and Labour’s victory in the UK in 1945, the neoliberals used the liberal ideas of the Revolution against the liberals. It’s an extremely powerful tool, convincing reactionaries but also subjugating some liberals. Reagan and Thatcher ruled the world according to these principles.
Today, instead of attacking the poisoners who pollute and destroy their way of life, people are attacking themselves and may even turn to drugs. Social networks are the multiplication of neoliberalism, as algorithms select successful posts. After the misleading theory comes the misleading proof. If I only see successful people, it’s my fault if I fail, and those who succeed deserve it. Since the end of COVID, suicides, mental problems and drug problems have increased 69% among adults and 81% among teenagers (https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-022-13409-0 and https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/it-or-not-social-medias-affecting-your-mental-health). People have no one to blame but themselves if they’re unhealthy, and are urged to admire powerful bodies.
After the 2008 financial crisis, when the banks were suffering the consequences of their own mistakes, the governments of George W. Bush, Nicolas Sarkozy, David Cameron and Berlusconi, all openly neoliberal, poured 700 billion dollars of public money into bailing out the banks. Proof that it’s a lie they themselves don’t believe. Reagan and Tatcher dramatically increased public spending on police and military. This neoliberal rhetoric is for others, not for them.
Knowing this can help us to stop believing the lie, and to continue promoting the undistorted ideas of the Revolution.
La Révolution dans son siècle – France culture: https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/serie-la-revolution-dans-son-siecle
The French Revolution & What Went Wrong – Stephen Clarke: http://www.stephenclarkewriter.com/en/livre/the-french-revolution-what-went-wrong
