We don't have the neoliberal turn without creating some type of logic whereby people believe that economic losers deserve what they get, and that if anything we should use government to punish losers.
Race and racism provide that logic.
Here's Lee Atwater in 1981 on the role of race in the GOP's electoral success.
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=X_8E3ENrKrQ[/youtube]
The entire version 40+ minute version here.
There's a story in today's New York Times about unemployed French college grads. I'm convinced one of the reasons France still has a powerful welfare state is because they don't quite have the technology the neoliberal turn requires, the technology they need to turn the state away from these kids and towards other ends.
Had to google it up to find out what you’re talking about http://contemporarycondition.blogspot.com/2012/03/lester-spence-johns-hopkins-university.html
Does race and racism explain why the Browns moved away from Lexus, Sheniqua, an’em as quick, fast, and in a hurry as they humanly could?
Where’s the negroe 1% when you need them to progressively come to the rescue of their benighted cousins consigned to the collapsing bowels of the inner city…., (oops, I forget, they’re busy stacking their paper and helping Paul Kagame effect genocide in the Congo – my bad)
race doesn’t explain it. the neoliberal turn doesn’t FULLY explain it–well to do blacks have NEVER wanted to live around blacks they thought of as “the element”. but it explains why this modern dynamic looks the way it does. and why we’ll never be able to fully get away from “the element” no matter how hard we try.
Lester Spence :: Associate Professor, Political Science, Johns Hopkins University :: https://lesterspence.com :: protocol.by/lks