#新自由主義 在當代如何多樣地變異、如何於政策制定、社會生活的各層面運作？又如何與 #極右民粹 勢力結合？

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新政治力量崛起，既反對新自由主義的部分元素，卻與另一些元素混雜揉和，組成全新的突變種。最近出版由William Callison與Zachary Manfredi 編著的一本重要論文集Mutant Neoliberalism: Market Rule and Political Rupture（2020），喚起的正是「變種變毒」的隱喻。過去人們通常認為，一套關於自由化、私有化的經濟政策典範，構成新自由主義的核心定義，以資判斷某社會「是或不是」新自由主義，這是大幅簡化的圖像。例如若從「政治理性」（political rationality）或「治理性」（governmentality）的角度來看新自由主義內涵，就完全不同，也未必跟經濟政策相關；它可能指涉用市場理性／金融投資的角度計算一切事物的價值，包括人的生命與勞動，城市規劃與土地利用，評量大學教育的成敗等等。除此之外，上述不同的「原則」運用在各個不同地區，也會在新環境和新歷史脈絡中，與各種在地的社會文化與政治力量組裝融合，創造出各種各樣變種形貌。於是，世界各地「實存的新自由主義」（actually existing neoliberalism）呈現出極為複雜而岐出的多線發展與樣貌。
從這個角度看二十一世紀的新政治力量，可以說：新自由主義不是死亡了，而是突變了。生物學的病毒隱喻或許更好掌握當前的現象：基因突變不是異常，而是演化過程的常態；突變的子代雖與母代不同，但仍能辨認該物種的基本特徵。當突變種在環境中取得優勢時，它就傳遞下去成為該物種的優勢族群。以下我將說明從「新自由主義變種」的角度，或能更貼切地解釋美國「川普現象」所凸顯的民粹不滿與民主危機。
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加州大學柏克萊分校著名的政治理論家Wendy Brown在其新著In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West（2019）挑戰上述「雙重運動」的提法，企圖更深度剖析極右派民粹運動與新自由主義的隱密鏈結，尤其是新自由主義計畫中的政治─道德面向。簡言之，極右派民粹運動中展現暴烈的政治動能與激情──反政治卻又盲目支持民粹政治人物，既強調權威與道德又不遵守公共規範並輕易展示暴力，以自由之名卻攻擊憲政民主與公共領域——不只是因為其生存條件被新自由主義破壞而引發的（下意識）反動，而且首先是被新自由主義的政治意識形態所正當化與合理化。

夏傳位／新世紀冷酷異境：新自由主義是行走殭屍，還是變種病毒？
文章連結：https://wp.me/p3bKKK-2Oy

🇩🇰 這是一篇深度報導，來自歐洲現存最古老的報紙：丹麥Weekendavisen，題目是從香港抗爭運動、香港聯繫加泰羅尼亞的集會，前瞻全球大城市的「永久革命」。一篇報導訪問了世界各地大量學者，我也在其中，雖然只是每人一句，加在一起，卻有了很完整的圖像。

以下為英譯：

Protest! The demonstrations in Hong Kong were just the beginning. Now there are unrest in big cities from Baghdad to Barcelona. Perhaps the stage is set for something that could look like a permanent revolution in the world's big cities.

A world on the barricades

At the end of October, an hour after dark, a group of young protesters gathered at the Chater Garden Park in Hong Kong. Some of them wore large red and yellow flags. The talk began and the applause filled the warm evening air. There were slogans of independence, and demands of self-determination - from Spain. For the protest was in sympathy with the Catalan independence movement.

At the same time, a group of Catalan protesters staged a protest in front of the Chinese Consulate in Barcelona in favor of Hong Kong's hope for more democracy. The message was not to be mistaken: We are in the same boat. Or, as Joshua Wong, one of the leading members of the Hong Kong protest movement, told the Catalan news agency: "The people of Hong Kong and Catalonia both deserve the right to decide their own destiny."

For much of 2019, Hong Kong's streets have been ravaged by fierce protests and a growing desperation on both sides, with escalating violence and vandalism ensuing. But what, do observers ask, if Hong Kong is not just a Chinese crisis, but a warning of anger that is about to break out globally?

Each week brings new turmoil from an unexpected edge. In recent days, attention has focused on Chile. Here, more than 20 people have lost their lives in unrest, which has mainly been about unequal distribution of economic goods. Before then, the unrest has hit places as diverse as Lebanon and the Czech Republic, Bolivia and Algeria, Russia and Sudan.

With such a geographical spread, it is difficult to bring the protests to any sort of common denominator, but they all reflect a form of powerlessness so acute that traditional ways of speaking do not seem adequate.

Hardy Merriman, head of research at the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict in Washington, is not in doubt that it is a real wave of protest and that we have not seen the ending yet.

"I have been researching non-violent resistance for 17 years, and to me it is obvious that there are far more popular protest movements now than before. Often the protests have roots in the way political systems work. Elsewhere, it is about welfare and economic inequality or both. The two sets of factors are often related, ”he says.

Economic powerlessness

Hong Kong is a good example of this. The desire among the majority of Hong Kong's seven million residents to maintain an independent political identity vis-à-vis the People's Republic of China is well known, but the resentment of the streets is also fueled by a sense of economic powerlessness. Hong Kong is one of the most unequal communities in the world, and especially the uneven access to the real estate market is causing a stir.

According to Lee Chun-wing, a sociologist at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the turmoil in the city is not just facing Beijing, but also expressing a daunting showdown with the neoliberal economy, which should diminish the state's role and give the market more influence, but in its real form often ends with the brutal arbitrariness of jungle law.

'The many protests show that neoliberalism is unable to instill hope in many. And as one of the world's most neoliberal cities, Hong Kong is no exception. While the protests here are, of course, primarily political, there is no doubt that social polarization and economic inequality make many young people not afraid to participate in more radical protests and do not care whether they are accused of damage economic growth, 'he says.

The turmoil is now so extensive that it can no longer be dismissed as a coincidence. Something special and significant is happening. As UN Secretary General António Guterres put it last week, it would be wrong to stare blindly at the superficial differences between the factors that get people on the streets.
“There are also common features that are recurring across the continents and should force us to reflect and respond. It is clear that there is growing distrust between the people and the political elites and growing threats to the social contract. The world is struggling with the negative consequences of globalization and the new technologies that have led to growing inequality in individual societies, "he told reporters in New York.

Triggered by trifles

In many cases, the riots have been triggered by questions that may appear almost trivial on the surface. In Chile, there was an increase in the price of the capital's subway equivalent to 30 Danish cents, while in Lebanon there were reports of a tax on certain services on the Internet. In both places, it was just the reason why the people have been able to express a far more fundamental dissatisfaction.

In a broad sense, there are two situations where a population is rebelling, says Paul Almeida, who teaches sociology at the University of California, Merced. The first is when more opportunities suddenly open up and conditions get better. People are getting hungry for more and trying to pressure their politicians to give even more concessions.

“But then there is also the mobilization that takes place when people get worse. That seems to be the overall theme of the current protests, even in Hong Kong. People are concerned about various kinds of threats they face. It may be the threat of inferior economic conditions, or it may be a more political threat of erosion of rights. But the question is why it is happening right now. That's the 10,000-kroner issue, ”says Almeida.

Almeida, who has just published the book Social Movements: The Structure of Social Mobilization, even gives a possible answer. A growing authoritarian, anti-democratic flow has spread across the continents and united rulers in all countries, and among others it is the one that has now triggered a reaction in the peoples.

“There is a tendency for more use of force by the state power. If we look at the death toll in Latin America, they are high considering that the countries are democracies. This kind of violence is not usually expected in democratic regimes in connection with protests. It is an interesting trend and may be related to the authoritarian flow that is underway worldwide. It's worth watching, 'he says.

The authoritarian wave

Politologists Anna Lürhmann and Staffan Lindberg from the University of Gothenburg describe in a paper published earlier this year a "third autocratic wave." Unlike previous waves, for example, in the years before World War II, when democracy was beaten under great external drama , the new wave is characterized by creeping. It happens little by little - in countries like Turkey, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Hungary and Russia - at such a slow pace that you barely notice it.

Even old-fashioned autocrats nowadays understand the language of democracy - the only acceptable lingua franca in politics - and so the popular reaction does not happen very often when it becomes clear at once that the electoral process itself is not sufficient to secure democratic conditions. Against this backdrop, Kenneth Chan, a politician at Hong Kong Baptist University, sees the recent worldwide wave of unrest as an expression of the legitimacy crisis of the democratic regimes.

“People have become more likely to take the initiative and take part in direct actions because they feel that they have not made the changes they had hoped for through the elections. In fact, the leaders elected by the peoples are perceived as undermining the institutional guarantees of citizens' security, freedom, welfare and rights. As a result, over the past decade, we have seen more democracies reduced to semi-democracies, hybrid regimes and authoritarian regimes, ”he says.

"Therefore, we should also not be surprised by the new wave of resistance from the people. On the surface, the spark may be a relatively innocent or inconsiderate decision by the leadership, but people's anger quickly turns to what they see as the cause of the democratic deroute, that is, an arrogant and selfish leadership, a weakened democratic control, a dysfunctional civil society. who are no longer able to speak on behalf of the people. ”The world is changing. Anthony Ince, a cardiff at Cardiff University who has researched urban urban unrest, sees the uprisings as the culmination of long-term nagging discontent and an almost revolutionary situation where new can arise.

"The wider context is that the dominant world order - the global neoliberalism that has dominated since the 1980s - is under pressure from a number of sides, creating both uncertainty and at the same time the possibility of change. People may feel that we are in a period of uncertainty, confusion, anxiety, but perhaps also hope, ”he says.
Learning from each other.

Apart from mutual assurances of solidarity the protest movements in between, there does not appear to be any kind of coordination. But it may not be necessary either. In a time of social media, learning from each other's practices is easy, says Simon Shen, a University of Hong Kong political scientist.

“They learn from each other at the tactical level. Protesters in Hong Kong have seen what happened in Ukraine through YouTube, and now protesters in Catalonia and Lebanon are taking lessons from Hong Kong. It's reminiscent of 1968, when baby boomers around the globe were inspired by an alternative ideology to break down rigid hierarchies, 'he says.
But just as the protest movements can learn from each other, the same goes for their opponents. According to Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth, Russia has been particularly active in trying to establish cooperation with other authoritarian regimes, which feel threatened by riots in the style of the "color revolutions" on the periphery of the old Soviet empire at the turn of the century.

"It has resulted in joint efforts between Russian, Chinese, Iranian, Venezuelan, Belarusian, Syrian and other national authorities to develop, systematize and report on techniques and practices that have proved useful in trying to contain such threats," writes Chenoweth in an article in the journal Global Responsibility to Protect.

Max Fisher and Amanda Taub, commentators at the New York Times, point to the social media as a double-edged sword. Not only are Twitter and Facebook powerful weapons in the hands of tech-savvy autocrats. They are also of questionable value to the protesting grass roots. With WhatsApp and other new technologies, it is possible to mobilize large numbers of interested and almost-interested participants in collective action. But they quickly fall apart again.

The volatile affiliation is one of the reasons why, according to a recent survey, politically motivated protests today only succeed in reaching their targets in 30 percent of cases. A generation ago, the success rate was 70 percent. Therefore, unrest often recurs every few years, and they last longer, as Hong Kong is an example of. Perhaps the scene is set for something that might resemble a permanent revolution in the world's big cities - a kind of background noise that other residents will eventually just get used to.

"Since there is still no obvious alternative to neoliberalism, the polarization that led to the protests initially will probably continue to apply," says Lee of Hong Kong Polytechnic University. "At the same time, this means that the anger and frustration will continue to rumble in society."

2011年突尼斯一名小販自焚抗議政府腐敗，引發席捲中東的阿拉伯之春，並啟發了美國的佔領華爾街運動。2019年秋，南美洲經濟最好的國家之一智利，因地鐵票價漲了30智利披索（約0.3港元），觸發一場反對新自由主義 （Neoliberalism） 的政治大火…

【智利民運要推倒新自由主義 地鐵加價3毫引爆不滿情緒】
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【佛利民44年前訪智利 開出休克治療藥方】
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#企業地球村 #智利 #地鐵加價 #阿拉伯之春 #佔領華爾街 #新自由主義

立刻加入頻道會員，實際行動支持超級歪：https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAM7yIYvZGYLJR6z6RqLlNw/join

超級歪電影院第九集【社會議題系列】 / 勞基錄音帶B卷【勞基法中原來隱藏著這樣的秘密...】/ 馬克思與皮凱提: 資本VS勞動
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超級歪：「全台灣的勞工階級聯合起來！」
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重點總結：
1.勞基法是保障勞工的最後一道防線，不得去管制化。
2.在當前勞資權力不對等的條件下，彈性化只是擁護資方的意識形態。
3.正視分配不平等問題，提高最低工資，而非叫勞工加班。
4.組織工會，勞工階級聯合起來！
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聽聽 林辰 Buchi的神分析！勞基錄音帶A卷【勞基法都別吵了，重點其實是...】：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX3Z_VmDTBs
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參考資料：
勞動部＜105年度-服務業適用勞動基準法工時規定法規調適研究＞(2016)
鄭雅文＜台灣職場疲勞的政策因應與問題＞（2013）
《風傳媒》：被台灣低薪嚇了一跳 皮凱提:ＧＤＰ跑哪去了?
張夏準《資本主義沒告訴你的23件事》，五南，2014
林宗弘、洪敬舒、李健鴻、王兆慶 、張烽益《崩世代：財團化、貧窮化與少子女化的危機》，台灣勞工陣線，2011
Anthony S. Wohl,
Endangered Lives: Public health in Victorian Britain (1983)
Bruce Ackerman
《我們人民:憲法根基》，2015，聯經
David Harvey
A brief history of neoliberalism (2007)
《資本社會的17個矛盾》，聯經，2016
Eric Hobsbawm
《非凡小人物：反對、造反及爵士樂》，麥田，2013
《革命分子》，左岸，2017
Friedrich Engels《英國工人階級狀況》，《馬克思恩格斯全集》第二卷
Gayle Rubin, The Traffic in Women (1975)
John D’Emilio, Capitalism and Gay Identity (1983)
Karl Marx
《共產黨宣言》，麥田，2014
《1844年經濟學哲學手稿》， 暖暖書屋，2016
《德意志意識型態》，聯經，2016
《資本論》，聯經，2017
Marilyn Yalom《太太的歷史》，心靈工坊，2003
Naomi Oreskes《販賣懷疑的人》，左岸，2016
Noreena Hertz《當企業購併國家》，經濟新潮社，2014
Richard Hyman 《比較工會運動》，韋伯，2004
Richard Wolff《勞工自主企業》，麥田，2014
Robert B. Reich《拯救資本主義》，聯經，2017
Thomas Piketty《二十一世紀資本論》，衛城，2014
Zygmunt Bauman《工作、消費與新貧》，巨流，2006


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