MISEDUCATION
ISMAIL LAGARDIEN: Avid critics blind to lure of neoliberalism
There’s a young fellow, until recently a university student, who describes himself as an "entrepreneur" with his own "brand". There should be something to celebrate about the young man’s initiative. Except at the best of times the fellow remains terribly oppressed by his ideological obsessions and at worst he seems confused. I noticed these obsessions in a conversation during his third year at university. In that conversation he proclaimed neoliberalism as the greatest of evils. I nodded in agreement, with a wry smile, and since we were in a scholarly environment I asked him to explain neoliberalism. He was unable to do so. I asked him if he had looked at the policies and principles of what had become known as the Washington Consensus. He said he had not. I then asked, more bluntly, why he thought neoliberalism was bad. He named a professor who, he said, had told him that neoliberalism was bad. At some point in the exchange the student also dropped in the word "imperialism".Here, I ...
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