Wednesday 21 September 2011

The Neoliberalspeak dictionary

This post was inspired by George Orwell's Newspeak. According to Wikipedia:
Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, it refers to the deliberately impoverished language promoted by the state.

Over the past 30 years or so neoliberalism has contributed to the impoverishment of our language by the usage, or perhaps mis-use of certain words. The aim of a neoliberalspeak dictionary is to give some of the key words their real meaning.



  • affordable housing / adj. - unaffordable housing. Mythical housing unavailable to most citizens in the UK
  • bailout / n.; v. - a method of privatising financial gains and nationalising financial losses
  • capitalism / n. - a gigantic global Ponzi scheme designed to benefit a small elite whilst plunging billions of people into abject poverty
  • deficit reduction / n. ; v. - a means of class war by which the populations of countries are made to pay for the failures of the markets
  • efficiency / n. - increasing profits by lowering the living standards of workers. This is typically achieved by cuts in pay, a reduction in holiday entitlement and reduced pension.
  • efficiency savings / adj. - cuts
  • Eurozone / n. - proto-European capitalist empire where commercial interests are put above democratic rights
  • gig economy / adj. low paid - sweatshop labour
  • globalisation / n.; v. - a process of opening up the world to Western economic imperialism. A means of looting the natural resources, exploiting labour in all the countries of the world and lowering the standard of living of workers in the West
  • Labour market flexibility / adj. - attack on workers conditions, lowering pay reduction in holidays - cheap labour. 
  • privatisation / n.; v. - asset stripping of the public sector by the private sector 
  • quantitative easing / adj. handouts for the rich. Printing trillions of dollars to prop up a broken global economy
  • Social mobility / adj. - conservative fraudulent frame which is used to legitimise inequality in society
  • strong leader / n. - a weak leader i.e. someone who will do what we tell them to against the wishes of their own party and its supporters. we being the neoliberal so-called free press (corporate media)
  • sustainable / adj. - unsustainable. A word that has become so debased and devalued as to have rendered it virtually meaningless
  • tax / n.; v. - a levy by the state on the 99%
  • Trump / n.; v. - a fart, noxious gas released from the anus
  • we're all in this together / adj. - you pay for our crisis
  • WTO / n. - 'we've taken over' . Global organisation for the purpose of promoting the commercial interests of global corporations above the democratic rights of nation states.
I'm sure that in time the dictionary will grow into a comprehensive guide to Neoliberalspeak. I hope that I'll be able get some contributions from some of the greatest exponents of Neoliberalspeak  such as Nick Clegg, Tony Blair, Barak Obama, David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nicola Sarkozy.

No comments: