Giroux, 14 Henry A. Giroux, Professorship at McMaster University in the English and Cultural Studies Department and a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Ryerson University

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Environment
Poverty
Laundry List
Islamophobia

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Santos

Neoliberalism creates a paradoxical system that destroys the world in pursuit of attempting to save humanity- leads to genocide, dehumanization, and countless human rights abuses.

Santos, 3

(Boaventura de Sousa, Leading Portuguese social theorist, director of the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra, from Collective suicide or globalization from below? Published on Eurozine)

According to the German philosopher Franz Hinkelammert, living in Costa Rica, the West has repeatedly been under the illusion that it should try to save humanity by destroying part of it. This is a salvific and sacrificial destruction, committed in the name of the need to fulfill radically all the possibilities opened up by a given social and political reality over which it is supposed to have total power. This is how it was in colonialism, with the genocide of indigenous peoples, and the African slaves. This is how it was in the period of imperialist struggles, which caused millions of deaths in two world wars and many other colonial wars. This is how it was in Stalinism, with the Gulag and in Nazism, with the holocaust. And now today, this is how it is in neoliberalism, with the collective sacrifice of the periphery of the world system. With the war against Iraq, it is fitting to ask whether what is in progress is a new genocidal and sacrificial illusion, and what its scope might be. It is above all appropriate to ask if the new illusion will not herald the radicalization and the ultimate perversion of the western illusion: destroying all of humanity in the illusion of saving it. Sacrificial genocide arises from a totalitarian illusion that is manifested in the belief that there are no alternatives to the present-day reality and that the problems and difficulties confronting it arise from failing to take its logic of development to its ultimate consequences. If there is unemployment, hunger and death in the Third World, this is not the result of market failures; instead, it is the outcome of the market laws not having been fully applied. If there is terrorism, this is not due to the violence of the conditions that generate it; it is due, rather, to the fact that total violence has not been employed to physically eradicate all terrorists and potential terrorists. This political logic is based on the supposition of total power and knowledge, and on the radical rejection of alternatives; it is ultra-conservative in that it aims to infinitely reproduce the status quo. Inherent to it is the notion of the end of history. During the last hundred years, the West has experienced three versions of this logic, and, therefore, seen three versions of the end of history: Stalinism, with its logic of insuperable efficiency of the plan; Nazism, with its logic of racial superiority; and neoliberalism, with its logic of insuperable efficiency of the market. The first two periods involved the destruction of democracy. The last one trivializes democracy, disarming it in the face of social actors sufficiently powerful to be able to privatize the State and international institutions in their favour. I have described this situation as a combination of political democracy and social fascism. One current manifestation of this combination resides in the fact that intensely strong public opinion, worldwide, against the war is found to be incapable of halting the war machine set in motion by supposedly democratic rulers. At all these moments, a death drive, a catastrophic heroism, predominates, the idea of a looming collective suicide, only preventable by the massive destruction of the other. Paradoxically, the broader the definition of the other and the efficacy of its destruction, the more likely collective suicide becomes. In its sacrificial genocide version, neoliberalism is a mixture of market radicalization, neoconservatism and Christian fundamentalism. Its death drive takes a number of forms, from the idea of "discardable populations", referring to citizens of the Third World not capable of being exploited as workers and consumers, to the concept of "collateral damage", to refer to the deaths, as a result of war, of thousands of innocent civilians. The last, catastrophic heroism, is quite clear on two facts: according to reliable calculations by the Non-Governmental Organization MEDACT, in London, between 48 and 260 thousand civilians will die during the war against Iraq and in the three months after (this is without there being civil war or a nuclear attack); the war will cost 100 billion dollars, - and much more if the costs of reconstruction are added - enough to pay the health costs of the world's poorest countries for four years. Is it possible to fight this death drive? We must bear in mind that, historically, sacrificial destruction has always been linked to the economic pillage of natural resources and the labor force, to the imperial design of radically changing the terms of economic, social, political and cultural exchanges in the face of falling efficiency rates postulated by the maximalist logic of the totalitarian illusion in operation. It is as though hegemonic powers, both when they are on the rise and when they are in decline, repeatedly go through times of primitive accumulation, legitimizing the most shameful violence in the name of futures where, by definition, there is no room for what must be destroyed. In today's version, the period of primitive accumulation consists of combining neoliberal economic globalization with the globalization of war. The machine of democracy and liberty turns into a machine of horror and destruction. In opposition to this, there is the ongoing movement of globalization from below, the global struggle for social justice, led by social movements and NGOs, of which the World Social Forum (WSF) has been an eloquent manifestation. The WSF has been a remarkable affirmation of life, in its widest and most inclusive sense, embracing human beings and nature. What challenges does it face before the increasingly intimate interpenetration of the globalization of the economy and that of war? I am convinced that this new situation forces the globalization from below to re-think itself, and to reshape its priorities. It is well-known that the WSF, at its second meeting, in 2002, identified the relationship between economic neoliberalism and imperial warmongering, which is why it organized the World Peace Forum, the second edition of which took place in 2003. But this is not enough. I believe that a strategic shift is required. Social movements, no matter what their spheres of struggle, must give priority to the fight for peace, as a necessary condition for the success of all the other struggles. This means that they must be in the frontline of the fight for peace, and not simply leave this space to be occupied solely by peace movements. All the movements against neoliberal globalization are, from now on, peace movements. We are now in the midst of the fourth world war (the third being the Cold War) and the spiral of war will go on and on. The principle of non-violence that is contained in the WSF Charter of Principles must no longer be a demand made on the movements; now it must be a global demand made by the movements. This emphasis is necessary so that, in current circumstances, the celebration of life can be set against this vertiginous collective suicide. The peace to be fought for is not a mere absence of war or of terrorism. It is rather a peace based upon the elimination of the conditions that foster war and terrorism: global unjustice, social exclusion, cultural and political discrimination and oppression and imperialist greed. A new, cosmopolitan humanism can be built above and beyond western illuminist abstractions, a humanism of real people based on the concrete resistance to the actual human suffering imposed by the real axis of evil: neoliberalism plus war.

War

War and neoliberalism are intrinsically linked, this leads to a system where a sovereign body and human rights are obsolete

Environment

Neoliberalism commercializes natural resources leading to environmental destruction

Von Werlhof, 8

(By Prof. Claudia von Werlhof is professor emerita of women's studies at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Innsbruck. From Global Research: Center on Globalization. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_von_Werlhof)

Austria is part of the world system too. It is increasingly becoming a corporate colony (particularly of German corporations). This, however, does not keep it from being an active colonizer itself, especially in the East (Hofbauer 2003, Salzburger 2006). Social, cultural, traditional and ecological considerations are abandoned and give way to a mentality of plundering. All global resources that we still have – natural resources, forests, water, genetic pools – have turned into objects of “utilization”. Rapid ecological destruction through depletion is the consequence. If one makes more profit by cutting down trees than by planting them, then there is no reason not to cut them (Lietaer 2006). Neither the public nor the state interferes, despite global warming and the obvious fact that the clearing of the few remaining rain forests will irreversibly destroy the earth’s climate – not to even speak of the many other negative effects of such action (Raggam 2004). Climate, animal, plants, human and general ecological rights are worth nothing compared to the interests of the corporations – no matter that the rain forest is no renewable resource and that the entire earth’s ecosystem depends on it. If greed – and the rationalism with which it is economically enforced – really was an inherent anthropological trait, we would have never even reached this day. The commander of the Space Shuttle that circled the earth in 2005 remarked that “the center of Africa was burning”. She meant the Congo, in which the last great rain forest of the continent is located. Without it there will be no more rain clouds above the sources of the Nile. However, it needs to disappear in order for corporations to gain free access to the Congo’s natural resources that are the reason for the wars that plague the region today. After all, one needs petrol, diamonds, and coltan for mobile phones. The forests of Asia have been burning for many years too, and in late 2005 the Brazilian parliament has approved the clearing of 50% of the remaining Amazon. Meanwhile, rumors abound that Brazil and Venezuela have already sold their rights to the earth’s biggest remaining rain forest – not to the US-Americans, but to the supposedly “left” Chinese who suffer from chronic wood shortage and cannot sustain their enormous economic growth and economic superpower ambitions without securing global resources. Given today’s race for the earth’s last resources, one wonders what the representatives of the World Trade Organization (WTO) thought when they accepted China as a new member in 2001. They probably had the giant Chinese market in mind but not the giant Chinese competition. After all, a quarter of the world’s population lives in China. Of course it has long been established that a further expansion of the Western lifestyle will lead to global ecological collapse – the faster, the sooner (Sarkar 2001). Today, everything on earth is turned into commodities, i.e. everything becomes an object of “trade” and commercialization (which truly means “liquidation”: the transformation of all into liquid money). In its neoliberal stage it is not enough for capitalism to globally pursue less cost-intensive and preferably “wageless” commodity production. The objective is to transform everyone and everything into commodities (Wallerstein 1979), including life itself. We are racing blindly towards the violent and absolute conclusion of this “mode of production”, namely total capitalization/liquidation by “monetarization” (Genth 2006). We are not only witnessing perpetual praise of the market – we are witnessing what can be described as “market fundamentalism”. People believe in the market as if it was a god. There seems to be a sense that nothing could ever happen without it. Total global maximized accumulation of money/capital as abstract wealth becomes the sole purpose of economic activity. A “free” world market for everything has to be established – a world market that functions according to the interests of the corporations and capitalist money. The installment of such a market proceeds with dazzling speed. It creates new profit possibilities where they have not existed before, e.g. in Iraq, Eastern Europe or China. One thing remains generally overlooked: The abstract wealth created for accumulation implies the destruction of nature as concrete wealth. The result is a “hole in the ground” (Galtung), and next to it a garbage dump with used commodities, outdated machinery, and money without value. However, once all concrete wealth (which today consists mainly of the last natural resources) will be gone, abstract wealth will disappear as well. It will, in Marx’ words, “evaporate”. The fact that abstract wealth is not real wealth will become obvious, and so will the answer to the question which wealth modern economic activity has really created. In the end it is nothing but monetary wealth (and even this mainly exists virtually or on accounts) that constitutes a “monoculture” controlled by a tiny minority. Diversity is suffocated and millions of people are left wondering how to survive. And really: how do you survive with neither resources nor means of production nor money? The nihilism of our economic system is evident. The whole world will be transformed into money – and then it will “disappear”. After all, money cannot be eaten. What no one seems to consider is the fact that it is impossible to re-transform commodities, money, capital and machinery into nature or concrete wealth. It seems that underlying all economic “development” is the assumption that “resources”, the “sources of wealth” (Marx), are renewable and everlasting – just like the “growth” they create (Werlhof 2001 a). The treachery of this assumption becomes harder and harder to deny. For example, the “peak” in oil production has just been passed – meaning we are beyond exploiting 50% of all there is. Ironically though, it seems like the prospect of some resources coming to an end only accelerates the economic race. Everything natural is commercialized in dimensions not seen before, with unprecedented speed and by means of ever more advanced technology. The ultimate goal remains to create new possibilities of investment and profit, in other words: new possibilities of growth able to create new accumulation possibilities – future ones included. The material limits of such a politics become clearer day by day: the global ecological, economic, monetary, social, and political collapse (Diamond 2005) it inevitably leads to has already begun. “Global West End.” How else can we understand the fact that in times when civilization has reached its alleged zenith, a human being starves every second (Ziegler 2004)? How can such a politics be taken seriously? It is in every sense a crime. Unfortunately, the facade of trivial “rationality” – what Hannah Arendt called the “banality of evil” – behind which it operates, still makes it invisible to many. People do not recognize its true character. This is a result of the enormous crisis of spirit and soul that accompanies the material crisis that many of us remain unaware of; namely, the annihilation of matter through its transformation into commodity, which we, in delusion, call “materialism” (I call it “patriarchy”, Werlhof 2001 a). The original richness of mat(t)er (“mother earth”) is now giving way to a barren wasteland that will remain unrecognized by many as long as their belief in “progress” will block their views. The last phase of patriarchy and capitalism is not only without sense but it will soon be without life as well: kaputalism. It seems impossible not to ask oneself how the entire economy came to follow one motive only: the monism of making money. Especially since this does not only apply to the economy, but also to politics, science, arts and even our social relations. The notion that capitalism and democracy are one is proven a myth by neoliberalism and its “monetary totalitarianism” (Genth 2006). The primacy of politics over economy has been lost. Politicians of all parties have abandoned it. It is the corporations that dictate politics. Where corporate interests are concerned, there is no place for democratic convention or community control. Public space disappears. The “res publica” turns into a “res privata”, or – as we could say today – a “res privata transnationale” (in its original Latin meaning, “privare” means “to deprive”). Only those in power still have rights. They give themselves the licenses they need, from the “license to plunder” to the “license to kill” (Mies/Werlhof 2003, Mies 2005). Those who get in their way or challenge their “rights” are vilified, criminalized and to an increasing degree defined as “terrorists”, or, in the case of defiant governments, as “rogue states” – a label that usually implies threatened or actual military attack, as we can see in the cases of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, and maybe Syria and Iran in the near future. US President Bush has even spoken of the possibility of “preemptive” nuclear strikes should the US feel endangered by weapons of mass destruction (Chossudovsky 2005). The European Union did not object (Chossudovsky 2006).

Poverty

Neoliberalism destroys the environment, fosters a large lower class, and ensures the poor stay prove – statistics prove

Khan, 15

(Khan, Mohammed Adil. "Putting ‘Good Society’ Ahead of the Economy: Overcoming Neoliberalism's Growth Trap and Its Costly Consequences Server Login." Sustainable Development 23.1 (2015): 55-63. UMKC University Libraries Proxy Server Login. 23 Feb. 2015. Web. 14 July 2015)

It is true that, measured in GDP terms, neoliberal economic policies have made many countries better off economically (Levy, 2012), but not without social and environmental costs (Shrivastava and Kothari, 2014). Noting the emerging incongruities between economic growth and social development Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz observes that ‘Maximizing GDP is not the same as maximizing wellbeing’ (UN, 2012a). The link between neoliberal economic system and the lingering and systemic inequality is now well recorded: on a $2.50 a day income, 50% of the world's population are poor; 6.6 million children have either already died or face death each year, half of them from preventable diseases; and 35% of the world's women face domestic violence daily (Bordo et al., 2004; Piketty, 2014). In the US itself, the home of neoliberalism, the top 1% own 25% of all income (Davies et al., 2008). According to Nobel Laureate Professor Robert J. Shiller, rising economic inequality in the United States and other countries is ‘the most important problem that we are facing now today’ (Job Market Monitor, 2013). Reflecting on the neoliberalism economic system's arrangements, which are inherently exploitative, Stiglitz (2002) observes that ‘Those at the top have learned how to suck out money from the rest in ways that the rest are hardly aware of’, and that, even though politics shape the market, under neoliberalism, politics itself has been hijacked by the ‘financial elites’. Similarly, Michael Kelecki (22 June 1899–18 April 1970) once observed that ‘The capitalists get what they spend and the workers spend what they get’. Neoliberalism's corporation-induced growth strategy, whichthat is often pursued through state patronage, relies heavily on maximization of profit, mostly through cost minimization, and this is frequently achieved through payment of low salaries to workers, poor provisioning of worker safety and security and also neglect and/or outright abuse of environmental standards (War on Want, 2009). In this regard, the case of Bangladesh is quite instructive – the textile sector that provides 80% of its export dollars and supply clothing to major western designer outlets encounters worst cases of labour rights abuses, manifested through obscenely low salary and substandard and/or non-existent work place safety and security arrangements (Ahamed, 2013). Some also argue that there is a correlation between neoliberalism, conspicuous consumption especially by the rich and the privileged and the worldwide rise in the incidence of crime, in the sense that ‘the act of consumption and the display of opulence drive home the reality of social and economic inequality within a community’, which contributes to crime, corruption, drug abuse, social exclusion and erosion of virtues of empathy, contributing to tensions and fracturing of societies (Richardson, 1994; Hoadley, 2011; Hicks and Hicks, 2012). In this regard, Mycoo (2006) points out that the reason for the recent rise in gated communities of upper and middle income classes in major cities worldwide is ‘directly traced to the failure of governments to close the growing divide between rich and poor and to solve the accompanying wave of crime and fear of violence’ (Mycoo, 2006, p. 1). Many also argue that there is a cogent relationship between neoliberalism and the rise in ‘war-on-terror ’/‘regime-change’ activities etc. and argue that these incursions are nothing but ‘resource wars’ that are warranted by competition for the control of cheap sources of natural resources, especially fossil fuel, the latter a key ingredient in neoliberalism's expanding cycle of production, consumption, profit and growth (Klare, 2002). 4

Laundry List

Capitalism makes extinction inevitable—steering away from the destructive system is the only option

Farbod 2/6/15 (Faramarz Farbod, teaches Political Science at Moravian College, “It's Capitalism, Stupid!”, 2/6/15, http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2015/farbod020615.html, 7/14/15)

Global capitalism is the 800-pound gorilla. The twin ecological and economic crises, militarism, the rise of the surveillance state, and a dysfunctional political system can all be traced to its normal operations. We need a transformative politics from below that can challenge the fundamentals of capitalism instead of today's politics that is content to treat its symptoms. The problems we face are linked to each other and to the way a capitalist society operates. We must make an effort to understand its real character. The fundamental question of our time is whether we can go beyond a system that is ravaging the Earth and secure a future with dignity for life and respect for the planet. What has capitalism done to us lately? The best science tells us that this is a do-or-die moment. We are now in the midst of the 6th mass extinction in the planetary history with 150 to 200 species going extinct every day, a pace 1,000 times greater than the 'natural' extinction rate.1 The Earth has been warming rapidly since the 1970s with the 10 warmest years on record all occurring since 1998.2 The planet has already warmed by 0.85 degree Celsius since the industrial revolution 150 years ago. An increase of 2° Celsius is the limit of what the planet can take before major catastrophic consequences. Limiting global warming to 2°C requires reducing global emissions by 6% per year. However, global carbon emissions from fossil fuels increased by about 1.5 times between 1990 and 2008.3 Capitalism has also led to explosive social inequalities. The global economic landscape is littered with rising concentration of wealth, debt, distress, and immiseration caused by the austerity-pushing elites. Take the US. The richest 20 persons have as much wealth as the bottom 150 million.4 Since 1973, the hourly wages of workers have lagged behind worker productivity rates by more than 800%.5 It now takes the average family 47 years to make what a hedge fund manager makes in one hour.6 Just about a quarter of children under the age of 5 live in poverty.7 A majority of public school students are low-income.8 85% of workers feel stress on the job.9 Soon the only thing left of the American Dream will be a culture of hustling to survive. Take the global society. The world's billionaires control $7 trillion, a sum 77 times the debt owed by Greece to the European banks.10 The richest 80 possess more than the combined wealth of the bottom 50% of the global population (3.5 billion people).11 By 2016 the richest 1% will own a greater share of the global wealth than the rest of us combined.12 The top 200 global corporations wield twice the economic power of the bottom 80% of the global population.13 Instead of a global society capitalism is creating a global apartheid. What's the nature of the beast? Firstly, the "egotistical calculation" of commerce wins the day every time. Capital seeks maximum profitability as a matter of first priority. Evermore "accumulation of capital" is the system's bill of health; it is slowdowns or reversals that usher in crises and set off panic. Cancer-like hunger for endless growth is in the system's DNA and is what has set it on a tragic collision course with Nature, a finite category. Secondly, capitalism treats human labor as a cost. It therefore opposes labor capturing a fair share of the total economic value that it creates. Since labor stands for the majority and capital for a tiny minority, it follows that classism and class warfare are built into its DNA, which explains why the "middle class" is shrinking and its gains are never secure. Thirdly, private interests determine massive investments and make key decisions at the point of production guided by maximization of profits. That's why in the US the truck freight replaced the railroad freight, chemicals were used extensively in agriculture, public transport was gutted in favor of private cars, and big cars replaced small ones. What should political action aim for today? The political class has no good ideas about how to address the crises. One may even wonder whether it has a serious understanding of the system, or at least of ways to ameliorate its consequences. The range of solutions offered tends to be of a technical, legislative, or regulatory nature, promising at best temporary management of the deepening crises. The trajectory of the system, at any rate, precludes a return to its post-WWII regulatory phase. It's left to us as a society to think about what the real character of the system is, where we are going, and how we are going to deal with the trajectory of the system -- and act accordingly. The critical task ahead is to build a transformative politics capable of steering the system away from its destructive path. Given the system's DNA, such a politics from below must include efforts to challenge the system's fundamentals, namely, its private mode of decision-making about investments and about what and how to produce. Furthermore, it behooves us to heed the late environmentalist Barry Commoner's insistence on the efficacy of a strategy of prevention over a failed one of control or capture of pollutants. At a lecture in 1991, Commoner remarked: "Environmental pollution is an incurable disease; it can only be prevented"; and he proceeded to refer to "a law," namely: "if you don't put a pollutant in the environment it won't be there." What is nearly certain now is that without democratic control of wealth and social governance of the means of production, we will all be condemned to the labor of Sisyphus. Only we won't have to suffer for all eternity, as the degradation of life-enhancing natural and social systems will soon reach a point of no return.

Islamophobia

Neoliberal education is Islamophobic – it promotes a racist ideological revolution against ‘Islamic terrorism’

Kabel 14 Ahmed Kabel (Al Akhawayan University, Morocco), 2014, Islamophobia Studies Journal “The Islamophobia-Neoliberal-Educational Complex” http://f.hypotheses.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/1460/files/2015/05/ISJ_2014-15_Fall_Issue_-Final_VolumeL.pdf#page=58

The Islamophobic-Neoliberal-Educational Complex epitomizes the ideological site in which American neo-imperial designs in the Muslim world are enacted. It rests on the Islamophobic instrumentalization of education and reform to institute a wide-ranging cultural and conceptual reconfiguration of the Muslim world for global hegemony. This Complex operates at the intersection of American educational imperialism, Islamophobic securitization and neoliberalization. One of the very early instances of this project was the White Revolution devised by the Kennedy administration for the Shah of Iran to counteract the threat of a ‘red’ revolution in the country. The ‘Revolution’ was meant to strengthen secularism, garner support for the Pahlavi regime and also importantly weaken the clerical class. This benevolent educational ‘aid’ was conditioned on economic ‘modernization’ and the privatization of national assets (Dorn and Ghodsee 2012, 387-388). These schemes of liberal-capitalist-oriented education were integral to the global scheme of the production of liberal-capitalist Last Man in the third world. This cultural reconversion has transmuted into the more gigantic project of producing the ‘Neoliberal Man’, to which we shall now turn. The Islamophobic-Neoliberal-Educational Complex is hinged on two broad packages of neoliberalization as antidotes to the ‘Muslim Threat’: neoliberalization from above and neoliberalization from below. The nexus of the ‘war on terror’ and neoliberalization from above is epitomized in Bush I’s National Security Strategy. One fundamental fulcrum of the war on terror is to ‘ignite a new era of global economic growth through free markets and free trade’ (White House 2002). A necessary prelude to such free market ignition is a global conflagration of violence, as Afghanistan and Iraq amply show in addition to the numerous ‘invisible’ small wars around the globe (Scahill 2013). Embracing free trade and free markets holds magnificent things in store for humanity, so we are promised. They generate prosperity and growth, a necessary endeavor for imprinting the ‘habits of liberty’ (White House 2002, 17). Shrouding imperial ambitions in the thick veil of high-sounding moral ideals is not an entirely novel colonial ploy. In tandem with global neoliberal restructuring, neoliberalization from below forms the centerpiece of the ideological war for hearts and minds (and pockets) to de-radicalize young Muslims. Neoliberalization in this context takes on a vast social and cultural dimension. It is not simply an economic dogma concerned with the reshuffling of economic structures. It is a full-blown social program predicated on a set of ‘values’ and predispositions congruent with the broader neoliberal project. The discourses and policy packages imposing ‘free trade’, privatization, deregulation, the slashing of public spending, free market legal infrastructures at the top dovetail with the ‘grassroots’ social programs foisting a slew of values smacking of a neoliberal ideology. These mainly concern individual choice, individual responsibility, initiative, entrepreneurship, skills and freedom. Education then becomes the site where these laboratory experiments in neoliberal engineering are carried out. The aim of education in the neoliberal age is to improve the skills of the ‘labor force and the population as a whole’ and enhance the propagation of ideas that boost ‘productivity and opportunity’ (National Endowment for Democracy 2012, 17). In the same vein, the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), launched in the same spirit as the NSS, subsumes among its goals ‘the development of skills that lead to job and opportunity’ and ‘promote entrepreneurship’ (US Department of State 2008, 2). This should not be taken lightly as ‘economic populism’, so admonishes the National Endowment for Democracy. This necessitates ‘fundamental institutional reforms that will … foster entrepreneurship, and promote changes in the educational system to raise labor productivity and provide young people with the skills needed to compete in a global economy’. The strategic significance of these neoliberal professions is not limited to the economic transformation they are meant to effect. Their centrality lies precisely in the capacity to instigate a wider and long-term ideological revolution against ‘Islamic terrorism’. In this regard, neoliberal ‘Education is the best hope of turning young people away from violence and extremism’ (Center for Strategic and International Studies 2007, 37). Neoliberal education thus functions as a bulwark against the ‘Islamic threat’, domesticating the minds of young Muslims and inoculating their propensity for extremism. Neoliberalism meets education meets Islamophobia.

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