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this is such a poetic description of how capitalism works, and again, the sentence makes more intuitive sense if you replace the word "neoliberals" with "capitalists"
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If you replace all instances of "neoliberalism" w/"capitalism", how do you distinguish e.g. the Norwegian economy from that of the US?
(Discounting Norway's short flirts w/deregulation now and in the 90s)
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I don't quite understand the question. Norway is Norway, the US is the US. If Norway still has some measure of national sovereignty, it maybe means that the capitalists haven't gotten around to it yet. You could maybe describe Norway as relatively protectionist, isolationist, etc
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Norway is ultracapitalist, owns the largest sovereign wealth fund in existence, 1.3% of world stocks, is antifragile wrt recessions.
The US is one of the few richer countries pr. capita, but does not have:
- clean air
- universal health care
- job security
- good infrastructure
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I think the way I think about it is
there is a state-within-the-state in the US – basically the Norway within the US, and everybody else
the "Norwegian-Americans" should basically have everything they need, while everyone else is fucked
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Yes. Sort of. Except large parts of the US are too polluted, dangerous or impoverished to live in, and the entire country is dangerous.
Of course, they *can* live in protected enclaves and/or abroad, given sufficient wealth...
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Isn't that a passage from Sunday mindfucking Thursday at the dinner? :P
( I may be misremembering - been a while)
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It's an exceedingly clever book, but several characters are very clearly manipulating the protagonist throughout.
The quote about cheerily plotting anarchist bombings in daylight at a cafe, seeing as nobody who overhears it will take it seriously, is probably my favourite.