In this episode, I have the great pleasure of speaking with law professor Mehrsa Baradaran , the author of “The Quiet Coup: Neoliberalism and the Looting of America” on how neoliberalism was gradually and surreptitiously incorporated and implemented into law for economic and political purposes. Mehrsa details that during the 1960s, there was a significant and pivotal global shift in terms of freedom and human and civil rights, international law, and the sovereignty of nations, and that is when neoliberalism gained its foothold not only in American policy but across the world. This ideology made itself known at that time as an antidote and protection against communism and was touted as a free-market policy that would decrease laws and government intervention, but it ended up creating more laws and regulations to benefit its own agenda. As Mehrsa explains this profit-driven ideology operates on double standards, is algorithmic in nature and has infiltrated laws and policies in the form of a quiet coup, which has been propagated by both sides of the political spectrum. Furthermore, we discuss how this has the potential to lead to totalitarian and fascist regimes and that we need to be aware that evil exists in its “banality” as Hannah Arendt noted, namely as common forms of blindness and ignorance among the people and citizens. People are frustrated with the rampant corruption and hypocrisy, and are hence distrusting of governments, institutions, and corporations as the game is rigged and tilted in the favor of the wealthiest. In a sense, we are at a crucial and pivotal point in history as events around the tumultuous 60s are reoccurring and are being mirrored but this time around we have the chance and potential of solving the issues together and attaining true and lasting democracy for everyone by investing in human genius and giving it free reign.
