A Satirical Approach to Disprove Neoliberalism

There have been many discussions in our class lately about neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus that have changed my outlook on the economic history of the world quite drastically. The Washington Consensus was basically the commonly held belief among the leaders of developed countries in the late 1970s and 1980s in neoliberalism and the superiority of market forces. For the uninitiated, let me just briefly explain. Basically, in a neoliberalist world, there are three key dogmas:

1. Markets, market forces & privatization - Good
2. Governments - Rubbish
3. Government regulation & intervention - The spawn of Satan

For years, neoliberals have pushed for further deregulation of markets and privatization of strategically important national industries. Their argument is that only market forces work and are far more efficient than government forces, but just how efficient is a system, when it works great for a little while showing tremendous results and then blows up gloriously in your face, once every few years? Atleast that is what happened in the developed countries; in the developing world, it was just one catastrophe after another with economies collapsing like dominos.

We, now know, that neoliberalism can't work in the real world - thank you Wall Street for that valuable lesson. But if that wasn't proof enough for the neoliberals that market forces alone are not the solution to every situation, here is yet another argument for them, arranged, rather delightfully, in the comedic stylings of Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry from their show, A Bit of Fry and Laurie. This wonderfully framed political satire was made as part of the pilot episode of the show, way back in 1987. It really makes one wonder what the world would be like if it had paid more attention to satirical BBC comedy shows... Perhaps, its time I started watching more comedy shows, all in the name of economics, of course...