[Neoliberal racism] is a racism that works hard to remove issues of power and equity from broader social concerns. Ultimately, it imagines human agency as simply a matter of individualized choices, the only obstacle to effective citizenship and agency being the lack of principled self-help and moral responsibility. [Henry Giroux, The Terror of Neoliberalism 58]Now, go forth and look for this phenomenon, digging up phrases like "Say 'no' to drugs!" and "Abstinence works!" and "Ownership society" like the weeds they are.
In the not-unrelated category but as a total non-sequitur, here's what I'm thinking:
As the economy worsens and the niceties brought by prosperity disappear, it is likely we will see straight-up power structures gaining ground. That is, as commercial exchange lessens in this environment of willful government non-intervention, as our "ownership" society reverts to bankrupt society without a fiscal or social safety net, relationships of pure power will take over. In the poorest neighborhoods these will be gangs; in the slightly better-to-do, more crime and generally less security will bring more policing.
