[lbo-talk] Penal nation

dredmond at efn.org dredmond at efn.org
Fri Apr 30 15:49:35 PDT 2010


On Fri, April 30, 2010 12:21 pm, Wojtek S wrote:


> I wonder if any other country achieved this level of extra-judicial
> penalization of the entire society. Any thoughts?

I'd say it's one of those dialectical paradoxes. There's the same level of policing in other societies, it just takes place in less overtly neoliberal contexts, i.e. through kinship, family relations, age hierarchies, ethnicity, linguistic affiliation, religious context, etc.

That said, my partner says the neolib-style policing has grown exponentially in India -- gated communities, elite malls, the privatization of land, etc. Looks like neoliberalism is a transnational rather than uniquely American virus.

-- DRR



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