Markets, privatisation and justice: Some critical reflections

There's Something Different Going On – Have You Noticed?

We are in the vice-like grip of an acute paradox. At the critical moment when neoliberal capitalism has entered its latest crisis, the relentless pursuit of profitable markets on the back of neoliberal dogma is infiltrating an expanded set of organisational domains. At the precise historical juncture when lessons could be assimilated to modify if not rid the world of a failed and failing political economy where money is the ultimate standard of value, desperate attempts are being made to resuscitate an ailing system by prescribing more of the same rather than deciding that enough is enough. However, the unfolding catastrophe which is being played out in the global market place of ideas and material conditions, manifested in an ecological crisis, struggles over raw materials, deepening and widening social divisions (Žižek 2011), has not gone without challenge, protest, or resistance. The Occupy Movement in Madrid during May 2011, with eruptions on Wall Street in September, subsequently established its presence in other cities and countries. In fact, one of us was directly affected by the movement when travelling from Ottawa to Toronto on Saturday, 15 October 2011 to return from Canada to the United Kingdom.