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Little wonder that under the coalition, homelessness has surged, nearly a million people are reliant on food banks, and that last winter alone, 15,000 people froze to death unable to afford heating. Despite such degrading treatment of the most vulnerable in society, leading Tories such as Iain Duncan-Smith celebrate the success of their policies as if the human cost was incidental.Writing in the 1980s, Antonio Negri suggested that the neoliberal hegemony that was emerging at that time came as a response to the economic crisis of the 1970s. In a desperate attempt to revive growth and profits, Western governments began developing the austerity approach. The full range of governmental policy tools would be brought to bear to drive down wages, whilst privatisation asset-stripped the public sector for the benefit of speculators. The shrinking of the state through monumental cuts to welfare provisions would be used to fund massive tax cuts for the wealthy, while the force of the state would be used to crush opposition. The effect has been a massive upwards transfer of wealth, creating inequality on a scale not seen in decades and an elite of unsurpassed financial power that dominates the global political landscape.
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