Neoliberal Pizza Machine
Perhaps the confusion is the point.
What kind of fuckery is this? - Amy Winehouse, Me and Mr. Jones
In May of 2021, Drew Brown, formerly Editor-in-Chief of The Independent (and, in my view, one of our finest non-fiction writers) wrote the following in that paper’s newsletter:
“I have long been working on a theory that Newfoundland and Labrador is not actually a ‘backwards’ place but is, in fact, rather sociologically advanced. It is a glimpse into the near-term future of what Canadian society looks like in the wake of ecological catastrophe, social atomization, and collapsed democratic institutions..”
Brown paints the province as a kind of Petri dish for neoliberal policy, in which the “last vestiges of post-war social democracy” give way to expanded capitalist extraction – of natural resources, obviously, but also of “human resources and labour power”.
Personally, I think Brown’s words prove prescient – the evidence being, well, the two years since. Consider, for example, the newly reported, quiet push to develop Newfoundland and Labrador into an “Energy Super Basin”. Or the government’s only answer to the cost of living crisis, a one-time cheque for the wealthy and the poor alike (insert Oprah “You get a car!” gif). Or the “sugar tax” – patent revenue extraction paraded as health policy.
Similarly, Eastern Health recently announced that it would be removing “unhealthy” foods from its health facilities, e.g. hospitals. The plan, in peak neoliberal fashion, actually has phases (chef’s kiss). As NTV reports: “Sports drinks, energy drinks and candy will also be removed from shelves and deep fried foods are limited to being sold a maximum of three days a week [...] In June 2024, phase two begins, removing vitamin water, soft drinks and chips and limiting fried foods to one day a week.”
So, no more sugar and fried foods – but the pizza vending machine that’s coming to the Health Sciences Centre? That can stay. Pizza, you see, is baked, not fried; ergo compliant with the updated policy.
Now, if keeping the pizza, but removing the donuts, in the name of public health feels reflexively dense to you, dear Reader … that’s because it is. As I wrote earlier this year in the context of municipal policy: “Decisions often feel, in their logic and intention, opaque, or mean-spirited, or senseless.” Same goes here.
In fact, I’d ask you to “make it make sense”, but I’m not convinced it’s supposed to. By way of explanation, consider the following. In the 2016 documentary HyperNormalisation, filmmaker Adam Curtis describes how Russian “political technologist” Vladislav Surkov created a kind of “theatre of the absurd” in that country. His aim – to weaken the demos and shore up state and oligarchic power:
“Surkov turned Russian politics into a bewildering, constantly changing piece of theatre. He used Kremlin money to sponsor all kinds of groups - from mass anti-fascist youth organisations, to the very opposite - neo-Nazi skinheads. And liberal human rights groups who then attacked the government. Surkov even backed whole political parties that were opposed to President Putin. But the key thing was that Surkov then let it be known that this was what he was doing. Which meant that no-one was sure what was real or what was fake in modern Russia.”
Perhaps the confusion is the point.