Reagan's Neoliberal Policies

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Since the prominent emergence of neoliberal policies popularized by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the world has taken an economic and social downturn. From such policies that offer tax cuts for the wealthy, laissez-faire economics, the dismantling of trade unions, outsourcing, privatization, and deregulation, middle to low-class individuals within the United States have been negatively affected, enduring homelessness, poverty, starvation, and other aspects that have tarnished their well-being. Wealthy individuals and large corporations have benefited tremendously from neoliberalism, widening the economic gap between the wealthy and everyone else. Over the past four decades, neoliberalism has increasingly sprouted economic and social …show more content…

In turn, these areas practicing theses neoliberal policies have led to mass incarcerations rates, decreasing and unequal wages in the labor force, and the deterioration of land.
Carrying on Nixon’s neoliberal political policies and his “War On Drugs” campaign, President Lyndon B. Johnson constructed his Great Society as a political approach in hopes to improve the already existing economic crisis and crack down on poverty within America. Furthermore, societal fear of African-Americans formulated by Reagan’s racialized images within the War On Drugs and economic instability prompted Johnson to establish the War on Crime. The first instance of this policy began with the Law Enforcement Assistance Act in 1965, increasing federal funding to state and local criminal justice systems, developing programs for urban police in low-income communities, militarizing local police forces (Kelley). Other political platforms such as the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 enhanced the federal support for law enforcement, spiking incarceration rates during the 1980s and beyond. In the attempt to combat the demographic, social, and economic challenges of the late 20th century, the War …show more content…

First constructed by an American scientist by the name of Norman Borlaug, the Green Revolution served as a method to globally increase in crop production through the use of fertilizers, pesticides, and high-yield crop varieties. Major corporations such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation funded increased research into the Green Revolution, establishing a shift to new seed varieties. In turn, major agricultural companies produced chemicalized seeds that would be used by wealthier farmers around the world. Large businesses took advantage of chemical farming, as it forced local farmers and other farmers from around the world to purchase their seeds. The Green Revolution seemingly destroyed sustainable local agriculture, mechanized production in displacement, and increased the use of chemicals and lack of crop varieties (Kelley). As large corporations began to monopolize the agriculture business, this created the development of Genetic Modified Organisms and lead to soil erosion and desertification in America and many other countries (Kelley). From such neoliberal policies, America’s land and food supply have taken a toll, due to harmful pesticide use of agriculture sprouted from the ideas of the Green

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