Monday 27 October 2014

Sex, drugs and neoliberalism

So let me get this straight. Our economy is deemed to be doing better than we thought because the inclusion of the sex and drugs market has boosted it by about £10 billion a year. But that's not the important point when it comes to the EU. We have been presented with a bill because the improvement in our economy is bigger than the improvement in other economies, which are all now being measured by the same rules. So, clearly, we're spending more on sex and drugs than other people do. Why would that be? I can think of several reasons but for me there are two front runners.

1) Communities and our personal economies in this country are so much more tedious, pointless and hopeless than in other countries that more of us are turning to paid sex and paid drugs in order to alleviate the migraine of the mind that our condition causes us.

2) We have so completely swallowed the neoliberal Thatcherite line that the only meaningful experiences are those you pay for that we prefer to pay for our drugs and our sex.

Laugh in your grave, Lady T. Either way you've won. More comprehensively than you ever hoped. You have completely turned the country you once governed into a place that knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. And pays the price.