Badar Al-Dehani

There is a slowly growing social resistance to neoliberalism across the world. I could sense it as I have seen - and read about - it. Not only have we all read about the social demonstrations that took place in London a few months and years back, but I have recently witnessed an incidence worth writing about - and analyzing. I was with a number of friends at an outdoor café in one of London's most luxurious hotels when we, all of a sudden, were showered with mud by two anarchic-looking individuals. After cleaning and tidying, still at the outdoor café in the luxurious hotel, and after multiple apologies by the kind staff, my friends and I started analyzing what happened. "Drunk," one friend quickly shouted; the other bluntly said: "drugs, it must be drugs!" Maybe, I thought to myself, but it may also be deeper. I mean, why would two hopeless-looking yet not-so-old individuals do such thing under innumerable CCTVs - surveillance cameras - and simply run away? They must have been trying to send a message, as did those a few weeks back at Brick Lane in East London or those of 2011 throughout this highly (wealth and income) unequal city. As I have written in my last article for the Kuwait Times two weeks ago, inequality is an important issue that will shape the world of tomorrow.





The gap between the higher classes and those of lower, working, proletariat classes is widening. That is, the 'middle class' is arguably shrinking. Well, maybe not entirely shrinking but the higher classes, those who constitute the biggest chunk of wealth of one state, is growing faster than the rest - including the overall economies of most (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) states, as Professor Thomas Piketty argues in 'Capital in the Twenty First Century'. Yes I know, with terms like 'classes' and the 'proletariat,' I may sound like a communist here but I am absolutely not; in fact, I may be the total opposite and this will become clearer through time. But, nevertheless, we have an issue worth dissecting: If we do not respond to inequality, if the current status quo remains unchanged, the global social resistance will solidify and potentially expand. The globalization of resistance to neoliberal and unregulated market economies may unfold and flourish. What could be done, I could hear you ask. Well, a global taxation system and global regulation terms perhaps? Challenging the causes of inequality, however, is not the purpose of this particular article.





Small-scale incidents like the one I witnessed last week or large-scale ones like Occupy Wall Street may increase as the rich quickly gets richer. The only way to halt or at least calm social, anti-neoliberal movements is to challenge the status quo; that is, look inequality in the eye and confront it! Confronting inequality would require the implementation of certain interventionist policies. Would interventionism enrich the economy of one state or oppress it? You, dear reader, judge. Before attempting to challenge inequality, we should all at least acknowledge the importance of the issue and not underestimate its social consequences.



By Badar Al-Dehani

[email protected]