Actually, some of you are beginning to remind me of some of my old Sixth Formers, who seemed to imagine the half dozen or so computers they had dotted around the house might have been knocked up in a wooden shack in Albania.

'The answer, of course, is to abolish the electorate of each country that has what is often called democracy and create a new one.  Out of thin air if necessary.  Meanwhile, try persuading the consumer that that new ipad/flat screen TV/new car/whatever isn't really necessary to their well-being.  Try interfering in existing markets i.e. the distribution of goodies and see what the consequences turn out to be.  Of course, we could always run car boots, Soviet-style, trading home-distilled vodka for Pink Floyd records.'

You really think the government doesn't interfere in existing markets? The bank bailouts are only an extreme example.

As for electorates and democracy: much of the rest of Europe has rejected neoliberalism and replaced it with social democracy. One of the reasons why much of the rest of Europe is superior to the UK in many respects. Many of those countries have PR though, which is far more democratic than the UK system, where so many people detest the Tories and vote against them, yet they always end up in power. As for the US: it's highly debatable whether it is actually a democracy any more. I say no.

Your final sentence suggests or implies that the only alternative to neoliberalism is Eastern Bloc communism. FFS.

Or any sense of humour.

Wasn't expecting this turn in the thread (but will try to loop it back round to ivy at the end). If ever there was a need for the quote function to work! Before we get reprimanded for talking politics...

Neoliberalism (or neoliberalisation) is indeed a slippery term. And you're right, neoliberalism seems to be everywhere these days, so does it lose it's meaning? I would say, no, it is a highly valuable, if ambiguous, term that is helpful to make sense of an uncertain, crisis-ridden world we're living in (and how these crises are responded to), even if neoliberalism may be seen to take hold differently, in different times and places. Geography and history matters to all this.

It's useful to think about neoliberalism across different registers:

*Neoliberalism as a class project*: Characterised clearly by the massive redistribution of wealth upwards from labour to capital over recent decades, anti-trade unions (through laws and often backed up by police violence), the growing influence of global finance capital (rather than productive sectors, i.e. making stuff). This is clearly apparent in the growing social and spatial inequalities across UK and US. Although the narrative is 'free markets', usually comes backed by heavy state intervention, domestically or elsewhere, rolling back welfare states to something a lot more punitive. Chile in the 1970s would be an obvious example, as well as in the UK and US.

*Neoliberalism as ideology*: How ideas are mobilised as 'common sense' to frame how we understand an uncertain world. A good example of this would be, following massive bailout of the banks following the global financial crisis, that this was framed as a public debt crisis whereby there is a need to 'pay down the deficit', used to legitimise huge cuts to local government budgets, in particular (with clear impacts on more vulnerable social groups). This was of course only one response to the crisis - but it was framed very much as 'There is no alternative' (Thatcherism very influential working on 'common sense'). Heavy influence of Chicago school who were peddling these ideas in the 1960s, and still with lots of think-tanks etc today.

*Neoliberalism as governing ourselves*: How we might imagine, police and work on ourselves in particular ways, for instance, how we might see ourselves as 'entrepreneurs' or 'small business owners' rather than 'workers' or how we might see ourselves as responsible for our own success/failure in life, rather than wider social and political forces (e.g. the instabilities of capitalist economies, structural racism etc) or even how we might monitor our own productivity through iphones and apps and what not.

This obviously plays out differently, and is pushed back against and reworked in lots of different ways in different cities and regions as well as countries. The City of London, for instance, has been particularly influential in shaping places around the world in terms of the prevailing forms of globalisation, the influences of finance and debt etc - which in term has created all kinds of divisions within London and beyond (e.g. in relation to housing).

There is a growing tendency of liberals (read Observer writers) who deny the existence of neoliberalism, usually because like to think of themselves of being nice and left wing, despite holding quite obviously right-leaning views and don't like being called out on their hypocrisy (and tend to see themselves as somehow outside ideology).

Looping it back to Ivy: well, in the 'heyday', mass produced ivy league clothes were often (not always) union-made, and their lasting quality was a selling point whereas now the pressure is on ever more rapid consumption, buy more, more quickly, often on credit. Those US companies have struggled to remain viable, usually moving production overseas where labour is generally much cheaper. They then tend to get asset stripped over time, and taken over so that all that lasts is their name. I'm sure more could be said there, but I'm getting very boring now I'm sure!

And Colin you were just moving on to the most interesting aspects with regard to 'our' interests in in Ivy. Not boring at all.

A related topic is nostalgia in general and ivy in particular, and how one or both appeal to people of completely different political tendencies.

AFS,
Yes, great socks.
I thought Paul only got a random selection as opposed to stocking the full range?
Have they stopped selling them?

^ Sorry.  The Weller jibe does not mean that the website is not functioning.

More seriously, has anyone seen that poly/dacron 'Museum Piece' Brooks shirt being offered on Ebay?

'Eeeeeeeee...' as they used to say in the EC comics.

The Weller collaboration is about 35 years too late.
The Cafe Blu period has got to be one of the most beautiful dressed periods in pop.
The look Weller wears to the recording of Band Aid - tasseled loafers, college scarf, the tweed polo coat – is possibly the defining look of the early Style Council.
The white raincoat, the red bell sleeved cardigan, the mauve Smedley polo shirt. All things of beauty.
Add to this white Levi's, suede Golden Bear blouson. Now this would be collection worth remortgaging your house for.

https://husbands-paris.com/en/paul-weller/

I have to agree with Uncle here, when I met PW in JS there was no big ‘I am’ about him and he complimented me on my madras jacket, so immediately struck me as man of great taste and insight.  He could do with a haircut though.

I like the PW/JSA fair isle yoke sweaters but I'm not a fan of crew neck sweaters of any description without seeing a collar underneath.
It probably goes back to childhood and scratchy knitwear.
As with all these things it's a matter of personal taste. I have no axe to grind about PW.

As per my post above I genuinely think that in a decade known for excess, that started off with men in mascara and ended up with men in dayglo, The Style Council remain one of the most visually relevant groups to people of a certain age interested in Ivy/Modernism.

I listed a few of the classic items worn around this time and no doubt many came from Russell Street. I still think most of it would still work today.

Without any inside info I'm guessing the JS sale will start this weekend, anyone got their eye on anything they hope pops up in the sale ?, footwear is usually excluded from the sale,