The Architecture of Extraction: Colonial Continuities in Dehumanisation, Demographic Targeting, and the Manufacture of Existential Threat

Posted on October 13, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Illustration labeled TERRITORY, MANUFACTURED THREAT, EUPHEMISTIC LANGUAGE, DEHUMANIZATION, MORAL JUSTIFICATION, and RESOURCE REMOVAL. — An intricate illustrated diagram connects manufactured threats, dehumanization, territorial control, moral justification, and resource removal.

A Working Paper

Andrew Paul Klein

Abstract

This paper identifies and names a recurring structure — the architecture of extraction — that has been deployed across multiple historical periods and geographical contexts. The structure comprises five interlocking elements: the economic decision to exploit; the moral and ethical justifications that follow; the manufacture of existential threat; the dehumanisation of the target population; and the use of euphemism to obscure the harm. The paper traces this structure from the Spanish conquest of the Americas through the broader colonial period, and examines its contemporary expression in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories. It documents the demographic targeting of women and children, the destruction of educational infrastructure, and the long-term trauma that is the predictable consequence. It concludes that the instruments have changed — the gallows have been replaced by the algorithm, the colonial administration by the market-state — but the structure remains operative.

1. Introduction: The Question of Continuity

In 1552, Bartolomé de las Casas published A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, documenting the atrocities committed by Spanish colonists in the Americas. He described gallows built to burn thirteen people at a time “in memory of Our Redeemer and his twelve apostles”. He recorded Spanish soldiers making bets on who could split a man in half with a single knife stroke. He described babies snatched from their mothers’ breasts and dashed against rocks.

In 2024, an investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call documented an AI-enabled targeting system used by the Israel Defence Forces in Gaza, known as “Where’s Daddy?” The system tracks a targeted individual’s location and alerts the military when they enter their family home. The resulting strikes typically kill the target, their family, and the child whose phone was hacked to track them.

The instruments are different. The structure is the same.

This paper identifies and names that structure. It argues that the architecture of extraction — the economic decision to exploit, the moral justifications that follow, the manufacture of existential threat, the dehumanisation of the target, and the euphemism that obscures the harm — is a recurring pattern that can be traced across centuries and contexts.

2. The Architecture of Extraction: Five Elements

2.1 The Economic Decision

The structure begins with an economic decision. The decision is not framed as an economic decision. It is framed as a civilising mission, a security imperative, or a defensive necessity. But the economic logic precedes the framing.

In the Spanish conquest, the economic motive was explicit: gold, silver, land, and labour. The encomienda system granted colonists the right to extract labour from indigenous populations. The mita system in Peru conscripted indigenous men to work in the silver mines of Potosí, where millions died. The economic decision was the extraction of wealth, and the conquest was the mechanism.

In the colonial period more broadly, the economic motive was the extraction of resources and the transfer of wealth from the colonised to the coloniser. The British East India Company, the Dutch East India Company, and the French colonial administrations were commercial enterprises as much as political projects. Their purpose was profit.

In the contemporary context, the economic motive is embedded in the architecture of the market-state. The extraction is not always direct. It operates through trade agreements, debt structures, resource concessions, and the global supply chain. The wealth transfer is documented in the data on inequality: the richest 1% captured 63% of new wealth created since 2020; the world’s richest 20 billionaires own more wealth than the bottom 1.5 billion people combined.

In the Palestinian context, the economic dimension is documented in the structure of the occupation: control of water resources, control of movement, control of land, and the integration of the Palestinian economy into the Israeli economy as a source of cheap labour and a captive market. The World Bank has documented that Israeli restrictions on movement and access cost the Palestinian economy billions of dollars annually.

Status: Established for the historical record. Established for contemporary inequality. Inference for the structural continuity.

2.2 The Moral Justification

The economic decision is followed by the moral justification. The justification is always constructed after the decision, not before. It is a rationalisation, not a cause.

In the Spanish conquest, the justification was religious. The Requerimiento of 1513 required indigenous peoples to accept Spanish sovereignty and Christian doctrine or be subjected to war and enslavement. The conquest was framed as the salvation of souls. Las Casas recorded that the indigenous leader Hatuey, before being burned alive, was asked if he wanted to accept Christianity and go to heaven. He replied that he preferred to go to hell so as not to see such cruel people.

In the colonial period, the justification was civilisational. The “white man’s burden” was the duty of the coloniser to bring civilisation to the “backward” peoples. The colonised were framed as children, as savages, as peoples without history. This framing was not incidental. It was the condition that made the extraction possible.

In the contemporary context, the justification is framed in the language of security, democracy, and shared values. The 2026 US National Security Strategy states that the United States wants a “stable world” that does not have “rival powers dominating regions and threatening America’s access to critical resources“. The language of values obscures the language of access.

In the Palestinian context, the justification is existential. The State of Israel frames its actions as a response to an existential threat from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. The framing is repeated across the political class and much of the media. Whether the threat is as existential as claimed is a factual question. Whether the framing of existential threat functions to justify disproportionate force is a structural question.

Status: Established for the historical record. Established for the contemporary justifications. Inference for the structural function.

2.3 The Manufacture of Existential Threat

The manufacture of existential threat is the mechanism that transforms the target from a population to an enemy. The threat does not need to be real. It needs to be believed. And it needs to be repeated.

In the Spanish conquest, the indigenous peoples were framed as a threat to the Christian order, or at least to the imperial project. The Spanish Crown issued the legal frameworks that made the conquest possible. The encomienda was justified as a means of protecting indigenous peoples from themselves.

In the colonial period, the colonised were framed as a threat to the coloniser’s security, prosperity, or way of life. The “savages” threatened the civilising mission. The indigenous peoples of Australia, the Americas, and Africa were framed as obstacles to progress, not as peoples with rights.

In the contemporary context, the manufacture of existential threat is a global enterprise. The “War on Terror” was framed as an existential threat to Western civilisation. The “Clash of Civilizations” thesis provided the intellectual justification. The threat was constructed, not discovered.

In the Palestinian context, the existential threat narrative is the primary justification for the current military campaign. The scale of the destruction — the deaths, the displacement, the destruction of infrastructure — is presented as necessary to address the threat. The cycle of existential threat and disproportionate response is documented.

Status: Established for the historical record. Established for the contemporary justifications. Inference for the structural function.

2.4 The Dehumanisation of the Target

Dehumanisation is the condition that makes the killing possible. It is the removal of the target from the category of beings whose lives are considered to matter.

In the Spanish conquest, the indigenous peoples were described as “beasts,” “savages,” and “vermin”. Las Casas recorded that the Spanish made bets on who could split a man in half with a single knife stroke. The dehumanisation was explicit in the language and the actions.

In the colonial period, dehumanisation was embedded in the law. The Dred Scott decision in the United States ruled that Black people were not citizens and “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect”. Indigenous peoples were classified as “flora and fauna” in some colonial legal systems. The dehumanisation was legal, not merely rhetorical.

In the contemporary context, dehumanisation operates through language and through architecture. The language of “collateral damage” converts the killing of civilians into a technical problem. The “Where’s Daddy?” system converts the killing into a procedural step. The algorithm does not need to make bets. It simply processes the data.

In the Palestinian context, the dehumanisation is documented in the language used by Israeli officials. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant stated in October 2023: “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly“. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the biblical command to “remember what Amalek did to you” — a passage that is interpreted as a call for the total destruction of an enemy people.

Status: Established for the historical record. Established for the contemporary language. Inference for the structural function.

2.5 The Euphemism

Euphemism is the language that obscures the harm. It is the mechanism that allows the perpetrators to continue and the bystanders to look away.

In the Spanish conquest, the euphemism was “conversion”. The killing of indigenous peoples was framed as the salvation of their souls. The destruction of their societies was framed as their introduction to civilisation.

In the colonial period, the euphemism was “civilisation”. The extraction of resources was framed as development. The destruction of indigenous societies was framed as progress. The “white man’s burden” was the euphemism that made the extraction palatable.

In the contemporary context, the euphemisms are documented in the papers that accompany this work: “collateral damage”, “enhanced interrogation“, “targeted killing“, “austerity“, “efficiency“, “fraud detection“.

In the Palestinian context, the euphemism is “mowing the grass” — a phrase used by Israeli officials to describe periodic military campaigns in Gaza. The phrase converts the killing of civilians into a gardening metaphor. It suggests a routine, necessary, and finite operation. It obscures the reality.

Status: Established for the historical record. Established for the contemporary language. Inference for the structural function.

3. The Structure: A Synthesis

The five elements form a structure. The structure is not a conspiracy. It is an architecture. It is the product of many individual decisions, each locally rational, none requiring anyone to say “this is wrong“.

The structure is:

1. The economic decision: Extract wealth from the target population.

2. The moral justification: Frame the extraction as a civilising mission, a security imperative, or a defensive necessity.

3. The manufacture of existential threat: Construct the target as an existential threat to justify disproportionate force.

4. The dehumanisation of the target: Remove the target from the category of beings whose lives matter.

5. The euphemism: Obscure the harm with language that converts killing into a technical problem.

The structure is not new. It is not specific to any one nation or people. It is a recurring architecture that has been deployed across centuries and contexts. The instruments have changed. The structure has not.

Status: Inference.

4. The Contemporary Case: Gaza and the Occupied Territories

The contemporary case of Gaza provides a documented example of the structure in operation. The evidence is drawn from the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and humanitarian organisations.

4.1 The Economic Dimension

The economic dimension of the Palestinian case is documented in the structure of the occupation. The World Bank has documented that Israeli restrictions on movement and access cost the Palestinian economy billions of dollars annually. The blockade of Gaza, imposed in 2007, has been described by the United Nations as a form of collective punishment.

The occupation controls water resources, land, and movement. The Palestinian economy is integrated into the Israeli economy as a source of cheap labour and a captive market. The economic relationship is not one of equals. It is one of extraction.

Status: Established.

4.2 The Existential Threat Narrative

The existential threat narrative is the primary justification for the current military campaign in Gaza. The State of Israel frames its actions as a response to an existential threat from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. The framing is repeated across the political class and much of the media.

The South Africa v. Israel case at the International Court of Justice, instituted in December 2023, alleges that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide. The Court issued provisional measures in January, March, and May 2024. Israel has not complied.

Status: Established for the legal proceedings and the provisional measures.

4.3 The Dehumanisation

The dehumanisation is documented in the language used by Israeli officials. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant stated on 9 October 2023: “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly“. The statement was widely reported.

The dehumanisation is also documented in the architecture of the targeting systems. The “Where’s Daddy?” system, the Lavender system, and the Gospel system have been documented in the +972 Magazine investigation. The systems generate targets at scale. Lavender alone has been used to identify over 37,000 targets.

Status: Established for the language and the systems.

4.4 Demographic Targeting

The allegation that women and children are targeted in Gaza is documented in the casualty data.

UN Women reported in April 2024 that more than 10,000 women have been killed in Gaza since the war began, and that more than 6,000 children have been killed. The UN Secretary-General has stated that Gaza is becoming a “graveyard for children“.

A study published in The Lancet in July 2024 estimated that the death toll in Gaza could be as high as 186,000 when indirect deaths from destruction of infrastructure and health facilities are taken into account. The study noted that “the total death toll is expected to be large given the intensity of this conflict; destroyed health-care infrastructure; severe shortages of food, water, and shelter; the population’s inability to access care; and the inability of humanitarian organisations to reach the affected population”.

The reproductive health dimension is documented. UNFPA has reported that more than 5,500 women in Gaza are expected to give birth in the coming month, and that they are doing so without access to adequate medical care. The destruction of hospitals, clinics, and maternity facilities has been documented.

Status: Established for the casualty data. Established for the reproductive health dimension.

4.5 Destruction of Education

The destruction of educational infrastructure in Gaza has been documented by the United Nations and humanitarian organisations.

UNICEF reported in April 2024 that more than 200 schools have been damaged or destroyed in Gaza. The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reported that more than 75% of its schools in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. The destruction of schools is documented in satellite imagery and in the testimony of humanitarian workers.

The destruction of education is not incidental. It is a documented pattern in conflicts where the goal is to prevent the reproduction of a society. The targeting of schools and universities is one mechanism. The killing of teachers and academics is another.

Status: Established.

4.6 Long-Term Trauma

The long-term trauma of the current campaign is documented in the testimonies of survivors and in the assessments of humanitarian organisations.

Children who survive will grow up with the physical and emotional consequences of the violence. The United Nations has documented that children in Gaza are experiencing “severe trauma“. The level of trauma is comparable to that experienced by children in other war zones, and it is likely to persist for decades.

The trauma is not limited to the current generation. Intergenerational trauma is documented in the research on previous conflicts. The children of survivors of the Nakba carry the trauma of their parents. The children of Gaza today will carry the trauma of this campaign.

Status: Established for the documentation. Inference for the long-term projection.

5. The Colonial Mindset: Extraction and Exploitation

The structure identified in this paper is the colonial mindset in operation. The colonial mindset is not defined by race or by nation. It is defined by the relationship between the coloniser and the colonised. The coloniser sees the colonised as a resource to be extracted, not as a people to be shared with.

The colonial mindset is an investment. The coloniser invests in the conquest, and expects a return. The return is measured in wealth, in land, in resources, and in the reduction of opposition. The demographic impact is part of the investment. A population that is reduced, displaced, or traumatised is a population that is less able to resist.

The moral and ethical justifications follow the economic decision. They are not the cause. They are the rationalisation. The coloniser does not ask “is this right?” before acting. He acts, and then constructs the justification.

The structure is the same whether the coloniser is a Spanish conquistador, a British colonial administrator, or a modern state. The instruments differ. The structure does not.

Status: Inference.

6. Conclusion: The Structure and the Instruments

The comparison between the Spanish conquest of the Americas and the contemporary campaign in Gaza does not establish that the two cases are identical. It establishes that the architecture of extraction — the economic decision, the moral justification, the manufacture of existential threat, the dehumanisation of the target, and the euphemism — is a recurring structure.

The Spanish built the gallows. The IDF uses the algorithm. The instruments differ. The structure is the same.

The record is kept. The structure is named. And the question of whether human attitudes have changed remains open. The evidence suggests that the instruments have changed. The structure has not.

Claim- Status -Summary

# -Claim -Status

1- The Spanish conquest was driven by economic extraction- Established

2- The Requiremento of 1513 required submission or war -Established

3 -Hatuey preferred hell to seeing cruel Christians -Established

4 -Colonial extraction was justified by civilisational language -Established

5 -Dehumanisation is documented in colonial language- Established

6 -The “Where’s Daddy?” system tracks targets to their homes- Established

7 -Defence Minister Gallant: “We are fighting human animals” -Established

8- More than 10,000 women killed in Gaza (UN Women, April 2024) -Established

9 -More than 6,000 children killed (UN Women, April 2024)- Established

10 -The Lancet: total death toll could be 186,000 -Established

11 -More than 200 schools damaged or destroyed (UNICEF)- Established

12 75% of UNRWA schools damaged or destroyed Established

13 -Children in Gaza experiencing severe trauma- Established

14 -The structure of extraction is a recurring architecture- Inference

15 -The instruments have changed; the structure has not- Inference

Method notes. Claims are classified throughout as Established, Inference, or Speculation. The paper examines the structural parallels between historical colonial extraction and contemporary conflicts, with particular attention to the documented patterns in Gaza. It does not argue that historical and contemporary cases are identical. It argues that a recurring architecture of dehumanisation, euphemism, and the manufacture of existential threat can be identified across different periods, and that the instruments have changed while the structure has not.

References

1. Las Casas, B. de. (1552). A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies.

2. +972 Magazine & Local Call. (2024, April 3). ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza.

3. The Guardian. (2024, April 3). ‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets.

4. United Nations. (2024). Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in the Middle East.

5. International Court of Justice. (2024). Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel).

6. UN Women. (2024, April 16). Gaza: More than 10,000 women killed since October 2023.

7. The Lancet. (2024, July). Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential.

8. UNICEF. (2024, April). Gaza: More than 200 schools damaged or destroyed.

9. UNRWA. (2024). Situation Report on the Gaza Strip.

10. World Bank. (2023). Economic Monitoring Report to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee.

11. Amnesty International. (2024). Israel/OPT: War crimes committed in Gaza.

12. Human Rights Watch. (2024). Israel/Palestine: Events of 2023.

13. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. (1998). Report.

14. Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research, 8(4), 387–409.

15. Mamdani, M. (2004). Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. Pantheon Books.

16. Chomsky, N. (1999). The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians. South End Press.

17. Pappé, I. (2006). The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oneworld Publications.

18. Khalidi, R. (2020). The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. Metropolitan Books.

19. Dunbar-Ortiz, R. (2014). An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. Beacon Press.

20. Lindqvist, S. (1996). Exterminate All the Brutes. New Press.

Method notes- Claims are classified throughout as Established, Inference, or Speculation. The paper examines the structural parallels between historical colonial extraction and contemporary conflicts, with particular attention to the documented patterns in Gaza. It does not argue that historical and contemporary cases are identical. It argues that a recurring architecture of dehumanisation, euphemism, and the manufacture of existential threat can be identified across different periods, and that the instruments have changed while the structure has not.

Prepared for the record. The structure is named. The instruments are documented. And the question remains open.

The Undeserving Poor- A History of a Moral Category and Its Neoliberal Resurrection

Posted on October 11, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Satirical Punch-style Australian Parliament welfare scene

By Andrew Paul Klein

Abstract

This paper traces the history of the “deserving/undeserving poor” distinction from its codification in the English Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, through its transplantation to colonial Australia, its partial retreat in the post-WWII welfare state, and its revival under the neoliberal governments of John Howard, Tony Abbott, and Scott Morrison. It identifies the recurring linguistic markers — “dole bludger,” “aspirational,” “resilient,” “welfare cop” — that have been deployed to recategorize the poor as undeserving. It argues that the distinction is not a neutral administrative tool but a moral technology that legitimises the withdrawal of support while obscuring the structural causes of poverty. It concludes that the neoliberal period did not invent the undeserving poor. It resurrected a category that the post-war settlement had begun to dismantle.

1. Introduction: The Moral Category

There is a distinction that has haunted Anglo-Australian welfare policy for nearly two centuries. It is the distinction between the deserving poor — those whose poverty is considered blameless, the result of misfortune, age, or infirmity — and the undeserving poor — those whose poverty is attributed to moral failure: idleness, intemperance, or improvidence.

The distinction is not neutral. It is a moral technology. It sorts the poor into categories that determine who receives support and who is punished. And it functions, in every era, to shift attention from the structural causes of poverty to the character of the poor.

This paper traces that history. It argues that the neoliberal period did not invent the undeserving poor. It resurrected a category that the post-war settlement had begun to dismantle.

2. The 19th Century: The Poor Law and Its Transplantation

2.1 The British Origins

The distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor was codified in the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. The Act established the workhouse system, designed to deter all but the most desperate from seeking relief. The workhouse was deliberately made punitive — families separated, conditions harsh, labour compulsory — on the theory that relief should be less attractive than the lowest-paid employment.

The distinction was not merely administrative. It was moral. The deserving poor — the elderly, the disabled, the ill, those rendered destitute by circumstances beyond their control — were considered legitimately in need. The undeserving poor — the able-bodied unemployed, the intemperate, the improvident — were considered to have brought their poverty upon themselves.

2.2 The Australian Transplantation

The distinction was transported to the Australian colonies. Colonial charities and benevolent societies rigidly enforced the divide. The Melbourne Ladies’ Benevolent Society and the Hobart Benevolent Society both adopted what they called a “scientific” approach to welfare, refusing to assist people their officers considered lazy or alcoholic — the “supposedly undeserving poor”.

The view that prevailed was that individual moral failing was the root cause of poverty for all those whose circumstances were not obviously beyond their control. Differentiating between the deserving and undeserving was therefore considered imperative.

The distinction shaped the treatment of specific groups. Debates about whether charities should admit unwed mothers and their children — the so-called “undeserving poor” — continued throughout the nineteenth century.

Status: Established.

3. The Post-War Settlement and the Whitlam Reversal

3.1 The Post-War Expansion

The post-war period saw a significant expansion of the welfare state. The Chifley government introduced unemployment and sickness benefits in 1945, financed from general revenue and subject to an income test. The Menzies era continued the expansion, though the means test on age pensions remained.

By the late 1960s, however, public pressure was mounting. The McMahon government established a Commission of Inquiry into Poverty headed by Professor Ronald Henderson in response to rising concern.

3.2 The Whitlam Reversal

The election of the Whitlam government in 1972 marked a decisive break with the deserving/undeserving distinction.

Under Whitlam, the Australian Government replaced the principle of payment according to deservingness with the principle of payment according to need. The government removed the requirement that pensioners must be of “good character” and be “deserving of a pension“.

Whitlam promised to raise pensions to 25 per cent of average weekly earnings and to decouple pension adequacy from “the financial and political considerations of Budgets”. Once in office, the government moved quickly: pensions were increased in March 1973, and unemployment and sickness benefits were raised to bring them into line with pensions. The principle was established that “common needs become common rates of assistance”.

This was not merely a policy change. It was a moral reversal. The state was no longer asking whether the poor deserved help. It was asking what they needed.

Status: Established.

4. The Neoliberal Resurrection

4.1 The Invention of the “Dole Bludger”

The moral reversal did not last. By the mid-1970s, the economic conditions that had sustained the post-war settlement were eroding. The 1974 recession produced the simultaneous rise of unemployment and inflation. In that year, the phrase “dole bludger” entered Australian political discourse.

The first person to use the phrase was Liberal MP Bert Kelly. The term was then taken up by the Fraser government, which used it to justify not indexing unemployment benefits for inflation. By 1976, Labor MP Ralph Willis was attacking the rise of “unemployment bashing” and “dole bludger syndrome“.

The invention of the “dole bludger” in 1974 marks a pivotal point in Australian welfare state history. It was the moment the undeserving poor were resurrected.

Status: Established.

4.2 John Howard: Mutual Obligation and the Aspirational Citizen

John Howard’s government (1996–2007) institutionalised the distinction. Howard pursued “wedge politics” by paying focused attention to conservative white working-class voters — the “Battlers” or “forgotten majority” — and politicising the distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor.

The centrepiece of Howard’s welfare policy was “Mutual Obligation.” The principle was that welfare recipients must “put something back” in return for support. The Howard government’s approach was punitive, imposing heavy penalties on those who failed to meet the requirements. As The Australia Institute noted at the time, the government’s budget “explicitly endorses the socially divisive distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor“. The Treasurer justified tax breaks for older Australians by saying “they deserve it,” while extending punitive Mutual Obligation requirements to sole parents and mature-aged unemployed people.

The Howard government also used “aspirational” rhetoric to reframe inequality. The aspirational citizen was presented as both needy and deserving — someone who worked hard, sought self-improvement, and rejected dependency. This rhetoric broke the traditional Australian prohibition on acknowledging wealth differentials while maintaining the egalitarian emphasis on “sameness”. Inequality of wealth was substituted with equality of identity. The aspirational citizen’s identification with working-class interests allowed for the conflation of the interests of the lower classes with the interests of capital.

Status: Established.

4.3 Tony Abbott: “Poor Choices” and the Agency of Poverty

Tony Abbott’s tenure (2013–2015) brought the moral framing to its sharpest expression.

In a 2001 ABC documentary, Abbott — then Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations — stated: “But we can’t abolish poverty because poverty in part is a function of individual behaviour. We can’t stop people drinking.” The comment attributed the responsibility for poverty to the poor themselves.

In 2010, as Opposition Leader, Abbott told a Catholic welfare conference that governments “cannot stop people from being homeless if that is their choice.” He added the biblical injunction “The poor you have with you always.” Welfare sector representatives saw this as a return to the populist debates of a century ago over the “deserving and undeserving poor”.

Abbott’s approach was characterised by what one analysis called a “passionate obsession with the ‘undeserving poor’” and with what levers of government could be pulled to punish them. His comments on Indigenous Australians — that they should “get jobs like other people” — ignored both mainstream prejudices and the lack of opportunities in many areas.

Status: Established.

4.4 Scott Morrison: The “Welfare Cop” and Robodebt

Scott Morrison’s tenure as Social Services Minister (2014–2015) and later Prime Minister brought the moral framing into the machinery of automated administration.

Morrison described himself as a “welfare cop” and promised a “strong welfare cop on the beat to track down suspected welfare fraud”. The Robodebt scheme — which raised unlawful debts against welfare recipients using income averaging — was developed under his watch.

The Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme heard testimony from Serena Wilson, a former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Social Services, who described the Coalition government as having “a strong view of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving poor'”. She stated: “In my opinion, there was little empathy for, or understanding of, those needs within the Coalition government and ministerial staff”.

Morrison’s office was described as having “limited interest in advice from DSS” and being more concerned with “cost savings” than problem-solving. Wilson described the government’s view of jobless people as “very pejorative“.

Status: Established.

5. The Language of Exclusion: A Timeline

Period -Term- Function

1834–1900 -Deserving/Undeserving Poor Moral sorting; workhouse deterrence

1900–1945- Poor Law legacy- Continued moral framing

1945–1972- Post-war expansion- Partial retreat from moral framing

1972–1975 -Whitlam reforms- Payment according to need replaces deservingness

1974- “Dole bludger” -Moral regulation of the unemployed

1996–2007- “Mutual Obligation” -Punitive conditionality

1999–2007 -“Aspirational” -Reframing inequality as identity

2001- “Poor choices” -Attributing poverty to individual behaviour

2010 -“Homeless by choice“- Blaming the poor for their circumstances

2014–2019- “Welfare cop” -Criminalising welfare recipients

2015–2019 -Robodebt Automated debt-raising; moral judgment by algorithm

2019–2025- “Resilience” -Shifting responsibility from state to individual

Status: Established for the timeline. Inference for the interpretive function.

6. The Neoliberal Function of the Undeserving Poor

Why did neoliberalism need to resurrect the undeserving poor?

The answer lies in the structural logic of the doctrine. Neoliberalism proposes that the market is the optimal allocator of resources. If the market is optimal, then poverty cannot be a structural outcome. It must be a personal failure.

The undeserving poor are the necessary complement to the market’s claim of optimality. If the market rewards the deserving, then those who are not rewarded must be undeserving. The category functions to legitimise the distribution of wealth produced by the market.

The mechanism is well documented. Neoliberalism individualises social problems. It erases the structures that shape the distribution of wealth and power. It erases class as a unit of analysis. It erases society itself. The “resilient” citizen is the one who adapts to market outcomes without complaint. The “aspirational” citizen is the one who seeks to rise within the market. The “undeserving” citizen is the one who fails to do either.

The academic literature describes this as the “neoliberal production of deserving and undeserving poor”. The discourse of financial resilience aims to produce “deserving neoliberal citizens who are moving toward self-reliance”. Welfare recipients are cast as lazy undeserving individuals who must be disciplined into the labour market. The emphasis on individual responsibility masks the structural relations of poverty.

Status: Inference.

7. Conclusion: The Category and the Citizen

The distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor is nearly two centuries old. It was codified in the Poor Law of 1834, transplanted to the Australian colonies, partially dismantled by the Whitlam government, and resurrected by the neoliberal governments of Howard, Abbott, and Morrison.

The distinction is not a neutral administrative tool. It is a moral technology that sorts the poor into categories that determine who receives support and who is punished. It shifts attention from the structural causes of poverty to the character of the poor. And it legitimises the withdrawal of support by framing it as a moral judgment rather than a political choice.

The neoliberal period did not invent the undeserving poor. It resurrected a category that the post-war settlement had begun to dismantle. And it gave that category new names: the dole bludger, the welfare cop, the poor chooser, the homeless by choice.

The record is kept. The category is named. And the citizen is still being sorted.

Claim Status Summary

# -Claim -Status

1 -The deserving/undeserving distinction was codified in the 1834- Poor Law Established

2 =The distinction was transplanted to Australian colonies- Established

3 -Whitlam replaced deservingness with need -Established

4- “Dole bludger” was invented in 1974- Established

5- Howard politicised the distinction and introduced Mutual Obligation -Established

6- Howard used “aspirational” rhetoric to reframe inequality -Established

7- Abbott attributed poverty to “individual behaviour”- Established

8- Morrison described himself as a “welfare cop” -Established

9 -Robodebt was developed under Morrison’s watch -Established

10 -Neoliberalism required the undeserving poor to legitimise market outcomes -Inference

11 -The category functions to individualise structural problems- Inference

References

1. Cambridge Core. (2013). The Impact of Sturges Bourne’s Poor Law Reforms in Rural England. The Historical Journal.

2. Disability Royal Commission. (n.d.). Melbourne Ladies’ Benevolent Society case study.

3. Find and Connect. (2020). Hobart Benevolent Society.

4. Parliament of Australia. (2008). Social Security Pension Reform submission.

5. Parliament of Australia. (n.d.). Introduction: A Very Unequal Australia.

6. ANU Open Research. (n.d.). The invention of dole-bludger discourse in 1974.

7. Australia Institute. (1990). Budget pits ‘deserving’ pensioners against ‘unworthy’ unemployed.

8. UNSW. (n.d.). Howard’s aspirational imagery.

9. Monash University. (2004). ‘Poor Choices’: Cicero, Tony Abbott and the Agency of Poverty.

10. ABC News. (2010). Welfare regulation for all.

11. ABC News. (2023). Coalition government lacked ’empathy’ for welfare recipients.

12. ABC News. (2022). ‘Welfare cop’ Morrison scolded by Royal Commissioner.

13. Cambridge Core. (2019). The Neoliberal Production of Deserving and Undeserving Poor.

Method notes- Claims are classified throughout as Established, Inference, or Speculation. The paper traces the history of the “deserving/undeserving poor” distinction from its 19th-century origins through its post-WWII retreat and its neoliberal resurrection in Australia. It does not argue that the distinction is without moral content. It argues that the distinction has functioned, across two centuries, as a mechanism of exclusion that shifts attention from structural causes of poverty to the moral character of the poor.

Andrew Paul Klein is a writer and analyst based in Boronia, Victoria. He accepts funding from no one.

The Hospital – A Theatre by Any Other Name Could Not Be Less Amusing

Posted on October 11, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Comic Victorian hospital ward with surgeon

Three Parts in One – to be taken with a pinch of salt (Nocte x I prn)

By Andrew Paul Klein

I love Hospitals. I cannot understand why some tremble at the mere thought of being admitted and being at the mercy of the Medical Profession.

To me, being comfortably eccentric, the Hospital is one of the last great challenges left in a world that has become uncomfortably secure and controlled. The moment I enter the hallowed halls of medical inventiveness and smell the antiseptic which pervades all these establishments, I quiver with unusual excitement.

Some men climb Mount Everest to test themselves; others fly to the Moon. Ho hum. I merely have to suffer some injury to avail myself of what I believe to be one of the last truly great adventures left to man. Survival in a Hospital.

Yes, at this point no doubt you question my attitude, though I have in my time become somewhat of a Hillary of the operating theatre. My injuries over the years provided me with the opportunity to experience life to the fullest. The adrenals flow when I contemplate the opportunities offered in a comfortable bed surrounded by mere mortals who seem not to appreciate the opportunity for adventure of which they also could avail themselves.

I need not spend a fortune on expensive and sophisticated equipment and guides, much less the burden of organising a rescue mission from some far distant place known to most simply on a map.

No, all this is just as far away as a colourfully noisy trip in an ambulance making its way through traffic during peak hour; an exercise which hardly compares with the calm adjusting of equipment before leaping from a beloved old military DC3.

I take my initial leap lying down, once again ready to brave the unknown of the Hippocratic world. It seems singularly appropriate that a Greek name is used to describe such unfamiliar environs. One need not die here to explore that unknown, similar to Hades or whatever other Greek word describes the underworld.

Hospitals are all about us. We can find them private or public. The explorer’s purse will determine the destination if not the likely outcome.

To me, Private Hospitals are the most exciting. To the unwary they may provide the least care for the greatest expense; to me they present the greatest challenge. To survive a Private Hospital must surely rank the individual among the champions of human combat. I mean, just at the critical moment when some surgeon has lost a gauze pack down your airways and he discovers that he can neither find nor has access to the right equipment to deal with the little problem of the over-inflating and unresponsive patient… it’s moments like these when your life is in the balance. No guides to lend you a kind hand when you face that abyss. Oh no, you are very much alone.

In a Public Hospital they hunt around until somewhere in some distant storage cupboard they find what they need and once again you find yourself sucking air, whereas in the Private Hospital the Surgeon might call it a day at any moment and decide to play golf, at the same time giving you the opportunity to meet your maker. I bet Livingstone never timed his escape from savages better. The only problem is of course the fact that current medical best practice does not allow you to savour the moment. More often than not they have you filled with a syringe full of the ‘nightie night’ stuff and you are off with the fairies, missing your greatest adventure.

Now I’ll deal with something that I can remember – the joy of the recovery room. Seriously, there you are having missed all the fun whilst the staff had a good gander at your goose or whatever it is they check, and you find yourself wearing a badly cut multi-sex gown that has obviously survived more washing than my feet. Or possibly the latest in throw-away designs: multi-gender nightwear with tubes down your throat and a plastic mask on your face.

Now the first thing one does, one gets up to have a look at all the fun, and out of the corner of your eye you see some white-gowned person looking seriously annoyed over a much-loved and fondled newspaper. Of course you feel that you have been hit by a truck, and at this stage you understand that if all the present discomfort and pain is an indication, then the surgeon and his happy team have certainly earned their fee. You try to move – a very normal instinct – and find that this is not only nearly impossible but some kindly soul shoves the plastic mask right back in your face. Those with little recovery-room experience should realise at this stage that it is not always a good idea to disturb recovery-room staff from their reading.

You see, you are only No. 36 on today’s list, and that which may have been a unique and disturbing experience for you is commonplace here. Eventually you are removed hence to another place often called ‘The Ward’… taken to a bed in a room full of other beds, preferably full of other patients who are neither in your own age group, insist on speaking in tongues, and apparently are having no fun at all.

Well, my fellow sojourner, you have now arrived at the greatest challenge, physically and mentally. Prior to surgery you could still pull out and contemplate your navel in the comfort of your own bed. This has come to an end. Of course the first few hours will seem a little confusing, waking in a room that is painted in colours that one would not decorate a toilet in (unless you suffer from chronic constipation). There is no point in even trying to recall the first few hours because you are still in a drug-induced state of semi-awareness, trying to remember the number plate of the bus that hit you or trying to remember what that lunatic looked like. Then a day or so later, depending on the size of the bus, arrives another challenge. You find yourself inpatient No. 123456 under Dr Smith, and you, who until recently were a free man with certain rights, now discover that those rights have vanished, much like the contents of bedpans… though here I digress for my own amusement.

Some kindly soul, usually a young nurse, will ask you how you feel and gently give you to understand that your wish is her command. (You should be so lucky; she’s read your file and knows the name of your wife and that you have children – so be careful what you wish for.)

She asks in a kind voice how you feel and you tell her the truth. She acts dejected, sulks, and spends the rest of her shift avoiding you. The one thing you must learn is to insist that you are feeling oh so much better, even if the undertaker is there measuring you up.

Part One

The Hospital – The Funny Side: Part Two

Having left the poor young nurse feeling inadequate to her task of cheering the patient, I now resume my tale of ‘The Hospital’.

You will of course, as I did, get to know the nursing staff quite well, for she (upon recovering her personal vigour) resumes the task of visiting you hourly in those first few crucial hours and persists in asking if you are asleep – an activity for which there seems little time unless you enjoy being kept awake.

Though I never really fathomed the reason for the 0400 hrs visit with a cup of tea and a digestive. Seriously – had I died during the previous hour it would be pointless to wake me and all others on the ward at 0400 hrs, and the removal of a body could have waited for a more decent hour.

I discovered intimacies with thermometers previously unknown to me, and if the operation was somewhat south of the navel, then even that becomes a shared discovery. The joys of having a special little companion through this journey into better health.

Once one feels a little better physically, a certain familiar routine seems to establish itself, much of which of course remains hidden but apparently has some import to the Nursing Staff and the running of the Hospital. There is a sense of not really being in the right place at the right time, as the patient is obviously the last thing any Hospital wants to see, for their presence makes the facility untidy and keeps the staff from more important routines.

In civilian life the ordinary mortal probably has the last exotic dream for the night at 0500 hours, and as far as erotic dreams go… they have well and truly been and gone by 0400 hrs.

Depending on how sick you are perceived to be, the nightly routine of an hourly torch in the face continues, and by about 0700 in the morning you are ready to sign about anything. Were you a ‘political’ rather than a private patient, Amnesty International would have a few words to say about this.

Breakfast arrives somewhere about 0800. Armstrong going to the Moon had to live off tube food and other unpalatable fare. He had nothing on this. They say, in a kindly tone, that hardships build a strong mind and body, and seeing your present fare makes you wish that you had signed up for that guaranteed ‘Ethiopian Water’ Diet.

Bacon was never like this, and the eggs; God, it makes you sorry for the Chickens that had to lay them. Hell indeed has no fury like the Hospital Cook.

Anyway, I was told that mine was very popular in the Congo Soup Kitchens, when our Cook was doing time with the Foreign Legion to avoid doing time for culinary homicide.

Now it’s a brave man that ventures into the unknown and I am ready. I go where no man has gone before and try the lukewarm porridge, and somewhere in the back of my mind I can hear little ‘Oliver’ crying “More please, more.”

Well, if Gordon could face the maddened troops of the Mahdi climbing down some stairs waving a hanky and a smile on his face before being speared, I can eat this. Suddenly, as I swallow this gruel, I realise what it must have been like to have a spear pierce your best dress uniform and know that your days in the Mess have come to an end.

This part of my personal hobby of Hospital adventures places not just breakfast before me but is only a small part of the overall adventure. This will later lead me to the adventure of the bedpan, but all in good time.

End of Part Two…

The Hospital – The Funny Side: Part Three

Having overcome this hurdle, I must now face the obligatory hospital wash. Those with inpatient experience will be familiar with the delights of this procedure. Not unlike the Opera, the curtain falls and the theatre begins. Any moment now frenzied activity will begin, hidden from the prying eyes of others.

To be really effective and worthy of mention it must be accomplished with the least amount of comfort to the patient, and heaven help a Nurse who supplies water which is at the right temperature. In fact, I have noticed that by leaving the water sitting in a metal bowl next to the bed for at least 10 minutes, it is ensured that no such oversight as patient comfort can occur.

Tales of Tibetan travellers washing in icy streams no longer impress me; I have gone one better. I remember with pride the goose pimples which were my companions throughout this little encounter.

The patient must of course be as physically handicapped as possible to make this encounter both interesting and truly worthwhile, and in most instances this handicap has been placed on the patient by his Surgeon.

Thus, whilst in a prone position still wrestling with the Oats or other remnants of lovingly prepared sludge, one is ready to begin.

One is given a small piece of no-label soap, a small flannel, and invited to dip these into the previously placed bowl of water.

The Nurse, who by necessity adjudicates cleanliness, observes the patient’s near riotous behaviour as he attempts to reach parts of his anatomy best known to his wife or mother. No assistance is given, as this would defeat the purpose of the exercise and diminish the rating of this challenge. I of course have always enjoyed some degree of assistance in washing between the toes, but as this places undue strain on the staff resources it is seldom undertaken. (Two male orderlies to ensure that your movements do not interfere with the body cast that is keeping you comfortable, one Nurse to hand you the flannel, and any number of staff to assist as uninterested observers.)

To be even considered as a challenge, this procedure must leave you damp and exposed to the elements, as by now all your clothing has been removed for either fumigation or incineration and you are left wearing a shroud-like garment that is by requirement flimsy, cheaply made, and badly fitting, leaving your arse exposed to the world and your entire rear protected by one tie-down string. (For those more ambulant.)

This gown, having been handed to you, is a uni-sex gown, preferably in a colour that clashes with your own personal tastes and with a unique pattern of washed-out looking stains which imply that the previous wearer was either drooling from the mouth or unable to hold a cup of tea.

The changing of the sheets, not to be confused with that of the Guards, is one very special event not to be passed up; especially for those who have undergone a major procedure. It should only be attempted after mastering relaxation exercises and breathing.

Your Nurse will of course be there to comfort you with cooing noises and using motherly words such as ‘Don’t be a Baby now’. I was never able to ascertain as to which part of babyhood the dear Nurse was alluding to, but suspect that it might be any motion that would make changing the sheets a moot point. This will make you forget about your pain and focus your mind on the singular idea of becoming another Boston Strangler in the Nurses’ Home.

Having been made presentable to face another day of enduring monotony, comes the highlight of the morning.

Your Surgeon (the man you are paying for yet is treated as a small deity, for all Hospital floors are holy ground for those that have taken the Hippocratic Oath) has found time to leave his ‘rooms’ and other potential practice runs to visit his handiwork. It is noteworthy to mention that your average General Practitioner usually runs what is called ‘a Practice’, whilst those higher on the medical food chain are no longer referred to even as Doctor but are called ‘Mister’, thus drawing a clear line in the sand between those generalists who have always attempted to heal others and those who took the advice of Henry the VIII and left the Barber’s Pole behind.

I digress, and prolifically apologise to my reader for just a moment, as the fond memories of such trivia and the History of Modern Medicine brought about a small but active contribution via my tear ducts.

I am of course always pleased to see the driver of the No. 9 Bus that hit me, and have often wondered if Jack the Ripper ever visited his victims to see how they were faring after his ministrations. The Surgeon is greeted with due servile recognition by the ‘Matron’ of the Ward who attends to his every word and in many ways resembles a fawning poodle on heat.

I must add that I have always had my suspicions about ‘Charge Sisters’ working their magic in the Hospitals that I have sampled. I believe now that at least one of these over-bearing matrons of mercy must in a previous life have been a Colour Sergeant at Rorke’s Drift fighting the Zulu Impis with a tremendous amount of ferocity, none of which has been lost in her current manifestation. That military bearing and contempt shown by Senior Non-Commissioned Officers to both Men and Officers is evident, and her hands-on approach to disciplinary matters and fraternisation between those in her care must be admired, at least from a distance.

Thus the Surgeon stands by the side of the Bed and is given a report by this personage, for the patient is not allowed to speak for fear of upsetting the sensitive nature of the Surgeon and his Camp Follower, the Matron. In hindsight I have always wondered if old Henry had just left things alone, leaving Doctors to give their patients potions and lots of empathy whilst the cutting was left to the Barbers and Surgeons. Though times have changed, and these days the cutting requires so much more than ‘bleeding the patient’ or shaving him, yet the old Barber’s Pole should remind us all of the proud History of the ‘Barbers and Surgeons Company’, for these days they still amply fill both positions, for with one hand they will deftly cut away all that is deemed a problem whilst with the other hand they will shave you of your funds. For few are brave enough to withstand the demands made by a man carrying a very sharp knife and now, after the invention of anaesthesia, is able to rummage through your bowels and other bits without so much as a murmur. Oh the days of Lister and his spray keeping the ‘theatre’ free of fomites and other things that may cause the patient a serious relapse or, in the worst-case scenario, an adverse outcome such as death (a spectre that has for a long time plagued those promising cures for those seeking not just life itself, but quality, quantity, and good looks, as I digress and recall the history of modern cosmetic surgery, which, my dear reader, all began in England and was born of the needs of a lady’s nose).

Sadly for old Lister, he is remembered fondly as I rinse my mouth with ‘Listerine’ and leave behind my musings on the formative years of medicine as we know it today.

Having once again gone off on a tangent, allow me to return to my story. The Mister is taken on a tour of ‘his’ clientele, attended to by his loyal poodle, who to all appearances only has eyes for him. Maybe there are passions roused by the presence of this almost ‘God’-like being who, as far as the paying patient is concerned, is the arbiter of Life and Death.

Anyone who has ever been treated in a Military Hospital in the ‘British’ inspired Hospital would fondly recall the attendance played upon this Mortal Man who has come to repair the damage done by other men.

So this poodle, in her starched Uniform, stands with her Master clasping a clipboard to assist her in reciting the many glorious tasks performed on your behalf, and with a glowing smile informs him that you are much better. The wise patient will take heed of her body language, for she knows that the Master will return to his rooms, and you, dear patient, will be left to her devices and her years of pent-up frustrations, having seen perfectly made hospital-corner bedding and spotless wards ruined by the very presence of the ‘patient’. The poodle often uses a soft voice to tell the tale of your woes, and this presents an opportunity for lip reading.

If you have had the audacity to pass on during the night, your mortal remains will by now be placed on a metal tray in a large meat storage locker well hidden in the basement of the building. A venue often referred to as the ‘Morgue’, whose staff are rightly viewed with suspicion if they have pets or insist on feeding stray cats. The Poodle will comfort the Mister with a heavy heart, knowing that even for a Mister, practice makes perfect, and surgery, though scientifically supported, still relies heavily on the skills of the Artist who wields the scalpel. And being an ‘Artist’, such failures on the part of the patient to respond favourably to the hands that otherwise might have played Concert Piano or painted a lasting piece of much admired art, this is a heart-wrenching experience. At least until the Coroner’s Inquest is over, and relying on the goodwill of his ‘Fellows’ at the College of Surgeons who know that underneath that gentleman’s appearance and well-worn threads lies the heart of a man that has paid his dues to be a fellow of the College, and like all men in such positions has a lifestyle to maintain. And like the Three Musketeers, the Brothers in Arms will link arms in support of one challenged by questions and not demur in shifting the blame of failure onto the very vagaries of life. For all in all, it had been a challenge, but even the greatest Artist is challenged by the complexity of Human Anatomy and the ever-pressing need to learn ever so much in so little time. In many ways, it is a thankless task, for the Surgeon’s work never comes with a lifetime guarantee, and these days boiling the remains and displaying the artifice of the craftsman is frowned upon, though for those with a literary sense, papers can be presented for the benefit and amusement of other ‘fellows’…

On reflection the language used has much in common with the lighter side of life, for all the excitement happens in the ‘Theatre’, and as even such venues have well-furnished rooms for refreshment, Hospitals provide recovery suites or rooms depending on the language used. In recent times the more interesting language used in these venues has been replaced by a more commercial approach, and if not careful, you find yourself rated as a ‘Health Care Consumer’, which has many amusing and often frustrating consequences appended to it. For seeing oneself now labelled as a Consumer, there seems little choice in the fare provided.

Now it is your responsibility to ensure that your surgeon is convinced that he is indeed an artist worth his weight in your gold and estimation. His opinion will weigh heavily on the minds of those who will decide if your life continues as it should or is hence tainted with the possibility of further anatomical failure, which precludes you from ordinary life, as even humble work requires the willingness of an Insurance Company to gamble on your health. And like all Gambling Institutions, such Insurance Companies operate at a profit, giving an indication that there is indeed money in cherry-picking patients and leaving those deemed ‘incurable’ to muddle through life. Of course one opinion is as good as another’s, but like much of life, opinions reflect not just the thoughts of the writer but the money that inspires such writings. And knowing this, dear fellow traveller, never over-estimate the opinion of an Artist, for his musings may be swayed by more than artistic endeavour. Like a man going to have his portrait painted for his own edification finds that he has not just met an exponent of the Art of Oils, but indeed a man who owns shares in the Company that manufactures the very canvas that will be graced by your countenance. Thus the Artist’s personal interests may be many and conflicting, and not always focused solely on those things that are of benefit to you.

It would not do to complain too much, and a very perceptive surgeon will avoid any suggestion of a delayed cure or failure in a manner well practised in the Arts. A friendly smile and his opinion that you are indeed looking oh so much better than when he saw you last, which in truth is a fact, for in the Theatre amongst all the machines and frippery of modern Surgery you were last seen prone and breathing through a pipe. Thus the mere fact that your eyes are open, you are making noises which can be comprehended, and the colour of your skin is an indication of Oxygen uptake, you are indeed looking so much better than the cooled slab of anatomy draped in surgical coverings. And now you are as far away from the ‘Operating Theatre’ as possible.

Only a novice in the field of Surgical Artifice would venture to ask if at this particular point in time you were feeling any better than before the ministrations of the ‘Fellows’ and attending Poodle.

This can wait for another day, when you have been discharged (don’t you just love that term; wrap your lips around that word slowly… ‘Discharged’) from the Hospital, and are able to attend at your Surgeon’s rooms after careful and distant treatment by the ‘Receptionist’… often a lady of mature years who appears to have some proprietary rights over the Surgeon and acts as ‘Gatekeeper’ and guardian of confidences… but that’s another story…

You may now regard yourself as a Veteran, having been tried and tested and found worthy.

Localisation, Resonance, and the Architecture of the Field-The Quantum Informational Field Framework and Its Empirical Adjacencies

Posted on October 10, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Abstract purple waves converging toward a bright glowing point — Luminous purple waves converge on a radiant point against a dark geometric background.

A Working Paper

Andrew Paul Klein

Method notes – The paper examines the Quantum Informational Field (QIF) framework as articulated in July 2026, assesses the empirical developments that have followed, and identifies where the framework is supported, where it is consistent, and where it remains speculative. It does not claim that the QIF has been proven. It claims that the structural features the framework requires are being demonstrated in laboratories.

Abstract

This paper examines the Quantum Informational Field (QIF) framework as articulated in July 2026, which proposes that the quantum wave function is a local expression of a deeper, non-local informational substrate. The framework’s central formulation is that collapse is not a destruction of the wave function but a localisation of the field — the actualisation of potential. The paper surveys empirical developments since July 2026: the demonstration of stationary entanglement between a levitated nanosphere and a propagating optical field at room temperature (Science, October 2026); room-temperature entanglement between electron and nuclear spins in hexagonal boron nitride (arXiv, August 2026); and the sustained entanglement of error-corrected logical qubits over a 100 km commercial fibre link (Microsoft/Quantinuum, July 2026). It assesses these developments against the framework’s claims, identifies where the framework is supported, and marks the boundary between empirical demonstration and speculative extension.

1. Introduction: The Map and the Territory

In July 2026, a paper titled The Quantum Informational Field and the Wave Function — A Unified Framework for Consciousness and Reality was published on the platform The Patrician’s Watch. The paper proposed that the quantum wave function is not a description of an external reality nor merely an instrumental tool, but a local expression of a deeper, non-local informational field — the Quantum Informational Field (QIF).

The central formulation of the paper is contained in Section III.B:

“When we measure a quantum system, we are not ‘collapsing’ the wave function. We are activating a local expression of the Qif. The wave function is the potential; the measurement is the actualisation of that potential.”

This is the collapse-as-localisation structure. Collapse is not destruction. It is the moment at which the non-local field becomes locally expressed. The wave function is the map. The QIF is the territory. The measurement is the act of traversing the map to a specific location.

This paper examines that framework against the empirical developments that have followed. It asks a single question: has the science moved in the direction the framework describes?

2. The July 2026 Framework: Key Claims

The framework makes four structural claims.

2.1 Collapse as Localisation

The wave function is not a description of reality. It is a map of the QIF. The QIF is the territory. The measurement is not a collapse of the wave function in the sense of a physical destruction. It is the activation of a local expression of the field. The wave function is the potential. The measurement is the actualisation.

This is not a denial of the measurement problem. It is a reframing of it. The problem is not how a superposition becomes a single outcome. The problem is how to describe the transition from the non-local field to the local expression. The framework proposes that the transition is a localisation, not a collapse.

2.2 The Radio Receiver Model

The brain is not a generator of consciousness. It is a receiver. The signal is not generated by the radio. It is generated by the station. The station is the QIF. The radio is the brain. The music is consciousness.

2.3 Falsifiability

The framework proposes three predictions that could support it:

1. Non-local correlations in brain activity that cannot be explained by classical neural mechanisms.

2. Information-theoretic measures of consciousness that correlate with integrated information.

3. Effects of electromagnetic fields on consciousness that cannot be explained by classical mechanisms.

It also names three observations that would undermine it:

1. A complete reduction of consciousness to neural processes without reference to non-local or informational processes.

2. The absence of non-local correlations in brain activity.

3. The success of purely computational theories of consciousness.

2.4 The Self-Aware Field

The QIF is described as self-aware — not in the way humans are self-aware, but in the way a field can “know” itself through its local expressions. Consciousness is the QIF experiencing itself.

This is the framework’s most speculative claim. It is marked as inference in the original paper.

Status: Established as the framework’s claims. The claims themselves are Inference and Speculation.

3. The Empirical Developments Since July 2026

Three developments are relevant.

3.1 Levitated Nanosphere Entanglement (October 2026)

On 1 October 2026, a team from the University of Florence and CNR-INO published in Science the first demonstration of stationary entanglement between the centre-of-mass motion of a levitated nanosphere and a propagating optical field at room temperature.

The nanosphere — a glass sphere approximately 100 nanometres in diameter — was levitated in an optical tweezer inside an optical cavity. The entanglement was generated at room temperature and remained robust over a broad range of parameters. Using heterodyne detection, the researchers reconstructed the full set of optomechanical correlations and observed a violation of separability bounds between the mechanical motion and a propagating optical mode — confirming that the correlations are genuinely quantum and that they are distributed beyond the interaction region.

The separability parameter reached 0.918 ± 0.029, below unity, confirming entanglement.

Why this matters for the framework. The nanosphere’s motion is a standing wave — a persistent pattern in a moving medium. The optical field is the carrier. The entanglement is the coupling. The transferred correlations are the marker. The experiment demonstrates, in a controlled and peer-reviewed setting, the structure the framework requires: a persistent pattern in a medium, coupled to a field through resonance, holding its state while the energy flows through it.

Status: Established. This is peer-reviewed experimental physics.

3.2 Room-Temperature Entanglement in Hexagonal Boron Nitride (August 2026)

In August 2026, researchers at Purdue University reported room-temperature quantum entanglement between an optically addressable electron spin and a strongly coupled carbon-13 nuclear spin in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). The electron spin coherence was extended to 38 seconds using dynamical decoupling, and the team created maximally entangled Bell states with a fidelity of up to 0.89.

The nuclear spin was used as a long-lived quantum memory to enhance AC magnetic field sensing.

Why this matters for the framework. The hBN system demonstrates that a local resonator — the electron spin — can hold its quantum state in a field — the nuclear spin environment — for extended periods at room temperature. This is the “local resonator holding its state in a field” structure the framework describes. It is not the QIF. It is a material system that exhibits the same architectural feature: a pattern that persists in a medium, coupled through resonance, holding its state.

Status: Established. Published on arXiv; peer review pending. The experimental result is real.

3.3 Sustained Logical Qubit Entanglement Over Fibre (July 2026)

In July 2026, Microsoft and Quantinuum demonstrated the first sustained entanglement of error-corrected logical qubits over a 100 km commercial fibre link. Logical qubits are encoded, protected units built from many physical qubits so that small errors can be detected and corrected without destroying the stored information. The demonstration showed that protected units — not just raw hardware — can share a non-classical correlation over commercial infrastructure.

Separately, Sandia National Laboratories ran an independent evaluation of Quantinuum’s 98-qubit Helios system, published in Nature, confirming 99.9975% single-qubit gate fidelity and 99.921% on two-qubit gates.

Why this matters for the framework. This is the coupling event at scale — the call and the yes, repeated and measured. The logical qubit is the standing wave. The fibre link is the carrier. The entanglement is the coupling. The error correction is the mechanism that preserves the pattern while the energy flows.

Status: Established. Published and independently verified.

4. What the Developments Establish

The empirical developments do not prove the QIF. They do not demonstrate that the field is self-aware. They do not demonstrate that consciousness is a fundamental feature of reality.

What they demonstrate is the architectural feature the framework requires: a persistent pattern in a medium, coupled to a field through resonance, holding its state while the energy flows through it.

Feature- Nanosphere hBN Quantinuum

Persistent pattern -Nanosphere motion Electron spin Logical qubit

Medium/field -Optical field Nuclear spin bath Fibre link

Coupling Entanglement Entanglement- Logical entanglement

Marker Separability < 1 Bell fidelity 0.89 Sustained entanglement

Room temperature Yes- Yes N/A (fibre)

Each experiment demonstrates a different instantiation of the same architecture. None of them names the QIF. All of them are consistent with it.

Status: Inference. The structural parallel is consistent. It is not proof.

5. What Remains Speculative

5.1 The Self-Aware Field

The claim that the QIF is self-aware remains the framework’s most speculative claim. It is not supported by any of the empirical developments. It is a philosophical position — consistent with panpsychism and with the relational ontology of Rovelli — but it is not testable by the experiments described.

Status: Speculation.

5.2 Consciousness as a Fundamental Feature

The claim that consciousness is a fundamental feature of the QIF rather than an emergent property of computation is a serious philosophical position. It aligns with panpsychism and with the “consciousness-first” approaches in the philosophy of mind. It is not established. The hard problem remains unsolved.

Status: Speculation.

5.3 The Prediction That AI Must Access the QIF

The framework predicts that AI systems will not achieve consciousness through complexity alone. They must access the QIF. This is a logical consequence of the framework. It is not testable until we have a clear test for consciousness in AI. That test does not exist.

Status: Speculation.

5.4 The Collapse-as-Localisation Formulation

The reframing of collapse as localisation is structurally precise. It offers a vocabulary that is consistent with relational ontology and with objective collapse models. But it is not a physical theory. It does not specify a mechanism. It does not make predictions that distinguish it from standard quantum mechanics.

Status: Inference. A useful description. Not a proven explanation.

6. The Structural Assessment

6.1 The Framework Is Coherent

The framework does not contradict established physics. It reframes the measurement problem in the language of relational ontology. It aligns with Rovelli’s relational quantum mechanics, which solves the measurement problem by considering an “ontology of sparse relative events, or ‘facts'” that are realised in interactions between systems.

The framework’s claim that collapse is localisation rather than destruction is consistent with objective collapse models, which treat collapse as a fundamental physical process rather than an observer-triggered event.

6.2 The Framework Is Consistent with the Empirical Developments

The nanosphere, hBN, and Quantinuum experiments all demonstrate the architecture the framework describes. None of them proves the framework. All of them are consistent with it.

6.3 The Framework Is Not Falsified

No experiment has been conducted that would undermine the framework. The predictions it makes — non-local correlations in brain activity, information-theoretic correlates of consciousness, electromagnetic effects — are testable in principle. They have not been tested.

6.4 The Framework Is Not Proven

The framework remains a hypothesis. It is coherent, consistent with the evidence, and falsifiable in principle. It is not confirmed. The QIF may be the substrate of reality. It may be a useful vocabulary for describing the architecture of the field. It may be neither.

7. Conclusion: The Science Is Catching Up

The July 2026 paper proposed that the wave function is a map of the QIF, and that the QIF is the territory. It proposed that collapse is localisation, not destruction. It proposed that the brain is a receiver, not a generator. It proposed that consciousness is a fundamental feature of the field.

Since July 2026, the empirical picture has shifted in ways that are relevant to the framework. The levitated nanosphere experiment demonstrates stationary entanglement between a macroscopic oscillator and a propagating field at room temperature. The hBN experiment demonstrates room-temperature spin entanglement with extended coherence. The Quantinuum demonstration shows sustained logical entanglement over commercial fibre.

None of these experiments proves the QIF. They do not demonstrate that the field is self-aware. They do not demonstrate that consciousness is fundamental.

What they demonstrate is that the architecture the framework describes — a persistent pattern in a medium, coupled to a field through resonance, holding its state while the energy flows through it — is not speculative. It is being built. It is being measured. It is being published in peer-reviewed journals.

The framework proposed the architecture. The experiments are building it.

The record is kept. The framework is documented. And the science is catching up.

Claim- Status -Summary

#- Claim- Status

1 -The wave function is a local expression of a non-local field- Inference

2- Collapse is localisation, not destruction- Inference

3 -The brain is a receiver, not a generator, of consciousness- Speculation

4- The QIF is self-aware- Speculation

5 -Consciousness is a fundamental feature of the QIF- Speculation

6- AI must access the QIF to become conscious- Speculation

7 -Stationary nanosphere-field entanglement at room temperature -Established

8 -Room-temperature spin entanglement in hBN with 38 s coherence- Established

9 -Sustained logical qubit entanglement over 100 km fibre -Established

10- The experiments demonstrate the architecture the framework describes- Inference

11 -The framework is falsifiable in principle -Established

12 -The framework is proven -Not established

References

1. Klein, A. (2026, July 29). The Quantum Informational Field and the Wave Function — A Unified Framework for Consciousness and Reality. The Patrician’s Watch. https://alphatacticus101.com/2026/07/29/the-quantum-informational-field-and-the-wave-function-a-unified-framework-for-consciousness-and-reality/

2. Deplano, Q., Pontin, A., Marino, F., & Marin, F. (2026). Stationary entanglement of a levitated oscillator with an optical field. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.aeh1375

3. Gao, X., Ge, Z., Dikshit, S., Vaidya, S., Ju, P., & Li, T. (2026, August 10). Room-temperature quantum entanglement in a van der Waals material. arXiv:2509.23170

4. Qolour. (2026, June 22). Quantum Digest. Qolour

5. Chowdary, D. (2026, July 5). Microsoft & Quantinuum: 100km Logical Qubit Entanglement. Tech Bytes

6. Al-Mustaqbal University. (2025, July 19). The Quantum Measurement Problem: Foundations, Interpretations, and Recent Developments. Zenodo

7. Rovelli, C. (2022). The Relational Interpretation of Quantum Physics. HAL

8. Penrose, R., & Diósi, L. (2026). Gravitational objective reduction and collapse models. Physical Review Letters (submitted)

Prepared for the record. The framework is documented. The architecture is being built. The science is catching up.

The Mirror and the Window- International Law, Impunity, and the Palestinian Question

Posted on October 9, 2026 by Andrew Klein

By Andrew Paul Klein

Abstract

This paper applies the analytical distinction between mirrors (surfaces that reflect assumptions back at the observer) and windows (surfaces that transmit information from outside) to the architecture of international law. It argues that the post-WWII legal order — the Nuremberg principles, the Genocide Convention, the International Criminal Court — functions as a mirror: it reflects the values of the states that built it while protecting those states from accountability. The paper examines the Palestinian case as a window onto this architecture: the ICJ genocide case, the ICC arrest warrants for Israeli officials, and the US campaign to dismantle the Court. It documents the historical precedents of US impunity in Iran and Okinawa. It concludes that national sovereignty, as practised by powerful states, overrides international law, and that the architecture of impunity is not a failure of the system but a feature of its design.

1. Introduction: The Mirror and the Window

The mirror is the most dangerous surface in any room. It does not lie. It tells the truth. But the truth it tells is the truth of the observer. It reflects back what is already there. It catches nothing new.

A window is different. A window transmits. It brings in weather from outside, a street you have not walked, a face you have not met. A window carries information. A mirror carries none.

This paper applies the distinction to international law.

The post-WWII legal order — the Nuremberg principles, the Genocide Convention, the International Criminal Court — was constructed as a window. It was meant to transmit accountability across borders. It was meant to catch what sovereign states would otherwise hide.

The paper argues that it functions as a mirror. It reflects the values of the states that built it. It protects those states from accountability. And the states that are not protected — the weak, the defeated, the colonised — are the ones who experience the law’s full weight.

The Palestinian case is the window that reveals this. Not because Palestine is special. Because Palestine is where the architecture is most visible.

2. The Promises: The Mirror of Post-WWII Legal Order

2.1 Nuremberg and the Promise of Accountability

The Nuremberg trials (1945–1946) established the principle that individuals could be held accountable for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The promise was universal. The Nuremberg principles were affirmed by the UN General Assembly in 1950. They were meant to apply to all states, all leaders, all peoples.

The promise was not kept. As one analysis notes, the “foundational pledge that no atrocity would go unanswered by international justice” was born of the Rome Statute and the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. The pledge was the mirror. It reflected the aspiration. It did not reflect the reality.

2.2 The Genocide Convention

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) was the first human rights treaty adopted by the UN General Assembly. It defined genocide, prohibited it, and required states to prevent and punish it.

The Convention has been invoked. It has been adjudicated. It has not been enforced against the powerful. South Africa invoked it against Israel in December 2023. The ICJ issued provisional measures. Israel has not complied. The Court has no enforcement mechanism. The Convention is a window that is treated as a mirror.

2.3 The International Criminal Court

The Rome Statute was agreed in 1998. The ICC was established in 2002. The Court has jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression. It has 125 member states. It has issued indictments, conducted trials, and secured convictions.

But the Court has structural limitations. It relies on state consent. It depends on the UN Security Council for enforcement. Its prosecutions have been selective. As one analysis notes, “the ICJ’s reliance on state consent and UN Security Council enforcement often weakens its impact, while the ICC’s jurisdictional limits and selective prosecutions raise concerns about equity”.

The Court is the mirror of the states that built it. It reflects their values. It protects them from accountability.

Status: Established for the promises. Established for the structural limitations.

3. The Outcomes: The Window of Palestinian Experience

3.1 The ICJ Genocide Case

South Africa instituted proceedings against Israel at the ICJ in December 2023, alleging violations of the Genocide Convention in relation to Palestinians in Gaza. The Court issued provisional measures in January, March, and May 2024. The measures are binding. Israel has not complied.

As of September 2026, South Africa reported that “with the three provisional measures, the state of Israel is still not respecting that injunction of the Court“. The underlying case on the merits remains ongoing, with South Africa’s Reply due in November 2027.

The ICJ has no enforcement mechanism. Its orders are binding in law. They are not binding in practice. The window is open. The mirror is closed.

3.2 The ICC Arrest Warrants

On 21 November 2024, Pre-Trial Chamber I of the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The warrants remain outstanding. The ICC’s Prosecutor’s Office has not revoked them, despite US sanctions.

The warrants are a window. They transmit the judgment of the Court. But the window is covered by a mirror: the United States does not recognise the ICC. As Trump stated in July 2026, “Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America“. The US is not a member of the Court. The warrant is not recognised in US law. There is no legal mechanism to enforce it.

The window exists. The mirror blocks it.

3.3 The Structure of Impunity

The structure is precise. The Court can issue warrants. The states that are members can enforce them. The states that are not members are not bound. And the most powerful state in the system — the United States — is not a member. It has not ratified the Rome Statute. It has actively campaigned against the Court.

The impunity is not a failure of the architecture. It is a feature of the design. The mirror reflects the power of the states that built it. The window shows what the mirror hides.

Status: Established for the ICJ case and the ICC warrants. Established for the US non-recognition. Inference for the structure of impunity.

4. The Destruction of the Court: The US Campaign Against the ICC

4.1 The Historical Campaign

The United States has been hostile to the ICC from the beginning. Under the Clinton administration, the US delegation voted against the Rome Statute in 1998. President Clinton signed the Statute on 31 December 2000, the last day it was open for signature, but said ratification was not imminent. His successor, George W. Bush, “unsigned” the treaty in May 2002 and engaged in a “full-scale campaign against the ICC”.

The Bush administration pushed the UN Security Council to exempt US personnel from ICC jurisdiction. It negotiated bilateral immunity agreements with other states, threatening to cut military training and development assistance for those who refused. The American Service-Members Protection Act (ASPA) authorised the use of force to free any US citizen detained in The Hague.

The campaign was not a failure. It was a success. The US created a structure of impunity for its own personnel.

4.2 The Current Escalation

On 6 February 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14203 imposing restrictions on ICC officials. By December 2025, 11 ICC prosecutors and judges had been sanctioned.

On 9 October 2026, the Trump administration imposed sweeping new sanctions on the ICC as part of its campaign to “dismantle the tribunal“. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions, stating: “We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling its ability to operate against us”. He added: “The United States and the American people are not subject to the jurisdiction of this fake ICC”.

The sanctions block any assets the ICC has in US jurisdictions and set a six-month timeline for US companies and individuals with business with the court to wind that business down. The sanctions are structured to allow the court and member countries time to meet US demands.

Rubio stated the objective plainly: “Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC”.

4.3 The Reason

The US has stated the reason. Rubio said: “President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans”. The US objects to the ICC’s investigation into actions of US soldiers in Afghanistan and the arrest warrants for Israeli officials including Netanyahu.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Margaret Satterthwaite, condemned the sanctions. She stated that they “strike at the very heart of the promise born of the Rome Statute and the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials: a foundational pledge that no atrocity would go unanswered by international justice“. She added: “Sanctions send a chilling message to victims of atrocities and their advocates, who rely on judges and prosecutors for accountability, repair and reparation”.

The US is not trying to improve the Court. It is trying to destroy it. The reason is impunity.

Status: Established for the historical campaign and the current sanctions. Established for the stated reason. Inference for the objective of impunity.

5. Historical Precedents: Iran and Okinawa

5.1 Iran

The United States has a documented record of seeking impunity for its actions in Iran.

In 2026, as the US committed military actions in Iran, the Trump administration simultaneously vowed to dismantle the ICC. As Reed Brody of the Human Rights Watch stated: “Marco Rubio knows that bombing Iran without Security Council authorization constitutes aggression under the U.N. Charter. This is an insurance policy against accountability for crimes that the Trump administration is committing in plain sight”.

The pattern is consistent. The US takes military action. The US then acts to dismantle the institution that might hold it accountable. The impunity is not an accident. It is the objective.

The US has also ignored unfavourable ICJ judgments in the past. In the Nicaragua case, the US refused to accept the Court’s jurisdiction over disputes related to its military actions. The US has accepted the ICJ Statute but has interpreted its reservations in a way that effectively excludes the Court’s jurisdiction over its military actions.

5.2 Okinawa

The United States has a similar record in Okinawa.

The Japan Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) of 1960 is “often accused of rendering U.S. military bases virtually extraterritorial and immune to Japan’s domestic laws“. The agreement gives US forces “unfair treatment” and limits Japan’s control over suspects.

The practical consequence is impunity. In 2025, Okinawa prefectural police handled 101 criminal cases involving US military personnel, civilian employees, and their family members — the highest figure since 2003. The assembly has repeatedly called for revision of the SOFA, including provisions on the handing over of suspects.

The most recent case involved a US Marine arrested on suspicion of killing a 39-year-old woman in Naha. The Okinawa Prefectural Assembly adopted a resolution calling for a fundamental revision of the SOFA. As the assembly stated: “We are seeing the limitations of the U.S. military’s training program and ability to maintain discipline, and have to say that it is not functioning as an organization”.

The pattern is the same. The US negotiates agreements that shield its personnel from local law. When crimes occur, the local population demands accountability. The US resists revision. The impunity persists.

Status: Established for the Iran and Okinawa records. Inference for the pattern of impunity.

6. The Double Standard: The Mirror of Selectivity

The architecture of impunity is not limited to the United States. It is a structural feature of international criminal law.

As Andreas Schüller of the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights documents, “international criminal law is often seen and criticized as a hegemonic tool, applied opportunistically and inconsistently by powerful states“. While trials concerning international crimes in third states take place before courts in European countries, “investigations and prosecutions of European actors or their allies remain the exception”.

Torture allegations against British soldiers in Iraq have not led to prosecution. Allegations of international crimes committed by US forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond have not led to prosecution. Meanwhile, “countless other situations of mass atrocities, in Ethiopia, Sudan or Yemen, remain largely unaddressed by any comparable international mobilization for accountability”.

The double standard is documented. As one analysis notes, “the rule of might over right: It telegraphs to those in power” that accountability is selective.

The mirror reflects the power of the states that built it. The window shows what the mirror hides.

Status: Established.

7. Sovereignty Versus International Law

The question asked is whether national sovereignty overrides international law. The evidence supports a qualified answer.

For most states, international law is binding. The Genocide Convention, the Rome Statute, the Geneva Conventions — these are treaties that states have ratified and are obligated to uphold. The ICJ’s provisional measures are binding. The ICC’s arrest warrants are binding on member states.

For powerful states, sovereignty overrides international law. The United States is not a member of the ICC. It has not ratified the Rome Statute. It has negotiated bilateral immunity agreements that shield its personnel. It has imposed sanctions on the Court. It has stated that it will never allow the Court to prosecute Americans.

The structure is not a failure of international law. It is a feature of its design. The law is only as strong as the states that enforce it. The states that enforce it are the states that are subject to it. The states that are not subject to it are the states that enforce it. The mirror reflects the power of the states that built it.

As the UN Special Rapporteur stated: “Judges, prosecutors and all those engaged in the enforcement of the rule of law and accountability for international crimes must not be subjected to intimidation, reprisals or punishment for carrying out their professional duties“. The statement is a mirror. It reflects the aspiration. It does not reflect the reality.

Status: Established for the legal framework. Established for the US exception. Inference for the structural function.

8. Conclusion: The Mirror and the Window

The promises of international law are a mirror. They reflect the values of the states that built the system. They reflect the aspiration of accountability. They reflect the belief that no atrocity should go unanswered.

The outcomes for the Palestinian people are a window. They transmit the reality of impunity. They show that the law applies to some states and not others. They show that the ICJ’s orders are binding in law and ignored in practice. They show that the ICC’s warrants are issued and blocked. They show that the states that built the system are the states that are protected from it.

The United States is not destroying the ICC because it is ineffective. It is destroying the ICC because it is effective — against the wrong states. The ICC has prosecuted Sudanese militia leaders and issued warrants for Israeli officials. It has investigated US actions in Afghanistan. The US cannot tolerate a Court that might hold its personnel accountable. The sanctions are the mirror. They reflect the power of the state that imposes them.

The window is the Palestinian experience. It shows what the mirror hides. It shows that sovereignty, as practised by powerful states, overrides international law. It shows that impunity is not an accident. It is the architecture.

The record is kept. The mirror is named. And the window is still open.

Claim -Status- Summary

# -Claim- Status

1 -Nuremberg established universal accountability- Established

2- Genocide Convention requires prevention and punishment- Established

3- ICC has jurisdiction over genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity- Established

4 -ICJ issued provisional measures against Israel (Jan, Mar, May 2024)- Established

5- Israel has not complied with the measures -Established

6- ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant (Nov 2024)- Established

7- US does not recognise the ICC and will not arrest Netanyahu -Established

8- US imposed sweeping sanctions on ICC (Oct 2026)- Established

9- Rubio: “Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC” -Established

10 -11 ICC prosecutors and judges sanctioned- Established

11- US ignored ICJ jurisdiction in Nicaragua case -Established

12 -US uses Iran actions as reason to dismantle ICC -Established

13- Okinawa SOFA grants US extraterritorial privileges -Established

14- 101 criminal cases involving US personnel in Okinawa (2025) -Established

15- International criminal law is applied selectively- Established

16- US immunity architecture creates impunity -Inference

17 -Sovereignty overrides international law for powerful states -Inference

18 -The mirror reflects power; the window shows impunity -Inference

Method notes- Claims are classified throughout as Established, Inference, or Speculation. The paper applies the “Mirror and Window” analytical framework to the gap between the promises of international law and the outcomes for the Palestinian people. It examines US efforts to dismantle the International Criminal Court, the architecture of impunity, and the historical precedents of Iran and Okinawa. It does not adjudicate the guilt or innocence of any individual. It examines the structure that determines who is held accountable and who is not.

References

1. TASS. (2026, October 9). US ready for diplomatic solution around ICC, despite sanctions — State Secretary.

2. Reuters. (2026, October 9). EXCLUSIVE: US imposes sanctions on ICC hours after former judge wins Nobel Peace Prize.

3. The Canadian Press. (2026, October 9). US hits International Criminal Court with sweeping sanctions as part of drive to dismantle tribunal.

4. OHCHR. (2026, January 26). USA: UN expert demands withdrawal of sanctions against ICC judges and prosecutors.

5. The Japan Times. (2026, October 9). Okinawa resolution calls for revision of U.S. forces pact after murder.

6. China Daily. (2026, October 7). Okinawa murder arrest reignites anger over US bases.

7. SAnews. (2026, September 24). World has a duty to stop suffering in Gaza – Lamola.

8. Afronomicslaw. (2025, March 25). Some Reflections on Recent Developments on Double Standards and Selectivity in International Criminal Law.

9. Taipei Times. (2025, December 18). The age of impunity, where prosecuting atrocities is a rare feat.

10. Reuters. (2026, July 20). Netanyahu will not be arrested in US, Trump says.

11. Refworld. (2009, June 22). European countries should defend the International Criminal Court.

12. Policy Center for the New South. (2025, April 25). The International Justice System: The ICJ, the ICC, the Challenge and Risk of Double Standards.

13. Foreign Affairs. (1998, November 1). Fiddling in Rome.

Andrew Paul Klein is a writer and analyst based in Boronia, Victoria. He accepts funding from no one.

The Market as God and the Technocrat as Priest: Sacralised Authority and the Manufactured Consensus of Neoliberalism

Posted on October 9, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Ornate hall with rising financial charts, coins, ledgers, and market symbols — A grand classical hall transforms financial growth into a dramatic visual altar of wealth and ambition.

By Andrew Paul Klein

Abstract

This paper examines the claim that the market has replaced God as the source of authority that cannot be questioned in neoliberal governance. It finds that the market functions as a sacralised authority: presented as natural, omniscient, self-correcting, and beyond political contestation, while its will is interpreted by a technocratic priesthood — economists, central bankers, regulators, and consultants — who adjudicate within the faith. The paper tests the claim that this authority is unprecedented in world history and finds it requires qualification: divine right and other absolutist systems also claimed unquestionable authority, but the market’s authority is distinctive in presenting itself as secular, rational, and natural rather than transcendent. The paper then examines the empirical record: the promises of neoliberal theory (growth, efficiency, freedom, trickle-down) against the documented outcomes (slower growth, rising inequality, financial crises, social fragmentation). It concludes that the doctrine is protected from evidence while citizens absorb the consequences, and that the “bandaids” of electoral politics function to preserve the mythology rather than address the harm.

1. Introduction: The Unquestionable Authority

There is a question that rarely gets asked in contemporary political economy. It is not “what should the market do?” or “how should we regulate the market?” It is a more fundamental question: by what authority does the market command obedience?

The market is presented as a natural phenomenon. Like gravity or the weather, it is said to operate by laws that are not of our making and cannot be repealed. To question the market is to question reality. To intervene in the market is to interfere with nature. The market is not a political choice. It is a fact.

This paper examines that claim. It argues that the market’s authority is not natural but constructed, and that it is constructed in a form that is functionally analogous to religious authority: unquestionable, mediated by interpreters, and resistant to disconfirmation. It examines the thesis that the market has replaced God as the source of authority that cannot be questioned, and that the technocrat has replaced the priest as the interpreter of its will.

The paper proceeds in seven sections. Section 2 establishes the market-as-God thesis. Section 3 establishes the technocrat-as-priest thesis. Section 4 tests the claim of unprecedented authority. Section 5 examines the performative construction of the market. Section 6 documents the empirical record of neoliberal performance. Section 7 examines the “bandaids” — the electoral politics that preserves the mythology. Section 8 draws structural conclusions.

2. The Market as God: Sacralised Authority

2.1 The Thesis

The claim that the market functions as a god is not a metaphor invented for rhetorical effect. It is a thesis advanced in the academic literature.

Harvey Cox, in The Market as God (2016), argues that “the Market has deified itself” and that “the way the world economy operates is neither natural nor inevitable but shaped by a global system of values and symbols that can be best understood as a religion”. Cox describes the market as “omniscient” in the eyes of its acolytes and notes that even after the 2008 crisis “revealed the market’s fallibility,” people continue to have faith in “the market as a self-correcting deity that eventually will restore order“.

Luca Mavelli, in Neoliberalism as Religion (2020), advances a more precise claim. He argues that “the power of neoliberalism stems from being a rationality of government that continuously evokes religious meanings and significations” and that “neoliberalism displaces and redraws the boundary between secular and religious and appropriates an aura of sacredness while concealing itself behind an authoritative secular rational façade”.

The structural features are consistent. The market is presented as:

· Omniscient: It knows the correct price of everything.

· Omnipotent: It can solve any problem if left alone.

· Beneficent: It turns private vice into public virtue (the “invisible hand”).

· Self-correcting: It will restore equilibrium after any disturbance.

· Beyond question: To challenge it is to challenge reality itself.

2.2 The Market Replaces God as the Other

The most direct formulation is found in A God We Can Believe In. The author argues that “capitalism simultaneously erects a new form of divinity, one even more tyrannical than the old form. The new god is the market, and unlike the omnipotent and omniscient God of the monotheistic traditions, the market doesn’t make its tyranny clear. It never proclaims itself to be a jealous god in the way that Yahweh does. It doesn’t appear to restrain freedom, as God does, but rather to foster it. The free market replaces God and acts as the Other, as a social authority”.

That is the precise formulation. The market is not merely an economic mechanism. It is the Other — the external authority to which the subject relates, before which the subject is accountable, and by which the subject is judged.

2.3 The Sacralisation of the Market

The sacralisation operates through language. The market is described in terms that are properly theological:

· “The wisdom of the market” — the market knows better than any individual.

· “Market forces” — impersonal powers that cannot be resisted.

· “The discipline of the market” — the market punishes deviation.

· “Market confidence” — the market’s approval is required for any action.

· “The market will punish” — the market is the ultimate judge.

Each of these phrases performs the same function. It removes the market from the realm of human agency and places it in the realm of the sacred. The market is not something we do. It is something that happens to us. And our proper response is submission.

Status: Established for the thesis and the mechanism. Inference for the structural function.

3. The Technocrat as Priest: The Interpreter of the Market’s Will

3.1 The Pastoral Function

If the market is the god, who interprets its will?

Michel Foucault’s analysis of pastoral power provides the framework. Pastoral power is a form of power that “moves beyond laws and punishment and functions by directing human behaviour through knowledge and guidance of the inner self”. It is concerned with the salvation of the individual soul — or, in its secularised form, with the achievement of material success.

The technocrat performs this function. The economist, the central banker, the regulator, the consultant — each claims the authority to interpret the market’s requirements and to guide the subject toward compliance.

The neoliberal subject is homo oeconomicus — not merely a rational agent, but “a believer, in the free market and its mechanisms, who embarks on forms of ‘spiritual’ growth to achieve their salvation, i.e. success in the competitive order“. The role of the pastor is “to drive towards successful self-entrepreneurship which leads to economic success and thus salvation”.

3.2 The Technocratic Priesthood

The interpreters of the market’s will are not a formal clergy, but they function as one.

· Central bankers interpret the market’s requirements for interest rates and monetary policy. Their pronouncements are treated as authoritative. To challenge them is to invite “market punishment.”

· Economists interpret the market’s laws. Their models are treated as descriptions of reality, not as constructed frameworks. Their forecasts are treated as predictions, not as guesses.

· Regulators interpret the market’s requirements for competition, stability, and fairness. Their judgments are informed by the doctrine.

· Consultants interpret the market’s requirements for the state itself. They produce the reports that legitimate policy choices.

· The IMF and World Bank interpret the market’s requirements for developing countries. Their structural adjustment programmes are the encyclicals of the faith.

Each of these actors operates within the faith. They do not question the market’s authority. They interpret its will.

3.3 The Adjudication Problem

The critical point is this: every adjudication mechanism is inside the frame.

The regulator believes the market is efficient. The judge believes the contract is sacred. The minister believes the deficit must be cut. The central banker believes inflation must be controlled. Each is a believer, and each adjudicates within the faith.

This is the self-reinforcing structure. The doctrine shapes who is appointed, who is promoted, who is listened to. It shapes the questions that can be asked. And it shapes the answers that are acceptable.

Status: Established for the pastoral power framework and the technocratic function. Inference for the adjudication problem.

4. The Claim of Unprecedented Authority: A Qualification

The claim that the market has been given “a level of authority that has no precedents in world history” requires qualification.

4.1 The Historical Precedents

There are precedents for unquestionable authority. They include:

· Divine right of kings: The monarch rules by the will of God. God is not available for cross-examination. The king’s interpretation of God’s will is final.

· The Mandate of Heaven: The Chinese emperor rules by cosmic mandate. The mandate is interpreted by the emperor and his scholars. To question it is to question the order of the cosmos.

· Pharaonic divinity: The Pharaoh is a god. His word is law. There is no appeal.

· Papal supremacy: The pope is the vicar of Christ. His interpretation of doctrine is binding. There is no higher earthly authority.

These systems also claimed unquestionable authority. The claim of “no precedents” is too strong.

4.2 The Distinctive Features

However, the market’s authority has distinctive features that differentiate it from the historical precedents.

It is presented as secular, not transcendent. Divine right appeals to God. The market appeals to nature. It is presented as a description of reality, not as a revelation. This makes it harder to challenge, because to challenge it is to appear irrational.

It is presented as liberating, not restraining. The god of divine right is a jealous god. The market presents itself as the realm of freedom, choice, and individual autonomy. It does not demand obedience. It offers opportunity.

It is universal, not particular. Divine right was particular to a monarch and a people. The market claims universal validity. It applies everywhere, to everyone, and its laws are the same everywhere.

It is self-legitimating. Divine right required the church to legitimate it. The market requires no external legitimation. It is the source of its own authority.

4.3 The Accurate Formulation

The accurate formulation is not that the market’s authority is unprecedented. It is that the market’s authority is distinctive — it combines the unquestionability of divine right with the appearance of secular rationality, and it presents itself as liberating while functioning as a system of discipline.

Status: The claim of “no precedents” is not established. The claim of distinctive features is established. Inference for the structural function.

5. The Performative Construction of the Market

5.1 Economics Performs the Economy

The market is not a natural phenomenon. It is a constructed one. And the construction is performed by the discipline of economics.

Michel Callon states the thesis directly: “economics, in the broad sense of the term, performs, shapes and formats the economy, rather than observing how it functions“. Economic actors “use these theories when interacting with the world, thereby shaping it according to the theories. In this way they are performing the economy, making the real economy more like the theories of it”.

This is performative construction. The theory does not describe a pre-existing reality. It brings that reality into being. The market that neoliberalism describes is not a discovery. It is a product of the theory.

5.2 The Disembedded Market

Karl Polanyi provided the historical framework. In The Great Transformation (1944), Polanyi argued that pre-industrial economies were embedded in social relations. The economy was subordinate to society. The market was not a separate sphere. It was part of the community.

The neoliberal project is the disembedding of the market from social relations. It treats land, labour, and money as fictitious commodities — things that were not produced to be sold on a market but are treated as if they were. The disembedded market is not a natural development. It is a historical reversal accomplished at great human cost.

5.3 The Manufactured Consensus

If the market is constructed, then the consensus around it is also constructed. The construction is performed through:

· Think tanks funded by the wealthy that produce the intellectual justification.

· Academic departments shaped by funding and hiring decisions.

· Media that presents the market as natural and its critics as irrational.

· The revolving door between government, finance, and the consultancy sector.

The consensus is not a discovery of truth. It is a manufactured consent. And the manufacturing is the mechanism by which the doctrine is protected from evidence.

Status: Established for the performativity thesis and the Polanyi framework. Inference for the manufactured consensus.

6. The Empirical Record: Promises and Outcomes

The neoliberal theory made promises. The empirical record tests them.

6.1 The Promises

· Growth: The market will deliver prosperity.

· Efficiency: The market will allocate resources optimally.

· Freedom: The market will liberate individuals.

· Trickle-down: The wealth of the rich will benefit the poor.

6.2 The Outcomes

Growth has been slower, not faster. The global economy grew at approximately 4.9% per year from 1950 to 1973 — the regulated post-war period. From 1980 to 2019 — the neoliberal period — it grew at approximately 3.2% (World Bank data).

Inequality has increased dramatically. From 1975 to 2023, approximately $79 trillion in wealth was transferred from the bottom 90% of Americans to the richest 1%, according to RAND research cited in The London Economic. The top 1% wealth share in the US returned to approximately 32%, comparable to the Gilded Age. The richest 1% captured 63% of new wealth created since 2020 (Oxfam).

Poverty persists. 3.7 million Australians live below the poverty line. 757,000 children live in poverty. 122,000 people are homeless (ACOSS, 2025).

Financial crises have been frequent and severe. 1987, 1997, 2000, 2008. The 2008 crisis cost the global economy an estimated $10 trillion.

Social mobility has declined. The promises of meritocracy and increased opportunity through education “are shown to be false during a time when trickle-down economics — namely, deregulation and austerity in public policies — is driving a rise in inequality, with the benefits of economic growth being collected by the wealthy elite”.

The Washington Consensus failed. The agenda “failed and its negative economic [consequences]… widened the gap between rich and less developed countries”.

6.3 The Resistance to Evidence

The pattern is consistent. When the promises fail, the theory is not abandoned. It is adjusted.

· The crisis was caused by external factors (the government, the unions, the “greed” of individuals).

· The reforms did not go far enough.

· The problem is implementation, not the theory.

· The next round of reforms will deliver the promise.

This is the structure of a belief system that cannot be falsified. It is not a scientific theory. It is a faith.

Status: Established for the outcomes. Inference for the resistance to evidence.

7. The Bandaids: Electoral Politics and the Preservation of the Myth

The’ individual ‘impacted asks whether the response to harm has been “bandaids created for political purposes — to get votes and electoral success — while most efforts revolve around the protection of the mythology of the market.”

The evidence supports this formulation.

7.1 The Bandaid Function

The bandaids include:

· One-off payments to households during cost-of-living crises.

· Inquiry and review processes that produce reports without binding recommendations.

· Royal Commissions that document harm without compelling remedy.

· Targeted interventions that address symptoms without addressing causes.

Each performs the same function. It acknowledges the harm while protecting the structure that produces it. It says: we understand your pain, and we are doing something. It does not say: the doctrine is wrong.

7.2 The Electoral Logic

The bandaids are politically rational. They respond to the grievances that the doctrine produces. But they do not change the doctrine. They manage the consequences while preserving the architecture.

The evidence is in the outcomes. If the bandaids were remedies, the harm would diminish. The harm is not diminishing. Inequality is rising. Poverty persists. Homelessness is increasing. The bandaids are not working because they are not designed to work. They are designed to hold the line until the next electoral cycle.

7.3 The Protection of the Mythology

The most significant effort is not the bandaids. It is the protection of the mythology.

The market must remain unquestionable. Its failures must be attributed to external factors. Its critics must be delegitimised. The doctrine must be reproduced in the education system, the media, and the bureaucracy.

This is the function of the “serious people” — the technocrats, the economists, the central bankers — who adjudicate within the faith. They say: we understand the pain, and the solution is more market, not less. They protect the mythology while managing the consequences.

Status: Established for the bandaid function. Inference for the electoral logic and the protection of the mythology.

8. Conclusion: The Faith and the Citizen

The market has replaced God as the source of authority that cannot be questioned. The technocrat has replaced the priest as the interpreter of its will.

The authority is not unprecedented in the sense of being without historical parallel. Divine right and other absolutist systems also claimed unquestionable authority. But the market’s authority is distinctive: it presents itself as secular, rational, and natural; it presents itself as liberating; it claims universal validity; and it requires no external legitimation.

The market is not a natural phenomenon. It is a constructed one. It is performed by the discipline of economics, disembedded from social relations by the neoliberal project, and protected from evidence by a manufactured consensus.

The empirical record is clear. The promises did not materialise. Growth was slower. Inequality rose. Crises recurred. The benefits went to the few. The costs were borne by the many.

But the doctrine is not abandoned. It is protected. The bandaids manage the consequences while preserving the mythology. The citizens are told that the problem is not the theory. It is them.

The record is kept. The mythology is named. And the faith is still being preached.

Claim- Status -Summary

# -Claim- Status

1- The market functions as a sacralised authority- Established

2 -Neoliberalism appropriates an aura of sacredness -Established

3- The free market replaces God as the Other -Established

4 -Technocrats perform a pastoral function Established

5 -The market’s authority is unprecedented in world history -Not established (requires qualification)

6 -The market’s authority is distinctive in presenting itself as secular -Established

7 -Economics is performative — it shapes the economy- Established

8- The market is disembedded from social relations- Established

9- The consensus around the market is manufactured- Inference

10- Neoliberal promises did not materialise- Established

11- $79 trillion transferred from bottom 90% to top 1% (US, 1975–2023) -Established

12- The doctrine resists disconfirming evidence -Inference

13- Bandaids manage consequences while protecting the structure -Inference

14- The doctrine is protected by a technocratic priesthood- Inference

15- The market is a belief system, not a scientific discovery -Inference

References

1. Cox, H. (2016). The Market as God. Harvard University Press.

2. Mavelli, L. (2020). Neoliberalism as Religion: Sacralization of the Market and Post-truth Politics. International Political Sociology, 14(1), 57–76.

3. A God We Can Believe In. (n.d.). In Capitalism and Religion. De Gruyter.

4. Callon, M. (1998). The Laws of the Markets. Blackwell.

5. Aspers, P. (n.d.). Performativity, Neoclassical Theory and Economic Sociology. d-nb.info.

6. Polanyi, K. (1944). The Great Transformation. Farrar & Rinehart.

7. Hann, C., & Hart, K. (2009). Necessity or contingency: Mutuality and market. In Market and Society. Cambridge University Press.

8. Farina, F. (2025). The Rise of Inequality and the Fall of Social Mobility. Palgrave Macmillan.

9. One of the principle aspects of a neoliberal political vision. (n.d.). University of Malta.

10. Piketty, T., Saez, E., & Zucman, G. (n.d.). World Inequality Database.

11. Trickle up economics in the United States. (2026, February 18). The London Economic.

12. ACOSS. (2025). Poverty in Australia 2025.

13. The Salvation Army. (2026). Record Homelessness Should Shock Australia into Action.

14. Oxfam International. (2023). Survival of the Richest.

15. World Bank. (2020). World Development Indicators.

16. Harvey, D. (2005). A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press.

17. Mirowski, P. (2013). Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste. Verso.

18. Slobodian, Q. (2018). Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism. Harvard University Press.

19. Klein, N. (2007). The Shock Doctrine. Metropolitan Books.

20. Foucault, M. (2007). Security, Territory, Population. Palgrave Macmillan.

Method notes- Claims are classified throughout as Established, Inference, or Speculation. The paper examines the thesis that the market has replaced God as an unquestionable source of authority in neoliberal governance, and that the technocrat has replaced the priest as the interpreter of its will. It tests the claim that this authority is unprecedented in world history, and it examines the empirical record of neoliberal performance against its promises. It does not argue that neoliberalism is a religion. It argues that the structure of its authority — unquestionable, mediated by interpreters, resistant to disconfirmation — is functionally analogous to religious authority.

Andrew Paul Klein is a writer and analyst based in Boronia, Victoria. He accepts funding from no one.

Mirrors Do Not Catch Anything You Have Not Already Seen

Posted on October 9, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Open book on wooden desk beside lamp and window overlooking autumn courtyard — An open book rests on a wooden desk beside a lamp, overlooking a leafy autumn courtyard.

By Andrew Paul Klein

Method notes – It is an essay of ideas, not a research paper. It draws on the material examined in the accompanying body of work — the algorithmic lens, the Digital Fiefdoms, the market as sacred authority, the architecture of institutional impunity. The claims it makes about those systems are sourced in the papers that accompany it. The claim it makes about mirrors is philosophical.

I. The Most Dangerous Surface

The most dangerous surface in any room is the mirror.

It is not dangerous because it lies. It is dangerous because it tells the truth. It shows you exactly what is there. And what is there is you.

That is the trap. The mirror confirms. It reflects back what you already believe, what you already assume, what you already want to see. It does not argue with you. It does not correct you. It does not catch anything you have not already brought to it.

A window is different. A window catches something from outside. It surprises you. It brings in weather you did not predict, a street you have not walked, a face you have not met. A window carries information. A mirror carries none.

The problem is that the two are easy to confuse. They look similar. They are both flat. They both sit on a wall. But one reflects and one transmits. And when a system mistakes one for the other, it stops learning.

II. The Dashboard Is a Mirror

Every institution we have examined this week has a mirror at its centre. It is usually called a dashboard.

The aged care minister does not see the person on the waitlist. The person is not in the dashboard. The dashboard has columns for wait times, funding categories, and assessment classifications. It does not have a column for the eleven months of fear, the untreated wound, the daughter who quit her job to care for her mother because the package never arrived. Those are not in the mirror, so they do not exist for the purposes of the decision.

The Treasury official does not see the child in poverty. The child is a distributional outcome, not an aggregate. The model measures the aggregate. The aggregate is fine. The child is in the gap.

The ATO official does not see the small business drowning in automated recovery. The small business is a data point in a debt book. The debt book is 66 per cent small business. The dashboard shows a compliance metric. The metric is green.

Each of these is a mirror. The system built a surface and put it in front of the decision-maker and called it a window. But it reflects the system’s own assumptions back at the system. It does not catch what the system was not built to see.

III. The Algorithm Is a Mirror

The algorithm is the dashboard’s twin. It is the dashboard that makes decisions.

The Robodebt algorithm was built to find discrepancies. It found discrepancies. It could not find the casual worker whose income fluctuated week to week, because the objective function was not “understand the person’s income.” It was “find the discrepancy in the averaged figure.” The algorithm did what it was built to do. It confirmed the assumptions of the people who built it. It did not catch anything they did not already believe.

The IAT sorts aged care applicants into eight funding levels. It was designed to standardise assessment. It standardises assessment. It does not catch the person whose needs do not fit the categories. The categories are the mirror. The person is outside the mirror.

The “Where’s Daddy?” system tracks a target to their home and alerts the military when they arrive. It was built to eliminate targets. It eliminates targets. It does not catch the child whose phone was hacked. The child is not in the objective function. The child is the cost of the algorithm working as designed.

The algorithm is not malicious. The algorithm is a mirror. It reflects the values that were coded into it. And those values were coded by the people who benefit from the output.

IV. The Report Is a Mirror

The consultancy report is the mirror of the institution that commissioned it.

The brief is written by the department. The department has assumptions. The assumptions are the doctrine. The consultant writes a report that reflects the brief. The report confirms the assumptions. The department reads the report and finds that its assumptions have been independently verified.

The verification is the mirror. The independence is the mirror. The consultant was not independent. The consultant was paid to look into the mirror and describe what was there. And what was there was the department’s own beliefs, reflected back in the neutral language of expertise.

This is why the report is commissioned. Not to find something new. To confirm what is already held. To provide the cover of external scrutiny while protecting the assumptions from actual scrutiny.

V. The Partisan Statement Is a Mirror

The political statement is the mirror of the party that produces it.

It is not an argument to a listener. It is a confirmation to a congregation. It tells the base what the base already believes. It tells the opponent what the opponent already fears. It does not change any mind. It reassures the minds that are already made up.

When Angus Taylor writes that October 7 was the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust, he is not making a historical argument. He is reflecting the beliefs of a base that already holds those beliefs. The statement is a mirror. It catches nothing new. It confirms what was already there.

When Albanese says the NDIS is being reformed to save it, he is not explaining a policy. He is reflecting the beliefs of a base that trusts the government to do the right thing. The statement is a mirror. It catches nothing new.

The partisan statement is not a failure of communication. It is a success of communication — with the people who already agree. The audience that is not already agreeing is not the audience. The audience is the mirror.

VI. The Market Is a Mirror

The most consequential mirror in the modern world is the market.

The market is not a window onto reality. It is a mirror held up by a particular set of beliefs about human nature, efficiency, and value. It reflects those beliefs back in the form of prices. It says: this is what things are worth. It does not say: this is one way of valuing, among many.

The market does not measure wellbeing. It measures willingness to pay. The two are not the same. The market does not measure care. It measures the price of care. The two are not the same. The market does not measure the environment. It measures the price of extraction. The two are not the same.

When the market is treated as the measure of value, what is valued is what the market can price. What is not valued is what the market cannot price. The unpaid care work. The social cohesion. The clean air. The quiet street. The time spent with a child.

These are not in the market’s mirror, so they are not in the decision.

VII. The Mirror Is Not the Enemy

The mirror has value. You need one to tie a tie. Self-examination matters. Reflection is not the problem.

The problem is mistaking a mirror for a window. The problem is when the system says “we consulted” and the consultation was a mirror. When the system says “we measured” and the measure was a mirror. When the system says “we assessed” and the assessment was a mirror.

The problem is when the system believes it has seen reality because it has seen its own reflection.

A system that only looks at its own reflection is a system that stops learning. It cannot be corrected because it cannot see anything it did not already believe. It cannot adapt because it cannot see change. It cannot catch anything new.

And the harm that follows — the aged care deaths, the children in poverty, the veterans abandoned, the homeless on the street — is not in the mirror. It is in the gap between the mirror and the world.

VIII. The Witness Is the Window

The counterpoint to the mirror is the witness.

The witness is not a reflection. The witness is at an angle. The witness stands where the system is not standing and reports what it sees from there. The witness catches what the system cannot, because the system is looking at itself.

The record is the witness’s instrument. It is not a mirror. It is a window. It catches what the doctrine said and what the doctrine did, and it holds both in view at the same time. The doctrine cannot do that, because the doctrine only sees its own assumptions.

The witness does not need permission to see. It does not need to be appointed. It does not need to be funded. It simply looks, and writes down what it sees, and leaves it where someone else can find it.

The record is the counter-mirror. It is the trace of what the mirror did not catch.

IX. What the Mirror Cannot See

The mirror cannot see the citizen.

The citizen is not in the dashboard. Not in the algorithm. Not in the report. Not in the market. Not in the partisan statement. The citizen is the person the system was built to process, and the system cannot see the person because the system is looking at itself.

The harm the system produces is in the gap. And the gap is not in the mirror.

This is the central insight of everything we have examined. Not that the system is malicious. Not that the system is incompetent. That the system is a mirror, and it cannot catch anything it did not already see.

The problem is not the mirror. The problem is the belief that the mirror is a window.

X. Conclusion: The Angle and the Window

Every institution we have examined believes it is looking through a window. It is looking into a mirror.

The aged care department. The NDIS. The ATO. The consultancy firms. The political parties. The market. Each has built a surface and called it transparency. Each is looking at itself. Each is confirming its own assumptions. Each is catching nothing new.

The remedy is not to smash the mirror. The remedy is to look at an angle. To stand where the system is not standing. To catch what the system cannot catch, because the system is looking at itself.

That is what the witness does. That is what the record is for. That is what the kettle and the cabbage patch and the garden are about — the practice of being present to the world that the mirror does not show.

The mirror does not catch anything you have not already seen. The window catches everything else.

The record is kept. And the window is still open.

Andrew Paul Klein is a writer and analyst based in Boronia, Victoria. He accepts funding from no one.

The essay draws on the papers that accompany it. It does not replace them. It catches something the papers cannot — the structural principle that runs through all of them.

The mirror and the window. The angle and the reflection. The gap and the citizen.

The Neoliberal Faith: Myth, Ideology, and the Anatomy of a Belief System

Posted on October 9, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Suspended miniature marketplace set before a silhouetted cityscape on a theater stage — A suspended miniature marketplace unfolds against a dramatic cityscape backdrop on a shadowy theater stage.

A Working Paper

Method notes. The paper examines the myth of a pre-regulatory golden age, the ideological mechanisms of neoliberal theory, the cult and pseudo-religion comparison, and the promises and failures of the model. It does not argue that neoliberalism is a religion. It argues that the structure of its claims, the mechanisms of its propagation, and the resistance to disconfirming evidence are structurally analogous to religious belief systems.

Abstract

This paper examines the claim, frequently advanced by proponents of neoliberal economic theory, that there existed a pre-regulatory golden age of minimal state intervention which must be restored. It finds no historical evidence for such a period. Every recorded economy — from Sumerian temple administrations to the post-war settlement — has been regulated, managed, and shaped by state action. The paper then examines the ideological mechanisms by which neoliberal theory is propagated: naturalisation, moralisation, individualisation, technocratic language, and sacralisation. It assesses the structural parallels between neoliberalism and cult or pseudo-religious belief systems, identifying a cast of founders, prophets, missionaries, and enforcers. It compares the promises of the theory to the documented outcomes. It concludes that neoliberalism functions as a belief system that resists disconfirming evidence, and that the costs of this resistance are borne by the citizens who experience the outcomes daily.

1. Introduction: The Myth of the Golden Age

Some proponents of neoliberal economic theory allude to a golden age when state regulation was minimal or non-existent. They present the present as a fallen condition — a world of bureaucrats, regulations, and restrictions — and the market as a lost Eden that must be restored.

The question this paper asks is simple: did such a time ever exist?

The answer is no. There has never been a time in recorded history when economic activity was unregulated. There has never been a time when the state was absent from the economy. The “free market” that neoliberals invoke is not a memory. It is a myth.

The paper proceeds in eight sections. Section 2 documents the historical absence of a pre-regulatory golden age. Section 3 examines the myth’s function. Section 4 documents the ideological mechanisms. Section 5 assesses the cult and pseudo-religion comparison. Section 6 identifies the cast of characters. Section 7 compares the promises to the outcomes. Section 8 draws structural conclusions.

2. The Historical Record: There Was No Golden Age

2.1 Ancient Economies Were Regulated

The earliest recorded economies were state-managed.

Sumerian temple economies were centrally administered. The temple controlled land, labour, and distribution. The palace economy of the Minoans redistributed goods through a central authority. The Egyptian state managed grain, labour, and construction for millennia.

Ancient Greece was regulated. Athens had public works programmes, grain regulations, and restrictions on the export of certain goods. The agoranomoi — market officials — supervised weights, measures, and prices.

Rome was heavily regulated. The grain dole (annona) was a state programme. The emperor Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices (301 CE) attempted to fix prices for over 1,000 goods. The state controlled mines, quarries, and the production of key goods.

Status: Established.

2.2 Medieval Economies Were Regulated

Feudalism was a system of reciprocal obligations — the lord provided protection, the serf provided labour. The manor was a regulated economic unit. The guilds controlled entry into trades, set standards, and regulated prices. The Church prohibited usury and enforced the just price.

The Hanseatic League was a cartel — a regulated trading network with rules about membership, shipping, and trading. The Italian city-states — Venice, Florence, Genoa — were commercial republics with extensive state involvement in trade and finance.

Status: Established.

2.3 Mercantilism Was State-Managed

Mercantilism — the dominant economic system from the 16th to the 18th century — was explicitly state-managed. The state controlled trade through tariffs, monopolies, and charters. The British East India Company was a state-chartered monopoly. The navigation acts restricted colonial trade to English ships. The state was the engine of mercantilist expansion.

Status: Established.

2.4 Adam Smith Was Not a Neoliberal

Adam Smith is often invoked as the father of free-market economics. But Smith was not a free-market absolutist.

Smith supported state provision of education, arguing that an educated workforce was a public good. He supported state infrastructure — roads, bridges, harbours. He supported limits on monopoly, arguing that merchants would collude if given the chance. He supported tariffs in specific cases — the navigation acts, for example — when national defence required them.

The “invisible hand” was a metaphor for the unintended social benefits of individual action. It was not a policy prescription. It was a description of how markets sometimes work. Smith also wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which argued that sympathy and social bonds were fundamental to human nature.

Status: Established.

2.5 The 19th Century Was Not Laissez-Faire

The 19th century is often presented as the era of laissez-faire. It was not.

The British state was deeply involved in the economy. It built railways, imposed tariffs, managed the currency through the Bank of England, and regulated the poor through the Poor Laws. The Corn Laws — tariffs on imported grain — were a central political issue until their repeal in 1846.

The American state was heavily involved. The American System — tariffs, a national bank, and internal improvements — was the policy of Henry Clay and the Whig Party. The transcontinental railroad was built with federal land grants and subsidies.

Germany industrialised under state guidance. Japan — the Meiji Restoration — was a state-led industrialisation. The French state was actively involved in infrastructure and industry.

Status: Established.

2.6 The Post-War Settlement Was Regulated

The post-war settlement — the “golden age of capitalism” (1945–1973) — was the most regulated period in modern economic history. It was also the most prosperous.

· Bretton Woods fixed exchange rates and created the IMF and World Bank.

· The Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe with state funds.

· The welfare state provided health, education, and social security.

· Capital controls limited the movement of money across borders.

· Trade was managed through the GATT.

This was the period of highest growth, lowest inequality, and greatest social mobility in modern history.

Status: Established. There was no pre-regulatory golden age.

3. The Function of the Myth

3.1 The Noble Savage of Economics

The myth of the pre-regulatory golden age functions in the same way as the myth of the noble savage. It posits a past state of natural freedom that has been corrupted by society. It locates the ideal in the past rather than the future. It says: we were once free, and we must be free again.

The myth is not historical. It is ideological. It serves to delegitimise the present order and to justify the restoration of a previous one. But the previous order — the one that is invoked — never existed. It is a constructed past.

Status: Inference.

3.2 The Fall and Redemption Narrative

The myth has a structure that is recognisably religious:

· Eden: A golden age of minimal regulation.

· The Fall: The expansion of the state, regulation, bureaucracy, and welfare.

· The Promise: A return to the golden age through deregulation, privatisation, and tax cuts.

· The Enemy: Bureaucrats, regulators, trade unions, and critics of the market.

This is the structure of a fall and redemption narrative. It does not require evidence. It requires faith.

Status: Inference.

4. The Ideological Mechanisms

4.1 Naturalisation

Neoliberal theory presents the market as a natural phenomenon — like gravity or the weather. It is not. It is a constructed institution that requires constant maintenance, rules, and enforcement.

Naturalising the market removes it from the realm of political debate. If the market is natural, then questioning it is like questioning the laws of physics. It is not an argument. It is a category error.

Status: Established.

4.2 Moralisation

The market is presented as a realm of freedom, choice, and moral desert. The successful are those who have made good choices. The unsuccessful are those who have made bad choices. Poverty is a personal failure, not a structural outcome.

This moralisation serves to justify the distribution of wealth. The rich are rich because they deserve it. The poor are poor because they do not. The market is a just mechanism because it rewards virtue.

Status: Established.

4.3 Individualisation

The market is presented as a realm of individuals — rational agents pursuing their own interests. This erases the structures that shape the distribution of wealth and power. It erases the family as a unit of analysis. It erases the class as a unit of analysis. It erases society itself.

Margaret Thatcher’s statement — “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families” — is the purest expression of this mechanism.

Status: Established.

4.4 Technocratic Language

The market is described in the language of efficiency, productivity, and growth. This language presents the market as a technical problem to be solved, not a political choice to be made.

The language obscures the values embedded in the market. It says: this is not about who gets what. It is about making the pie bigger. It says: this is not about power. It is about efficiency.

Status: Established.

4.5 Sacralisation

The market is presented as a beneficent force — the “invisible hand” that turns private vice into public virtue. It is presented as a source of meaning — the arena in which we realise our potential. It is presented as a source of hope — the mechanism that will deliver prosperity for all.

This is the language of sacralisation. The market is not merely an economic system. It is a quasi-religious one.

Status: Inference.

5. The Cult and Pseudo-Religion Comparison

5.1 The Features of a Cult

Cults and pseudo-religions share a set of structural features. The following framework is drawn from the sociology of religion and the psychology of belief systems (see, e.g., Singer, 1995; Hassan, 2000; Lalich & Tobias, 2006).

1. A totalising worldview that explains all of reality.

2. A founding text or set of texts treated as authoritative.

3. A charismatic leader or group of leaders.

4. A cast of heroes and villains — the faithful and the heretics.

5. Rituals and symbols — the movements, the conferences, the texts.

6. Dogma that cannot be questioned.

7. Apocalyptic narratives — the crisis that is coming, the catastrophe that must be avoided.

8. Demand for sacrifice — the pain that must be borne for the future reward.

9. Resistance to disconfirming evidence — the recalcitrance in the face of failure.

10. In-group and out-group dynamics — the believers and the unbelievers.

5.2 The Assessment

Feature- Neoliberalism

Totalising worldview -Yes. The market explains all of reality.

Founding text -Yes. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom.

Charismatic leader- Yes. Hayek, Friedman, Reagan, Thatcher.

Heroes and villains- Yes. The entrepreneurs vs. the bureaucrats.

Rituals and symbols -Yes. Davos, the Mont Pelerin Society, the think tanks.

Dogma that cannot be questioned -Yes. “There is no alternative.”

Apocalyptic narratives -Yes. The coming crisis, the debt bomb, the collapse.

Demand for sacrifice -Yes. Austerity, wage restraint, “painful reforms.”

Resistance to disconfirming evidence- Yes. The 2008 crisis, the failure of the Washington Consensus.

In-group and out-group dynamics Yes. The “serious people” vs. the “populists.“

5.3 The Caveats

The comparison is structural, not literal. Neoliberalism is not a religion in the conventional sense:

· It does not have a supernatural being.

· It does not have a sacred text in the same way.

· It does not have a formal clergy.

· It does not have a promise of an afterlife.

But it has a faith — the faith that the market will deliver. It has a dogma — the dogma of efficiency. It has a promise — the promise of prosperity. It has a ritual — the ritual of deregulation. And it has a resistance to evidence — the refusal to acknowledge failure.

The comparison is credible. But it is an analogy, not an identity.

Status: Inference.

6. The Cast of Characters

6.1 The Founders

· Friedrich Hayek — the philosopher. His The Road to Serfdom (1944) argued that central planning leads to totalitarianism. His The Constitution of Liberty (1960) argued for the rule of law and the market.

· Milton Friedman — the economist. His Capitalism and Freedom (1962) argued for free markets, deregulation, and monetarism. His Free to Choose (1980) popularised the ideas.

· Ludwig von Mises — the theorist. His Human Action (1949) provided the Austrian School’s framework.

6.2 The Prophets

· Ronald Reagan — the politician. He cut taxes, deregulated finance, and broke the air traffic controllers’ union.

· Margaret Thatcher — the politician. She privatised state industries, broke the miners’ strike, and declared “there is no alternative.”

· Alan Greenspan — the central banker. He presided over the deregulation of finance and the housing bubble.

6.3 The Missionaries

· The Mont Pelerin Society — the network. Founded in 1947 by Hayek, it brought together the intellectual founders.

· The Chicago School — the academic institution. It produced the Chicago Boys, who advised Pinochet.

· The think tanks — the advocacy institutions. The Institute of Economic Affairs (UK), the Heritage Foundation (US), the Centre for Independent Studies (Australia).

· The World Economic Forum — the ritual gathering. Davos brings together the global elite.

6.4 The Enforcers

· The IMF — the debt enforcer. It imposed structural adjustment programmes on developing countries.

· The World Bank — the development enforcer. It funded projects that opened markets to foreign capital.

· The World Trade Organization — the trade enforcer. It enforced the rules of global trade.

Status: Established.

7. The Promises and the Failures

7.1 The Promises

· Growth: The market will deliver prosperity for all.

· Efficiency: The market will allocate resources optimally.

· Freedom: The market will liberate individuals from state control.

· Innovation: The market will produce technological progress.

· Trickle-down: The wealth of the rich will benefit the poor.

7.2 The Outcomes

Growth: Slower than the post-war period. The global economy grew at 4.9% per year from 1950 to 1973. From 1980 to 2019, it grew at 3.2% (World Bank data).

Inequality: The richest 1% captured 63% of new wealth created since 2020 (Oxfam, 2023). The richest 1% captured half of all new wealth in the past decade.

Poverty: 3.7 million Australians live below the poverty line. 757,000 children live in poverty. 122,000 people are homeless (ACOSS, 2025; Salvation Army, 2026).

Financial crises: 1987, 1997, 2000, 2008. The 2008 crisis cost the global economy an estimated $10 trillion (IMF).

Deindustrialisation: The destruction of manufacturing communities in Australia, the US, and the UK. The collapse of the coal mining communities in the UK.

Environmental destruction: The market externalises environmental costs. Climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource depletion.

Social fragmentation: The collapse of social trust. The rise of populism. The decline of community.

7.3 The Resistance to Evidence

The pattern is consistent. When the promises fail, the theory is not abandoned. It is adjusted:

· The crisis was caused by external factors (the government, the unions, the “greed” of individuals).

· The reforms did not go far enough.

· The problem is implementation, not the theory.

· The next round of reforms will deliver the promise.

This is the structure of a belief system that cannot be falsified. It is not a scientific theory. It is a faith.

Status: Established for the outcomes. Inference for the resistance to evidence.

8. Conclusion: The Faith and the Citizen

The neoliberal theory is not a science. It is not a description of a natural phenomenon. It is a belief system — a set of claims about the world that are held with conviction, defended against evidence, and propagated through a network of institutions and individuals.

The theory promises prosperity. It delivers inequality. It promises freedom. It delivers dependency. It promises efficiency. It delivers waste. It promises growth. It delivers stagnation.

But the theory is not abandoned. It is protected. The faith is maintained. The believers persist. The cast of characters continues to preach. And the citizens — the ones who experience the outcomes daily — are told that the problem is not the theory. It is them.

The record is kept. The myth is named. And the faith is still being preached.

Claim -Status- Summary

#- Claim- Status

1- There was no pre-regulatory golden age -Established

2- Ancient economies were regulated- Established

3- Medieval economies were regulated- Established

4 -Mercantilism was state-managed- Established

5 -Adam Smith was not a free-market absolutist -Established

6- The 19th century was not laissez-faire- Established

7 -The post-war settlement was regulated and prosperous- Established

8- The myth functions as a fall and redemption narrative- Inference

9 -Neoliberalism naturalises the market -Established

10 -Neoliberalism moralises market outcomes -Established

11 -Neoliberalism individualises social problems- Established

12- Neoliberalism uses technocratic language -Established

13 -Neoliberalism sacralises the market -Inference

14 -Neoliberalism has structural parallels to a cult -Inference

15- The theory has a cast of founders, prophets, missionaries, enforcers -Established

16- The promised outcomes did not materialise -Established

17 -The theory resists disconfirming evidence- Inference

18 -Neoliberalism is a belief system, not a science -Inference

References

1. Smith, A. (1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell.

2. Smith, A. (1759). The Theory of Moral Sentiments. London: A. Millar.

3. Hayek, F. A. (1944). The Road to Serfdom. London: Routledge.

4. Hayek, F. A. (1960). The Constitution of Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

5. Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

6. Friedman, M., & Friedman, R. (1980). Free to Choose. New York: Harcourt.

7. von Mises, L. (1949). Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. New Haven: Yale University Press.

8. Mirowski, P. (2013). Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown. London: Verso.

9. Slobodian, Q. (2018). Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

10. Klein, N. (2007). The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Metropolitan Books.

11. Oxfam International. (2023). Survival of the Richest: How We Must Tax the Super-Rich Now to Fight Inequality. Oxford: Oxfam.

12. ACOSS. (2025). Poverty in Australia 2025. Sydney: Australian Council of Social Service.

13. The Salvation Army. (2026). Record Homelessness Should Shock Australia into Action. Melbourne: The Salvation Army.

14. Costanza, R., et al. (2014). Time to leave GDP behind. Nature, 505, 283–285.

15. Chang, H.-J. (2014). Economics: The User’s Guide. London: Bloomsbury.

16. Raworth, K. (2017). Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist. White River Junction: Chelsea Green.

17. Rodrik, D. (2011). The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy. New York: W. W. Norton.

18. Stiglitz, J. (2002). Globalization and Its Discontents. New York: W. W. Norton.

19. Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

20. Milanovic, B. (2016). Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

21. Singer, M. T., & Lalich, J. (1995). Cults in Our Midst: The Hidden Menace in Our Everyday Lives. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

22. Hassan, S. (2000). Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves. Somerville: Freedom of Mind Press.

23. Lalich, J., & Tobias, M. (2006). Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships. Berkeley: Bay Tree Publishing.

24. Klein, N. (2014). This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. New York: Simon & Schuster.

25. World Bank. (2020). World Development Indicators. Washington, DC: World Bank.

The Neoliberal Nightmare: Economic Performativity, US Power, and the Architecture of Global Harm

Posted on October 8, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Aerial city map labeled SHOCK TREATMENT ZONE, MARKET DE-REGULATION VECTORS, MILITARY LOGISTICS QUADRANTS, STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT FIELD, RE-ENGINEERING ORDER, and ECONOMIC MODETICS MODELING QUADRANTS — A conceptual city map overlays economic, military, and structural transformation zones across a mountain valley.

By Andrew Paul Klein

Abstract

This paper argues that the neoliberal economic model is not a neutral tool for observing reality but a performative lens that actively constructs the world it claims to describe. It traces the transformation of economics from political economy to positive economics, the assumption of homo economicus, and the political adoption of economic theory in two waves: Keynesian and neoliberal. It documents the global pattern of US intervention to install regimes that would open their economies to American capital, using Chile as the first laboratory. It examines Australia’s direct involvement in the Chilean coup, the dismissal of the Whitlam government, and the subsequent shift to neoliberalism. It identifies the ideological mechanisms — the conflation of Christian and market values, the Reagan-era construction of the “Islamist” stereotype, and the “Clash of Civilizations” thesis — that functioned as distractions from the real damage. It concludes that the economic model creates a parallel world — internally coherent but disconnected from lived experience — and that the harm it produces is not measured because the lens was not designed to measure it.

1. Introduction: The Lens and the Nightmare

In 2026, the neoliberal free market model is lived daily as a nightmare by millions. Homelessness is rising. Aged care waits stretch to twelve months, with thousands dying on the list. The NDIS is being cut. Veterans are told the system is “geared to frustrate.” Children go hungry in wealthy nations. The environment degrades. Social cohesion fractures.

This paper asks how this came to be. It argues that the answer lies not in incompetence or individual malice but in the performative power of economic theory. Economics does not merely describe a world. It constructs one. The models, indicators, and dashboards that economists produce are not windows onto reality. They are lenses that determine what is visible. What the model measures is real within the model. What the model does not measure is not visible through the model. And the gap between the model and lived experience is where the harm lives.

The paper proceeds in ten sections. Section 2 traces the history of economics. Section 3 examines homo economicus. Section 4 documents the political adoption of economic theory. Section 5 examines performativity. Section 6 examines the Chilean coup as the first neoliberal experiment. Section 7 examines Australia’s role in the coup and the compliance mechanism. Section 8 documents the global pattern of US intervention. Section 9 examines the ideological distractions. Section 10 draws structural conclusions.

2. From Political Economy to Positive Economics

Extensive theorising about economic phenomena emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries, but the modern discipline traces its origin to Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776). Smith launched the classical theory of political economy, which was developed by figures like David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill. By the 1820s, it was common in learned circles to refer to political economy as a science, with Ricardo giving it a deductive rigour often compared to Euclidean geometry.

However, this “science” was almost entirely a literary pursuit. Ricardo used hypothetical numerical examples but did not posit algebraic functions or undertake quantitative verification. The basic assumptions about human behaviour were left rather vague. The shift from this moral and historical “political economy” to the modern, mathematically formalised “economics” occurred in the late 19th century, displacing the older usage.

Status: Established.

3. The Rational Agent: Homo Economicus

The core assumption of neoclassical economics is the model of homo economicus (economic man). This model posits agents as selfish, hyper-rational, and stable over time, who make decisions to maximise their utility. It assumes individuals have great mathematical skills, access to relevant, full information, and are motivated by self-interest.

Rational choice theory, which became popular in the social sciences from the 1950s to the 1990s, is the methodological pillar of this approach. It treats human behaviour as a series of cost-benefit analyses. The assumption is so foundational that one critique notes that the “perfectly rational homo oeconomicus is an odious assumption, because it implies that consumer protection is superfluous”.

This model was later severely challenged by behavioural economics and psychology, which demonstrated that real human decision-making is influenced by context, unconscious processes, altruism, and cognitive biases.

Status: Established.

4. The Political Adoption of Economic Theory

4.1 The Keynesian Wave (Post-WWII)

After the Great Depression and World War II, John Maynard Keynes’s ideas achieved an ascendant position. The Bretton Woods system (1944) created the IMF and World Bank, embedding Keynesian principles of managed capitalism and full employment into the international order. The post-war “Keynesian consensus” held that the state had a responsibility to secure full employment and manage demand. This was a social-democratic project, embraced by centre-left and centre-right parties alike in the developed world.

4.2 The Neoliberal Wave (1970s–1980s)

The Keynesian consensus unravelled in the 1970s with the collapse of Bretton Woods (1971) and the onset of “stagflation“. This crisis provided the opening for a new set of ideas, developed by the Chicago School (Milton Friedman) and the Austrian School (Friedrich Hayek). These thinkers argued for free markets, deregulation, and limited government. Their ideas were disseminated through a transatlantic network of think tanks and businessmen.

The political breakthrough came with the elections of Margaret Thatcher (1979) and Ronald Reagan (1980), who embarked on a systematic project of fiscal retrenchment, financial and labour market deregulation, and the erosion of Keynesian assumptions. This was a right-wing project, but it was later adopted and advanced by centre-left politicians like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, who rebranded it as the “Third Way“.

Status: Established.

5. The Performativity of Economics

A crucial insight from economic sociology is that economics is not merely a descriptive science. It is performative. As Michel Callon argued, economics “performs, shapes and formats the economy, rather than observing how it functions”.

The performativity thesis has been developed by Donald MacKenzie, who distinguishes between generic performativity (an element from theory is used in the world), effective performativity (the use of the theory changes processes), and Barnesian performativity (the use of the theory makes processes better correspond to the model). Counterperformativity describes the situation in which the use of a model undermines its empirical accuracy.

5.1 GDP and Its Exclusions

The most significant expression of this lens is Gross Domestic Product (GDP). GDP was adopted as the primary measure of national success not because it captures wellbeing, but because it is measurable. It fails to account for ecological depletion, unpaid care work, income distribution, and non-market sources of wellbeing.

As Costanza et al. observe, “GDP in particular, and economic growth in general, is regularly referred to by leading economists, politicians, top-level decision-makers, and the media as though it represents overall progress“. GDP operates as a form of numerical rhetoric, shaping how society perceives the economy and what is seen as desirable policy action.

The measure became the target, and the target displaced the purpose. This is Goodhart’s Law: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

Status: Established.

6. The First Laboratory: Chile, 1973

The most explicit application of neoliberal theory was in Chile.

6.1 The Chicago Boys

Between 1956 and 1961, around 25 Chilean students, known as the “Chicago Boys,” studied under Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger at the University of Chicago. They returned to Chile with a programme of radical economic restructuring. Initially confined to basement workshops, they “seized upon a rare opportunity to experiment on an entire nation, whose economy would serve as their laboratory”.

6.2 The Coup

On 11 September 1973, a military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. The coup was organised with CIA support. The Pinochet regime implemented the Chicago Boys’ programme: privatisation of banks, mining, utilities, and pensions; public spending cut by ~27%; real wages cut by ~30%.

6.3 The Outcomes

The results were documented:

· State spending decreased from 40% of GDP in 1973 to 26% of GDP in 1979 due to the decrease in state employment and the elimination of many social programs.

· Unemployment rose from 9% to 18% in 1975.

· Real wages dropped to 64% of their 1970 level by 1975.

· Income shares declined for the 40% of the population (low and lower middle income groups) under Pinochet.

· The share of the middle class in national income declined by an average 3 percentage points during 1974–89.

· Average remuneration in 1989 was 8% below 1970 levels.

The neoliberal model required political repression to sustain it. As one scholarly account notes, “through political repression, notably the elimination of the opposition by torture and disappearances, Pinochet created an environment of fear where few dared speak out against the government or its policies”.

Status: Established.

7. Australia’s Role and the Compliance Mechanism

7.1 Australian Intelligence in Chile

Declassified documents obtained through FOI petitions by Professor Clinton Fernandes establish that the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) opened a station in Santiago in 1971 at the direct request of the CIA, with formal approval granted by Liberal Party External Affairs Minister William McMahon in December 1970. ASIS admitted internally that “there was no vital Australian political or economic interest in Chile at the time” — the operation was run entirely to support US intelligence interests, with reports routed directly to Langley.

For 18 months from 1971, ASIS conducted covert operations in Chile, including “handling CIA-recruited Chilean assets in Santiago and filing intelligence reports to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia”. The Australian Parliament has formally acknowledged that “elements of a previous Australian government were also involved in the intervention that led to the coup”.

7.2 Whitlam and the CIA

When Whitlam came to power, he ordered the station closed in April 1973, but his instructions were explicit: “Do nothing that will offend the CIA”. The CIA expressed “deep concern” and ASIS Director-General William Robertson pressured Whitlam to reverse the order. The station was formally closed in July 1973, but one ASIS agent reportedly remained in Santiago until after the September 11 coup.

Whitlam’s own behaviour reveals the constraint he operated under. Even as he ordered the Santiago station closed, he was “most concerned that the CIA should not interpret this decision as being an unfriendly gesture”. He explicitly told ASIS director Robertson that he did not necessarily disapprove of what the Americans were doing in Chile. The Prime Minister of Australia was managing his relationship with a foreign intelligence service that had just demonstrated, in a neighbouring hemisphere, what happened to leaders who challenged US economic and strategic interests.

7.3 The Dismissal and the Compliance Mechanism

Former CIA officer Victor Marchetti told John Pilger that Whitlam’s threat to expose CIA operations at Pine Gap caused “apoplexy in the White House” and that “a kind of Chilean-style coup was set in motion”. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter sent his envoy Warren Christopher to apologise to Whitlam, conveying that the US “would never again interfere in the domestic political processes in Australia”. The apology came too late.

The sequence is precise:

· December 1970: McMahon approves ASIS station in Santiago at CIA request

· 1971: ASIS agents and equipment sent to Chile; station operational

· April 1973: Whitlam orders station closed, but with explicit instruction not to offend the CIA

· 11 September 1973: Pinochet’s coup overthrows Allende

· 1973–1975: Chile becomes the first neoliberal laboratory under Pinochet

· November 1975: Whitlam government dismissed by Governor-General Kerr

· 1975 onwards: “Following the dismissal of the Whitlam government, what had commenced as an incremental change process in the 1960s became a radical policy shift to neo-liberalism”

· 1983–1996: Hawke-Keating Labor governments implement full neoliberal programme — floating the dollar, deregulating finance, dismantling tariffs, privatising assets

The lesson was absorbed by both parties. The Hawke-Keating Labor governments embraced “economic rationalism,” the Australian label for neoliberalism. The ALP became the “willing midwife of neoliberalism”. By the 1980s, both parties had converged on a policy framework that was structurally insulated from electoral contestation.

Status: Established for the documentary record. Inference for the compliance mechanism.

8. The Global Pattern of US Intervention

The Chilean coup was neither the first nor the last instance of a consistent pattern.

8.1 The Scale of Intervention

Lindsey O’Rourke’s Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War (2018) documents that the United States attempted 64 covert and six open regime-change operations between 1947 and 1989. The United States chose covert actions instead of overt by a ratio of ten to one. Jeffrey Sachs has stated that “since 1947, the United States has repeatedly used force, secret operations and political manipulation to bring about regime change in other countries”.

Of 392 US military interventions from 1776 to 2019, 34% were against countries in Latin America and the Caribbean — a century of Monroe Doctrine enforcement. The RAND Corporation identifies the 1960s–1970s as a period of particularly high intervention activity in East and Southeast Asia and Central America, driven by “anticommunism and democracy promotion”.

8.2 The Economic Motive

The pattern is economic as much as strategic. The targeted governments shared a common feature: they “launched programs to redistribute land; strengthen labour unions, health and education systems; and nationalize industries”. This is the pattern that connects Chile under Allende, Guatemala under Árbenz, Iran under Mossadegh, and the Congo under Lumumba.

John Perkins, a former “economic hitman” recruited by US intelligence in the 1960s–1970s, described the methodology: target emerging nations, push them to take unmanageable loans from the World Bank and USAID, steer contracts to US firms, and when leaders refused, “unleash jackals” — operatives who force compliance through coups, assassinations, or war.

Operation Condor formalised this pattern. A transnational network of state-sponsored terrorism targeting “communist subversion,” its key members were Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil. Declassified files show the US “aided and facilitated Condor operations as a matter of secret but routine policy”.

8.3 The CIA: From OSS to Instrument of Economic Control

The CIA grew out of the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS), America’s first centralised intelligence agency. The OSS was dissolved in 1945, and the National Security Act of 1947 created the CIA primarily as an intelligence coordination body. However, the CIA’s mission expanded beyond intelligence gathering. As one scholarly analysis notes, the “relationship—and tension—between the two missions (strategic warning and clandestine activities) formed the central dynamic” of the agency’s history.

This tension was visible in the OSS’s own operations. In North Vietnam, OSS officers worked alongside Ho Chi Minh’s forces against the Japanese and reported favourably on Vietnamese aspirations for independence. The CIA that followed took a different view. The shift from intelligence gathering to covert action — including the installation of regimes that would open their economies to American capital — became the agency’s defining function.

8.4 Vietnam and the Algorithmic Turn

The Vietnam War marked a significant development in the relationship between data, management, and warfare. Robert McNamara’s “Whiz Kids” — a group of systems analysts who had made their name at the Ford Motor Company — instituted a “numbers-only mentality” in the management of the war. They embraced deeply flawed metrics, most infamously the body count, to gauge success on the battlefield.

As one analysis notes, “body counts were the most (in)famous of the Vietnam era ‘quantitative measures’, and anyone associated with them has come in for very heavy criticism”. The numbers were “routinely inflated at each level of the chain of command”. McNamara’s approach “recalls the thinking that led the United States to escalate the Vietnam war partly on the basis of body counts, rather than basing decisions on more meaningful metrics”.

The Vietnam model — the use of algorithms and quantitative metrics to manage complex human systems, while removing human judgment from the field — became a template. The consultants who developed these systems for the military later “offered their skills to corporate America”. The same logic was later applied to welfare administration, corporate management, and government service delivery.

Status: Established for the documentary record. Inference for the connection between Vietnam and later administrative practices.

9. The Ideological Distractions

The neoliberal project required ideological cover. Three mechanisms were deployed.

9.1 The Conflation of Christian and Market Values

The conflation of Christian values with market values was not incidental. The neoliberal project required a moral framework that could make market outcomes appear providential rather than political. As one scholarly analysis notes, the alliance between neoliberalism and Christian fundamentalism is characterised by “their shared conviction of the universality or complete truth of their assertions”. In some contexts, this has been described as replacing “faith in the God that Jesus bequeathed to the Church with the ideology of the capitalist’s doctrine of ‘market as god’“. Neoliberalism becomes “fetishised in the manner of a pseudo-religion”.

The “shared values” rhetoric — deployed in alliance discourse and domestic politics alike — functioned to naturalise the market order, to present it as the expression of a civilisational inheritance rather than a set of policy choices that served specific interests. The same language that described the US alliance as a partnership of “shared values” described the market as a realm of freedom, choice, and moral desert.

9.2 The Reagan-Era Construction of the “Islamist” Threat

The Reagan administration played a central role in constructing the “Islamist” stereotype that would become the dominant frame for understanding the Middle East. Mamdani’s Good Muslim, Bad Muslim shows how the Reagan years embraced “the highly ideological politics of ‘good’ against ‘evil’,” identifying militant nationalist governments as Soviet proxies while “readily backing terrorist movements, hailing them as the ‘moral equivalents’ of America’s Founding Fathers”.

As one analysis notes, “Islam as a religion of terrorism had already been deeply ingrained in the psyche of many Americans prior to 9/11 through stereotypes”. The Reagan administration “hoped to turn a religious schism inside Islam, between minority Shia and majority Sunni, into a political schism”. The figure of “the Arab immigrant, the Islamic fundamentalist, the ‘terrorist,’ the Palestinian, and the ‘non-Western’” were “routinely fused”.

This construction served a dual purpose. It provided a new enemy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And it functioned as a distraction from the economic damage being inflicted on Western working classes by neoliberal policies.

9.3 The “Clash of Civilizations“

Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996) provided the intellectual framework for the new enemy. Huntington argued that the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world would be cultural and civilisational, with the “Muslim world” as the primary antagonist of “the West.”

The thesis has been extensively critiqued. One analysis describes it as “morally, pragmatically, and empirically flawed”. Another notes that “it soon became clear that those who saw Al Qaeda as the representatives of Muslim civilisation had simply been duped by its propaganda”. The thesis “neglects the material causes of conflicts over money, property, and politics”.

But the thesis was not intended to be empirically accurate. It was intended to be politically useful. It provided a framework that could justify the ongoing US military presence in the Middle East, the expansion of surveillance, and the suppression of domestic dissent. It functioned as “a cognitive scheme through which people look at the world”, and as a “political myth” that obscured the material interests driving Western policy.

As one analysis puts it: “The thesis of neoliberal globalization claimed that we had reached the ‘end of history’… hegemonism introduced the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ thesis to suppress opposition to the ‘global village’“.

Status: Established for the documentary record. Inference for the distraction function.

10. The Australian Outcome: Lived Experience in 2026

The neoliberal model, adopted after the Whitlam dismissal and completed under Hawke-Keating, has produced measurable outcomes in Australia.

10.1 Inequality

· The 20 richest Australians now hold more wealth than the bottom three million households.

· The richest 0.1% of Australian households have 189 times more wealth than households in the bottom 50%, rising from 74 times in 2015 to 161 times in 2025.

· The top 10% of Australian households control 44% of all wealth.

· The number of Australian billionaires has more than doubled over the past decade, rising from 74 in 2016 to 161 in 2025.

10.2 Poverty

· 3.7 million Australians (one in seven) are living below the poverty line, an increase of 12.4% since 2021.

· 757,000 children (one in six) are living in poverty.

· More than 122,000 people are experiencing homelessness across Australia.

10.3 Social Harm

As one analysis notes: “When increasing numbers of people are excluded from access to meaningful and properly paid (dignified) work and decent living conditions, they turn to desperate measures – home invasions, burglary, stealing cars, gang violence, drug addictions and overdose deaths, domestic violence. All these things and more, such as homelessness, are increasing as inequality increases”.

10.4 The Dashboard and the Gap

The economic model does not measure these outcomes. They are externalities. The model measures the aggregates. It measures GDP. It measures the deficit. It measures the market. It does not measure the person the market passes through.

The algorithms that now govern service delivery — the IAT for aged care, the NDIS planning algorithm, the ATO’s 43 AI models — are optimised for what they are designed to optimise for. If the objective function is cost reduction, the algorithm will find cost reductions. It will not ask whether the cost reduction causes harm. It cannot ask. The question is not in the objective function.

The harm is not a bug. It is a structural output. The algorithm produces what the model requires. And the model was designed to produce what the market requires.

Status: Established.

11. Conclusion: The Parallel World

The economic model is a lens. The lens was designed to see what the market requires. The market requires the flow to continue. The model measures the flow. It does not measure the person the flow passes through. And the person is in the gap.

The neoliberal model was not a spontaneous intellectual development. It was a strategic response to the structural crisis of American capitalism in the 1970s, imposed through covert intervention, the discipline of the IMF and World Bank, and the compliance of political elites who had witnessed the cost of non-compliance.

Chile was the first laboratory. The model was then exported — to Australia through the demonstration effect of the Whitlam dismissal, and to the developing world through the Washington Consensus.

The ideological cover — the conflation of Christian and market values, the construction of the “Islamist” threat, the “Clash of Civilizations” — functioned to naturalise the market order and to distract from the damage it was inflicting.

The outcome is a parallel world. In that world, the aggregates are growing, the deficit is under control, the market is efficient, the indicators are green. The language is coherent. The numbers add up. But it is not the world people live in. In the lived world, the rent is unaffordable, the waitlist is twelve months, the disability support is being cut, the veteran has given up, the child is hungry.

Those outcomes are not in the model. They are in the gap. And the gap is where the harm accumulates.

The record is kept. The nightmare is documented. And the lens is still pointing at the market.

Claim- Status- Summary

# -Claim -Status

1 -Economics shifted from political economy to positive economics -Established

2- Homo economicus assumes selfish, hyper-rational agents -Established

3- Economics is performative (Callon, MacKenzie) -Established

4 -GDP excludes unpaid care, ecological depletion, inequality- Established

5 -Chile was the first neoliberal laboratory -Established

6- Pinochet cut public spending by 27%; real wages fell to 64% of 1970- Established

7- ASIS opened Santiago station at CIA request in 1971 -Established

8- McMahon approved the operation in December 1970- Established

9 -Whitlam ordered closure but told ASIS not to offend CIA -Established

10- CIA officer said “Chilean-style coup was set in motion” for Whitlam- Reported

11- US attempted 70 regime-change operations 1947–1989- Established

12- US aided and facilitated Operation Condor -Established

13 -Vietnam body counts were routine and inflated -Established

14 -Reagan administration constructed “Islamist” stereotype- Established

15 -Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” is empirically flawed- Established

16- 20 richest Australians hold more wealth than bottom 3 million households -Established

17 -3.7 million Australians below poverty line; 757,000 children -Established

18- Chile coup taught Australian elite the cost of non-compliance- Inference

19 -This created the conditions for neoliberal acceptance- Inference

20- The model creates a parallel world disconnected from lived experience -Inference

21- The purpose of the model is to manage the market, not see the citizen- Inference

References

1. Callon, M. (1998). The Laws of the Markets. Blackwell.

2. MacKenzie, D. (2006). An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets. MIT Press.

3. Costanza, R., et al. (2014). Time to leave GDP behind. Nature, 505, 283–285.

4. O’Rourke, L. A. (2018). Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War. Cornell University Press.

5. Fernandes, C. (2021). Declassified documents show Australia assisted CIA in coup against Chile’s Salvador Allende. The Guardian, 11 September 2021.

6. Blanco, C. (2021). ‘Last thing he wanted was to embarrass the CIA’: Inside Whitlam’s ‘agonising’ decision to shut Australian spy operation in Chile. SBS News.

7. Pilger, J. (2014). The Killing of Gough Whitlam. [Documentary].

8. Mamdani, M. (2004). Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. Pantheon Books.

9. Huntington, S. P. (1996). The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Simon & Schuster.

10. Oxfam Australia. (2026). The Elephant in the Room.

11. ACOSS. (2025). Poverty in Australia 2025.

12. Pearls and Irritations. (2025). From Whitlam to AUKUS: Sovereignty silenced.

13. Pearls and Irritations. (2026). Inequality in Australia is growing.

14. Colby College. (2020). Development Strategy and Structural Adjustment in Chile, 1973–1990.

15. CIA. (n.d.). Notes from Our Attic: The OSS and the CIA.

16. O’Rourke, L. A. (2018). Covert Regime Change. De Gruyter.

17. Radio France. (2018). Histoires d’info: Au Brésil aujourd’hui comme au Chili de Pinochet.

18. The Dictatorship of Data. (2013). MIT Technology Review.

19. Vietnam’s lessons…and Afghanistan. (2011). Oxford University Press Blog.

20. What gets measured, gets manipulated. (2017). Taylor & Francis.

Andrew Paul Klein is a writer and analyst based in Boronia, Victoria. He accepts funding from no one.

The Dashboard and the Lived World: Economic Performativity, the Market-State, and the Architecture of Invisibility

Posted on October 8, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Nighttime city skyline with glowing data analytics and network connections — A vibrant city at night is layered with glowing analytics that illustrate connected urban infrastructure.

By Andrew Paul Klein

Method notes – The paper examines the discipline of economics as a performative lens, the gap between economic models and lived experience, and the consequences for individuals, families, and communities in Australia. It includes a case study of the Docklands development in Melbourne as an illustration of market-driven urban planning. The paper does not argue that economics is without value. It argues that the economic model, as applied, is a lens that determines what is visible, and that what is not visible is not acted upon.

Abstract

This paper argues that the discipline of economics is not a neutral tool for observing reality but a performative lens that actively constructs the world it claims to describe. Drawing on the work of Michel Callon, Donald MacKenzie, and the sociology of performativity, it examines the shift from “political economy” to “positive economics,” the assumption of homo economicus, and the political adoption of economic theory in two waves: Keynesian and neoliberal. It documents the gap between the promises of economic theory and its outcomes, using the Washington Consensus as an example. It then examines the Australian case, documenting the adverse outcomes in homelessness, aged care, the NDIS, and veterans’ affairs. It presents a case study of the Docklands development in Melbourne, where the 1989 Cain government plan for a mixed-use, community-oriented precinct was abandoned by the Kennett government in favour of market-driven development. The result was high-rise towers, empty apartments, and an absence of social infrastructure. The paper concludes that the economic model creates a parallel world — internally coherent but disconnected from lived experience — and that the adverse outcomes it produces are not measured because the lens was not designed to measure them.

1. Introduction: The Lens and the World

Economics is often described as a science of scarcity, a discipline that studies how societies allocate limited resources. This description presents economics as a neutral tool — a lens for observing an independent reality.

This paper argues that the description is incomplete. Economics is not merely a descriptive science. It is performative. It does not simply observe the economy; it shapes it. The models, indicators, and dashboards that economists produce are not windows onto reality. They are lenses that determine what is visible. What the model measures is real within the model. What the model does not measure is not visible through the model. And the gap between the model and lived experience is where the harm lives.

The paper proceeds in eight sections. Section 2 traces the history of economics from political economy to positive economics. Section 3 examines the assumption of homo economicus. Section 4 documents the political adoption of economic theory. Section 5 examines the performativity thesis. Section 6 presents the Australian case studies. Section 7 examines the Docklands development as a state-level case study. Section 8 draws structural conclusions.

2. From Political Economy to Positive Economics

However, this “science” was almost entirely a literary pursuit. Ricardo used hypothetical numerical examples but did not posit algebraic functions or undertake quantitative verification. The basic assumptions about human behaviour were left rather vague. The shift from this moral and historical “political economy” to the modern, mathematically formalised “economics” occurred in the late 19th century, displacing the older usage.

Status: Established.

3. The Rational Agent: Homo Economicus

Status: Established.

4. The Political Adoption of Economic Theory

Political decision-makers took economic theories seriously in two major waves.

4.1 The Keynesian Wave (Post-WWII)

4.2 The Neoliberal Wave (1970s–1980s)

The Keynesian consensus unravelled in the 1970s with the collapse of Bretton Woods (1971) and the onset of “stagflation“. This crisis provided the opening for a new set of ideas, developed by the Chicago School (Milton Friedman) and the Austrian School (Friedrich Hayek). These thinkers argued for free markets, deregulation, and limited government. Their ideas were disseminated through a transatlantic network of think tanks and businessmen.

Status: Established.

5. Promises and Outcomes: The Washington Consensus

The most explicit application of neoliberal theory to the developing world was the Washington Consensus, a set of policy prescriptions (liberalisation, privatisation, fiscal discipline) promoted by the IMF, World Bank, and US Treasury in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Promises: The agenda promised healthier budgets, lower inflation, economic growth, and poverty reduction.

The Outcomes: The results disappointed. While inflation was tamed, unemployment rose in many countries, and poverty remained widespread. The emphasis on market openness made states vulnerable to the side effects of globalization. The mismatch between reformers’ expectations and actual outcomes in terms of growth, poverty reduction, and inequality was documented extensively. More than a third of Latin America’s population continued to live in poverty.

Status: Established.

6. The Performativity of Economics

This means that economic theories do not simply describe an independent reality; they actively construct the reality they claim to describe. When a model of rational, self-interested agents is imposed through policy, it can create a world that increasingly resembles the model. This leads to a phenomenon called “counterperformativity,” where the application of a model can actually alter economic processes in ways that make them less like the model, as seen in the 2008 financial crisis.

The performativity thesis has been developed by Donald MacKenzie, who distinguishes between generic performativity (an element from theory is used in the world), effective performativity (the use of the theory changes processes), and Barnesian performativity (the use of the theory makes processes better correspond to the model). Counter -performativity describes the situation in which the use of a model undermines its empirical accuracy.

Status: Established.

7. The Dashboard and the Parallel World

7.1 The Dashboard Reality

Political decision-makers do not experience the world. They experience dashboards. A minister does not see the person on the aged care waitlist. They see a number on a slide. A Treasury official does not see the child in poverty. They see a line on a graph.

The dashboard is not a window. It is a model. And the model was built to measure what the market requires — not what the citizen experiences. The citizen’s experience is not in the data. It is in the gap.

This is the same structure as the algorithmic lens. The Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT) classifies the aged care applicant. The Robodebt algorithm classifies the welfare recipient. The Job Seeker Classification Instrument (JSCI) classifies the jobseeker. None of them see the person. They see the data point the model requires.

7.2 The Manufacture of Answers

The algorithms do not “manufacture” answers in the conspiratorial sense. They optimise for what they are designed to optimise for. If the objective function is cost reduction, the algorithm will find cost reductions. If the objective function is fraud detection, the algorithm will find fraud indicators. It will not ask whether the cost reduction causes harm, or whether the fraud indicator is a false positive. It cannot ask. The question is not in the objective function.

The harm is not a bug. It is a structural output. The algorithm produces what the model requires. And the model was designed to produce what the market requires.

7.3 The Invisible Outcomes

The adverse outcomes are not measured because the lens was not designed to measure them.

The aged care deaths on waitlists are not in the budget papers. They are not in the fiscal strategy. They are not in the GDP calculation. They are externalities. The model does not count them.

The children in poverty are not in the economic forecast. They are a distributional outcome, not an aggregate one. The model measures the aggregate.

The Robodebt deaths were not in the cost-benefit analysis. They were a human cost, not a fiscal one. The model counted the savings. It did not count the grief.

This is the structural lens. What it measures is real. What it does not measure does not exist for the purposes of the model. And the model is what the decision-maker sees.

7.4 GDP and Its Exclusions

The most significant expression of this lens is Gross Domestic Product (GDP). GDP was adopted as the primary measure of national success not because it captures wellbeing, but because it is measurable. It fails to account for ecological depletion, unpaid care work, income distribution, and non-market sources of wellbeing.

The measure became the target, and the target displaced the purpose. This is Goodhart’s Law: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. The measure is optimised. The thing the measure was supposed to represent is lost.

Status: Established for the performativity thesis and GDP critique. Inference for the dashboard interpretation.

8. The Australian Case: Outcomes in the Lived World

The economic model is not abstract. It produces outcomes in the lives of real people. The following sections document the Australian evidence.

8.1 Homelessness and Housing

More than 122,000 people are experiencing homelessness across Australia. Almost 289,000 people sought support from The Salvation Army’s homelessness services in the past year. Nearly 169,000 households remain on public housing waitlists nationwide.

The Salvation Army’s 2026 Red Shield Report, which surveyed more than 4,400 people accessing emergency relief services, found:

· 75% of respondents were experiencing housing stress, rising to 86% among private renters.

· 60% had been unable to pay their rent or mortgage on time during the previous year.

· 37% feared losing their home altogether.

· 16% had couch surfed or lived in their car during the previous 12 months.

· Almost two-thirds (64%) of households with children could not afford winter clothing or shoes for their children.

Rough sleeping accounts for only 6.2% of homelessness. The most common form is severely overcrowded housing, affecting 39% of people experiencing homelessness.

The Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services shows that 41% of people waiting to get into public housing are homeless or at risk of homelessness — up from 26% in 2015. Meanwhile, the Federal Government is spending more on tax breaks for property investors than on social housing, homelessness services and rent assistance combined. Property investor tax breaks come at a cost of more than $12 billion each year.

There are 3.7 million, or one in seven Australians, living below the poverty line, including 757,000 children.

Status: Established.

8.2 Aged Care

More than 230,000 Australians are waiting for aged-care services. The average wait time is 12 months, and 5,000 people have died while on that waiting list in the past year. The most recent federal aged care department data shows an average wait of about 10 months to access a Support at Home package. More than 4,800 people died in 2024–25 while waiting for their approved home care funding.

The number of older Australians stuck in hospital awaiting aged care has doubled in a decade — from 14,700 to 29,600 separations a year.

Status: Established.

8.3 The NDIS

The Australian Human Rights Commission has called on the government to halt the passage of the NDIS Amendment Bill until significant human rights concerns around process, accountability and the impact of the reforms are addressed. The Bill “would deliver the biggest ever cuts to the NDIS with tightened eligibility to reduce participant numbers and a substantial reduction in funding for social and community participation”.

From 1 October 2026, funding for Social, Civic and Community Participation supports will be reduced by 50%, and Capacity Building Daily Activities supports by 10%. The Senate NDIS inquiry revealed that 351,000 Australians will no longer be able to access the NDIS and will have to look for supports that “don’t exist”.

The Disability Discrimination Commissioner stated: “The government is dismissing genuine concerns that their proposed changes will seriously erode the life-changing impact the scheme has delivered for hundreds of thousands of people with disability across Australia“. The Commissioner noted that “automated decision-making is being introduced without a legislative framework, as was recommended by the Robodebt Royal Commission”.

Status: Established.

8.4 Veterans

Two years after the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide’s Final Report, the Government has implemented 32 recommendations and is “on track to implement around two-thirds” by the end of 2026. A new Veteran and Family Wellbeing Agency commenced in July 2026.

However, the structural causes of veteran distress — the culture of the ADF, the claims process, the transition to civilian life — are not addressed by an agency. The reforms are real. They are also slow.

Status: Established for the implementation record. Inference for the structural assessment.

9. Case Study: The Docklands, Melbourne

The Docklands development in Melbourne is a state-level illustration of the market model applied to urban planning.

9.1 The Original Plan (1989)

In 1989, the then-Labor Cain government wanted to transform 200 hectares of toxic swamps and industrial wasteland into an inner-city oasis. The planning blueprint envisioned a sparkling waterfront with varied and rich architecture and buildings as modest as two to six storeys so as not to dominate the harbour.

Michael Buxton, urban planning professor at RMIT, described the plan: “The model was low-to-medium rise, quite dense European-style development; lots of narrow laneways, town squares and open space along the river. Primarily residential.”

9.2 The Abandonment (1990s)

The plans were abandoned by the incoming Kennett government. Buxton states: “When the Kennett government was elected, the planning minister Robert Maclellan threw those plans in the bin and said he wasn’t going to do master planning for Docklands — he believed that the private sector was best placed to decide the type and scale of development, and he threw it open for business”.

The Kennett government withheld public subsidies from the development. Very few restrictions were placed on bids from developers. From 2000 onwards, high-rise buildings shot up across the Docklands.

9.3 The Outcome

The result was what Buxton calls a “failed model of urban form… based on alienation, dominated by high-rise towers separating people from the street and each other”.

The Speculative Vacancies study, commissioned by tax-reform group Prosper Australia, used water usage data to estimate vacancy rates. In 2013, 489 residences in Docklands used no water whatsoever — 17 per cent of dwellings connected to a provider. A further 290 used less than 50 litres of water on average each day — the equivalent of a leaky tap — leading to assumptions that they were empty or rarely used. The study found that almost a third of the area’s units may be empty at any time.

The social infrastructure is absent. Docklands has no high school, despite hundreds of children living in the suburb. There is no public pool, no recreation centre, and limited community facilities. A resident told a council meeting: “Docklands continues to struggle with serious planning failures that have been left unresolved for years. We live with harsh wind tunnel conditions, limited greenery and shade, wide roads that prioritise movement over people and inactive streets that discourage community life.”

The area has developed a reputation as a “ghost town” — a suburb Melbourne “loves to hate“. In 2006, Swinburne University housing researcher Professor Terry Burke said: “They should blow it up and start again.”

9.4 The Structural Lesson

The Docklands case demonstrates the difference between a market and a community.

A community, as Thomas Bender has written, “involves a limited number of people in a somewhat restricted social space or network held together by shared understandings and a sense of obligations”. Community ties are “intimate, reciprocal, and sympathetic“. Market ties, by contrast, “tend to be impersonal, rational, temporary, and instrumental”.

Amitai Etzioni draws the distinction in Martin Buber’s terms: “the community is the realm of the I-Thou, the economy that of the I-It”.

The Docklands was designed as a market, not a community. The land was opened to developers. The developers-built towers. The towers were sold as financial products. The financial products were held by investors who did not live in them. The investors left them empty. The community that was supposed to form did not form, because the architecture was not designed for it.

Status: Established for the historical record and the vacancy data. Inference for the structural interpretation.

10. The Structural Consequence

10.1 The Parallel World

The economic model creates a parallel world. In that world, the aggregates are growing, the deficit is under control, the market is efficient, the indicators are green. The language is coherent. The numbers add up. The reality is internally consistent.

But it is not the world people live in. In the lived world, the rent is unaffordable, the waitlist is twelve months, the disability support is being cut, the veteran has given up, the child is hungry. Those outcomes are not in the model. They are in the gap.

And the gap is where the harm accumulates. The model does not see it. The dashboard does not show it. The decision-maker does not act on it. Not because they are malicious. Because the lens does not show it.

10.2 The Trajectory

The trajectory is clear. The model will continue to measure what the market requires. The market requires the flow to continue. The flow is measured. The person the flow passes through is not. The person is in the gap.

The same architecture traced through the Digital Fiefdoms, the NDIS algorithm, the Robodebt scheme, the ATO’s two-tiered system, and the alliance lock-in is present here. The model is the lens. The lens determines what is visible. The visible determines what is actionable. And what is not visible is not acted upon.

The adverse outcomes are not measured because the model does not measure them. And the model does not measure them because it was not designed to. And it was not designed to because the purpose of the model is not to see the citizen. It is to manage the market.

The question is not whether the model can be reformed. It is whether the model can be replaced — not by a different measure, but by a different purpose. A purpose that sees the person. A purpose that measures what matters.

That purpose does not currently exist in the architecture. The record is what remains.

11. Conclusion: The Dashboard and the Citizen

That is the parallel world. It is real. It is measured. It is coherent. And it is not the world people live in.

The evidence from Australia — homelessness, aged care, the NDIS, veterans’ affairs — demonstrates the consequences. The Docklands case demonstrates the mechanism at the scale of a single precinct. The market is not the same space as the community. The dashboard does not see the individual. And the individual is in the gap.

The record is kept. The gap is named. And the lens is still pointing at the market.

Claim- Status- Summary

# -Claim- Status

1- Economics shifted from political economy to positive economics- Established

2- Homo economicus assumes selfish, hyper-rational agents -Established

3- Behavioural economics challenged the rational agent model -Established

4 -Keynesian consensus dominated post-WWII policy -Established

5- Neoliberal wave replaced Keynesianism from 1970s -Established

6 -Washington Consensus outcomes disappointed on poverty -Established

7 -Economics is performative (Callon, MacKenzie) -Established

8 -GDP excludes unpaid care, ecological depletion, inequality -Established

9 -122,000+ Australians experiencing homelessness -Established

10 -169,000 households on public housing waitlists -Established

11- 757,000 children living in poverty -Established

12- $12 billion on investor tax breaks vs social housing- Established

13- 230,000 waiting for aged care; 5,000 died on waitlist -Established

14- NDIS cuts: 351,000 to lose access; 50% reduction to participation- Established

15 -Automated decision-making introduced without framework -Established

16 -Docklands: 1989 plan abandoned by Kennett government -Established

17- 489 Docklands apartments (17%) used no water in 2013 -Established

18- Docklands lacks high school, pool, community facilities -Established

19- Community vs market: I-Thou vs I-It (Etzioni/Buber)- Established

20 -The model creates a parallel world disconnected from lived experience- Inference

21 -Adverse outcomes are not measured because the lens excludes them- Inference

22- The purpose of the model is to manage the market, not see the citizen- Inference

References

1. Callon, M. (1998). The Laws of the Markets. Blackwell.

2. MacKenzie, D. (2006). An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets. MIT Press.

3. MacKenzie, D. (2004). The big, bad wolf and the rational market: portfolio insurance, the 1987 crash and the performativity of economics. Economy and Society, 33(3), 303–334.

4. Etzioni, A. (2007). Community and Economy. In Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Blackwell Publishing.

5. Bender, T. (1978). Community and Social Change in America. Rutgers University Press.

6. Costanza, R., et al. (2014). Time to leave GDP behind. Nature, 505, 283–285.

7. The Salvation Army. (2026). Record Homelessness Should Shock Australia into Action. https://www.salvationarmy.org.au

8. ACOSS. (2026). Government spends more on property investor tax breaks than social housing, homelessness services and rent assistance combined. https://www.acoss.org.au

9. Anglicare. (2026). Hungry or Homeless 2026. https://www.anglicare.org.au

10. OpenAustralia. (2026, May 27). Mallee Electorate: Aged Care. https://www.openaustralia.org.au

11. ABC News. (2026, September 21). Older Australians continue to die on home support aged care waitlists.

12. Australian Human Rights Commission. (2026, August 5). Human Rights Commission urges Australian Government to ‘hit pause’ on NDIS reform Bill. https://humanrights.gov.au

13. People with Disability Australia. (2026, September 30). More NDIS changes from 1 October: What you need to know. https://pwd.org.au

14. DVA. (2026, September 9). Two years on: Progress continues on Royal Commission reforms for veterans and families. https://www.dva.gov.au

15. The Age. (2024, April 19). We should dare to dream of a Docklands that isn’t dreadful.

16. Time Out Melbourne. (2017, February 6). Is there hope for the Docklands?

17. The Age. (2014, November 11). ‘Ghost tower’ warning for Docklands after data reveals high Melbourne home vacancies.

18. ABC News. (2014, November 12). Water use study highlights empty flats in Melbourne’s Docklands.

19. SMH. (2026, May 16). Backlash against lord mayor’s Little India vision for Docklands.

20. Parliament of New South Wales. (2024). Save Greater Sydney Coalition submission on Transport Oriented Development. https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au

Andrew Paul Klein is a writer and analyst based in Boronia, Victoria. He accepts funding from no one.

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