Being a resident of New York, I have witnessed the effects of neoliberalism, although, I didn’t always realize what was going on until looking back now. One instance is private colleges, which are extremely expensive. I remember applying for a lot of colleges my senior year of high school, and seeing the tuition prices, which, even after grants and scholarships, were very high. The only way I’d be able to go to these colleges was to be stuck with insane amounts of student debt that would take me years to pay off. Another similar instance was one of my friends’ experiences with the same thing. She and her brother would go off to college a year apart from each other, and the family faced a lot of challenges with basically having no financial aid or grants for the kids.
I have also seen neo-liberalism throughout my neighborhood. In the span of about 3-4 years, I’ve noticed 3 new buildings just around the block I live on. One was constructed after tearing down houses to build apartments for rent, another for corporate and office spaces, and the third for apartments for sale. The latter two were built in spaces of the street that were free and had no buildings before.
As mentioned by others, we can notice instances of neoliberalism in the emergence and development of Covid. People were unable to get tested because of the costs, and the at-home Covid test prices went up as well. Just a few months ago I went on what we could call a journey to buy a test, which, after visiting numerous pharmacies, could finally get, but for a high price. Similarly, about a year ago, I remember my mom trying to buy some hand sanitizer, which was sold out everywhere, and was marked up for a much higher price than what it cost before. Staying on the topic of health and services, I remember my sister needing an epi-pen, which is when I found out that they cost a lot of money if not covered by insurance. I also remember my brother needing to take care of a dental problem that he ended up putting off because of the costs.
An argument relating to my observations from Dickinson’s text is one exploring how the government, businesses and media fault the poor, minority and working class as the cause of their problems, specifically, my observation about Covid. The argument in Dickinson’s text was more clear and severe in my opinion, but I can relate this theme to how people address Covid. I’ve seen government officials and the news telling people to just get tested often, even if they had no symptoms, and to stay home. While I understand that these are good suggestions in a world experiencing a pandemic, I can’t help but think about the people who don’t have access, and/or cannot afford to get tested even when they do have symptoms, let alone being tested just in case. In addition to this, essential workers who didn’t have the ability to work remotely and keep earning money, couldn’t simply stay home and avoid contact with people, and it wasn’t their fault that this was the situation.
Ekaterine I agree with how the increase in Private school costs is an example of Neoliberalism. I remember applying for colleges Senior year and seeing how the costs of all the private schools I wanted to go to: ( Syracuse, St. Johns, Penn State) were all 30k and up. As time went on I started to realize the tuition gradually increasing year by year.