The death of neo-liberalism?

As somebody once said - well, you know the rest about this being somewhat premature. How obvious does this seem this morning? Let me remind you of the key elements of the neo-liberal project (Harvey etc). The increasing accumulation of wealth on the part of the upper echelons of the capitalist class;bringing wages down and creating unemployment; centralizing power;attacking workers organisations as disrupting the "normal" order of supply and demand;depressing welfare levels as far as possible. So the new regime warns this morning of savage cuts in public spending that will affect all of us for decades! The introduction of a Canadian style star chamber who will oversee the budget proposals and cuts of government departments. Lord Browne, formerly CEO of BP - now there's an interesting role model - as key advisor on how to bring business principles to bear on the operation of government. The shifting of welfare from the state back onto the voluntary sector. And so on........
And this is supposed to be different from the 1980s? How exactly? Well "we" are going to be consulted on where the cuts should be made. Consultations - we stopped believing in those decades ago surely? And such an exercise presupposes that "we" accept the basic assumptions on which such policies are based, i.e. that such cuts are essential and have to be made in this way. No challenges allowed there then!
The idea that this is any way can be described as a recognisable form of liberalism - and I don't just mean the Lib Dem party, although that is probably true as well - is an illusion, a cover for the continuation of the neo-liberal project. But maybe this was always the case anyway. This is central government imposing its own agenda and the interests of its supporters on the rest of the population. It is about consolidating power and wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. We need to be reminded that "there is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequals". The pain must be shared, we are told, but some are going to be more vulnerable than others!
So can capitalism be "moral"?
What is going to happen now is a revival of the politics of envy and even of class division. But this time more of the middle classes will begin to lose out as they take the hits to their lifestyles. There is an argument that their capacity to share in the "goodies" of global capitalism was always built on shifting sands anyway, and that this moment was bound to arrive. Capitalism can only renew itself through creative destruction and the benefits accrued by normal people are always subject to that reordering process, as in all previous slumps and depressions in the economic cycle. Nothing new there then!
We appear to have forgotten who got us into this mess in the first place - the collusion of politicians with the banking and financial sectors across the globe operating on outdated economic models employed by the business world. So who do we now have in charge of getting us out of this mess? Reassuring isn't it?
However, as my correspondent says, maybe all this agonizing is just wasted energy and we never really have much idea of what is going on or real control over events - there is no masterplan! We shall see. In the meantime watch out for the next episode in the neo-liberal saga and lets hear more about the Canadian experience before we see this as the quick fix!