Guardian Weekly

Prof its of doom

In 2009, the American government loaned almost half a billion dollars to Elon Musk’s Tesla corporation to hasten the development of electric car technology. What did it think it was playing at? Didn’t it remember what Ronald Reagan said? “The most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help,’” the late president told a 1986 press conference.

For Reagan and the brains behind his neoliberal puppet, the role of government is to get out of the way and let the unfettered orgy of self-interested neoliberal economic life

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Guardian Weekly

Guardian Weekly4 min read
The Birth Of Black Barbie
You don’t have to be a Barbie girl to be interested in Black Barbie: A Documentary, the history of the first Black Barbie in 1980 and the doll’s significance for Black girls in a world that still questions their natural beauty. The film is a tribute
Guardian Weekly2 min read
Books Of The Month
By GauZ’, translated by Frank Wynne This funny, ebullient tale of French colonial exploitation of Ivory Coast tells two alternating stories. In the late 19th century, a young man joins a colonial expedition, caught between self-styled “Negrophiles” a
Guardian Weekly3 min read
The German Theatre That Puts Climate Centre Stage
A handful of Spanish conquistadors fight through thick undergrowth to emerge in the ivy-clad ruins of a fallen civilisation during a rehearsal of Austrian playwright Thomas Köck’s Your Palaces Are Empty. Premiered last month at the Hans Otto theatre

Related Books & Audiobooks