Neoliberalism and Bond

In David Harvey’s book, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, he describes how the political ideology of world leaders since the 1980’s has established a philosophical context that the necessity of free markets, private ownership, and the deregulation of state government has provoked a global opinion that there is no alternative to this one fundamental belief system. Unfortunately, this belief system harbors a number of illogical fallacies including appeals to fear, consequences, and necessity. The underlying ideology of neoliberalism can be seen in the various James Bond movies.

Essentially, the world has adopted the opinion that anything that goes against this so called code of conduct represents a threat and must be dealt with in a manner that necessitates an agenda of aggressive, imperialist occupation of countries that don’t give in. In the case of the James Bond movies, to preserve the interests of the world, Bond is personified as the prideful self-righteous hand of England that saves the world time and time again from multiple threats to the neoliberalist platform of freedom.

Unfortunately, with such a pervasive political ideology, saving the world from threats against a strict narrowly established political philosophy is seen as common sense. “Common sense is constructed out of long-standing practices of cultural socialization often rooted deep in regional or national traditions. It is not the same as ‘good sense’ that can be constructed out of critical engagement with the issues of the day. Common sense can, therefore, be profoundly misleading, obfuscating or disguising real problems under cultural prejudices. Cultural and traditional values and fears can be mobilized to mask other realities. The word ‘freedom’ resonates so widely within the common-sense understanding of Americans that it becomes ‘a button that elites can press to open the door to the masses’ to justify almost anything (p.39)”. Thus, in order to justify a war for example, world leaders could win over majority support by simply stating that violence is justified in the name of the greatest good: freedom. As long as these leaders can keep the world in fear, they can adopt an "any means necessary" agenda to preserve this ideology.