Implications of Neoliberalism on Public Recreation 1 Public recreation moves from a publically provided good to a market provided good 2 People with fewer economic resources have significantly redudced access to public recreation and exercise opportunities 3 As discusses in the Linskey article socioeconomic status is closely related to life expectancy The State Capitalist Olympians State funded athletes The Social Democratic Olympians Largely State and publically funded athletes While govs throughout the US are not directly involved in the training and support of athletes state count and municipal governments have invested more than 10 billion dollars of public funs since 1990 in building stadiums and arenas for the primary use of major league sports teams Moreover revenue from these facilities in terms of taxes and rents is usually insufficient to cover public expenses to operate facilities and to service public debt This difference is essentially a public subsidy for wealthy owners In many ways neo liberal policies in the US have resulted in a significant redistribution of wealth from the lower working and middle class till to the upper class Topic 1 Sport the Economy and Economic Relations What is the economy 1 The system whereby a society reproduces itself It s self sustainable 2 The system of producing distributing and consuming resources within in a society 3 A specific type of economic system with a specific focus Capitalist Economics Laissez fair capitalism believes that the invisible hand hand of the market ensures the greatest benefit to society as the market signals potential opportunities demand to entrepreneurs who provide products supply Entrepreneurs ho do so effectively and efficiently are rewarded with wealth Capital Wealth is of course not distributed evenly within a CAPITALIST SOCIETY There exists very definite CAPITALIST RELATIONS between different groupings which are responsible for the UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF CAPITAL Owners of the means of production factories raw materials increase productive capacity Sellers of labor to produce material commodities Surplus value difference between the selling price and Industrial Capitalists Workers Economic Profit production cost Exploitation Happens Alienation Capitalism is a fundamentally Exploitative system since workers earn their wages in the value of the commodities they produce in a relatively short space of time The rest of the working week they are quite literally creating value profit for the owner Workers are also Alienated form the ability to control their own lives since they are reliant upon the owners for the opportunity to earn wages However they lose control since the owner dictates who works when they work and what work they do Sporting Capitalists Owners of the means of production franchise facilities and brands Athletes workers Sellers of labor to produce sporting commodities Economic profit Surplus value difference between the selling price and production cost It may be difficult to think about multimillionaires as exploited and alienated workers think of college athletes