It makes even less sense when used against centrist Democrats by progressive Democrats who think the centrists aren’t being “liberal enough.” Here’s an example of Cornel West calling Obama a “neoliberal.” That might be news to the 11 million new enrollees to Medicaid (a government program once decried as “socialized medicine”), the financial planners who fought an Obama regulation imposing a fiduciary standard on their relationships with their clients, or the opponents of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has broad authority to regulate financial institutions.
Similarly, Hillary Clinton, also a target of the circular firing squad’s “neoliberal” ammunition, was largely responsible for creating SCHIP and providing health care to millions of children nationwide. In the meantime, Donald Trump – nominally a Republican – opposes free trade, which is contrary to the view you’d expect from a Republican. So unless you’re talking about Hayek or Friedman, calling someone a “neoliberal” isn’t a great shorthand for their actual beliefs.
I think that Wendy Brown did a good job pinning down a difficult definition:
Essentially, it’s the attempts to implement Hayek’s and Friedman’s ideas, or a semblance of them, meaning privatizing as much as possible. She argues it means understanding all aspects of human life entirely through economics (and notes where this modern view deviates from Hayek and Friedman, too). She manages to sort through Foucault’s early engagement with neoliberal ideas, without getting too bogged down in the weeds (which is always tough, cause Foucault).
It’s not that he’s a completely neoliberal in terms of privatizing all things, but that he puts things in economic terms, even when it’s not really necessary or applicable. It’s in terms of all aspects of life being seen as transactional or in terms of the bottom line. The democratic party has been just on board with this process as the GOP, even if they are less likely to pass legislation that is solely private-market based.
So you’ve now come up with another random definition of neoliberalism which also has nothing to do with the original (well, actually, 2nd*) definition? Not sure how that helps!
(*) it originally meant Keynesianism, ‘neo’ as a reaction to the orthodox laissez faire liberalism of the time.
First it’s not MY definition, it’s Wendy Brown’s, who is a political theorist. And second, she addresses the history of the term, how it’s changed since the days of Hayek and Friedman (and the inherent differences between the two schools).
But yes, forgive me for attempting to contribute to the conversation. I’ll butt out now.
I’m going to stick with what I said about communism. Communism under Stalin and Mao had little or nothing to do with communism as Marx intended it. They were just gussied up murderous dictatorships. I really don’t care how much neoliberalism as it is discussed today has to do with what a political theorist wanted it to mean when they came up with it. Privatization and regulatory capture go hand in hand whether we’d like them to or not, and neoliberalism has come to mean the the buying the governments by the wealthy.
What I think you’re saying is an argument that I hear a lot of libertarians saying. And I think it is a variant of the no true Scotsman fallacy.
It goes like this:
The supposedly Neoliberal reforms from the 80s and 90s didn’t do the good that they were supposed to. This is because a) they weren’t Neoliberal enough and b) the people who made them didn’t really have true Neoliberal goals in mind (they really just wanted to help the rich people).
So, all we need to do is go farther and create more and deeper Neoliberal changes and ensure that the people who enact them are true believers.
There’s a lot of blind faith required to be a true libertarian.
True, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t actually communism. There is always theory and reality, of course, but that doesn’t mean one or the other should dictate definition, I think.
Also true. Arendt was right to talk about Stalin and Hitler together in her work.
That’s true, although I think it’s more a tactic than a belief unto itself.
For example, in 2012, California came closest than it ever had to overturning the death penalty by making an economic argument; i.e., it’s wasteful because so few people get executed, yet so much money gets spent on incarcerating them and paying for their appeals. It’s not that the anti-death penalty types began to see the world in economic terms; rather, their moral arguments hadn’t worked, so they tried a different tactic that they thought would resonate with death penalty supporters.
You can also see it in both Hillary and Nancy Pelosi’s statements about single-payer health care; it’s not that they’re ideologically opposed to it, but they don’t think it’s possible to pass it in the current political environment.
Frankly, I think this is a more interesting discussion; i.e., whether Democrats should use economic-based tactics to get elected or to pass policies they believe are good for reasons other than economics.
EDIT: I’ll also add same-sex marriage and the use of economic arguments to find non-natural allies: “You might be morally opposed to same-sex marriage, but consider the effects on the state economy if thousands of gay people suddenly up and left the state because it outlaws same-sex marriage”
A good point, though it’s based on the assumption that the most people want middle of the road, watered down ideas, I think. But I do think there are consequences to understanding the world through a singular lens, particularly through this one.
The problem is that they never even tried to do so. They never made the argument for it. We can’t know if that’s because they don’t think it’s economically or politically viable, but the modern democratic party has never been on board with social welfare programs. There has never been the political will to push for such things, I’d say since Johnson. Even Carter, with his focus on human rights issues, never really did much work on shoring up social programs like Johnson did. It’s just too bad about that albatross of vietnam around his neck.
The same democratic party members had to be dragged to a pro-gay marriage position, though. And then, they couldn’t even make the moral argument, they had to go with the economic one.
That’s why I have trouble taking DOOOOOOM articles like this seriously; to me it just reads like a political hack column because honestly, we’re way ahead compared to what my expectations were growing up. I think part of that is that every generation gets an exaggerated “we’re dooooooomed” (I certainly think the current young generation is fucked more than we were, and I hope to likewise be proven wrong).
[quote=“anon50609448, post:26, topic:104052”]
Privatization and regulatory capture go hand in hand whether we’d like them to or not[/quote]
by the same logic any state control of the economy goes hand in hand with poverty, corruption, repression and death, regardless of Marx’s intentions. so presumably we must avoid that at all costs too, what other options are there?
one of the main problems with arguments against “neoliberalism” is that economically things are actually working out pretty well, all things considered, especially when compared to the kinds of alternative systems that have been tried in the past.
Only among certain people, and there’s a lot of moving the goalposts involved with those folks too, using the word interchangeably to refer to both meanings, and thus dishonestly argue against both in the same breath, when actually the original meaning might very well be a seen as a solution to regulatory capture. There are lots of sensible reforms that could be enacted, while retaining all of the wider economic benefits of economic liberalism, to prevent regulatory capture (two off the top of my head, prevent bankers and regulators from working for each other for a certain period of time after they leave each profession, and simplify and strengthen regulation generally, rather than simply get rid of it, regulatory corruption has a lot to do with the labyrinthine complexities and the various loopholes that this creates).
There two several problems with this, first, economic reforms in the 80s and 90s did a huge amount of good, and second, it’s not a no-true-scotsman if the thing you’re claiming to be ‘scottish’ is actually the very antithesis of ‘scottish’ (and much of the policies enacted in the last 20 years are virtually the opposite of what an actual neoliberal would propose).
There’s a lot of blind faith required to be a true libertarian.
I’m in full agreement with this, but then libertarianism and classical liberalism (a better term for me now that neoliberalism has been ruined) aren’t all that similar.
back in the day i heard noam chomsky point out that american politics and government would be best described as a neoliberal fascist regime. this wasn’t a slam, rather he was just countering the claim that we live in a republic or a democracy. we are given the semblance of a choice, but we don’t directly choose either option, and they both serve the private money that pulls their strings.
i thought it seems pretty apt at the time. of course it is more complex then that, but yes the american people have been fleeced for some time. this is the modus operandi for the republican party, getting people to vote against their own interests with false promises while actually serving the people who have been fleecing them the entire time.
Heck, I was just shocked we survived the 80’s. I’m still pretty sure the rest has all been one of those Brazil/AniMatrix/Twilight Zone fever dreams where the last moments before the end become a subjective lifetime. I’m pretty sure the nukes started falling right after the Gipper’s Gaff on August 11, 1984.
Thanks! I read a Charlie Stross’ short story where this was cited but until now I didn’t know it was a real event.
From your comment, I guess you read it too
I agree. What I was trying to say was that reality should dictate definition (or more that definition should follow meaning). So just like communism means psychotic assholes implementing their novel theories of agriculture and leaving millions to starve, neoliberalism means funneling money to the rich so they can use it to buy political power to funnel more money to the rich in an escalating spiral.
ETA: And, to be clear, as I indicate below, I don’t actually think the theory is unrelated to the practice. The notion of communism enabled murderous dictators and the notion fo neoliberalism enabled plutocrats.
Yeah, but that’s the way that the economization of everything has asserted itself. People say, “Oh X is a great idea, it would help people and all, but in order to do it we need to justify it economically.” Framing it as “tactics” was how we rationalized the disconnect between democracy and technocracy. We are still, in theory, committed to democracy, but we have to run everything by the money guys who somehow acquired a veto.
The fact is that a lot of things we “can’t afford” (like socialized childcare or healthcare), when they are implemented, save money rather than costing money. America’s current insane healthcare system that covers only some people and costs individuals huge amounts costs the government way more than other country’s systems that cover everyone with no out-of-pocket costs. People ask, how could the US pay for single-payer healthcare, except all evidence suggests it would be cheaper than what is being done now.
As I understood it, one driving force of neoliberalism was that we learned from communism that we can’t manage the economy, so it’s better to let the economy manage itself. But what we really did was hand off the management of the economy to people from a certain school of economic thought who have proven their analysis doesn’t work. Neoliberalism sought a sort of mythical neutral economy where things were allowed to run themselves, and instead people with money filled the power vacuum.
I still think this is about facing reality. “Real” communism could be seen as an antidote to Stalin or Mao just as much as “real” neoliberalism could be seen as an antidote to regulatory capture. But I’ll argue against both in the same breath because I think one led to the other in a very straight forward way, and it would do it again.
