What is Neoliberalism?

--Audience Question: How do you define neoliberal?

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Broadcast on March 1, 2019

[trietphan]

Neoliberalism is neither new or liberal. Noam Chomsky

[KevinTheNoobie]

It's when Keanu Reeves becomes a registered Democrat.

[EMERTHERofficial]

A group of Chicago economists and sociologists, led by *Milton Friedman and Irving Kristol, developed the basic ideas of today's neoliberalism* (neoliberalism and its supply-side economic policies are _(also)_ called neoconservatism in the US). Their ideas largely correspond to those of the "Austrian School" (representatives: Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich August von Hayek).

While neoclassicalism is based on a rational and selfish person, *_neo-liberalism's image of humanity is shaped by the now scientifically refuted social Darwinism._* This corresponds to the self-image of a part of the economic elite. From a neoliberal point of view, market activity is a free play of forces without state intervention, in which the healthiest and best survive (George J. Stigler: "survival of the fittest"). For Friedrich August von Hayek, markets are a selection mechanism of evolution. Markets are superior for him because they can overcome the limitations of knowledge, and at the same time have no alternative because they have become established as a humane, anonymous mechanism in the evolutionary process.

According to the Dictionary of Political Ideologies, ideologies assert the claim to objective correctness and unconditional validity of their system of thought and value. Ideologies served the justification of existing or to be produced conditions in the interest of a social and political group and aimed at a supposedly conflict-free historical final state. For market radicals, the market is infallible, it can not be wrong. Since there is no market failure, the market does not require any adjustment through employment and social policies. The market is not only the best instrument for controlling the economy and society for all time, but becomes an end in itself. Milton Friedmann: _"If the market economy was not the most efficient system, I still wanted it - because of the values ​​that it represents: freedom of choice, challenge, risk"._ The claim to absoluteness of this view of the market economy is also reflected in its application to almost all sectors of society, such as the rational choice approach of Gary S. Becker, according to which even private interpersonal relationships are in the final analysis nothing but an exchange relationship. Friedman wants the market pure and therefore pleads for the abolition / repeal of the state driver's license, the doctor's license and the drug and abortion ban. Even the Ordo-Liberal Alexander von Rüstow criticized the absolutization of competition as a universal principle and stated that behind this concept of competitive economy is "the idea of ​​an invisible economic constitution set by God the Creator himself".



_thank me later_

[Mrstcat]

Hey david congratulations on the 600k subs

[LoadPast]

Your ability to condense complicated subjects to an understandable (and accurate) nugget is always impressive to me.

[trollaccount]

So wouldn't that make neoliberalism a oxymoron not to mention it's a way to dress up reganomics..

[grketch]

There's neoliberal and neoconservative. I'd rather hear a definition comparing each term

[Seiferboi]

So, does this mean the current GOP are neoliberals? Better not let them know that lol! 😂

[yuhmuhfuhkuh]

Neoliberalism used to mean what social democracy also used to mean and what democratic socialism now means

[rogerhwerner]

Neoliberalism David is a direct outgrowth of the things that you indicate but it had its beginnings long before the 1970s. It has grown out of Wilsonian ideology e.g., Fourteen Points. Today, neoliberalism really equates with globalism as promoted by the US and it's 'free' market ideology.

[cammro]

dang that's kind of a hard question it's definitely changed. i'd say reagan, thatcher, blair is how i define it to myself. the original neo-liberalism for me was the idea of government taking a loan out from itself. continually growing the economy taking out new loans and printing money to weaken the old loan on interest so that if your economy ever shrinks or happens to be heavily reliant on oil or something and the price shifts. it all explodes.

[kelpiemare]

Policies designed to make the rich richer, and the poor destitute.

[wolfsave]

I thought social Darwinism was used by the right to justify unfettered capitalism and racist ideologies.

[Hyzod]

Neoliberal: An economic and militaristic conservative that "evolves" their view on social issues as soon as it's politically expedient to do so. See Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama on gay marriage as example.

[SethPlato]

Let me explain how US NEOLIBERALISM works in other countries, in Central America and the rest of the world:

Let's say that one day in the United States a Chinese company, Huawei, arrives and that company buys many politicians in your country, convinces them to have tax exemptions, help them with the competition or directly block their competition.

After Huawei, the government of China decides that it wants more, and sends mining companies to extract gold, copper, silver and everything they can, they send companies to Oregon to cut down trees and to California to extract sand. At first American citizens see it well, Chinese companies are employing a lot of people and there is a lot of work.
At some point the Chinese companies control most of the markets and the American companies practically can not compete, the Americans ask for higher wages to these Chinese companies at some time and these conpanies simply deny it. This is because raising their wages becomes a price increase for their product, China has been using those natural resources to produce other things, is using those resources to make more Huawei cell phones and sell them in the United States, they are using Oregon wood to make furniture and sell them in the United States, using California sand and using it to make glass and sell it to the United States.

Now, you can say that China is using technology to convert natural resources into products, and that this is fair. But what China is doing at the same time to sell its glass, furniture and cell phones, is to buy the US government to block its competition and prevent all these products from being made within the United States, so americans have to import from china.

In this way they obtain cheap labor, natural resources and a market where they can sell their products at the same time.

And this eventually becomes obvious to people in America, the Chinese companies are exploiting them, they do not give them increases, they have bought from the government and they are exploiting natural resources. So in the elections for president there are three political parties, A, B and C with different points of view:

A-We must open the doors of america to china so that we all have more work
B-Fight for America to have better salaries and I will fight with the Chinese government to give them to us.
C-This is wrong, we have to remove this government, and start to get up by ourselves, the Chinese are exploiting America.

Before the elections every american is talking about candidate C, everyone you know is going to vote for the C and there is no doubt that he will win. But it does not win, it wins the A candidate, and the whole country knows that the Chinese government buy the elections (they control the media and the politics), now multiply this by several elections and several years, and at some point wins the candidate C ( if he is not killed), this candidate begins to dismantle Chinese companies and try to grow American companies, and this does not like China, so they send military equipment and use their influence to cross out this "dictator" or "dangerous candidate for America", a "socialist who is against the companies", or any other pretext to remove it, and finally they do it, and returns a candidate supported by China.
(Brazil its the most recent, if you want a example)

This causes a revolution and the country is destroyed, the Chinese want to continue using the industries and natural resources they have been using; Americans after so many years under Chinese companies have become dependent on them, since local industries were crushed years before by Chinese ones.
China sends military forces and invades America, under the pretext of helping them to recover their democracy, but the only thing that it does is to make sure that its companies are safe.

This is the neoliberal policy of the United States, in this example you can change to China for the United States, and the United States, for any country in Latin America, Africa or the Middle East.



You just have to see where the phrase "banana republic" comes from
:

In the 19th century, the American writer O. Henry (William Sydney Porter, 1862-1910) coined the term banana republic to describe the fictional Republic of Anchuria in the book Cabbages and Kings (1904), a collection of thematically related short stories inspired by his experiences in Honduras, where he lived for six months until January 1897, hiding in a hotel in Trujillo, Colon, when he was wanted in the US for embezzlement from a bank.

In the early 20th century, the United Fruit Company, a multinational American corporation, was instrumental in the creation of the banana republic phenomenon. Together with other American corporations, such as the Cuyamel Fruit Company, and with occasional support from the United States government, the corporations created the political, economic, and social circumstances that established banana republics in Central American countries.


Now, what is NAFTA?

[theraven]

Agreed re the economic aspects of your explanation, but disagree on the foreign policy explanation. Interventionist foreign policy is generally called neoconservative. Thus one can be both a neoliberal and a neoconservative if one favors both a quasi-19th century laizafaier economic policy AND an interventionist foreign policy. They’re not mutually exclusive.

[jonbbaca]

You forgot to mention the Globalization of large markets, especially into the third world and developing countries. Outsourcing jobs, then arguing that even though foreign factory workers are making pennies compared to American workers, it's still better than the jobs they didn't have before: that's a quintessential neoliberal argument. The World Bank and the World Trade Organization are major neoliberal entities.

[greggor]

Interesting to see the differences between Europe and America. In Europe we don't have neoliberals, because we still use the term to mean what it originally meant. For example in my country the Liberal Party is on the right, it's what you would probably call conservative.
I don't exactly understand what David meant with his small and big L liberal and using Liberals in Britain as an example. The big, left-leaning opposition party in the UK is called the Labour Party. The Liberal Party doesn't exist anymore, or it is very small.

[namelia]

I think I might be even MORE confused, now...how is this just not plain old republicanism w maybe a touch of libertarianism mixed in? Idk, but the person that posted that Noam Chomsky quote below about neoliberalism being neither new nor liberal...yeah, spot on it would seem, so kudos.

[YodaMan-]

yeah we need new terms to describe the different subsections of political parties. liberal cant mean so many things any more than conservative can. whether you put progressive or neo in front of it or not. we need clear definitions of whats actually a part of the real message and call out the fringe shit for what it is. because the fringe shit seems to be a part of both parties right now and it seems an awful lot like fascism on both sides.