What does it look like when an ideology dies?
June 1, 2016 2:33 AM Subscribe
You’re witnessing the death of neoliberalism – from within Aditya Chakrabortty comments about the IMF paper titled, "Neoliberalism, Oversold?" that has been making waves. To put it mildly.
"I think that's actually traditional. One of the paradoxes of neoliberalism is that it's not new, and it's not liberal."
—Noam Chomsky, in a conversation with Yanis Varoufakis, 2016 April 26, New York Public Library.
posted by polymodus at 3:31 AM on June 1, 2016 [21 favorites]
—Noam Chomsky, in a conversation with Yanis Varoufakis, 2016 April 26, New York Public Library.
posted by polymodus at 3:31 AM on June 1, 2016 [21 favorites]
I got the sense from Chakrabortty's article that he's not talking about neoliberalism's "death" in terms of its disappearance, but rather its death in terms of moral authority. From here on in, its proponents won't even bother trying to hide their corruption. We have reached the looting phase of late-late capitalism, in which the elite will try to grab all that they can while holding the rest of us off with drones, online surveillance, and screens of riot police.
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:51 AM on June 1, 2016 [84 favorites]
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:51 AM on June 1, 2016 [84 favorites]
alive and well in the UK
Yep, thanks Thatcher and your fucking legacy of impoverishment. The only way to beat Thatchers ideology in the 90's was to go Neoliberal lite... now we are soaked in neoliberal posturing by the right. Sell, Sell, Sell.
The things my parents part owned as citizens of UK PLC...
British Airways
British Gas
British Rail
British Electricity
British Petroleum
British Steel
Royal Mail
Rolls Royce
NHS
Always amazes me how the narrative always dictates that the right are the ones who take pride in being British and us liberal socialists want to sell our country down the river to the EU.
Couldn't be further from the truth. Neoliberals could't give a damn about the Nation State. Socialists are the true patriots.
posted by twistedonion at 3:52 AM on June 1, 2016 [64 favorites]
Yep, thanks Thatcher and your fucking legacy of impoverishment. The only way to beat Thatchers ideology in the 90's was to go Neoliberal lite... now we are soaked in neoliberal posturing by the right. Sell, Sell, Sell.
The things my parents part owned as citizens of UK PLC...
British Airways
British Gas
British Rail
British Electricity
British Petroleum
British Steel
Royal Mail
Rolls Royce
NHS
Always amazes me how the narrative always dictates that the right are the ones who take pride in being British and us liberal socialists want to sell our country down the river to the EU.
Couldn't be further from the truth. Neoliberals could't give a damn about the Nation State. Socialists are the true patriots.
posted by twistedonion at 3:52 AM on June 1, 2016 [64 favorites]
oh yeah, we owned our own water as well :/
posted by twistedonion at 3:53 AM on June 1, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by twistedonion at 3:53 AM on June 1, 2016 [9 favorites]
I got the sense from Chakrabortty's article that he's not talking about neoliberalism's "death" in terms of its disappearance, but rather its death in terms of moral authority. From here on in, its proponents won't even bother trying to hide their corruption.
If the previous couple decades have been them trying to hide their corruption, I'm not looking forward to the absolute horror that will come next.
posted by kewb at 4:03 AM on June 1, 2016 [16 favorites]
If the previous couple decades have been them trying to hide their corruption, I'm not looking forward to the absolute horror that will come next.
posted by kewb at 4:03 AM on June 1, 2016 [16 favorites]
If neoliberalism is replaced with some sort of Mencius Moldbug shareholder-feudalism, would that count as its end, or continuation by other means?
posted by acb at 4:12 AM on June 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by acb at 4:12 AM on June 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
Can the Third Way die in a fire along with Neoliberalism?
posted by Talez at 4:33 AM on June 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by Talez at 4:33 AM on June 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
Nice of IMF to finally catch up. John Gray has been talking about people using Neo-liberalism's utopia ideology as moral justification for years. As have other people like Chomsky.
posted by KaizenSoze at 4:41 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by KaizenSoze at 4:41 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Ah, but they never did it properly, you see. Real neoliberalism hasn't been tried. These countries that call themselves neoliberal are not really neoliberal at all. The problem is not that neoliberalism failed, but that we were never neoliberal enough. People are actually crying out for a real, thoroughly neoliberal government, and they absolutely would vote for it in droves if only the politicians had the guts to offer the real thing.
posted by Segundus at 4:44 AM on June 1, 2016 [29 favorites]
posted by Segundus at 4:44 AM on June 1, 2016 [29 favorites]
I feel like we are replaying the dynamics of the 1930s, with an economic depression and disillusionment with the established democratic order the most obvious parallels. The other parallels I'd rather not think about.
posted by Acey at 4:49 AM on June 1, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by Acey at 4:49 AM on June 1, 2016 [12 favorites]
People are actually crying out for a real, thoroughly neoliberal government, and they absolutely would vote for it in droves if only the politicians had the guts to offer the real thing.
Zuckerberg/Sandberg 2016!
posted by Ralston McTodd at 5:02 AM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
Zuckerberg/Sandberg 2016!
posted by Ralston McTodd at 5:02 AM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
There was a letter in the LRB this fortnight about the privatized UK railways. It included the lines, "You must try to get competition into the system. This is difficult for the track but possible for train operation. It isn't for their private capital that we have [given rail companies], it is for their participation in the competition for train operating franchises."
I'm pretty sure they only printed it to show how narrow-minded the fellow is, but it is shocking nonetheless. It shows how reasonably a person in authority--it is from George Muir, the former head of ATOC--can talk about 'competition' then elide that with a government-run franchising process. The market can deliver benefits where a market exists, but the government choosing a franchiser is not a market. It's nothing like a market and you will never get the benefits of one. And, of course, where a market can't exist you mustn't "try to get competition into the system". You leave it be, state-owned, and move on.
The problem with so much neoliberal nonsense is that its proponents fetishize private capital over the market, and that they're not willing to believe that some things have no market and no right to be privatized. To do otherwise is to literally turn public wealth into private wealth. This is the case with the Land Registry where a public good will now generate a private profit, and there is no market because its function is a monopoly regulated by law. A similar case could be put for at least part of the Royal Mail's business.
Further, there are a number of things (such as bus transport in England) which conceivably have a market but which may be better delivered by the state in some form. There's a pragmatism needed that an older liberalism could handle. Neoliberalism is a ideology foaming at the mouth which desperately needs to be put down, as it will not listen to reason, practice restraint, or acknowledge its errors.
posted by Emma May Smith at 5:18 AM on June 1, 2016 [50 favorites]
I'm pretty sure they only printed it to show how narrow-minded the fellow is, but it is shocking nonetheless. It shows how reasonably a person in authority--it is from George Muir, the former head of ATOC--can talk about 'competition' then elide that with a government-run franchising process. The market can deliver benefits where a market exists, but the government choosing a franchiser is not a market. It's nothing like a market and you will never get the benefits of one. And, of course, where a market can't exist you mustn't "try to get competition into the system". You leave it be, state-owned, and move on.
The problem with so much neoliberal nonsense is that its proponents fetishize private capital over the market, and that they're not willing to believe that some things have no market and no right to be privatized. To do otherwise is to literally turn public wealth into private wealth. This is the case with the Land Registry where a public good will now generate a private profit, and there is no market because its function is a monopoly regulated by law. A similar case could be put for at least part of the Royal Mail's business.
Further, there are a number of things (such as bus transport in England) which conceivably have a market but which may be better delivered by the state in some form. There's a pragmatism needed that an older liberalism could handle. Neoliberalism is a ideology foaming at the mouth which desperately needs to be put down, as it will not listen to reason, practice restraint, or acknowledge its errors.
posted by Emma May Smith at 5:18 AM on June 1, 2016 [50 favorites]
Neoliberals already go what they wanted - put the states in a position selling their assets and services is their "only choice". Then we'll see a number of "former" neolibs saying they repent it all, it was a mistake, but look at this new thing we've just came up that will make it all better. I'm guessing it will be a mix of nationalism and vulture capitalism powered by serfdom.
In here, there's a huge discussion over private schools - the current government wants to wean off private schools that received public money because the public system wasn't providing for an area, but the situation balanced out eventually. Of course, the right was already quick to make that their battle flag for the summer, how it would disrupt children (it wouldn't - AFAIK the state would keep funding them until graduation, they just wouldn't be able to add new classes) and send teachers into unemployment - after doing exactly that in the public sector while they were in charge.
A fuckwit leading the trailer-party on the right suggested the government cut public vacancies instead. Fuckers, all of them.
posted by lmfsilva at 5:30 AM on June 1, 2016 [5 favorites]
In here, there's a huge discussion over private schools - the current government wants to wean off private schools that received public money because the public system wasn't providing for an area, but the situation balanced out eventually. Of course, the right was already quick to make that their battle flag for the summer, how it would disrupt children (it wouldn't - AFAIK the state would keep funding them until graduation, they just wouldn't be able to add new classes) and send teachers into unemployment - after doing exactly that in the public sector while they were in charge.
A fuckwit leading the trailer-party on the right suggested the government cut public vacancies instead. Fuckers, all of them.
posted by lmfsilva at 5:30 AM on June 1, 2016 [5 favorites]
A similar case could be put for at least part of the Royal Mail's business.
I'd go slightly further than that. Even if RM isn't a natural monopoly it's still worth keeping in public hands as the "postal carrier of last resort". It provides a baseline communications service to the entire country.
posted by Leon at 5:45 AM on June 1, 2016 [7 favorites]
I'd go slightly further than that. Even if RM isn't a natural monopoly it's still worth keeping in public hands as the "postal carrier of last resort". It provides a baseline communications service to the entire country.
posted by Leon at 5:45 AM on June 1, 2016 [7 favorites]
I posted about this yesterday, but got deleted because I also put in a thingy from the Financial Times that was behind a paywall. You can get around it with incognito modes, I think.
posted by hleehowon at 5:54 AM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by hleehowon at 5:54 AM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's a straight-up paywall, so incognito doesn't work.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:57 AM on June 1, 2016
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:57 AM on June 1, 2016
The problem is not that neoliberalism failed, but that we were never neoliberal enough.
Och aye laddie!
posted by ccaajj aka chrispy at 6:10 AM on June 1, 2016 [9 favorites]
Och aye laddie!
posted by ccaajj aka chrispy at 6:10 AM on June 1, 2016 [9 favorites]
Even while they censored their citizens’ very thoughts, the communists dreamed big. Spufford’s hero is Leonid Kantorovich, the only Soviet ever to win a Nobel prize for economics. Rattling along on the Moscow metro, he fantasises about what plenty will bring to his impoverished fellow commuters: “The women’s clothes all turning to quilted silk, the military uniforms melting into tailored grey and silver: and faces, faces the length of the car, relaxing, losing the worry lines and the hungry looks and all the assorted toothmarks of necessity.”Chakrabortty misunderstands 'Red Plenty'. There are lots of theoretical problems with running a "planned economy", but you have to remember that most of what you say about the Soviet Union could just as well apply to any vertically-integrated "conglomerate" corporation ie. GE or Samsung, etc. What the novel 'Red Plenty' illustrates is how the inefficiencies of the Soviet system reflected the real material political structure upon which the state was built: reforming the planning system by introducing computers and advanced algorithms would undermine the political system which came to depend on are a certain level of waste and theft, once Stalin's terror faded out. Kantorovich's linear programming is a staple of "operations management" in any US business school,
But reality makes swift work of such sandcastles. The numbers are increasingly disobedient. The beautiful plans can only be realised through cheating, and the draughtsmen know it better than any dissidents. This is one of Spufford’s crucial insights: that long before any public protests, the insiders led the way in murmuring their disquiet. Whisper by whisper, memo by memo, the regime is steadily undermined from within.
posted by ennui.bz at 6:10 AM on June 1, 2016 [12 favorites]
I'm guessing it will be a mix of nationalism and vulture capitalism powered by serfdom.
Post-Enlightenment Humanism: it was a nice idea, but, alas, too idealistic for the real world™.
posted by acb at 6:26 AM on June 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
Post-Enlightenment Humanism: it was a nice idea, but, alas, too idealistic for the real world™.
posted by acb at 6:26 AM on June 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
I'm pretty sure they only printed it to show how narrow-minded the fellow is, but it is shocking nonetheless. It shows how reasonably a person in authority--it is from George Muir, the former head of ATOC--can talk about 'competition' then elide that with a government-run franchising process. The market can deliver benefits where a market exists, but the government choosing a franchiser is not a market. It's nothing like a market and you will never get the benefits of one. And, of course, where a market can't exist you mustn't "try to get competition into the system". You leave it be, state-owned, and move on.
Oh, there's a market all right. The problem is that you/we the rail fare paying public aren't the customers. The government that issues the rail franchises is the customer. We're the product.
"If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer. You're the product." works on the internet.
For neoliberal selloffs, the version is "If you don't get to choose your supplier, you're not the customer. You're the product."
posted by generichuman at 6:28 AM on June 1, 2016 [5 favorites]
Oh, there's a market all right. The problem is that you/we the rail fare paying public aren't the customers. The government that issues the rail franchises is the customer. We're the product.
"If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer. You're the product." works on the internet.
For neoliberal selloffs, the version is "If you don't get to choose your supplier, you're not the customer. You're the product."
posted by generichuman at 6:28 AM on June 1, 2016 [5 favorites]
The unfortunate economic reality has been that at a macro-level consumption has basically become the number one driver of demand but at a micro-level you have a situation where in order to operate a maximum efficiency and maximum shareholder return companies are expected to do more with less. Technology has mainly driven productivity boosts but the majority of those productivity boosts seem to either get returned to the investors in the form of increased profits or get used to cut the workforce which also gets a return of increase profits.
The result has been largely stagnant wage growth in most of the first world for decades and in many cases has resulted in increasing unemployment or underemployment. While the unemployed or underemployed still consume goods and services it's at a lower rate than what you would otherwise see with fully employed workers.
In many cases growth has been sustained by continually reducing cost further by outsourcing to low cost nations but while many companies have gotten exceedingly wealthy doing that it has some significant downsides in that an increasing number of consumers are seeing work that previous generations would've done shifting overseas. Now this isn't inherently bad and can even be argued to increase standards of living on net for the entire world it does result in less consumption because most of the cost savings in terms of outsourcing is going into increased profits and the wealthy cannot drive consumption (there simply isn't enough of them).
So you've gotten into a equilibrium where you have low growth resulting in reduced wages, low inflation which discourages investment in upgrading facilities, and low interest which means that parked money is essentially doing nothing.
In the late 19th and early 20th century labor would probably agitate for an increased share of profits and maintaining more workers but unions are increasingly vulnerable to the demands of employers. Plus let's be honest the cows are already out of the barn on this issue. I also think that even if you have conscientious employers there is a limit to how much they can provide workers for fear that a lower cost employer will out compete them.
So in the absence of labor or corporations being able to solve the issue the typical Keynesian economist would typically suggest that we have entered a form of market failure and that governments need to step in and increase aggregate demand through public works and other forms of pump priming but the orthodoxy in terms of the economic and social elites has been that neoliberal market solutions are always preferable to the macro level levers that governments can apply. In some cases there is some truth to that simply because government programs are typically so massive they create market distortions. However at a certain point in time you need to accept that the current status quo isn't working.
The other possible solution seems to be actually one promoted by right leaning economists in the past which is to basically avoid the negative externalities of government spending programs and provide a direct supplement to all citizens. Another option would be a guaranteed minimum income. This would allow citizens that are currently unemployed or underemployed to apply resources to what is most of concern to them at that moment. Based upon the typical economic effects of extending unemployment or the EITC in the US the research seems to support this view. Of course this would lead to lots of pundits pointing at "foolish" consumption by some parties but it does seem like it would result in significant increases in growth through increased consumption.
Ultimately we probably need to get into a model of thinking that increases in productivity should also be accompanied in reduction in the working day because if we want to eventually get into a static state system where we are no longer destroying the environment to fuel growth we need to be using productivity as a way of improving overall quality of life and not driving profits or wage growth but that totally gets into what we as a culture value and right now we tend to value stuff.
posted by vuron at 6:36 AM on June 1, 2016 [15 favorites]
The result has been largely stagnant wage growth in most of the first world for decades and in many cases has resulted in increasing unemployment or underemployment. While the unemployed or underemployed still consume goods and services it's at a lower rate than what you would otherwise see with fully employed workers.
In many cases growth has been sustained by continually reducing cost further by outsourcing to low cost nations but while many companies have gotten exceedingly wealthy doing that it has some significant downsides in that an increasing number of consumers are seeing work that previous generations would've done shifting overseas. Now this isn't inherently bad and can even be argued to increase standards of living on net for the entire world it does result in less consumption because most of the cost savings in terms of outsourcing is going into increased profits and the wealthy cannot drive consumption (there simply isn't enough of them).
So you've gotten into a equilibrium where you have low growth resulting in reduced wages, low inflation which discourages investment in upgrading facilities, and low interest which means that parked money is essentially doing nothing.
In the late 19th and early 20th century labor would probably agitate for an increased share of profits and maintaining more workers but unions are increasingly vulnerable to the demands of employers. Plus let's be honest the cows are already out of the barn on this issue. I also think that even if you have conscientious employers there is a limit to how much they can provide workers for fear that a lower cost employer will out compete them.
So in the absence of labor or corporations being able to solve the issue the typical Keynesian economist would typically suggest that we have entered a form of market failure and that governments need to step in and increase aggregate demand through public works and other forms of pump priming but the orthodoxy in terms of the economic and social elites has been that neoliberal market solutions are always preferable to the macro level levers that governments can apply. In some cases there is some truth to that simply because government programs are typically so massive they create market distortions. However at a certain point in time you need to accept that the current status quo isn't working.
The other possible solution seems to be actually one promoted by right leaning economists in the past which is to basically avoid the negative externalities of government spending programs and provide a direct supplement to all citizens. Another option would be a guaranteed minimum income. This would allow citizens that are currently unemployed or underemployed to apply resources to what is most of concern to them at that moment. Based upon the typical economic effects of extending unemployment or the EITC in the US the research seems to support this view. Of course this would lead to lots of pundits pointing at "foolish" consumption by some parties but it does seem like it would result in significant increases in growth through increased consumption.
Ultimately we probably need to get into a model of thinking that increases in productivity should also be accompanied in reduction in the working day because if we want to eventually get into a static state system where we are no longer destroying the environment to fuel growth we need to be using productivity as a way of improving overall quality of life and not driving profits or wage growth but that totally gets into what we as a culture value and right now we tend to value stuff.
posted by vuron at 6:36 AM on June 1, 2016 [15 favorites]
The things my parents part owned as citizens of UK PLC...
British Airways
British Gas
British Rail
British Electricity . . .
There is an unforgettable line in Peter Lynch's One Up on Wall Street:
Any time the Queen of England is selling I am buying.
posted by bukvich at 6:58 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
British Airways
British Gas
British Rail
British Electricity . . .
There is an unforgettable line in Peter Lynch's One Up on Wall Street:
Any time the Queen of England is selling I am buying.
posted by bukvich at 6:58 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Dark Enlightenment Humanism: serfdom with a Jungle soundtrack and its own essay collection from Routledge.
posted by Sonny Jim at 7:12 AM on June 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by Sonny Jim at 7:12 AM on June 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
Any time the Queen of England is selling I am buying.
This is the one privatization I would stand behind.
posted by Artw at 8:13 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
This is the one privatization I would stand behind.
posted by Artw at 8:13 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
For neoliberal selloffs, the version is "If you don't get to choose your supplier, you're not the customer. You're the product.
Not even that. You're the worker and as far as they are concerned they have already payed you and you now owe the rest of your life to pay off the bonds issued on your behalf. In about a 20-80 years you can have your city/state/country back assuming they don't keep reselling it. The best part? They are probably selling it to your retirement fund.
posted by srboisvert at 8:14 AM on June 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
Not even that. You're the worker and as far as they are concerned they have already payed you and you now owe the rest of your life to pay off the bonds issued on your behalf. In about a 20-80 years you can have your city/state/country back assuming they don't keep reselling it. The best part? They are probably selling it to your retirement fund.
posted by srboisvert at 8:14 AM on June 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
what the "great recession" showed is that, in a moment of crisis, the powers that be totally abandoned "neoliberal" economics. remember that Krugman has been a neoliberal economist par excelance his whole career. his jeremiads during the crisis were driven by the fact that suddenly all his friends in government were ignoring what basis neoliberal macro had said you should do.
so, the point is that "neoliberalism" as in these articles has never been driven by ideology at all.
posted by ennui.bz at 8:46 AM on June 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
so, the point is that "neoliberalism" as in these articles has never been driven by ideology at all.
posted by ennui.bz at 8:46 AM on June 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
hleehowon:I posted about this yesterday, but got deleted because I also put in a thingy from the Financial Times that was behind a paywall. You can get around it with incognito modes, I think.
Johnny Wallflower:“IMF economists put ‘neoliberalism’ under the spotlight,” Shawn Donnan, The Financial Times, 26 May 2016It's a straight-up paywall, so incognito doesn't work.
posted by ob1quixote at 9:55 AM on June 1, 2016
so, the point is that "neoliberalism" as in these articles has never been driven by ideology at all.
What if the “ideology” is “how dare those insolent peasants make demands on their betters' wealth to fund their miserable little schools and hospitals”? Certainly, the UK's austerity regime seems to be driven not by evidence but by ideology (i.e., putting the poors firmly enough in their place to undo the last century or so of them having been permitted to get ideas above their station).
posted by acb at 10:09 AM on June 1, 2016 [12 favorites]
What if the “ideology” is “how dare those insolent peasants make demands on their betters' wealth to fund their miserable little schools and hospitals”? Certainly, the UK's austerity regime seems to be driven not by evidence but by ideology (i.e., putting the poors firmly enough in their place to undo the last century or so of them having been permitted to get ideas above their station).
posted by acb at 10:09 AM on June 1, 2016 [12 favorites]
Skimmed through the paper yesterday and thought, "Well, it's a little late for that." Then read this this morning: "After Empowering the 1% and Impoverishing Millions, IMF Admits Neoliberalism a Failure."
posted by CincyBlues at 10:16 AM on June 1, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by CincyBlues at 10:16 AM on June 1, 2016 [6 favorites]
I'm just happy to see the word "neoliberalism" legitimized. As the Slate article mentions, the term itself is often considered a sign of the unseriousness of the speaker, dismissed as an Oberlin hippy, to use their shorthand. But of course one of the great geniuses of the current system is how vigorously it avoids labels, definitions, or even conceptualization. Even "capitalism" is considered a vaguely marxist and unserious term. You might sometimes be allowed "Washington consensus," which apparently they prefer because like "pro-life" you are forced to make a truth claim via the name. The result as been a vigorous critique from the far left that the center has managed to keep compartmentalized largely by considering anyone using the terminology to be unworthy even of being the leftwing spokesman on a TV roundtable. Even Sanders was constrained by these limitations, though it may also be he's not nearly as far to the left as many imagine. So it's great to see the term -- or any term! -- somewhat legitimized. It's damn hard to critique anything, or persuade anyone new, if you aren't even able to name it. Maybe we can next regain enough of the leftwing terminology to shift the Overton window such that Sanders looks like the orthodox center-of-the-left "socialist" he truly is. After that, maybe we can work on a better name for the gradualist, technocratic "realist" liberalism that half the Democratic party has become, who equally resist any name for themselves.
posted by chortly at 10:54 AM on June 1, 2016 [22 favorites]
posted by chortly at 10:54 AM on June 1, 2016 [22 favorites]
British Airways
British Gas
British Rail
British Electricity . . .
British Leyland
runs
posted by Rumple at 11:16 AM on June 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
British Gas
British Rail
British Electricity . . .
British Leyland
runs
posted by Rumple at 11:16 AM on June 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
The result has been largely stagnant wage growth in most of the first world...[corporate]growth has been sustained by continually reducing cost further by outsourcing to low cost nations...Now this isn't inherently bad
So this is where I really start to sympathize with the 1%. Sorry, no, this is where I hate everyone!
Middle class westerners are all fine and dandy so long as they can benefit from protectionist labor markets and export-led growth? The idea of 'making America great again' is not too dissimilar thean the idea of replaying the Great Game that worked so well, unless you lived in Brazil or India or Persia or the Congo, or...
There's even a macro-economic argument for this direction of industry: the MPC for the non-western world is much higher, meaning that even at lower wages the global demand should rise. So what's the problem?
(1) Their labor markets are just as bad for people and (2) we're going to like living on our planet less and less as annual consumption scales across to everyone else.
The first one is unsolveable for the same reason America isn't great anymore. The second one is a non-sequitor within a framework of profit logic (ie, until externality costs get really bad).
Summary: what Sonny Jim said
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 11:43 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
So this is where I really start to sympathize with the 1%. Sorry, no, this is where I hate everyone!
Middle class westerners are all fine and dandy so long as they can benefit from protectionist labor markets and export-led growth? The idea of 'making America great again' is not too dissimilar thean the idea of replaying the Great Game that worked so well, unless you lived in Brazil or India or Persia or the Congo, or...
There's even a macro-economic argument for this direction of industry: the MPC for the non-western world is much higher, meaning that even at lower wages the global demand should rise. So what's the problem?
(1) Their labor markets are just as bad for people and (2) we're going to like living on our planet less and less as annual consumption scales across to everyone else.
The first one is unsolveable for the same reason America isn't great anymore. The second one is a non-sequitor within a framework of profit logic (ie, until externality costs get really bad).
Summary: what Sonny Jim said
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 11:43 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm just happy to see the word "neoliberalism" legitimized. As the Slate article mentions, the term itself is often considered a sign of the unseriousness of the speaker
but the problem is that "neoliberalism" really refers to two different but connected policies that are only incidentally connected to any coherent ideology:
1) the globalization of Anglo-American financial law and procedure, including property law.
2) the liquidation of Anglo-American industrial capital alongside a transfer of industrial capital to East Asia and other developing markets and a global commodity system with associated financing.
The left has been distracted by the fake ideological fight and the outward institutional face. So, for example, anti establishment economist Dean Baker likes to talk about how the property law aspects of "free"trade deals distort free markets, but never about how the fundamental objective of these deals is to synchronize law and procedure, regardless of specific rules. meanwhile, the activist left spent a decade protesting globalization at public summits, conducting ritual disruptions at symbolic events, while the actual negotiations were conducted at the US treasury and other low key locations.
talking about neoliberalism is a way for the left to continue to avoid the actual and real in exchange for an academic sounding debate. this paper from the IMF had nothing to do with a leftward shift in ideology in that institution. I would look to a split between the Anglo-American and "continental" bankers but the left will never see it if they are focused on arguing with clouds.
posted by ennui.bz at 11:43 AM on June 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
but the problem is that "neoliberalism" really refers to two different but connected policies that are only incidentally connected to any coherent ideology:
1) the globalization of Anglo-American financial law and procedure, including property law.
2) the liquidation of Anglo-American industrial capital alongside a transfer of industrial capital to East Asia and other developing markets and a global commodity system with associated financing.
The left has been distracted by the fake ideological fight and the outward institutional face. So, for example, anti establishment economist Dean Baker likes to talk about how the property law aspects of "free"trade deals distort free markets, but never about how the fundamental objective of these deals is to synchronize law and procedure, regardless of specific rules. meanwhile, the activist left spent a decade protesting globalization at public summits, conducting ritual disruptions at symbolic events, while the actual negotiations were conducted at the US treasury and other low key locations.
talking about neoliberalism is a way for the left to continue to avoid the actual and real in exchange for an academic sounding debate. this paper from the IMF had nothing to do with a leftward shift in ideology in that institution. I would look to a split between the Anglo-American and "continental" bankers but the left will never see it if they are focused on arguing with clouds.
posted by ennui.bz at 11:43 AM on June 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
I'm just happy to see the word "neoliberalism" legitimized.
Philip Mirowski on this topic (and more): This is Water (or is it Neoliberalism?)
posted by CincyBlues at 11:49 AM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
Philip Mirowski on this topic (and more): This is Water (or is it Neoliberalism?)
posted by CincyBlues at 11:49 AM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
So, for example, anti establishment economist Dean Baker likes to talk about how the property law aspects of "free"trade deals distort free markets, but never about how the fundamental objective of these deals is to synchronize law and procedure, regardless of specific rules.
So Chomsky and Varoufakis actually go over these two critiques in the beginning of their talk, with Varoufakis raising the latter critique, then Chomsky connecting to the former. What I get from that is these phenomena go hand-in-hand and are part of the hypocritical ideology of neoliberalism.
Ideology is about real, psychologically-informed value systems, so questioning ideologies for being hypocritical or incoherent is sort of the point of the exercise. Neoliberalism is posited as a social, political phenomenon. To suppose it is less real or material than laws and money is an area of intellectual thin ice that we were warned about as far back as Marx (Chapter 1 Volume I), Hegel, etc. All good scientists know that "evidence-based" is not reality; it's just another mental model/abstraction that happens to be prone to reductive concretism.
posted by polymodus at 1:14 PM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
So Chomsky and Varoufakis actually go over these two critiques in the beginning of their talk, with Varoufakis raising the latter critique, then Chomsky connecting to the former. What I get from that is these phenomena go hand-in-hand and are part of the hypocritical ideology of neoliberalism.
Ideology is about real, psychologically-informed value systems, so questioning ideologies for being hypocritical or incoherent is sort of the point of the exercise. Neoliberalism is posited as a social, political phenomenon. To suppose it is less real or material than laws and money is an area of intellectual thin ice that we were warned about as far back as Marx (Chapter 1 Volume I), Hegel, etc. All good scientists know that "evidence-based" is not reality; it's just another mental model/abstraction that happens to be prone to reductive concretism.
posted by polymodus at 1:14 PM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
My problem with "neoliberalism" as a term is just the way it is applied to a huge swath of loosely - sometimes tenuously - connected policy, law, theory and ideology. I won't say that people who use the word are not rigorous but the word is not without further specification.
posted by atoxyl at 2:53 PM on June 1, 2016
posted by atoxyl at 2:53 PM on June 1, 2016
the problem is that "neoliberalism" really refers to two different but connected policies that are only incidentally connected to any coherent ideology
This is perplexing, Ennui.bz. Although I usually like your takes, I'm inclined to lean with atoxyl here. Your outline of what it is seems lacking and describing it as incidental seems to ignore the larger unmasking.
It's incoherent (and its components incidental) only insofar as its stated ideology. It's core objective of wealth redistribution is painstakingly effective.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 3:13 PM on June 1, 2016
This is perplexing, Ennui.bz. Although I usually like your takes, I'm inclined to lean with atoxyl here. Your outline of what it is seems lacking and describing it as incidental seems to ignore the larger unmasking.
It's incoherent (and its components incidental) only insofar as its stated ideology. It's core objective of wealth redistribution is painstakingly effective.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 3:13 PM on June 1, 2016
This is an amazing quote. I would love a general election debate moderator to open with it, ask the candidates their reactions, and then quote the source:
"The evidence of the economic damage from inequality suggests that policymakers should be more open to redistribution than they are." (page 4)
posted by mostly vowels at 5:09 PM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
"The evidence of the economic damage from inequality suggests that policymakers should be more open to redistribution than they are." (page 4)
posted by mostly vowels at 5:09 PM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
It's damn hard to critique anything, or persuade anyone new, if you aren't even able to name it.
This has been the one of the systems most brilliant moves. Rallying against "Capitalism" turns the tables against distributed models and bottom up models of change. Unchecked capitalism and monopolies are huge problems that lead to inequality, but most of the problems I've seen are coordinated repression.
Ugh, I'm kind of tired of arguing. Any system that benefits when people fail can't be just, it relies on creating social safety net holes to trap people.
posted by formless at 9:34 PM on June 1, 2016
This has been the one of the systems most brilliant moves. Rallying against "Capitalism" turns the tables against distributed models and bottom up models of change. Unchecked capitalism and monopolies are huge problems that lead to inequality, but most of the problems I've seen are coordinated repression.
Ugh, I'm kind of tired of arguing. Any system that benefits when people fail can't be just, it relies on creating social safety net holes to trap people.
posted by formless at 9:34 PM on June 1, 2016
acb: "If neoliberalism is replaced with some sort of Mencius Moldbug shareholder-feudalism, would that count as its end, or continuation by other means?"
I've oft thought about this, we act as if we don't live in some form of feudal society anyways.
They've just perfected a new market solution to the market problem and will sell it to us in 3... 2...
posted by symbioid at 11:03 PM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
I've oft thought about this, we act as if we don't live in some form of feudal society anyways.
They've just perfected a new market solution to the market problem and will sell it to us in 3... 2...
posted by symbioid at 11:03 PM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
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