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YSK that “neoliberal” refers to a discrete set of economic policies including deregulation, privatization, and so-called “free trade” implemented by both center-right and center-left parties (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by metic@lemmy.world to c/youshouldknow@lemmy.world
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Why YSK: I’ve noticed in recent years more people using “neoliberal” to mean “Democrat/Labor/Social Democrat politicians I don’t like”. This confusion arises from the different meanings “liberal” has in American politics and further muddies the waters.

Neoliberalism came to the fore during the 80’s under Reagan and Thatcher and have continued mostly uninterrupted since. Clinton, both Bushs, Obama, Blair, Brown, Cameron, Johnson, and many other world leaders and national parties support neoliberal policies, despite their nominal opposition to one another at the ballot box.

It is important that people understand how neoliberalism has reshaped the world economy in the past four decades, especially people who are too young to remember what things were like before. Deregulation and privatization were touted as cost-saving measures, but the practical effect for most people is that many aspects of our lives are now run by corporations who (by law!) put profits above all else. Neoliberalism has hollowed out national economies by allowing the offshoring of general labor jobs from developed countries.

In the 80’s and 90’s there was an “anti-globalization” movement of the left that sought to oppose these changes. The consequences they warned of have come to pass. Sadly, most organized opposition to neoliberal policies these days comes from the right. Both Trump and the Brexit campaign were premised on reinvigorating national economies. Naturally, both failed, in part because they had no cohesive plan or understanding that they were going against 40 years of precedent.

So, yes, establishment Democrats are neoliberals, but so are most Republicans.

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[-] AlexRogansBeta@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

So, while you're 100% correct about neoliberalism not belonging to either the left or the right, your basic description of neoliberalism isn't correct. What you describe (deregulation, positive valuation of wealth generation, free markets, etc) is just liberal capitalism.

Neoliberalism names the extension of market-based rationalities into putatively non-market realms of life. Meaning, neoliberalism is at play when people deploy cost/benefit, investment/return, or other market-based logics when analysing options, making decisions, or trying to understand aspects of life that aren't properly markets, such as politics, morality/ethics, self-care, religion, culture, etc.

A concrete example is when people describe or rationalize self-care as a way to prepare for the workweek. Yoga, in this example, becomes of an embodiment of neoliberalism: taking part in yoga is rationalized as an investment in self that results in greater productivity.

Another example: how it seems that most every public policy decision is evaluated in terms of its economic viability, and if it isn't economically viable (in terms of profit/benefit exceeding cost/investment) then it is deemed a bad policy. This is a market rationality being applied to realms of life that didn't used to be beholden to market rationalities.

Hence the "neo" in "neoliberalism" is about employing the logics of liberalism (liberal capitalism, I should say) into new spheres of life.

A good (re)source for this would be Foucault's Birth of Biopolitics lectures, which trace the shift from Liberalism to Neoliberalism. As well, there's excellent literature coming out of anthropology about neoliberalism at work in new spheres, in particular yoga, which is why I used it as my example here.

[-] Grant_M@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

The term neoliberal was created to be misleading.

[-] AlexRogansBeta@kbin.social -1 points 1 year ago

Neoliberalism was created, as a term, to describe something real, pervasive, and problematic. It has been co-opted as an underserving boogyman by the left, and co-opted mistakenly by the right as libertarianism. Neither understand it's original formulation and what it names.

[-] Ronno@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Watching from a far (The Netherlands), it always amazed me how the political scale in the US is described. Even the democrats in the US feel more to the right, then positioned in the US. Some people go as far to call democrats communist, but I don't think these people know what communist really is, in the same way that Americans don't seem to know what (neo)liberal actually is. It is both entertaining and concerning to watch.

[-] Aceticon@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, the idea that Democrats are center-left is hilarious - by the standards in most of Europe, they're not even center-right, just plain rightwing, whilst the Republicans are pretty much far-right (given their heavy religious, ultra-nationalis, anti-immigrant and warmongering - amongst others - rethoric).

The Overtoon Window has moved to the Right everywhere but in the US it did way much further than in most of Europe.

As for the whole neoliberalism stuff, it's pretty easy to spot the neoliberal parties even when they've disguised themselves as leftwing or (genuine) conservatives: they're the ones always obcessing about what's good for businesses whilst never distinguishing between businesses which are good for people and society and those which aren't: in other words, they don't see businesses (and hence what's "good for businesses") as a means to the end of being "good for people" (i.e. "good for businesses which are good for people hence good for people") but as an end in itself quite independently of what that does for people.

[-] utopianfiat@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

The Democrats are more socially left wing than the vast majority of European parties.

[-] ZapBeebz_@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

ELI5: The difference between neoliberal (as defined above) and libertarianism.

[-] doom_and_gloom@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

.

[-] menemen@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's kinda sad how classical social democracy is basically dead nowadays. Here in Europe they are almost all neoliberals and some (like in Denmark) even start to mix this with right wing social policies.

Slightly OT comment from me, so sorry.

[-] RedMarsRepublic@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

Social democracy was a false idol anyways, nothing but socialism can work in the long term, socdem always gets repealed by the rich.

[-] huge_clock@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

What socialist societies that have existed have lasted a long time?

[-] Sektor@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Rome lasted a lot, should we get back to empire and slavery?

[-] huge_clock@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

Rome was a republic for like 500 years.

[-] SattaRIP@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

centre-left

This is misleading. Neoliberalism is inherently capitalist, not socialist/communist.

[-] vaguerant@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago

All left-right political terminology is inherently subjective, so you can argue neoliberalism is promoted by center-left parties as long as you're defining the center as being to the right of that. Since this post seems to be about the United States, that center is already pretty far to the right as measured from, say, Denmark (picked a name out of a hat). I think the bigger argument here is about US-defaultism rather than whether or not it's OK for Americans to describe things in terms that relate to their political climate.

EDIT: I think the comment I'm replying to is confusing people. Replying solely to the words "center-left" makes it seem like the OP described neoliberalism as center-left, which people are objecting to. However, the OP only used the phrase center-left once, to say that American center-right and center-left parties have enacted neoliberal policy. As a statement of fact, the Democrats have enacted neoliberal policy. By American standards, the Democrats are regarded as center-left. This does not mean the OP was saying "neoliberalism is a center-left ideology." There is an argument to be made here that the Democrats are not a center-left party, but I think the issue is getting confused here because people are reacting as if the thing being described as "center-left" is neoliberalism, when it's actually the Democratic Party.

[-] CascadeDismayed@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

What you said makes zero sense. Neoliberalism is distinctly NOT a left wing ideology. To even try and associate them makes you look like you don't know what you're talking about.

[-] mcgravier@kbin.social -1 points 1 year ago

It's not subjective - the definitions of words has been eroded on purpose. This is orwellian destruction of language and it works

[-] vaguerant@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago

Of course it's subjective. The terminology of the left-right political divide originally referred to 18th-century France. In the 21st century, we're usually not defining the political center of a nation by how it compares to the French Parliament of 250 years ago. The center moves over time and space, and the left and right are relative to that center.

I do think this comment thread is confusing people, though, as noted in an above edit. For clarity, nobody is saying neoliberalism is a center-left movement.

[-] mcgravier@kbin.social -1 points 1 year ago

The very concept of putting political spectrum in one-dimensional axis is purposefully broken. Left vs right doesn't tell you jack shit about the actual ideologies. Life is more complex than this

[-] ultranaut@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

I've also recently noticed people claiming to be "neoliberals" but apparently meaning something like "progressive Democrat" and it's really confusing so I appreciate this post. It's already bad enough "liberal" has a bunch of different definitions, pretending neoliberalism is something else isn't going to help anything or anyone.

[-] Nihilistic_Mystics@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Much the same way people on the left have been adopting the Republican definition of socialism, as in any time the government does anything. Like having basic welfare or some such suddenly equals socialism.

Now people have been overusing neoliberal so much that the ill informed have started using it for people that are clearly pro government spending, pro social safety net, pro regulation, etc. Discussion becomes unhelpful when people redefine the means by with we identify ideologies.

[-] KirbyQK@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

By the same token though, doesn't socialism exactly mean basic welfare? Doesn't socialism just boil down to looking after every member of society equally, such as with basic welfare if they aren't working or universal healthcare to make sure anyone can access it regardless of station or wealth?

[-] Nihilistic_Mystics@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

When it comes to defining economic systems, no. Unless the workers own the means of production, it's not socialism. Even social democracies like the Nordic countries is just capitalism with safety nets and strong unions, not socialism. Calling such a system socialism only muddies the waters, which is exactly why Republicans do it, to conflate basic welfare systems and unions with evil socialism! We shouldn't empower Republican talking points.

[-] KirbyQK@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I see, so what's the difference between that and Communism, I'd always thought the difference was socialism was the, I guess goal of supporting all of society? Regardless of the economic approach that generated the money. I'm pretty unfamiliar with this kind of discussion and I want to rectify that haha

[-] Nihilistic_Mystics@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Communism is the communal ownership of all means of production (not just the workers owning the place they work at like socialism) and communal distribution of resources based on need (ideally). A hippie commune where everyone works a job and everyone is distributed food, goods, etc. based on their needs without money being involved is a solid, small scale model of communism, though there are a lot of issues and various theoretical solutions when it's scaled up beyond a group of like-minded individuals who all know each other. In theory such a society is classless and has no use for currency. The reality is such a society has never actually existed and things fell apart along the way, usually by someone seizing power in the transitionary period and the state becoming a dictatorship instead.

For small scale references, worker cooperatives are a good example of socialism and communes are a good example of communism.

[-] KirbyQK@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Ok I think I understand, thank you for taking the time to write it out for me 🙂

[-] Kichae@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago

They don't "think it", as if they're confused, they're implicitly defining "left" as socialist, or at least anti-capitalist.

[-] Candelestine@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

And tbf, the portion of the right that is legit fascist kinda actually hates all those things. They've no love at all for their more economically-oriented allies.

[-] MrComradeTaco@lemmy.fmhy.ml -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Democrats are neo-liberals, republicans are fascists, who would you like to fuck you in the ass first?

this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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