Talk:Neoliberalism/Archive1

This is an archive page, last updated 26 June 2022. Please do not make edits to this page.

Archives for this talk page:  , (new)(back)

Confused

I think someone has neoliberalism and neoconservatism confused. Neoliberalism involves using the free market where appropriate to solve the problems of capitalism (for example, the government funding private drug rehab centers instead of doing it themselves.) It was a response to the bloated bureaucracies created by the Great Society of LBJ. The strongest supporters of neoliberalism within the US were Bill Clinton and the New Republic, two things HATED by every single person mentioned in this article. The single best neoliberal pundit is freaking Michael Kinsley. Within the field of IR, in contrast, it is the use of treaties and agreements (including free trade) to try to bind the world into a set of norms and institutions to rein in horrific dictators like those mentioned. Researcher 14:23, 24 October 2007 (EDT) EDIT: Also, the "Neo" in IR neoliberalism is to distinguish it from old Utopian Wilsonian liberalism, the sort that lead to "Wars for democracy." If anything, Bush Jr. is the craziest sort of the old style International Relations liberal. Researcher 14:38, 24 October 2007 (EDT)

This is an idea form the US so I'm out of my depth, but I thought the neo-liberals were indeed a return to the original Liberal idea of no state control, free markets, no unions and all that?--Bob^{bing for apples} 14:43, 24 October 2007 (EDT)

No, that's the "classic liberal" moniker. Domestic Neoliberals believe in the same ends as liberals, but believe that the old methods used by liberals were flawed. As for International Relations neoliberals, many of them do believe that most states in the world could use some liberalization, specifically in destroying corrupt businesses that only survive due to constant government intervention. But they believe in it as a precursor to increasing the material prosperity of the state, which will then lead to greater democratization. The end goal for neoliberals is greater democratization and freedom for the people on the ground. (Which will then lead to less conflict and war--democratic peace theory comes directly from neoliberals.) Researcher 17:08, 24 October 2007 (EDT)

Here is my proposed change. Researcher 20:42, 24 October 2007 (EDT)

How much longer should I wait before changing it? I don't want to be a dick for just completely erasing someone else's article, but I really think the old one is just plain wrong. Researcher 20:19, 25 October 2007 (EDT)

"As a snarl word"

"Much as antifeminists refer to any feminist as a "radical feminist" no matter what their actual position is, a small but significant part of the fringe Left uses "neoliberal" as a catchall term of abuse against pretty much anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders."

I don't think it's automatically a "snarl word." If you support free trade agreements, privatization, and/or deregulation (as the Third Way Democrats have done and still do), then you're a neoliberal. --Nabil (talk) 09:23, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

My thoughts too. Just because (nominally) Social Democratic/Labour parties don't support a Dickensian society or anarcho-capitalism doesn't mean they don't buy (most of?) the core neoliberal views of the world and the economy:

• Self-correcting markets
• Supply side economics.
• Deregulation is generally (or possibly always) good.
• Privatization always leads to greater efficiency.
• After an initial bailout of the banks to avoid a complete financial meltdown, austerity, not Keynesian economics, was/is the proper response to Great Recession.
• Welfare queen-style rhetoric with a very thin veneer of "helping the needy poor" (read: "plenty of poor who are just lazy").
• An extreme focus on keeping inflation even to the detriment of higher employment.

Sure, these parties may appeal for some level of (read: any) employee protection that neoliberals find too much and they also tend to have a less laissez-faire attitude to environmental protection or social security, but their core view of how the economy works seems to be derived from the neoliberals. ScepticWombat (talk) 10:00, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

"Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is an example of the kind of monster who would literally kill for the free market"

Didn't he kill to keep himself in the president seat rather than to advance the free market?--Harkinian | Oah! (talk) 15:00, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Why does it have to be one or the other? -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 15:16, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I just don't understand how the people here come to the conclusion, that Pinochet did actually "kill for the free market".--Harkinian | Oah! (talk) 15:22, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I guess I am not sure where you have the issue. There's quite a bit of information around that details this including brutal tactics used to enforce economic policies. Though some you might need to find at a library (Winn, Peter, ed. (2004) - Victims of the Chilean miracle: workers and neoliberalism in the Pinochet era). What level of evidence do you want to believe it was? -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 15:46, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

This book on Google books claims, that you need a police-state to enforce neo-liberalism, which is nonsense, since most First World countries did just fine without it and did enact neoliberalist policies and the Wikipedia article also doesn't show, how he "literally kill[ed] for the free market".--Harkinian | Oah! (talk) 15:57, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

While I see your point, it is also true that this dictator certainly killed innocents as a method of advancing his goals and policies. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 16:02, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I am not sure what standard this needs to meet. Can you provide an example? Is it to the level of an action shot of him personally shooting someone in the head signed on the back saying "I killed this &^%$ in the name of the free market"? The international community accepts this to be true as well, including people from Chile, are they lying? -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 16:18, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

What part of the "international community" "accepts", that he "literally kill[ed] for the free market"? What part exactly of that vague "community" says that, how, where and isn't that somewhat of an Argument from authority? And isn't the "international community" ripe with dictators worse than Pinochet? --Harkinian | Oah! (talk) 16:23, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Reading that made me laugh. If that was the standard, not many dictators could be claimed to have killed for their policies at all. However, I think the beef is in the phrasing. "Literally kill for the free market" is a bit overspecific. Something like "Pinochet was one of several murderous dictators who pushed free market capitalism" is atleast not questionable in the same sense (though red dictators have murdered to a far greater extent, so tying economics to murderousness might be hard...) Reverend Black Percy (talk) 16:27, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

You're right on that one. The biggest problem was not his (maybe questionable) economic policy, but that he was a dictator.--Harkinian | Oah! (talk) 16:29, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

That seems odd to me since it seems like it's splitting hairs on what policies are. The first is the idea/intent, which obviously being an idea doesn't exist and being an idea or word cannot really do much. The second part is how that policy is implemented, which does differ, that can cause a lot of harm. Like North Korea calls itself a democratic republic (pfft haha). The difference is that North Korea is isolated and condemned while it brutalizes its people. Chile was helped into this by the US, hailed by economists (Robert Packenham, William Ratliffas, Milton Friedman) as the Chilean mircle, and supported by world financial organizations. Yeah, you can call it neoliberalism or a triceratops, but when you have the originators of the idea pointing to this going "Yeah, this is it in a nutshell" it makes it hard to separate the idea from the implementation. What makes up neoliberalism changes over time, like the word gay has, but that history cannot be ignored. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 18:45, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I certainly agree that the importance of the Chilean economic miracle and the collaboration between Friedman and Pinochet deserves to be documented at some length by us. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 19:02, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

He didn't really kill "in the name of the free market", he was mostly interested in killing the armed (and some non-armed as well) communists instead. The reasoning behind this was probably to avoid a civil war and to avoid being brought down by a communist guerrilla party. I'm Chilean btw. I'm going to remove that part, since it's really misleading. Also, mentioning he was a monster while also mentioning he was a dictator seems kind of redundant (and it's not really that true for dictators' standards, since his death toll was of about 4 thousands, compared to most other dictatorships with far greater death tolls).^{— Unsigned, by: 190.46.210.250 / talk / contribs}

Repeated Reverts

If you could actually state a serious problem with my contribution to this article that justifies this repeated full reverting, please go ahead. I have provided secondary citations from reputable sources such as the London School of Economics, alongside Primary sources where people have either defined neoliberal, or wilfully identified as neoliberal.--RussiaWatch (talk) 16:21, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Sadly, rollbacks don't let me enter reasons. :C

Essentially; the quote from the Indian guy is plain wrong. Scratch that for inclusion in the current article.

Secondly, the phrasing "few people have EVER called themselves neoliberal" is flat out wrong. "Ever" implies "from the beginning of time, up until the present minute.". That claim is false.

Thirdly, I don't see the utility of starting a list of people who self-identify as neo-liberals. The above wiki link has a more interesting discussion on the use of the term than such a list would provide. That being said, in Sweden alone, there's tons of economists and even political movements that self-classify as "nyliberal" (literally neoliberal) outright, making it a moot point anyways. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 16:46, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

The point on Nyliberal is new to me, and very valid. A list of people who self-identify as neo-liberals could easily grow too long. I altered the phrasing of "few people have EVER called themselves neoliberal" with subsequent revisions". I was originally trying to refer specifically to the contemporary usage of the term. I believe Alexander Rüstow referred to himself as an Ordoliberal. Charles Peters is an example of someone who did refer to themselves as neoliberal, but probably not in the same way most people would now use the term.

Regarding it's use as a snarl word, it's already referred to as a snarl word on the page dedicated to that, and examples of it's use as a snarl word and why it ends up used as a snarl word should be included. Would you agree with scraping the first new header but keeping an expanded version of the second? --RussiaWatch (talk) 17:04, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

I would say that you should change the phrasing in order to point out that in modern times few people call themselves neoliberals.--Owlman (talk) (mail) 17:16, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

That was done as of the most recent change version, "Few individuals currently state themselves to be neoliberal.", but could be better phrased "At present, few individuals openly adopt the term "neoliberal" to define their political beliefs", unless this section gets scraped for being somewhat useless.

Could pointing out the nyliberals as an example of major political groups that openly use the term be more useful than simply listing individuals? I feel it's prudent that the article give at least one example of something that presently states itself to be neoliberal. --RussiaWatch (talk) 17:23, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

I think we should use this TOW segment as the starting point and model for any segments on the origin and current usage of the term. We can expand our section in another direction later, once we've covered about what TOW says on the term. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 17:57, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Proposed change

"Neoliberalism" refers to two different, but related, threads of political discourse. One is an ideology of domestic governance, and the other is a theory of international relations. ^{— Unsigned, by: Researcher / talk / contribs} 20:19, 25 October 2007‎ (UTC)

Domestic Neoliberalism

In its use in United States domestic politics, the term seems to have been created by Michael Kinsley of the traditionally liberal magazine, The New Republic. In its original meaning, neoliberalism is the idea that, while traditional liberalism had many flaws, the government could still work to help ordinary people. Neoliberalism also attempted to do away with the narrow interest politics that were seen to damage the Democratic Party, by instead creating a vision of how to run the country that was internally consistent and could vie with the libertarian model that many in the Republican Party espoused.

The most important value in neoliberal planning was empiricism. Outcomes needed to be measurable, and measured, to make sure that ideology was not blinding the policy makers. This emphasis on results over other factors led to the creation of the term "technocratic" to describe this approach.

Under the Bill Clinton administration, many neoliberals were given a chance to put their ideas into practice. What this meant was a focus on education, balanced budgets, and assistance to non-profits, alongside a restructuring of those government bureaucracies that did work. Moreover, many economists were brought in for their technical expertise. There were many successes, and overall real incomes grew at a faster rate than any time in recent history, at all levels.

However, there are some criticisms of neoliberalism. One of the most common, even espoused by some prominent neoliberals like Robert Rubin, was that it was too concerned with raising incomes and less with overall income equality. Many traditional liberals worry that the increasing gap between the lower class and the mega-rich is undermining democracy as we know it.

The other major criticism of domestic neoliberals is their support for free trade. Many people on all sides of the political spectrum (in every country) worry about the effects of free trade on everything from wages to sovereignty, but so far empirical evidence for its deleterious effects is still scant.

Prominent domestic neoliberals in the United States include Paul Krugman, Michael Kinsley, and Bill Clinton ^{— Unsigned, by: Researcher / talk / contribs} 20:19, 25 October 2007‎ (UTC)

International Relations Neoliberalism

In the academic field of international relations, neoliberalism refers to a school most closely associated with Harvard and Princeton. The neoliberal school of IR arose in the 1970s as a response to the hegemony of the "realism" school

In IR, "liberalism" refers to the orientation of Woodrow Wilson and other people who hoped to reshape the world, through the use of war and international organizations. The goal of the early liberals was democratization and an end to war. Neoliberals took these same goals, but rejected the unscientific applications that had come before. Instead, neoliberals decided to apply rigourous mathematical and scientific techniques.

Most neoliberal analyses relied heavily on rational choice and game theoretic models, borrowed extensively from economics. (The main thing tying both domestic neoliberalism and international neoliberalism is the heavy reliance on economics.) Neoliberals today believe that tying states together in institutions, it can decrease the signal noise that prevents communication between them. Moreover, it can increase the costs associated with provocation and aggression.

The best formulation of neoliberal hopes can be found in the "democratic peace" theory. According to this, no two mature democracies have ever fought a war against each other. Therefore, promoting liberal democracy around the world will have the side-effect of decreasing war. Moreover, since a vibrant middle class has long been recognized as a necessary condition for liberal democracy, neoliberals have focused on helping nations choose policies that would promote the creation of middle classes and democracy.

Criticism of neoliberalism often comes from both the right and the left. Realists often claim that because neoliberals ignore power, they are fooling themselves as to what really causes war and struggle. This is despite the fact that neoliberal claims and predictions have come true at least as often as those made by realists. From the left, constructivists claim that neoliberals are ignoring the structure behind the norms they espouse. Moreover, they point to China as an example of a country that can follow the economic advice of the neoliberals without democratizing.

Prominent neoliberals in IR include Bill Clinton and Thomas Friedman. ^{— Unsigned, by: Researcher / talk / contribs} 20:19, 25 October 2007‎ (UTC)

"Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is an example of the kind of monster who would kill for the free market."

More like Circlejerk wiki. ^{— Unsigned, by: 67.140.220.148 / talk / contribs} 14:59, 7 May 2011‎ (UTC)