Neoliberals

[Dr Nowt]

HOUSE.

[TheHowieLama]

Huge, if true.

[Numero Veinticinco]

2 hours ago, TheHowieLama said:

Huge, if true.

DM’d

[moof]

Would welcome a proper conversation about the effects of neoliberalism over the past 4/5 decades but I can see you would rather flash your arse to the gallery for some cheap validation. Sad 

[Captain Turdseye]

23 minutes ago, moof said:

Would welcome a proper conversation about the effects of neoliberalism over the past 4/5 decades but I can see you would rather flash your arse to the gallery for some cheap validation. Sad 

 

 

[Numero Veinticinco]

28 minutes ago, moof said:

Would welcome a proper conversation about the effects of neoliberalism over the past 4/5 decades but I can see you would rather flash your arse to the gallery for some cheap validation. Sad 

I felt the same way about centrism - which I don't quite see as the same crime to humanity that some here do - so I would definitely welcome one about neoliberalism. Neoliberalism has resulting in some good things and many very bad things, although I think it could probably be argued that the good things could have been brought about in other ways whilst at least curbing some of the downsides. 

 

That said, I don't think many here would be arguing for or classed as a neoliberal. Maybe Rico would be the closest thing, but he has very little of value to say on anything ever. So perhaps this thread is going to just vanish with the best thing being the opening post. 

[cloggypop]

1 minute ago, Numero Veinticinco said:

Neoliberalism has resulting in some good things 

Fucking centrist

[Numero Veinticinco]

Just now, cloggypop said:

Fucking centrist

It resulted in keeping good working people down. FUCK YAAAS. 

[SasaS]

Wasn't neoliberalism coined as a pejorative term, or isn't at least mostly used in this manner? I still don't fully understand what is it supposed to be. Same as with democratic socialism, or ecosocialism. Whenever you ask people what they actually mean by that, they ignore you.   

[Numero Veinticinco]

Just now, SasaS said:

Wasn't neoliberalism coined as a pejorative term, or isn't at least mostly used in this manner? I still don't fully understand what is it supposed to be. Same as with democratic socialism, or ecosocialism. Whenever you ask people what they actually mean by that, they ignore you.   

Whatever, man.

[Jairzinho]

7 minutes ago, SasaS said:

Wasn't neoliberalism coined as a pejorative term, or isn't at least mostly used in this manner? I still don't fully understand what is it supposed to be. Same as with democratic socialism, or ecosocialism. Whenever you ask people what they actually mean by that, they ignore you.   

It seems to have also changed. It went from turbo capitalism to something that requires quite a lot of government intervention (albeit in favour of those that least need it).

[Bjornebye]

1 hour ago, moof said:

Would welcome a proper conversation about the effects of neoliberalism over the past 4/5 decades but I can see you would rather flash your arse to the gallery for some cheap validation. Sad 

I think the fat that he said "HOUSE" kind of points to him not being overly serious Moof and neither should you. 

[moof]

[cloggypop]

Could do with more centrist eyes. 

[Bjornebye]

9 minutes ago, moof said:

Whats Jodie Comer got to do with it? 

[SasaS]

46 minutes ago, Jairzinho said:

It seems to have also changed. It went from turbo capitalism to something that requires quite a lot of government intervention (albeit in favour of those that least need it).

I mean, it has, as I understand, something to do with Thatcher and Reagan so it begins around 1980, but I have watched Bernie from 1981 yesterday on Youtube and he more or less paints the same picture of society and economy as today. Where does that neo bit come from then? 

[Dr Nowt]

1 hour ago, moof said:

Would welcome a proper conversation about the effects of neoliberalism over the past 4/5 decades but I can see you would rather flash your arse to the gallery for some cheap validation. Sad 

 

[Jairzinho]

19 minutes ago, SasaS said:

I mean, it has, as I understand, something to do with Thatcher and Reagan so it begins around 1980, but I have watched Bernie from 1981 yesterday on Youtube and he more or less paints the same picture of society and economy as today. Where does that neo bit come from then? 

I think the original 60s idea that developed through the 70s as a response to the economics of Keynes was just seen as a return to some form of more liberal economics. Therefore the label made sense. But I don't know when it was coined and/or began to be used a lot. It's certainly used a lot now, despite the fact that in practice the economic system is quite different to the original ideas of Friedman et al. 

 

When referred to now to describe the economic system the meaning doesn't seem to be much more than "a system that filters money from the poor to the rich" hence it only ever really being used negatively. Certainly when you compare it to classical liberalism it doesn't have a great deal in common. I don't know if it's used much in many countries outside of the UK and US. Although I guess it's these two countries that have a more extreme version of whatever the overall widely accepted vision of neoliberalism is. 

 

It's also muddied by the fact that many counter movements are centred around social policies as much as economic. I think this is a big reason why many people that in theory "should" be against it often don't value such policies (or hate the fact people that value/overvalue the opposite) vote for the status quo. The working class man from an area that has seen great destruction over several decades in no small part down to the economic system is fed up with being lectured to about recycling and pronouns.

[Strontium]

I've got a brand neo combine harvester. 

[ZonkoVille77]

8 minutes ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

I've got a brand neo combine harvester. 

 

[Numero Veinticinco]

11 minutes ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

I've got a brand neo combine harvester. 

And Im gunna give you the Keynes.,

[SasaS]

2 minutes ago, Jairzinho said:

I think the original 60s idea that developed through the 70s as a response to the economics of Keynes was just seen as a return to some form of more liberal economics. Therefore the label made sense. But I don't know when it was coined and/or began to be used a lot. It's certainly used a lot now, despite the fact that in practice the economic system is quite different to the original ideas of Friedman et al. 

 

When referred to now to describe by the economic system the meaning doesn't seem to be much more than "a system that filters money from the poor to the rich" hence it only ever really being used negativity. Certainly when you compare it to classical liberalism it doesn't have a great deal in common. I don't know if it's used much in many countries outside of the UK and US. Although I guess it's these two countries that have a more extreme version of whatever the overall widely accepted vision of neoliberalism is. 

 

It's also muddied by the fact that many counter movements are centred around social policies a much as economic. I think this is big reason why many people that in theory "should" be against it often value (or hate the fact people value/overvalue the opposite) vote for the status quo. The working class man from an area that has seen great destruction over several decades in no small part down to the economic system is fed up with being lectured to about recycling and pronouns.

I think it's widely used now as the terminology tends to be adopted from English everywhere. When I first encountered it I thought it referred to Chicago school or monetarism, but it soon clearly became some kind of a floating pejorative signifier for most things capitalist or free market, fired at will.  As in EU is neoliberal but Sweden somehow isn't, especially if you don't live there it seems. France is neoliberal, despite relatively high taxes and big public sector. Is China neoliberal? Nobody seems to care.

 

[Bjornebye]

When we go on night patrol, we hold each other's hand
For we are the British Army, and we're here to take your land

[Jairzinho]

48 minutes ago, SasaS said:

I think it's widely used now as the terminology tends to be adopted from English everywhere. When I first encountered it I thought it referred to Chicago school or monetarism, but it soon clearly became some kind of a floating pejorative signifier for most things capitalist or free market, fired at will.  As in EU is neoliberal but Sweden somehow isn't, especially if you don't live there it seems. France is neoliberal, despite relatively high taxes and big public sector. Is China neoliberal? Nobody seems to care.

 

I think the EU being neoliberal is a sort of catch all assessment in order to be in favour of leaving if you're on the left. It doesn't really work, in the same way actually that arguments from the right don't work against the EU. The left says, we can't nationalise things because of the EU - despite most EU countries have far more nationalised than us. Or it generally says we can't have left wing governments - look at Spain, Portugal, etc. The right says we can't control/limit immigration because of the EU... but somehow other countries can. Pensions is another one, we have the absolute worst pensions relative to average salary, yet somehow this is the EU's fault as well. I think for some countries the idea of leaving EU has some merit, but for most it doesn't. Anyway, all this stuff leads to blanket terms for the EU, as if it's just one single entity that dictates everything to each country. Ironically, one of its most tedious aspects is the complete opposite. The millions of organisations often full of people seemingly doing very little (I'm quite right wing in my critic here, possibly because of three years of seeing something similar in the enormously bloated public sector in Spain).

 

France, as you allude to, is interesting because they're held up as both being neoliberal whilst also having people on the street (and often succeeding) every 20 minutes demanding that they don't have to work any more than 12 hours a week.

 

China, I don't think anyone has a fucking clue about. They seem to get labels right across the economic spectrum. Free market communism!

 

I think one of the problems for people battling against the current economic system, and one of the strengths for those defending it, are that people conflate whatever the current system is with the ideals of classical liberalism. We live in societies where it's actually incredibly difficult to start/run small businesses. The capitalist dream doesn't really exist for most people. 

 

Whilst I am a Social Democrat/Democratic Socialist (something in the blurred bit in between), I'd see much of the ideas of Adam Smith as being an improvement on what we currently have.

 

I like some of the ideas of Democratic Socialism. The principle of democratising the workplace is something I think has merit. But more than anything, I just want to see an end to corporatism. I'd like a system where everyone has food, and a roof over their head, while allowing sufficient scope for innovation and creativity. People can become very wealthy, but not so much so that it means other people have to be searching through bins. 

 

One of Corbyn's biggest faults, or rather his team/policies, etc, was that they never made the case for why Amazon and Google were the enemy. Only that they were. They never explained the opportunities that could arise from curtailing their power. They never explained how Tesco's power over a town leads to shit wages, limited job options, limited scope for starting/running a small business, limited options for consumers, and shit money for producers. They should have condensed it down to a single sentence and hammered it out every 30 seconds. 

 

Anyway, I'm going to stop waffling.