Neoliberalism: The Ideology That Dares Not Speak Its Name

[Eric the Green]

(01-02-2017, 04:20 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote:

(01-02-2017, 02:35 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-01-2017, 08:12 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-01-2017, 08:05 PM)Odin Wrote:

(01-01-2017, 06:57 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Actually, what your sister apparently said supports my original point perfectly:  public schools can't teach efficiently, because teachers in public schools have to keep the government happy.  Switch to vouchers that parents can use for private schooling, and the time can be spent teaching instead of pleasing politicians.

You have fallen for the propaganda, here, Warren. A lot of us on the Left have been opposed to that sort of stuff for a long time and the Right likes to push that crap in order to intentionally sabotage public schools and so then gives the Right an excuse to privatize the school system.

The Left's position is "Let's teachers teach, not politicians".

The left says a lot of things that don't actually work.  Unless you eliminate the politicians entirely, which the left doesn't propose to do, public school teachers will always need to please the politicians.

Yes, and it would be nice if the voters finally dump neo-liberalism, so that we can have politicians that care about the people again, instead of wealthy business interests. Then education would improve because teachers would have to please the representatives of the people.

You're right, Eric, that we need to reject neoliberalism if we as a people are to reinvigorate our politics, our economy and indeed our culture.  The problem is you can't call out this insidious ideology by name.  It's too confusing to the average voter.  Say the words "liberal" or conservative" and most people understand what is meant.  But say the word "neoliberal" and people's eyes glaze over.  

It's a bit like the colloquial expression, "I know it when I see it," the phrase immortalized in 1964 by Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart when he grappled with the threshold test for defining obscenity.  Likewise, the average citizen may not be able to define neoliberalism, but after 36 years of living under its ever-widening influence, most people can be made to understand its basic elements and how they have affected their lives. 

Politicians who oppose neoliberalism are better off attacking the linchpins of neoliberalism: privatization, deregulation, tax cuts, free trade and austerity.  And then explain with specific examples how such policies have all too often not worked in their favor despite the appealing rhetoric of (mostly conservative) politicians.  Talk about toll roads that were once free, coastal wetlands ruined by offshore oil spills, tax cuts that amount to peanuts for the average taxpayer but represent huge windfalls for the superrich, or that balancing the budget (austerity), as enticing as that may sound, may mean cutting food stamps, Social Security or Medicare, rather than raising taxes on the wealthy, who can well afford to pay for a threshold social safety net that other developed nations provide almost as a right.   

Neoliberalism is a political project that has "succeeded" beyond the wildest dreams of the economic elites who first championed it.  But it is slowly but surely sucking the marrow out of the bones of Western civilization.  If it is not overturned by sheer political will, it will lead us on to neo-feudalism, if indeed we're not there already...

Indeed. I like to think of it also as the ideology that has 100 names. That also makes it a little harder to point at. Most people know what "trickle down economics" means, although it could have several meanings. I titled my essay using the name "free market economics." "Free market fundamentalism" emphasizes its reductionist dogma. "Libertarian economics" is a little more specific than "neo-liberal." Classical Liberalism at least identifies it as based on very old and out of date ideas; i.e. "classic." "Supply-side" is a little too specific to one flavor of it promoted by Arthur Laffer, but it was central to Reagan's policies. "Rugged individualism" and "Social Darwinism" are similar doctrines, but not quite identical. "Laissez faire" is the French word that serves very well. "Corporatism" and "The Corporate State" emphasize the real beneficiaries of the ideology. Then of course, there's "Reaganomics," which emphasizes the influence of you know who, and which his rival and future veep called "voodoo economics."

This is one of my favorite videos about Reaganomics aka trickle-down economics, which I've posted here a number of times.



featuring our new vice-president. And as Maddow points out, this particular version of neo-liberalism includes (along with austerity for liberal programs) a deliberate attempt to roll up massive budget deficits so that future governments cannot afford the social programs that the "liberals" want, and starve it by reducing it to the size of a bathtub, as one of its architects put it.

We are.... still waiting for the trickle......