12-27-2016, 01:25 PM
Under the thread titled, "America Is a Sick Society," Eric the Green has provided an excellent reference to a book about neoliberalism. The link is repeated below for those posters who missed it the first time:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/a...?CMP=fb_gu
Neoliberalism is the political/economic philosophy that has held sway in America, the United Kingdom, and indeed in much of the Western world since the days of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Only in Latin America was any political resistance offered to neoliberalism, and that has met with only mixed--and in some cases, ephemeral--success.
As a whole, neoliberal policies--privatization, deregulation, free trade, tax cuts, austerity, to name just a few--have been in force in Western economies for over 35 years, regardless of the party in power. Ronald Reagan was a neoliberal, though he would never have referred to himself as such, as the very root word "liberal" would have been anathema to his conservative constituents. Bush 41 and 43 were also neoliberals. Bill Clinton, too. And, yes, even Obama. Hillary Clinton would also have fit the bill had she been elected president. Sadly, the only real challenge to neoliberal orthodoxy in the US has been the insurgent presidential campaigns of Ralph Nader and Bernie Sanders, both of whom fell well short of overturning neoliberalism as a guiding political and economic philosophy. And now, Trump is assembling an administration that, from all indications, threatens to send neoliberalism into hyper-drive.
Make no mistake, neoliberalism is the old civic order that must be scuttled if America--and much of the West--is to ever regenerate itself politically and economically. As a governing philosophy, it almost crumbled in the wake of the financial crisis. The Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, and Brexit were all challenges to neoliberal orthodoxy, each in its own way. Yet neoliberalism lives on, and may enjoy a last desperate gasp with the policies and team that Donald Trump is now putting into place.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/a...?CMP=fb_gu
Neoliberalism is the political/economic philosophy that has held sway in America, the United Kingdom, and indeed in much of the Western world since the days of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Only in Latin America was any political resistance offered to neoliberalism, and that has met with only mixed--and in some cases, ephemeral--success.
As a whole, neoliberal policies--privatization, deregulation, free trade, tax cuts, austerity, to name just a few--have been in force in Western economies for over 35 years, regardless of the party in power. Ronald Reagan was a neoliberal, though he would never have referred to himself as such, as the very root word "liberal" would have been anathema to his conservative constituents. Bush 41 and 43 were also neoliberals. Bill Clinton, too. And, yes, even Obama. Hillary Clinton would also have fit the bill had she been elected president. Sadly, the only real challenge to neoliberal orthodoxy in the US has been the insurgent presidential campaigns of Ralph Nader and Bernie Sanders, both of whom fell well short of overturning neoliberalism as a guiding political and economic philosophy. And now, Trump is assembling an administration that, from all indications, threatens to send neoliberalism into hyper-drive.
Make no mistake, neoliberalism is the old civic order that must be scuttled if America--and much of the West--is to ever regenerate itself politically and economically. As a governing philosophy, it almost crumbled in the wake of the financial crisis. The Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, and Brexit were all challenges to neoliberal orthodoxy, each in its own way. Yet neoliberalism lives on, and may enjoy a last desperate gasp with the policies and team that Donald Trump is now putting into place.