The death of neoliberalism from within • Hacker News Board

Re: The death of neoliberalism from within

#51

Post by pdeuchler » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 4:58 PM UTC

elgabogringo wrote: post #13

Neoliberalism is not a school of economic thought. It's not an actual ideology that anyone associates themselves with. It's a word without any concrete meaning thrown around in order to avoid real discussion. The free market is not failing. Current markets that are failing are hardly "free." What is failing is a system of government regulation and control that supports wall street and the rich at the expense of the m…

Exactly. This is merely more gamesmanship for the long con.

What do you do when vocal critics of your policies seem to be gaining steam? Agree with them! Use their ill defined terminology to label the failures not intrinsic to your plans as the "bad" things, say you won't do them anymore, and double down on your true ideology.

The real tell here is there is no mention of the economic colonialism of Africa and Asia. No mention of Iraq, Libya, Yemen, ISIS, etc. etc.

As an aside, I think a lot of commenters on this thread don't seem to realize you can be a proponent of government regulation and still criticize the crappy (some would say purposefully crappy) job that's being done in their name.

Re: The death of neoliberalism from within

#52

Post by djsumdog » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 4:58 PM UTC

areyoucrazy wrote: post #39

Communists have been saying neoliberalism(nonsense term, which serves as an insult)/capitalism is going to fall, but it ain't happening. It's stronger than ever. They're like Christians expecting rapture.

Are you serious? Capitalism has been failing most of this planet! You just don't think it's failing because you live in a mid-to-high income nation. One day those nations will run out of others to have war with and steal from. The earth has a lot of resources, but it's finite. This will all end one day.

Re: The death of neoliberalism from within

#53

Post by wfo » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:00 PM UTC

elgabogringo wrote: post #6

kiruwa wrote: post #3

> Two British examples [of neoliberalism], suggests Will Davies – author of the Limits of Neoliberalism – would be the NHS and universities “where classrooms are being transformed into supermarkets”. Without taking a bit of Davies' argument into the article, that seems to badly undercut the argument. I'm not sure I can imagine a segment of society less neoliberal than either of them. (particularly by comparison to ot…

Exactly, there's nothing free-market about government run Health Care or Schools. This is another case of people using words they don't understand.

Applying free market principles to government run services that should be government run like health care, schools -- where profit and efficiency are not goals is neoliberal.

This is another case of people discussing articles they didn't read.

Re: The death of neoliberalism from within

#54

Post by cft » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:07 PM UTC

marricks wrote: post #29

elgabogringo wrote: post #13

Neoliberalism is not a school of economic thought. It's not an actual ideology that anyone associates themselves with. It's a word without any concrete meaning thrown around in order to avoid real discussion. The free market is not failing. Current markets that are failing are hardly "free." What is failing is a system of government regulation and control that supports wall street and the rich at the expense of the m…

You're blaming government regulations! That's absurd given many people at this point have said that the deregulation of the 90's on the financial sector is what lead to much of our housing financial crisis, not to mention the widening pay gap. Your comment might actually be a good representation of how Neoliberal ideas of deregulation will continue to flourish despite them hampering to middle and lower classes. Peopl…

What is bad about climate change? There might be more land with warm and mild climates. What is inherently bad about this? There were much bigger climate changes in the past, such as snowball earth era, when the entire earth was covered with ice and snow.

Re: The death of neoliberalism from within

#55

Post by marricks » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:07 PM UTC

kiruwa wrote: post #47

marricks wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're blaming government regulations! That's absurd given many people at this point have said that the deregulation of the 90's on the financial sector is what lead to much of our housing financial crisis, not to mention the widening pay gap. Your comment might actually be a good representation of how Neoliberal ideas of deregulation will continue to flourish despite them hampering to middle and lower classes. Peopl…

> You're blaming government regulations! That's absurd given many people at this point have said that 1) That's not actually what he said. He said that the regulatory apparatus is currently working to assist rent-seeking and pushing wealth to the "1%". Regulation has been used to protect the wealth of the wealthy from the consequences of a free market, at everyone else's expense. 2) Argument from consensus isn't actu…

1) I'm discussing the narrative, the poster only cites over-regulation as a problem, which I haven't seen bail-outs called before. The language implies government rules are the problem.

2) Many notable economists actually blame deregulation, such as Alan Greenspan & the SEC [0]. I think the man who oversaw much of the deregulation while it was happening calling it a problem in hindsight is a pretty darn good indication.

Of course your right though in the sense it's many things happening together, and the finger can never be pointed at one person let alone one group of policies. Still many people see the increased volatility caused by that regulation as a pretty big part of the cause.

[0] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/business/27sec.html

Re: The death of neoliberalism from within

#56

Post by pdeuchler » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:09 PM UTC

wfo wrote: post #42

elgabogringo wrote: post #13

Neoliberalism is not a school of economic thought. It's not an actual ideology that anyone associates themselves with. It's a word without any concrete meaning thrown around in order to avoid real discussion. The free market is not failing. Current markets that are failing are hardly "free." What is failing is a system of government regulation and control that supports wall street and the rich at the expense of the m…

Of course it is an explicit ideology that many associate themselves with (though not by name, since it's become something of a slur because it's so obviously religious about the "free market" and hated because of this). It's explained clearly in TFA. Of course, the classic rabid libertarian answer -- any time any economic failure happens, blame regulations. When we free the markets, and the markets fail to provide an…

Ahhhh yes, the wonderful false dichotomy of "accept the ruling class' protectionist regulations" or "no regulations whatsoever"

Didn't expect to see that come up on a thread about neoliberalism...

Re: The death of neoliberalism from within

#57

Post by zwerdlds » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:10 PM UTC

elgabogringo wrote: post #45

zwerdlds wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IMF is a lender of last resort. Governments aren't forced to utilize them, and evidence shows that currency devaluation is often a better strategy. Having unfavorable terms, as you've described, makes the bitter pill of devaluation look a little sweeter. But in response to your question, I'm not sure how it's not free market. Can you describe specifically what doesn't get covered from the "it's not forced lending…

One government overspends, gets bailed out by a quasi-government entity that is funded by other governments. This is government intervention in currency in debt markets, by definition not laissez faire.

It seems like you have an issue with government-level intervention in general. Is that the case?

Re: The death of neoliberalism from within

#58

Post by stcredzero » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:11 PM UTC

marricks wrote: post #29

elgabogringo wrote: post #13

Neoliberalism is not a school of economic thought. It's not an actual ideology that anyone associates themselves with. It's a word without any concrete meaning thrown around in order to avoid real discussion. The free market is not failing. Current markets that are failing are hardly "free." What is failing is a system of government regulation and control that supports wall street and the rich at the expense of the m…

You're blaming government regulations! That's absurd given many people at this point have said that the deregulation of the 90's on the financial sector is what lead to much of our housing financial crisis, not to mention the widening pay gap. Your comment might actually be a good representation of how Neoliberal ideas of deregulation will continue to flourish despite them hampering to middle and lower classes. Peopl…

What's scary to consider is the era of strong wage increases and financial regulation from the 50's to 80's only started by a cataclysmic event, the Great Depression

The wealth of that period had a lot to do with the British mortgaging their global empire to the US in order to pay off their war debt from WWI and for the US bailing them out again in WWII. In exchange, the US received approximate hegemony over "the free world" and the disguised blessing of a scary enemy to unite their side.

Given climate change is only going to get worse, I guess a pretty big catastrophe coming our way and causing similar change soon-ish isn't that far fetched.

Most human conflict is based on resource scarcity, fear of future resource scarcity, and/or fear of what others will do when faced with resource scarcity. This certainly applied to WWII. Even ideological/sectarian conflicts have fear of resource scarcity underpinning them.

Re: The death of neoliberalism from within

#59

Post by marricks » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:12 PM UTC

cft wrote: post #54

marricks wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're blaming government regulations! That's absurd given many people at this point have said that the deregulation of the 90's on the financial sector is what lead to much of our housing financial crisis, not to mention the widening pay gap. Your comment might actually be a good representation of how Neoliberal ideas of deregulation will continue to flourish despite them hampering to middle and lower classes. Peopl…

What is bad about climate change? There might be more land with warm and mild climates. What is inherently bad about this? There were much bigger climate changes in the past, such as snowball earth era, when the entire earth was covered with ice and snow.

Massive increases in droughts which are already happening? Not to mention sure with the changes farming areas could get worse elsewhere and better other places like Greenland but we already have farms in those locations which were good 50 or 100 years ago, it takes time to adapt and there's no law saying things even out.

Not to mention when will the change stop? There isn't any indication it will stabilize in the near future meaning semi-unpredictable changes will continue to occur.

Also, living through the snowball earth era would have probably been awful for the human species. Sure life survived many apocalyptic events, no reason to think our species would survive when 99% of others couldn't.

Re: The death of neoliberalism from within

#60

Post by icebraining » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:13 PM UTC

wfo wrote: post #42

elgabogringo wrote: post #13

Neoliberalism is not a school of economic thought. It's not an actual ideology that anyone associates themselves with. It's a word without any concrete meaning thrown around in order to avoid real discussion. The free market is not failing. Current markets that are failing are hardly "free." What is failing is a system of government regulation and control that supports wall street and the rich at the expense of the m…

Of course it is an explicit ideology that many associate themselves with (though not by name, since it's become something of a slur because it's so obviously religious about the "free market" and hated because of this). It's explained clearly in TFA. Of course, the classic rabid libertarian answer -- any time any economic failure happens, blame regulations. When we free the markets, and the markets fail to provide an…

Noam Chomsky, that rabid right-wing libertarian:

What’s called the capitalist system is very far from any model of capitalism or market. Take the fossil fuels industries: there was a recent study by the IMF which tried to estimate the subsidy that energy corporations get from governments. The total was colossal. I think it was around $5 trillion annually. That’s got nothing to do with markets and capitalism.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/09/noam-chomsky-bernie-sande...

--

The problem is that capitalists use the language of free markets, but are not actually proponents of its wide application, just where it benefits them. Or to put it more pithily: capitalists don't like capitalism. So you get localized deregulations and strong regulations (example [1]) where it benefits them. But we should distinguish the cases.

[1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/trade-groups-for-chemical-firms-...