Patrick Collison AMA on r/neoliberal • Hacker News Board

Re: Patrick Collison AMA on r/neoliberal

#41

Post by namlem » Sun, Mar 18, 2018, 3:10 AM UTC

adwhit wrote: post #8

gt_ wrote: post #3

Interesting to see individuals show pride in the “neoliberal” label, which is usually a stand-in for “complacent”.

It is very peculiar. Whether it is an attempt to "reclaim" the word or not, that subreddit's usage of "neoliberal" bears little relation it's usage as defined in books such as David Harvey's 'A Brief History of Neoliberalism', where it is most commonly associated with privatization, financialisation, tax cuts, the retrenchment of social welfare and rapid growth in inequality. Critically, the neoliberal state is not '…

You can be a center-right neoliberal, a center-left neoliberal, or something in between. The sub leans center-left, while traditionally neoliberals have been more center-right.

Re: Patrick Collison AMA on r/neoliberal

#42

Post by miracle2k » Sun, Mar 18, 2018, 4:22 AM UTC

aluhut wrote: post #37

nostrademons wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt any of that matters to Stripe, whose customer base consists of small-to-midsize businesses who need to accept payments over the Internet, oftentimes for marketplace-based business models. By virtue of the problem that they want solved, this group is going to skew towards free markets, free trade, globalization, and all the tenets that r/neoliberalism embraces. They may not themselves want to adopt the label (…

You did not have to be active in Occupy or any of the other groups to hear the term. Hell, my mother knows is and won't connect anything good with it. The main reason is what happened 2008 and for those who cared a little bit: deregulation. People who take neoliberalism are not necessary anti free market. Those would be the extremists again. > They may not themselves want to adopt the label (particularly in front of…

The term is used in Germany as a battle cry against the enemies of social market democracy, perceived or real.

I don't think it's a thing in the US.

Re: Patrick Collison AMA on r/neoliberal

#43

Post by nostrademons » Sun, Mar 18, 2018, 4:55 AM UTC

aluhut wrote: post #37

nostrademons wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt any of that matters to Stripe, whose customer base consists of small-to-midsize businesses who need to accept payments over the Internet, oftentimes for marketplace-based business models. By virtue of the problem that they want solved, this group is going to skew towards free markets, free trade, globalization, and all the tenets that r/neoliberalism embraces. They may not themselves want to adopt the label (…

You did not have to be active in Occupy or any of the other groups to hear the term. Hell, my mother knows is and won't connect anything good with it. The main reason is what happened 2008 and for those who cared a little bit: deregulation. People who take neoliberalism are not necessary anti free market. Those would be the extremists again. > They may not themselves want to adopt the label (particularly in front of…

FWIW, my mother certainly doesn't know what it is, and I just asked my wife and she has no idea. I'd heard the term in the rehabilitated, Sam Bowman sense, but had to go look up the Wikipedia page to see what the controversy was about. I don't particularly identify with any of the labels of mainstream (is there such a thing anymore?) political movements.

It's a really common mistake to assume that the people you hang around with are representative of all people. The U.S. (let alone the world) is a really big place, and we don't all read the same media anymore.

Re: Patrick Collison AMA on r/neoliberal

#44

Post by dragonwriter » Sun, Mar 18, 2018, 5:31 AM UTC

gt_ wrote: post #23

abiox wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

perhaps i misunderstand, but these things you list seem to be compatible with libertarianism (at least the right-libertarianism most commonly encountered in the US) > privatization, financialisation, tax cuts, the retrenchment of social welfare

Neoliberals want to use the state as an enforcement vehicle for private interests, so neoliberalism leads to more corruption of the state while libertarianism seeks to abandon it. Also, neoliberalism is much more crafty with propaganda, by necessity. Neoliberals use advertising and public relations to mask their alleged conflicting agendas. For example, Trump is a neoliberal in libertarian clothing, while Clinton is…

> Neoliberals want to use the state as an enforcement vehicle for private interests

Which is exactly true of libertarianism, which sees the only role of government as protecting it's model of property rights, which are precisely private interests.

> For example, Trump is a neoliberal in libertarian clothing,

Trump is neither a neoliberal norte does he dress in libertarian clothing. He's more a kleptocrat in authoritarian populist clothing, which is about as far from a neoliberal in libertarian clothing as you can get.

> while Clinton is a neoliberal in democrat clothing.

Neoliberalism is overtly the dominant ideology of the Democratic Party; Hillary Clinton is (and has for a long time been) a neoliberal in neoliberal clothing; though in the 2016 campaign she did try to preempt Sanders by adopting some progressive populist accessories.

Re: Patrick Collison AMA on r/neoliberal

#45

Post by dragonwriter » Sun, Mar 18, 2018, 5:40 AM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #36

gt_ wrote: post #3

Interesting to see individuals show pride in the “neoliberal” label, which is usually a stand-in for “complacent”.

/r/neoliberal holds that particular regulatory and redistribution schemes have costs and benefits, and favors market interventions to the extent that they contribute to a technocratic optimization of general welfare. This alienates both those who dogmatically oppose any intervention in the economy, and those who support interventions which are more emotionally satisfying than effective. This doesn't fit neatly under…

> This doesn't fit neatly under any other label as far as I can tell, least of all "neoliberal."

This limited interventionism with a market core (both the general orientation and the specific degree of intervention preferred) is pretty much dead-on Clintonian Third Wayism, which is the most significant manifestation of the Democratic side of the late 20th Century “neoliberal consensus”, which in turn is essentially the defining instance of “neoliberalism” in its modern US political usage.

Re: Patrick Collison AMA on r/neoliberal

#46

Post by gremlinsinc » Sun, Mar 18, 2018, 5:51 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #44

gt_ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neoliberals want to use the state as an enforcement vehicle for private interests, so neoliberalism leads to more corruption of the state while libertarianism seeks to abandon it. Also, neoliberalism is much more crafty with propaganda, by necessity. Neoliberals use advertising and public relations to mask their alleged conflicting agendas. For example, Trump is a neoliberal in libertarian clothing, while Clinton is…

> Neoliberals want to use the state as an enforcement vehicle for private interests Which is exactly true of libertarianism, which sees the only role of government as protecting it's model of property rights, which are precisely private interests. > For example, Trump is a neoliberal in libertarian clothing, Trump is neither a neoliberal norte does he dress in libertarian clothing. He's more a kleptocrat in authorita…

I'd like to say, Trump is more of a nationalist/protectionist candidate, not neoliberal, and he definitely didn't run on neoliberalism, Clinton and the other Republicans (center/right and center/left) are two sides of a narrow coin, but the coin being a neoliberal coin.

Sanders ran as a populist/egalitarian candidate. I feel that neoliberalism will die, in fact the fact that Trump won, is the nail in the coffin, I lean towards Sanders philosophy more, personally, -- but with technological unemployment going to rise to more than 40% of existing jobs being gone by 2030, and income inequality only going to rise even more, there will eventually be a revolution of sorts.

If not a bloody one, then one of ideals, you can see it already in red states turning blue, or more people running for elections than normally would. In Utah for example more people are running as democrats than ever have before during an election cycle. Chances of winning are slim, for sure -- but more people are getting involved because they're starting to realize it's the only way to make a difference. Scientists are even jumping in, because for some reason the 'right' seems to hate science and education.

Re: Patrick Collison AMA on r/neoliberal

#47

Post by dragonwriter » Sun, Mar 18, 2018, 5:52 AM UTC

shiado wrote: post #12

gt_ wrote: post #3

Interesting to see individuals show pride in the “neoliberal” label, which is usually a stand-in for “complacent”.

I have only ever seen the neoliberal label used as an insult against the Democratic party for their lack of real progressive policies and for basically being the pawns of big banks and global elites. Perhaps self-identification is the next logical step for Democrats? Instead of rigging the primary against a likable progressive candidate like Bernie and causing internal backlash and resentment, maybe they can get Demo…

> I have only ever seen the neoliberal label used as an insult against the Democratic party for their lack of real progressive policies and for basically being the pawns of big banks and global elites.

Probably because you are too young to remember the “neoliberal consensus” before the hard-right turn of the Republican Party; it wasn't universally an insult then (though it was from the progressive left), and it was specifically bipartisan.

But, sure, now in the US it mostly refers to the center-right faction of the Democratic Party.

Re: Patrick Collison AMA on r/neoliberal

#48

Post by closeparen » Sun, Mar 18, 2018, 6:30 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #45

closeparen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/r/neoliberal holds that particular regulatory and redistribution schemes have costs and benefits, and favors market interventions to the extent that they contribute to a technocratic optimization of general welfare. This alienates both those who dogmatically oppose any intervention in the economy, and those who support interventions which are more emotionally satisfying than effective. This doesn't fit neatly under…

> This doesn't fit neatly under any other label as far as I can tell, least of all "neoliberal." This limited interventionism with a market core (both the general orientation and the specific degree of intervention preferred) is pretty much dead-on Clintonian Third Wayism, which is the most significant manifestation of the Democratic side of the late 20th Century “neoliberal consensus”, which in turn is essentially t…

In the modern US political usage (and Wikipedia), neoliberalism refers to Reagan and Thatcher rather than Clinton. Yes, yes, they are "basically the same" from a revolutionary socialist perspective, but still.

Re: Patrick Collison AMA on r/neoliberal

#49

Post by dragonwriter » Sun, Mar 18, 2018, 7:03 AM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #48

dragonwriter wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This doesn't fit neatly under any other label as far as I can tell, least of all "neoliberal." This limited interventionism with a market core (both the general orientation and the specific degree of intervention preferred) is pretty much dead-on Clintonian Third Wayism, which is the most significant manifestation of the Democratic side of the late 20th Century “neoliberal consensus”, which in turn is essentially t…

In the modern US political usage (and Wikipedia), neoliberalism refers to Reagan and Thatcher rather than Clinton. Yes, yes, they are "basically the same" from a revolutionary socialist perspective, but still.

> In the modern US political usage (and Wikipedia), neoliberalism refers to Reagan and Thatcher rather than Clinton.

In modern US political usage (I'm not really concerned about Wikipedia) it refers to all of those (and not just those individual figures, but to large swathes of both major parties in the US, particularly in 1980s and 1990s—and similarly often both ruling and major opposition parties in much of the West); there is a reason that there was much talk of a neoliberal consensus in that time period, and to a lesser extent since.

Re: Patrick Collison AMA on r/neoliberal

#50

Post by gt_ » Sun, Mar 18, 2018, 10:04 AM UTC

gremlinsinc wrote: post #46

dragonwriter wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Neoliberals want to use the state as an enforcement vehicle for private interests Which is exactly true of libertarianism, which sees the only role of government as protecting it's model of property rights, which are precisely private interests. > For example, Trump is a neoliberal in libertarian clothing, Trump is neither a neoliberal norte does he dress in libertarian clothing. He's more a kleptocrat in authorita…

I'd like to say, Trump is more of a nationalist/protectionist candidate, not neoliberal, and he definitely didn't run on neoliberalism, Clinton and the other Republicans (center/right and center/left) are two sides of a narrow coin, but the coin being a neoliberal coin. Sanders ran as a populist/egalitarian candidate. I feel that neoliberalism will die, in fact the fact that Trump won, is the nail in the coffin, I le…

Parent from 2 up here. For the record I agree with both of the comments under me. All good points. I guess it’s not much help to call Trump a neoliberal. I’ll take that back.