Neoliberalism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Neoliberalism refers to a political movement that espouses economic liberalism as a means of promoting economic development and securing political liberty. The movement is sometimes described as an effort to revert to the economic policies of the 18th and 19th centuries classical liberalism.[1
The standard neoliberal policy package includes cutting back on taxes and government social spending; eliminating tariffs and other barriers to free trade; reducing regulations of labor markets, financial markets, and the environment; and focusing macroeconomic policies on controlling inflation rather than stimulating the growth of jobs
Economists remind us that free markets are theoretically efficient, not fair,[21] and this distinction is a foundation of the critique of neoliberalism. Opponents critique neoliberalism's effects on wages, working class institutions, inequality, social mobility, working class well-being, health, the environment, and democracy. Notable opponents to neoliberalism in theory or practice include economists Joseph Stiglitz, Amartya Sen, and Robert Pollin,[22] linguist Noam Chomsky,[23] geographer David Harvey,[24] the anti-globalization movement in general, including groups such as ATTAC
. “Since the 1990's activists use the word 'neoliberalism' for global market-liberalism ('capitalism') and for free-trade policies. In this sense, it is widely used in South America.”[25] Throughout most countries in the world, neo-liberalism and globalization are considered to be tangible to one another. A lot of people often confuse the two and are so thought to be interchangeable with one another. “Free markets and global free trade are not new, and this use of the word ignores developments in the advanced economies…Neoliberalism is not just economics: it is a social and moral philosophy, in some aspects qualitatively different from liberalism.”[26
The massive U.S. military-industrial complex adds an extra layer of repression to working class "traumatization," according to David Harvey (2005), making resistance seem unfeasible to most workers. A "traumatized" working class allows the capitalist class absolute reign, which Harvey claims – citing the economic crises of 1873 and the 1920s – to be disastrous for economies around the globe, states, and working class people; though, he points out, on average capitalists were not negatively impacted by these crises.[34
Critics of neoliberalism examine the political foundations of the neoliberal project as well as its economic foundations. One of the most famous moments in neoliberal political history occurred when then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan's advisors had him deregulate the thrift industry. This was promoted with the claim that a gigantic bonanza of growth and investment was sure to follow. Reagan signed the deregulation bill in 1982, saying, "All in all, I think we've hit the jackpot." Columnist Joe Conason has argued that "The best reckoning of the costs of his benign intentions is a trillion dollars." [39] While Reagan and the United Kingdom's Margaret Thatcher laid the groundwork for what Alan Greenspan called working class "traumatization", through eliminating collective assets by sales to the private sector, enacting policies to diminish labor unions, and promoting militarization, other politicians have steadily continued the neoliberal tradition.
According to Pollin (2003), neoliberalism under the U.S. Bill Clinton administration – steered by Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin – was the temporary and unstable policy inducement of economic growth via government-supported financial and housing market speculation, with low unemployment, but also with low inflation. This unusual coincidence was made possible by the disorganization and dispossession of the American working class.[40] Berkeley sociologist Angela Davis has argued and Princeton sociologist Bruce Western has shown that the astonishingly high rate of incarceration in the U.S. (1 out of every 37 American adults is in the prison system), heavily promoted by the Clinton administration, is the neoliberal U.S. policy tool for keeping unemployment statistics low, and stimulating economic growth through maintaining a contemporary slave population within the U.S. and promoting prison construction and militarized policing.[41]
Harvey (2005) sums up neoliberalism as a global capitalist class power restoration project. Neoliberalism, he explains, is a theory of political-economic practices that dedicates the state to championing private property rights, free markets, and free trade, while deregulating business and privatizing collective assets. Ideologically, neoliberals promote entrepreneurialism as the normative source of human happiness. Harvey also considers neoliberalization a form of capitalist "creative destruction", a Schumpeterian concept.[42
Harvey (2000) observes that neoliberalism has become hegemonic world-wide, sometimes by coercion. Opponents of neoliberalism argue that neoliberalism is the implementation of global capitalism through government/military interventionism to protect the interests of multinational corporations. Even neoliberal proponent Thomas Friedman has argued approvingly, “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist."[43] In its commitment to belligerent capitalism, neoliberalism is linked to neoconservatism. In fact other critics argue that not only is neoliberalism's critique of socialism wrong but that it cannot deliver the liberty that is supposed to be one of its strong points.[44
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