I found a compact definition of neo-liberalism on Quora, answering a question regarding the way it differs from neo-conservatism. The description seems reasonable but I was puzzled by the claim that it is under attack from the right by US Republicans (my bold in the quote below):

"...Neo-liberalism is a much broader philosophic outlook for governance which advocates a reduced role for the state in economic affairs, particularly in the developing world, combined with competitive markets and liberal trade policies in each country with the rest of the world. While neo-liberalism supports the use of state institutions for social welfare where needed, it opposes government-protected monopolies and state ownership of productive industries and resources. It is characterized by conceptualizing even the political world as a kind of market, and terms like the "marketplace of ideas," or "policy market" come from the neo-liberal framework.

While neo-conservative policies are largely confined to the right-wing of the political spectrum, neo-liberalism ranges from the social-democratic parties of the center left in Europe and Latin America to the center right parties such as Christian Democratic parties in Europe, the US Democratic Party, and the Social Christian parties of Latin America. Socialist parties tend to advocate against neo-liberalism from the left, and far right-wing parties, which now include much of the US Republican party, tends to advocate against neo-liberalism from the right." --Quora answer, by James Kielkopf.

The Quora definition is more precise. It does seem to me that the 'flavor of neoliberalism' is tart-to-bitter, if one isn't a neoliberal, and sweet as honey if one is.

Is the alleged opposition to neoliberalism which James Kielkopf of Quora defines, against neoliberalism because in their libertarian stance they are against social welfare? Surely they are not against free trade? I think some severe conservative cases are just plain anti-government, period. Any governmental activity is suspect.

Agares-Tretiak on Quora says 'paleoconservatives' as opposed to neo-conservatives, are opposed to government activism in general, including limiting military responses to national threats. (Not that they want to hamstring the armed forces in immediate defense of the nation, but they want them under fairly tight financial control.) He also says (with or without justification--not sure about this) that paleoconservatives tend not to be evangelical. He says they tend to have broader, but conservative, religious views. Like... Episcopalians, maybe, or Starched Presbyterians and Baptists.

Not that their religious views stay their hand when it comes to whack off social safety net programs.

I think Agares-Tretiak (above) is right when he describes paleoconservatives as being broadly anti-government, even including defense spending which isn't directly related to national defense. Sorting out who is neo-liberal, neo-conservative, and paleo-conservative and beyond is kind of a messy job -- like sorting out a bucket of chicken guts. Reducing government in as many ways as they can imagine (except where it affects their own and their clients' fortunes) is something most conservatives, these days, seem to agree on. The last liberal republican died sometime in the 1990s from advanced old age.

An ideology is a pervasive mindset that determines what you think even when you don’t know you’re thinking. It defines what is “normal”, what constitutes conventional wisdom and what is, literally, unthinkable.

If ideology is as powerful as positions like this say, then whence all of the opposition to the "dominant paradigm" coming from liberal arts departments? Do academics have think-outside-the-box superpowers or something?

I assumed that the author of the Guardian article was referencing the effect of ideology of those who consumed it. So, Nazi ideology didn't prevent some Germans from resisting. Liberal Arts departments maybe don't share the same thoughts as the graduate School of Management does. Communist ideology seems to have zero effect on stock brokers.

What makes ideology formidable, is that those who believe it become impervious to ideas outside of the ideology, and those who passively accept many of the tenets of the ideology can't figure out what is wrong with them. So ordinary people who aren't ideologues but who have accepted some of it assume that profit-making is either divinely ordained or is a natural phenomena like gravity. Like, how could it be otherwise?

Ideologues can escape from the grip of the ideology -- it usually doesn't act like a black hole. Something has to happen to create a lot of cognitive dissonance. (Like, maybe a previous hung-ho manager gets fired as part of a merger, and had his job lasted 2 years longer, or 6 weeks longer, would have been eligible for pension. He's lost his job, he's too old to be attractive on the market, and too young to retire. Suddenly, the ideology which he previously espoused might unravel.)

Or worse, he'll retain the ideology, stew in a caustic bath of resentment, and displace blame. He'll accuse all sorts of people for their misfortunes and his.

Large numbers of people who accept neoliberal/neoconservative/paleoconservative... WETF one wants to call them, form a fairly cohesive force dedicated to government gutting, privilege preserving ideology. There isn't a strong countervailing ideology. The left has small numbers, and in addition has the further handicap of not having a clear, coherent ideology. (I'm talking about someone to the left of Bernie Sanders). Sanders and Clinton are not far to the left, and accept a lot of the neo-liberal concepts. They couldn't function in their present, past, or desired roles (like Senator, POTUS, etc.) if they didn't.

Not everyone makes a good hook-line-and-sinker ideologue. One has to 100% get behind the theory, and get rid of all those niggling doubts, and questions about inconsistencies, and all that.

If ideology is as powerful as positions like this say, then whence all of the opposition to the "dominant paradigm" coming from liberal arts departments? Do academics have think-outside-the-box superpowers or something? — Pneumenon

One could suggest that those academics have the quite ordinary power to think from within a different box, that is, that they are reasoning under the impetus of a different, more progressive, ideology. However I think there also is some relevance here to Donald Davidson's insistence that there aren't several incommensurate conceptual schemes. And, at the same time, I much appreciate the Kuhnian notion of a plurality of paradigms. So, how can those various ideas be reconciled?

A slightly different suggestion might be devised for the case of the analysis of the theoretical paradigms of the natural sciences than the one that follows. In the case of the ideologies -- i.e. the practical/political paradigms that we encounter in the political arena -- I think it may be useful to distinguish (1) the abstract, general, principles that typically are adduced in support of an ideology (2) and the salient concerns that animate this ideology (and that motivate its adherents). It may be excessively narrow a focus on the general principles that makes it appear like competing political ideologies are incommensurate. However, generally, most of the basic individual concerns (for e.g. health, freedom, dignity, etc.) that animate them are shared among proponents of the clashing ideologies. The concerns being (mostly) shared is most evident in the vast amount of ordinary cases of daily life where citizens of various political persuasions easily agree about what is vitally needed, what is decent/indecent, and what it is reasonable to do in specific situations. This stock of shared concerns, and shared ideas regarding the proper arbitration between them, provides the vast background of agreement against with residual disagreements that are characteristic of specific ideologies are salient and intelligible. (This is the broadly Davidsonian point).

The defining principles of ideologies are stated in quite general terms and are acknowledged by the proponents of them not to apply universally, that is, to have exceptions or to require the open ended adjonction of ceteris paribus clauses in order to be sensibly applied. Those principles can be conceived as attempts to articulate broad guidelines about which specific concerns should be accorded priority in specific practical decision contexts (executive actions, judgments, enactment of specific policies, etc.) So, while proponents of competing ideologies share most of the same individual concerns, they disagree in specific cases (necessarily a minority of cases, if Davidson is right) about which among several concerns, or practical ends -- that can't all be simultaneously met in a specific situation -- must be accorded priority. The root of those disagreements often are understood by the proponents of ideology-A, say, not as stemming from illegitimate concerns stressed by proponents of ideology-B, but rather are blamed on too rigid an adhesion from them to the general, abstract, principles that articulate their ideology. Simply put, liberals (say) accuse conservatives of systematic bias and vice versa.

This may seem like a rather trivial conclusion, and in a way it is, but what I want to stress is that blaming the impasse (when there is an impasse) on the rival ideology, misconstrued as being rigidly embodied by its generally stated guiding principles, often mislocates the source of the disagreement. The genuine disagreement rather often concerns which among several (mostly shared) concerns ought to be accorded priority in specific cases. Explicit ideological 'principles' only are rough attempts to articulate or systematize, a posteriori, systems of priority primarily founded on practical reason and tested in specific cases (and then enshrined in case law, jurisprudence, or embodied in practical wisdom). Practical reason doesn't proceed from the top-down, starting from highly general principles in order to apply them to specific cases. The explicit principles of an ideology lack too much specificity in order to be applied like that. Practical reason rather operates dialectically from the mutual adjustment between specific concerns (e.g. acknowledgment of specific needs of individuals) and more general concerns such as the concerns for justice or fairness. The general party lines, and statements found in national constitutions, are lame attempts to codify this.

19th Century liberalism was opposed to aristocracy. What is neo-liberalism opposed to? Government?

Noam Chomsky agrees. All governments are corrupt, hypocritical, and amoral.

Is this a good definition of "neoliberalism"? Are you a neoliberal? (Oh, surely not you!). Which, if any, leading politicians are not, to some extent, neoliberal? — Bitter Crank

I know that the term neo-liberalism has come to refer to the ill-conceived economic policies of Thatcher, Reagan, and their ilk, but I think it's a bit unfortunate and in fact a misnomer. The reason why is that, firstly, I think it has very little to do with classical liberalism. It is a complete distortion and abandonment of the classical liberal economic principles of, say, Adam Smith. Corporate monopolizing and profit mongering appear rather illiberal to me, and would to Smith, if he were alive today. What we have today is nothing like a free market.

Secondly, it's not "new" either, being merely the recrudescence of the sort of Gilded Age capitalism on display at the turn of the last century.

Noam Chomsky agrees. All governments are corrupt, hypocritical, and amoral. — Mongrel

That's Chomsky's problem: One you have decreed that all governments are corrupt, hypocritical, and amoral, where do you go from there? He doesn't like to propose solutions. He's great on diagnosis, lousy on cures.

He is great on diagnosis. I agree with most of what he says. He has stated that he does offer a solution: "Stop being immoral."

I think that's just restating the condemnation, though.

Are all governments "corrupt, hypocritical, and amoral"?

I don't think so.

There is the difficult issue of "governments as mega-institutions" which take on characteristics which transcend their individual leaders, managers, and employees. The United States Government, for instance, has 2.7 million employees, for instance. Then there are more millions of state, regional, county, and city employees. Add to that the employees of various Authorities (like the New York Port Authority). The range of behaviors of these many millions of employees are likely to be distributed normally, but probably skewed in the direction of honest, hardworking, responsible, and diligent. (I didn't say they were all those things, just skewed in that direction, mind you.) Some are crooked bastards who you wouldn't want to meet in a well lighted public space, let alone a dark alley.

The worst thing about government employees is that they tend to be phlegmatic - not easily excited to action or display of emotion; apathetic; sluggish. There are reasons for this phlegmish tendency: the layers of bureaucracy and control stacked up above them; the perpetual mobile of agency activity; the fact of political control at the top, and so on. There are, none the less, outstanding government employees who excel by delivering excellent service to citizens.

One of my favorite examples of sluggishness would be workers in employment security agencies. There is so little these people can do to solve worker problems, they can't help but have a flat affect, be apathetic and sluggish. Their jobs tend to be window dressing--which is not their fault.

Waste, Fraud, and Abuse (the Three Twisted Sisters) is no more common in government than anywhere else.

Human beings are, by nature, hypocritical, Noam, so stop complaining about it.

Institutions can be sort of amoral. Like, "Nations do not have friends, they have interests." We may like you (xyz nation), but if you are really in the way of our core interests, you're screwed. From the perspective of the top nation's citizens, this is not amoral -- it's down right reasonable. The bottom nation's citizens don't look at it that way. But we can't all be tops. Fortunately we are, and you are not, so... assume the position.

Individuals, on the other hand, can be (and often enough are) corrupt, hypocritical, and immoral, and more! Cruel, vile, deceitful, selfish, greedy, destructive, just plain insane, and so on.

There are, none the less, outstanding government employees who excel by delivering excellent service to citizens. — Bitter Crank

That's true. A government employee can be like a fairy god-mother to a hapless citizen. I've experienced that.

I think Chomsky's gripe is that people generally fail to understand the insidious side to government on both foreign and domestic issues. I think it has to do with identity. To the extent that people identify with their governments, they want to see something good there. The ugly part is hard to face.

The problem, as you pointed out is: what do you do with it once you face it?

Well, once one has grabbed the bull by the tail and faced the situation, it's either accept it or let go of the tail.

The pursuit of national interests is, generally, not nice. It doesn't matter which national interest. Country A can not entertain country Z's interests with anything like the intensity and enthusiasm it displays for it's own. And visa versa. And in these matters, might at least makes way. The Soviet Union, The People's Republic of China, India, France, England, the United States, Germany, Spain, Portugal, etc. have, at various times, in the last 300 years pursued their national interests to the despair of other nations. And they got away with it, usually. Japan and Germany had a severe comeuppance.

IF China wishes to build islands on top of coral reefs, and IF that is inconvenient to the government of the Philippines, well, too bad for the Philippines. The Islands are getting built, and since this is in their back yard, I don't think the USA can or will do much about it. China is projecting its national interests into the western Pacific the same way the USA did. There may be much international bitching and carping about it, but... a billion people, Economy #2, atomic power, missiles, trade ties all over the place--they'll keep the new islands.

It wasn't nice of France to colonize North Africa and parts of West Africa, and Haiti, Indochina, Quebec, but they did. It wasn't nice of Germany to colonize SW Africa (now Namibia) but they did. Ditto for everybody else who has expanded it's real-estate holdings. It wasn't nice of the United States to seize northern Mexico, but look at the map. Obviously we were destined to have a nice bi-coastal rectangular country and Mexico was in the way. So was Canada, but they were in the still very powerful British orbit, so... no luck there. If some countries, or groups of European countries, for instance, now feel above all this, well... it's probably the case that they are never going to get to play this game to start with. The Empire of Slovakia? I don't think so. (The fact that a good share of the British Isles and parts of France are loaded with Scandinavian genes isn't due to summer travel. Remember the Norsemen?)

National policy of necessity involves behavior which, if it were carried out by individuals, would be considered at least somewhat immoral. Killing innocent people one by one is immoral and a crime. Wiping out whole peoples who are in the way is not good PR, but hey, it's ours now, so...

I just don't see how it can be otherwise--when it comes to national behavior. There is no superior court to which sovereign nations are answerable. (The UN? No, don't think so.) The only court to which nations are answerable is their own people or an equally or stronger nation or group of nations which are sufficiently annoyed to counterattack. Bad behavior by sovereign nations is endemic, and always has been.

Chomsky dislikes it when nations (like the USA) dissembles about what it is up to. As he pointed out, the only people to whom our secret wars are secret is the American taxpayer who is paying for it. Certainly the people on whom the bombs are dropping know about it. But expecting nations to be truthful the same way we demand truth on the witness stand is likely to result in disappointment.

Well, once one has grabbed the bull by the tail and faced the situation, it's either accept it or let go of the tail. — Bitter Crank

That's the coolest way to put it I've ever heard. I'll have to keep that one.

Chomsky dislikes it when nations (like the USA) dissembles about what it is up to. As he pointed out, the only people to whom our secret wars are secret is the American taxpayer who is paying for it. Certainly the people on whom the bombs are dropping know about it. But expecting nations to be truthful the same way we demand truth on the witness stand is likely to result in disappointment. — Bitter Crank

So one form of American exceptionalism is the attitude that the US ought to be different from any other nation that's ever existed.

I sympathize with Chomsky because he reminds me of my brother: flaming bleeding-heart liberal (not the neo-sort). Most of what he says is true. It's just that talking about it doesn't fix anything. He's singing for the sake of the song.

Maybe one day we'll evolve into something better.

In that speech, he was suggesting a proletariat revolution. He didn't foresee the de-industrialization of the US that started in the 70's and proceeded into the 90's. Today, where American factories still exist, they're largely automated, which is good for electronic engineers, but it also means that there isn't much organized labor in the US anymore. So the message of that speech doesn't translate well into contemporary language.

One interesting feature of that speech is that he mentioned several times that in order for socialist libertarianism to flourish, people will have to wake up and stop accepting a system that results in the erosion of their own financial status. In other words, a critical ingredient of Chomsky's plan is an insight expressed by Ayn Rand... 'stop thinking that it's ok that you're a victim.'

The fact that there isn't much organized labour (in the US) just makes the democratic self-organization of the workforce even more pressing. — Πετροκότσυφας

Yes, but it also makes it harder to conceive a path from here to self-organization of the workplace. The world has changed in far-reaching ways since he gave that speech.

At any rate, the lecture was linked as a reminder that Chomsky proposed things from day one. — Πετροκότσυφας

I was explaining why it was easier for him to propose solutions back then and why, at present, his response to questions about solutions are nothing more than "Be moral."

Yeah, Rand, among others. It should be noted though, that they were appealing to opposite audiences. No wonder then that their politics were also antithetical. — Πετροκότσυφας

Interestingly, Chomsky presented ideas from a dude from the 18th Century. We have no problem snatching the idea from the contrasting setting in that case. Why is that a problem with Rand?

Think of an epithet that implies gender... like "hag." And yes.. that's exactly what's going on here.

Nor there is a problem with Rand. I just pointed out that even If they share the "sanction of the victim" idea in its generalities, in its specifics they were opposite. — Πετροκότσυφας

I know.

In some ways Chomsky is and was naive. So was Rand. Bottom line is that the way forward is presently unknown. We'll work it out when the next opportunity presents itself.

I like Chomsky. My statement about his not offering solutions was more or less from the horse's mouth at a talk he gave some years back (like... 1990?) And I like his ideas about self-organization (but I'm probably not a libertarian socialist).

Clearly the workers are not ready to self-organize the workplace and beyond. We (since all us have been, are, or will be workers of some sort -- except a rare few) are not ready to even organize ourselves into ordinary unions and force the owners of workplaces to engage us in collective bargaining. Granted, it isn't as if this failure to organize is the result of working class happiness and satisfaction with work as it is. The legal and judicial systems have together been very hostile to organized labor in the last 30 years (not that they were in love with us before).

And workers themselves have fairly often not seen any advantages in organizing (and in some cases, given the realities of their situation, they might have been right.) I was in a bargaining unit at the U of Minnesota, and I frankly didn't see much benefit in our union the way we were organized there at that time.