No, that's not what happened. — Agustino

Okay, whatever you say, comrade Agustino. ;)

Yes, that's an aspect of freer markets for these countries. :-| — Thorongil

No, that's an aspect of being allowed to trade with other countries, which the Eastern bloc wasn't allowed while it was communist. (and it wasn't because the communists didn't want to trade).

No you won't. This is proven time and time again. Command economies are inefficient and ridden with corruption. Compare Chile to Venezuela today, for example. — Thorongil

That's more of the combined effects of economic isolation and brutal dictatorship, not just command economy.

Okay, whatever you say, comrade Agustino. ;) — Thorongil

Right, well you've only read in your history books, which are also propaganda to a certain extent, what happened. To expect that the enemies of communism would have said nice things about communism in their history books is of course silly. As I said, there were good parts and bad parts. I for one would not have thrived under communism, nor would I have liked it. But that's me. For some people it really was good.

I'm not overly fond of Neoliberalism, but a word like "infiltraded" seems a bit over the top. Isn't liberalism/capitalism more of a mechanism in a reasonably free society rather than a plan, a direction? In a society you gets as much liberalism as you can get, up to a limit regulated by the state? Of course, all the mechanisms are there, as indicated by Marx and criticised by Popper et al.

Why is neoliberalism undesirable? — sime

Where to begin? The financial crash? The minimum wage? The extortionate and ever increasing rail fares under privatisation in the UK? Business needs to be restrained, not let loose to wreak havoc.

Business needs to be restrained, not let loose to wreak havoc. — Sapientia

Big business*

No, that's not helpful at all. I had in mind thinkers, journalists, politicians, philosophers, etc past and present. — Thorongil

...Thatcher and Reagan. — apokrisis

There's two.

Why do you think it might explain it? — Agustino

Because you seem a reasonable person in most respects, except for your opinions about politics, such as your frequent dismissals of the importance of democratic principles. It might be a consequence of not having been acculturated to democracy.

I tend to agree that the term is mostly pejorative, and it's history of usage is sort of convoluted. Wikipedia says...

Neoliberalism or neo-liberalism[1] refers primarily to the 20th-century resurgence of 19th-century ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism. Such ideas include economic liberalization policies such as privatization, austerity, deregulation, free trade, and reductions in government spending in order to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society. These market-based ideas and the policies they inspired constitute a paradigm shift away from the post-war Keynesian consensus which lasted from 1945 to 1980.

English-speakers have used the term "neoliberalism" since the start of the 20th century with different meanings, but it became more prevalent in its current meaning in the 1970s and 1980s, used by scholars in a wide variety of social sciences, as well as by critics. Modern advocates of free-market policies avoid the term "neoliberal"... neoliberalism "mutated" into geopolitically distinct hybrids as it travelled around the world. As such, neoliberalism shares many attributes with other contested concepts, including democracy. — Wikipedia

The prefix "neo" seems to get attached to older terms that a probably liberal user doesn't like, such as neoliberal, neoconservative, or neofacist. JOHN MCWHORTER in the May, 2017 Atlantic monthly wrote an article " When People Were Proud to Call Themselves ‘Neoliberal’" He mentions a handful of people who are "neoliberal" but nothing like a substantial list.

He notes that the "neo" in neoliberal means "fake" not "new" as it is normally used, these days.

I knew it wouldn't contain anything about identity politics, sexual promiscuity, and whatnot.

Right. Those are Agustino's (et al) obsessions.

Yep.

A long article by George Monbiot in the Guardian is quite persuasive concerning the faults of neoliberalism, in my opinion. He identifies it primarily with Thatcher and Reagan and the concept of 'trickle-down economics' which Reagan was famous for.

Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.

Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.

It seems to me that today both the right-wing and the left-wing pretty much peddle a neoliberal set of values, including political correctness, identity politics, what's good for the market is good for the people, consumerism, globalisation, sexual promiscuity, etc. Of course, there are exceptions on both sides, but despite the anti-neoliberal events of Trump's election, Brexit, etc. it seems that the neoliberal agenda is still going strong. Most of the Republican party is still neoliberal, and only allied with Trump for convenience. And the UK Conservatives pretty much remain as neoliberal as ever, except in a more underhanded fashion. — Agustino

Political correctness & identity politics both came really into play after the 1990s.
Promiscuity heralds back to the sexual liberation of the 1960s.
Globalism was coined in the 1980s.

Neoliberalism is a doctrine born out of the reinterpretation of liberalism in the years 1880-1890.

I guess it just seems to me like the timeline is undermining your argument?

So it's not a mystery at all that we noticed this decrease in the values of sexual mores (despite the increase in relationship instability) that is correlated with consumerism — Agustino

You are misreading the reality, the theory, or both.

Consumerism (as presented theoretically in advertising) is not intended to contribute to sexual license. Anything but. Consumption is intended to take the place of sexual gratification. Sex (according to Freud, and he used the more complex term "libido") is the primary tool we have got for reliable gratification--that and food. A consumer economy tries to divert gratification from sex to buying products (which advertising sets up as a quick satisfying experience).

What confuses many people is that vaguely to specifically sexual imagery or innuendo is employed in advertising to transfer sexual attractiveness from our normal object (people) to tends of thousands of products. The sexy part is only bait. Once you buy it, the sexual attractiveness usually disappears, and you're left with just the thing.

Of course, libido isn't the only drive that advertisers work with. People also desire to appear successful, sexually attractive, strong, healthy, and smart. Those desires can be used in advertising too. Our perceptual apparatus is exploited. For instance, lighting in the common areas of shopping malls is slightly dim (usually) so that the large glass display windows -- the shop itself accessible through a missing wall -- are more enticing--more attractive, noticeable--than the common areas. Muzak and music is employed. Odors are used to enhance our willingness to buy.

Whatever theoretical model of advertising, selling, and closed sales is employed, "sexual promiscuity" isn't the object. Neither are political correctness or identity politics.

Business is about selling stuff, or services, to people. Period.

If your preferred economics is distributionism, that is pretty much what the relocalisation and social entrepreneur crowd are advocating as an antidote to corrupt neoliberalism - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_enterprise

So a smart government could get in behind an alternative.

He notes that the "neo" in neoliberal means "fake" not "new" as it is normally used, these days. — Bitter Crank

I said earlier that neoliberalism seems to be antithetical to liberalism, so I guess I'm not the only one who sees that.

So what makes them neoliberals? They did not, so far as I'm aware, use that term to describe themselves.

No, that's an aspect of being allowed to trade with other countries, which the Eastern bloc wasn't allowed while it was communist. (and it wasn't because the communists didn't want to trade). — Agustino

When you allow for private industry to a greater extent than it previously existed, then that industry, and thereby the country, can make more money by trading the products of that industry internationally. A free market usually applies to a domestic economy and free trade to the international economy. They are complimentary.

That's more of the combined effects of economic isolation and brutal dictatorship, not just command economy. — Agustino

Well, all three tend to be inseparable.

Right, well you've only read in your history books, which are also propaganda to a certain extent, what happened. To expect that the enemies of communism would have said nice things about communism in their history books is of course silly. As I said, there were good parts and bad parts. I for one would not have thrived under communism, nor would I have liked it. But that's me. For some people it really was good. — Agustino

I never thought I'd see you making a seemingly relativistic point here. It was really good for atheists who hated Christianity, the family, the kulak, the Jew, and so on, for example. I won't deny any genuine goods provided by communism, but whatever they are, they could have been provided by another system, which means that communism still doesn't deserve any praise.

Little do you realize that there are and have been many people in Western history departments and among the general Western intelligentsia sympathetic to the Soviet Union. There are plenty of Marxist historians and economists in the West. Far too many, in my opinion. The crimes of communist regimes are largely ignored or forgotten, thanks in part to the whitewashing attempts by many of these aforementioned professors and activists. Instead, the focus is almost entirely on the Holocaust and the crimes of fascism. Both ideologies were exceedingly murderous, but communism has by far the larger body count, a fact many communists like to downplay in various ways. I hope that's not what you're doing when you insinuate that my criticism of communism is because I've somehow been brainwashed by Western history books.

Let me also say this: Putin is someone who has contributed to the economic isolation of Russia, is dictatorial, and is a craven political opportunist. I sense in the background of your remarks the positions of Putin, who pretends to be an Orthodox Christian, yet admires the Soviet Union and is a warmonger of the worst kind. So I hope also that you're not simply aping Putin here.

The most coherent and well formulated definition of neoliberalism I know comes from the political philosopher Wendy Brown, who refers to it as the "widespread economization of heretofore noneconomic domains, activities, and subjects”, such that it “extends a specific formulation of economic values, practices, and metrics to every dimension of human life.” Concomitant with this 'economisation of the noneconomic' is, for Brown, nothing less than a redefinition of what it means to be human: "neoliberal rationality disseminates the model of the market to all domains and activities - even where money is not at issue - and configures human beings exhaustively as market actors, always, only, and everywhere as homo oeconomicus.” (Brown, Undoing the Demos). This is pretty close to Monbiot’s understanding as well, as mentioned by Wayfarer wherein ‘citizens are redefined as consumers’.

Elsewhere, the political philosopher William Connolly emphasises the commitment to the active maintenance of market mechanisms across all domains as a signature of neoliberalism: “Neoliberals... often do not think that markets are natural; they think markets are delicate mechanisms that require careful protection and nurturance by states and other organizations. The state does not manage markets much directly, except through monetary policy, but it takes a very active role in creating, maintaining, and protecting the preconditions of market self-regulation. The most ambitious supporters want the state to inject market processes into new zones through judicial or legislative action, focusing on such areas as academic admissions, schools, prisons, health care, rail service, postal service, retirement, and private military organizations” (Connolly, The Fragility of Things).

One thing to note about these definitions is that neoliberalism is thus not just a newer, shinier label for capitalism, which has more to do with widening the circuits of commodification (turning all sorts of life processes into commodities for the extraction of surplus value), rather than extending market metrics to non-market domains. It’s the difference between ‘how can we make money from this?’ and ‘how can we measure this with market-like metrics?’. As Brown notes, this latter question may have nothing at all to do with money: "Importantly, such economization may not always involve monetization. That is, we may think and act like contemporary market subjects where monetary wealth generation is not the immediate issue, for example, in approaching one's education, health, fitness, family life, or neighborhood. To speak of the relentless and ubiquitous economization of all features of life by neoliberalism is thus not to claim that neoliberalism literally marketizes all spheres, even as such marketization is certainly one important effect of neoliberalism. Rather, the point is that neoliberal rationality disseminates the model of the market to all domains and activities - even where money is not at issue.”

As far as these understandings of neoliberalism go, Agu’s strange association of it with sexual promiscuity and identity politics seems, at best, complete misunderstanding, and at worst, utter fantasy. If anything, as authors like Connolly (Capitalism and Christianity, American Style) and Melinda Cooper (Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the new Social Conservatism) have shown, neoliberal positions tend to hew closely to social conservative positions (as can be found in the work of neoliberal scholars like Gary Becker, Richard Posner, and Milton Friedman, not to mention in the policy initiatives of those like Reagan, Thatcher, the Bushes, and even - perhaps especially - the Clintons; on this at least Agu is right - Clinton is a neoliberal shill who deserves everything she got). The idea however that Trump stands like anything close to a bulwark against neoliberalism is a position halfway between madness and fantasy, with a good dose of hilarity thrown in. That anyone could believe this - and say it with a straight face - is living in wonderland.

Incidentally here is Brown writing on Trump as well: "We’re seeing mass thuggery, contempt for the rule of law, equality, civil liberties, and universal inclusion. We are seeing a deep, wholesale rejection of the most basic principles of democracy. This is what neoliberalism has wrought over four decades—this wide, deep rejection of democracy, not only social democracy but political democracy.

There are other aspects of neoliberalism at stake in the US elections. Yes, it’s incredible that a figure like Trump, with his unbridled narcissism and sociopathic tendencies and ludicrous chest-thumping, could become the Republican nominee. What isn’t incredible in 2016, however, is a wealthy real estate developer proposing his business acumen and business success as qualifications for the presidency. This is the quintessence of the transformation of political life and political meanings by markets and by economic meanings … Trump is offering himself as a businessman who would bring to the executive office his capacity to make deals and dominate the competition. He’s not offering knowledge of the Constitution; he’s not promising to represent the people, execute the law, or work with Congress. That his credentials in business and entertainment could become credentials for the presidency is totally in line with the neoliberal assault on democracy." (source [pdf])

Nails it. The only minor beef I have is that blaming neoliberalism for Trump is a little like blaming a rape victim for dressing provocatively. But I’ll let it go.

I don’t think the passage is necessarily blaming neoliberalism for Trump so much as noting that both policy and person are simply cut from the exact same cloth. Trump is less a cause than a symptom; the surprise of his election was, or should be, more to do with just how deep the rot that enabled it has set in.

So what makes them neoliberals? — Thorongil

They fit the definition. See BitterCrank's quote from Wikipedia, for example.

They did not, so far as I'm aware, use that term to describe themselves. — Thorongil

Irrelevant. All that matters is whether they fit the definition. I agree that it seems to be considered something of a dirty work, and a word that people might not want to self-identify as - for good reason, in my opinion - but I reject your non sequitur that no such position exists.

Neoliberalism is a doctrine born out of the reinterpretation of liberalism in the years 1880-1890. — Akanthinos

That may be when it was born, but it came back into prominence in the late seventies here in the UK, and a similar thing happened in the US around the same time. Anyone who knows anything about Thatcher should know this. Besides all the policies and quotes, a big clue was changing the Conservative Party symbol to the torch of liberty.

I knew it wouldn't contain anything about identity politics, sexual promiscuity, and whatnot. — Sapientia

Right. Those are Agustino's (et al) obsessions. — Bitter Crank

Yep. — Sapientia

*shakes head* self-congratulatory non-sense. You don't seem to understand the interrelations between these things. At least BC has tried to provide an alternative version (albeit wrong), but you Sappy :-}

Consumerism (as presented theoretically in advertising) is not intended to contribute to sexual license. — Bitter Crank

Sure, it's not intended to contribute to it directly. That's a side-effect.

Consumption is intended to take the place of sexual gratification. — Bitter Crank

Wrong. You don't understand advertising theory, at least as it is applied in practice by people such as Claude Hopkins, John Caples, Eugene Schwartz, etc.

Consumption is not intended to take the place of sexual gratification at all. That's not what an advertiser does when he shows a hot woman with many guys staring after her 6 months after she used a weight loss product. On the contrary, consumption seeks to attach and facilitate sexual desire - ie, take this weight loss product, in 6 months you'll have guys staring after you too (and hence you'll have access to sex, that's the subliminal message).

A consumer economy tries to divert gratification from sex to buying products (which advertising sets up as a quick satisfying experience). — Bitter Crank

Nope. More sex = more products sold. More condoms, more contraceptives, more sex toys, more porn, more medical drugs, more lawyer services (divorce), etc.

What confuses many people is that vaguely to specifically sexual imagery or innuendo is employed in advertising to transfer sexual attractiveness from our normal object (people) to tends of thousands of products — Bitter Crank

Again, that's not how advertising works.

Of course, libido isn't the only drive that advertisers work with. — Bitter Crank

Yes, there are around 8 of what advertisers consider biologically programmed desires.

Whatever theoretical model of advertising, selling, and closed sales is employed, "sexual promiscuity" isn't the object. Neither are political correctness or identity politics. — Bitter Crank

No, not the directly intended object, but it is a side-effect of it. I've already outlined how. In order to sell you my weight loss product I have to sell you the benefit of losing weight, one of them being more sex. But that's not all, obviously. It's probably not even the primary benefit. Health and wellness would be the primary benefit. Feeling more energy, being happier, being more motivated, being more engaged in life, etc.

You don't understand how advertising works at all. Products are NEVER sold. It's the BENEFIT that is sold - the state the consumer exists in after using the product. So trust me, I've done marketing for some clients and read extensively about it, I'm more than sure that I'm correct about this.

Business is about selling stuff, or services, to people. Period. — Bitter Crank

>:O Read one of the marketing greats. This is the idea they laugh at.

Because you seem a reasonable person in most respects, except for your opinions about politics, such as your frequent dismissals of the importance of democratic principles. It might be a consequence of not having been acculturated to democracy. — Wayfarer

If anything, I understand that democracy is nothing special. I don't have a fetish for it, the way you do.

If your preferred economics is distributionism, that is pretty much what the relocalisation and social entrepreneur crowd are advocating as an antidote to corrupt neoliberalism - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_enterprise

So a smart government could get in behind an alternative. — apokrisis

Yeah, as if the neo-liberal elite will willingly renounce their money and power, in order to make space for social enterprises :-} . But yes, I am aware that the two (distributism and social enterprise) are very similar, although distributism is more complex and extensive than merely social enterprise.

So trust me... — Agustino

Who does that sound like.... :-}

I understand that democracy is nothing special. I don't have a fetish for it, the way you do. — Agustino

So long as everyone reading this understands the kind of person they’re conversing with, then my input would have served some purpose.

When you allow for private industry to a greater extent than it previously existed, then that industry, and thereby the country, can make more money by trading the products of that industry internationally. — Thorongil

And why can't a government-owned industry trade (presuming that other governments don't stop it from trading by force)? :s

You don't seem to understand a basic necessity of growth and development. Growth and development require a net positive influx of capital into the country. That obviously cannot - simply cannot - be achieved by an economically isolated nation. It's not about the economic system - for that matter, either communism or capitalism can work (and this is what you don't seem to get - you seem to think that it's communism's internal fault alone that caused it to fail economically). In an economically isolated nation, the amount of capital always remains the same, it is just re-distributed around and around through the economy as people trade. To have net-positive gains, you need to export - to trade with other nations, or alternatively, to have other nations invest in your country. So investment and exports are the two ways to bring capital into your country. Centrally planned economies can do this just as well as capitalist economies can.

I won't deny any genuine goods provided by communism, but whatever they are, they could have been provided by another system, which means that communism still doesn't deserve any praise. — Thorongil

Right, obviously - as I said before it's not the system, but other conditions that are more important.

I never thought I'd see you making a seemingly relativistic point here. It was really good for atheists who hated Christianity, the family, the kulak, the Jew, and so on, for example. — Thorongil

No, the Central Committee of the Communist Party (CCCP) was very much pro-family and anti-abortion, and otherwise socially conservative. Marxism(-Leninism) as it existed in the USSR and the Soviet Bloc was different than the Marxism espoused by the Western Marxists.

But it's not just the state apparatus who profited. It's the millions of people who were needed by the state apparatus to run the economy. The peasants who were taken from the countryside, given housing, provided jobs, provided free education, etc. - these people profited. The CCCP couldn't run the country all alone.

Little do you realize that there are and have been many people in Western history departments and among the general Western intelligentsia sympathetic to the Soviet Union. — Thorongil

Yes, but they are also propagandists, and they're sympathetic to something they don't even understand. They read their own Marxism onto the Soviet Union.

Both ideologies were exceedingly murderous, but communism has by far the larger body count, a fact many communists like to downplay in various ways. — Thorongil

Sure, I agree.

Putin is someone who has contributed to the economic isolation of Russia, is dictatorial, and is a craven political opportunist. — Thorongil

That's false, Putin has done very well for Russia.

I sense in the background of your remarks the positions of Putin, who pretends to be an Orthodox Christian, yet admires the Soviet Union and is a warmonger of the worst kind. — Thorongil

Putin actually is an Orthodox Christian and doesn't much admire the Soviet Union.

social conservative positions — StreetlightX

Yeah, the great social conservative Milton Friedman >:O >:O >:O . No, they weren't for that matter social conservatives. And even if some of them were, all that means is that they didn't understand the contradiction between their economic and social positions.

So long as everyone reading this understands the kind of person they’re conversing with, then my input would have served some purpose, — Wayfarer

Yeah, an open-minded person, not a closed-minded propagandist like you :-}