This is fair. (Although I would object to “propaganda.”)

But you’re wrong in one aspect: clearly many people do indeed know what I mean by this. — Mikie

There is a difference in using terms within a broader argument with the assumption that people know what those words mean versus just making an emotive statement with no details. You make a claim without a link and expect the others to nod. That's propaganda. Think of church. "God is obviously the reason we know truth, and those who don't understand don't have ears to hear." Being short and provocative is not intended to persuade by thought, but by providing an emotion that paints the opposer as "less then" and not worth considering.

But I won't harp, I'm glad you wrote some points. While you've described what your view of neoliberalism is, I haven't seen any arguments that directly tie those changes to a nation that has "deaths of despair". Further, it would be helpful for you to show that there has been an increase, and when it started. If you think to yourself, "Well its just common sense," no, its not. Philosophy is the challenge of emotional presuppositions and things we assume are obvious. If you want to talk with people who already believe what you believe without thinking about it too deeply, there are several other forums on the internet. Not here.

Second, there could be other political aspects. But I’ve yet to see much compelling evidence that explains these issues, and since they don’t simply appear out of the blue, and because there’s very good evidence demonstrating the negative impacts of these policies (especially on rural America, the poor and working class, manufacturing, community engagement, wealth redistribution to the .1%, the growth of the financial industry, the concentration of corporate power, etc), I think the connection is a strong one and fairly obvious one. — Mikie

I'm going to break down a couple of your points to show how you can be clearer. "Could be other political aspects" is not thinking about them and analyzing them. What is the specific evidence that these policies have negatively impacted the people you are speaking about? What is the link? You assume it is strong and obvious, but philosophy asks you to show that is strong, and demonstrate that after a thorough challenge, that it must be obviously concluded.

I also want to be clear that I'm not angry with you or that you're stupid. You seem like a good person who's impassioned and done research and thinking on this passion. That's great! But here we try to take that passion and mold it from the ore that it is to the weapon it can become. If your cause is just and true, you have to fight for it beyond emotion as emotion will only get you so far. Persuade people. Don't tell us the end result that you see, show it to us.

Asking whose analysis it is isn't calling bullshit on you -- it's just a question, an inquiry to see more. — Moliere

Oh. Read up on the history of the stagflation of the 1970s, particularly in the UK where union gains were clearly unsustainable.

There was a war on unionization during the Reagan years culminating in the air traffic controllers incident. Are you familiar with that?

Did they call it that as a play on words of depths of despair — Changeling

It's a word usually used by European leftists, although some conservatives accept the label as a badge of honor or something.

Read up on the history of the stagflation of the 1970s, particularly in the UK where union gains were clearly unsustainable. — frank

So I did that. Google Scholar on "stagflation in 1970s UK"

The first cites inaccurate estimates of the degree of excess demand in the economy, the second monetary policy and world recession, the third perverse estimates of export and import price, the fourth back to monetary policy, the fifth oil price shocks again.... Haven't yet found even so much as a mention of unions.

Perhaps, rather than this bizarre clandestine dance you could just cite your source.

I haven't seen any arguments that directly tie those changes to a nation that has "deaths of despair". — Philosophim

It may be that @Mikie has a clear enough idea to respond, but in any case, I'd like to know what sort of thing you feel would satisfy this request. If there's a link between, say, mass shootings and deregulation in small arms industries, then what sort of proposition would constitute an 'argument' to that effect (beyond simply "there's a link between mass shootings and deregulation in small arms industries")?

Likewise if we were to draw a link, say, between CEO share-based remuneration and policies designed to maximise share value, what kind of argument would be required to make that point, beyond, again, simply stating it to be the case?

In most cases we're talking about factors which make some outcome more likely in real world scenarios. We can't carry out controlled trials, we can't eliminate variables one at a time, or find cohorts with only a single variable not in common. So all we'll ever have is loose correlation and plausible mechanism. If that's not enough, then no statement can ever be made about the real world impact of policies on social issues.

Oh? And what’s the larger problem? Remember: I’m keeping to real policies and their well-documented (and easily seen) results. — Mikie

And I'm saying (which I did say) is that the ailments you cited - and I presume you did so because you find them particularly illustrative of the damage produced by the key underlying causes - coincide very well with Durkheim's concept of anomie, which is also "well-documented" in that he wrote about it. So maybe these policies of which you speak are a symptom, as @180 Proof noted; but the underlying causes have been around a lot longer. And when you start calling old things by new names, you may be losing something of value.

So I did that. Google Scholar on "stagflation in 1970s UK" — Isaac

Try JSTOR. Stagflation --Its Cause and Cure

Explaining why Keynesianism failed Abba Lerner says:

"Missing was a microanalysis of why the market laws of supply and demand did not work in the downward direction. The answer is that wages are determined, not by the market, but by wage administrators--by wage negotiators, representing workers and employers, who have power to command wages to stay up even when the market is telling them that they should be going down because supply is greater than demand."

And if you're looking for the deep dive, there are analyses of how the interests of unions and the interests of central banks conflict, and what can be done to resolve that so neoliberals won't take over the next time we're at a similar crossroad.

All kinds of good stuff.

Can you guys just tone down the adolescent aggression and just talk like normal fucking people?

That’s a good point. A policy can only have impact if it forces someone to do something or act in a particular way. The repealing or absence of such a policy does not because nothing bears on no one. The absence of a gun control law, for instance, does not make people go out and shoot another any more than it makes them go out and not shoot another. So these kind of connections invariably try to connect an effect to a false cause, a common fallacy.

There was a war on unionization during the Reagan years culminating in the air traffic controllers incident. Are you familiar with that? — frank

Yes.

Can you guys just tone down the adolescent aggression and just talk like normal fucking people? — frank

You made a point as if you were the fucking Oracle of Delphi, without either citation, or argument, and then acted as if anyone questioning must be ignorant of the subject.

What you said was...

Neoliberalism doesn't really come from Ayn Rand. The main originator was Hayek. If you're interested in labor unions, it's really worth looking at how powerful unions helped set the stage for the Neoliberal take over. It's a lesson in what not to do. — frank

Then...

It's a standard analysis of the stagflation of the 1970s. — frank

Then when politely asked for a source ...

For me, the best approach to understanding history is to shelve condemnation and blame and just focus on the culture and agendas on the scene at the time.

The quick, easy, emotion packed narratives that advise the listener what she ought to lament have a place in human life, but I think it's important to recognize them as partial bullshit. I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that bullshit is all you can spew. Why don't you offer me the same courtesy? — frank

...

What you meant was...

"I read an article suggesting unions might be somewhat to blame, it's here"...

If you want to discuss with grown ups, you need to act like one.

You don't have JSTOR access, do you? I suspected not.

I'd propose a far more serious failure, if what you say is true, and that is that people are seeking meaning and virtue from the political theory or leader du jour.

You don't have JSTOR access, do you? I suspected not. — frank

What? I don't have a clue what my JSTOR access has to do with anything.

(You mean the article which begins page 19 with "In this article I have attempted to indicate the most logical and most efficient means for offsetting the excessive pressure for rising wages")?

@Moliere

Seeing as @frank seems to want to continue with the secrecy. The section on wages from the article he's citing is, in full...

Missing was a microanalysis of why the market laws of supply and demand did not work in the downward direction. The answer is that wages are determined not by the market, but by wage administrators - by wage negotiators, representing workers and employ ers, who have the power to command wages to stay up even when the market is telling them that they should be going down because supply is greater than demand.
Keynesian economic policy to avoid severe de pression was beginning to be applied with some suc cess in the 1950s and 1960s, and then the wage administrators discovered that their power to defy the market was not limited to keeping money wages from falling in the face of depression. They discov ered that they could also use their power in the up ward direction and get money wages to rise even in the absence of any excess demand.
By the early 1970s, extraneous events had brought about a rate of inflation in the United States of about 6 percent per annum which was generally expected to continue. It was kept going by the wages rising to keep up with prices, and the prices rising to keep up with costs. The same wage administrators who, with stable prices, had prevented wages from falling, now did exactly the same thing, in real terms, by prevent ing wages from falling behind the expected 6 per cent rise in prices. And so the inflation could con tinue. But the law of excess demand - that excess demand always caused inflation - was read back wards by the government. They read it as saying that inflation is always caused by excess demand (by too much money chasing too few goods) and their re sponse was to try to check the inflation by holding down the level of spending. This did not stop the in flation (which was not being caused by excess spend ing) but it did reduce the level of employment and of economic activity and so we had stagflation - infla tion with depression.

Keynesians, seeing wages and prices rising even though there was much less than full employment, realized that Keynesianism was not enough. Their response was to turn again to governmental macro economic policy (which had been so successful in dealing with depression) for a solution to the new problem of "premature inflation" - inflation setting in before increased spending had brought about full employment.
I was one of those Keynesians. In the middle 1940s I suggested that prices could be kept stable by certain regulations to stop wages from rising more rapidly than productivity. Many others sug gested such regulations.
The regulations had two objectives: (1) to stabi lize the price level by limiting the wage increases, on the average, to the expected average rate of in crease of productivity in the economy; and (2) to bring about appropriate relative movements of wages by awarding higher wage increases in sectors where there was a less-than-average oversupply of labor (unemployment relatively low) and lower wage in creases (or no wage increases) where there was a more-than-average oversupply of labor (unemploy ment relatively high). These ideas also surfaced later in theoretical discussions of "incomes policy" and in practical policies of "wage-price guideposts" under Kennedy and "wage-price guidelines" under Nixon.

...for any that don't have academic access.

A policy can only have impact if it forces someone to do something or act in a particular way. The repealing or absence of such a policy does not because nothing bears on no one. The absence of a gun control law, for instance, does not make people go out and shoot another any more than it makes them go out and not shoot another. So these kind of connections invariably try to connect an effect to a false cause, a common fallacy. — NOS4A2

And the absence of food does not cause starvation.

I'd like to know what sort of thing you feel would satisfy this request — Isaac

First, an actual link. Its not my job to point out links for them. Once an actual link is pointed out we can judge how strong it is.

Likewise if we were to draw a link, say, between CEO share-based remuneration and policies designed to maximise share value, what kind of argument would be required to make that point, beyond, again, simply stating it to be the case? — Isaac

Why is it stated to be the case? Because of a particular study and tracking of correlative outcomes? That's something. Correlation does not equal causation, but that's at least a starting point of discussion.

In most cases we're talking about factors which make some outcome more likely in real world scenarios. ... If that's not enough, then no statement can ever be made about the real world impact of policies on social issues. — Isaac

When someone claims there is a factor that leads more to a particular outcome, there is a reason. Its either a statistic, science, or some verified fact. "Common sense" or "you should just know this or its pointless to discuss" are not rational arguments. Plenty of rational statements can be made about the real world. Assumptions, emotional appeals, and unexamined evidence are not philosophical or rational statements.

You guys are discussing an article on stagflation. I'm so proud.

For my next trick, I will persuade Isaac to copy-paste portions of Wendy Browns book "In the Ruins of Neoliberalism"

I'd propose a far more serious failure, if what you say is true, and that is that people are seeking meaning and virtue from the political theory or leader du jour. — Hanover

I'm pretty sure there's more than one serious failure going. :wink:

Is JSTOR access some kind of flex? You guys are cute. :love:

Isaac proved he had the brawn. He's amazing.

Cool. Thank you.

I'm hesitant @frank -- the language in those paragraphs is very market-centric. The forces of the market, while I don't deny them (just in an Econ 101 way), aren't as necessity-bound as this seems to indicate (at least, in my estimation -- opportunity-cost and the problem of scarcity are concepts for the economists debating more than politicians). I generally look at the economy more in terms of history, which I've already said some things on.

Unions have an influence on wages, sure, but their influence is limited to a particular contract within a particular firm. At the larger level, like the AFL-CIO, they can exert influence to a degree relative to their financials, just like any organization, but they aren't setting a price for labor at that point. The negotiations for wages have influence across a market, of course, but that's not the same as the picture in the above, in my opinion at least.

A union's function, at the most basic legal level, is to push for it's member's interests because it's the only way workers can even hope to wield influence at the same level as their bosses and the owners of capital. If it doesn't do that, it's basically false advertising, in terms of a firm.

It doesn't have the level of influence which is being attributed -- it has more influence than thems who own the world would like, but less influence than thems who own the world.

At least, these are just the thoughts that come to me.

I'm not on a crusade to convince you because as I said, the standard neutral view of events says union demands were a factor in the stagflation of the 1970s.

The reason it relates to the topic is that this was the gate through which neoliberal ideas gained broad consent.

And the absence of food does not cause starvation.

I suppose if one depends on the state as a child does on the nipple, the disappearance of one precludes the suffering of the other. Perhaps a process of weaning is in order.

I'm not on a crusade to convince you because as I said, the standard neutral view of events says union demands were a factor in the stagflation of the 1970s. — frank

Probably a discussion for another thread at least. I don't mind simply drawing lines or marking positions. From my background what you said just seemed so far out that I didn't even know how to respond, so that's why I was expressing incredulity.

The reason it relates to the topic is that this was the gate through which neoliberal ideas gained broad consent. — frank

Cool.

I'm fine with simply granting the point having expressed my thoughts.

So neoliberal ideas came to power through the consent of various parties, and the parties worth mentioning involved were states, corporations, and unions.

Do I have your thought right?

So neoliberal ideas came to power through the consent of various parties, and the parties worth mentioning involved were states, corporations, and unions. — Moliere

Neoliberalism is best implemented by a dictatorship. It's an embarrassment to conservatives that Hayek approved of dictatorship for this reason.

It's a challenge to "manufacture consent" for it in democratic countries like the US and the UK, especially when the Great Depression had cemented what an American would call leftism into society and academia. It was a seismic change, and not one that can be explained by pointing to a greedy elite operating on an otherwise healthy economy. It took a pretty severe ailment to bring down embedded liberalism.

So to answer your question, the consent I was talking about was that of the middle class in the UK and the US. The consent of unions wasn't needed or sought since they were targeted for demolition.

You make a claim without a link and expect the others to nod. That's propaganda. — Philosophim

I wasn’t expecting that.

While you've described what your view of neoliberalism is, I haven't seen any arguments that directly tie those changes to a nation that has "deaths of despair". — Philosophim

By deaths of despair I mean suicides, including mass shootings, and drug overdoses.

I’ve already pointed out concrete policies that have lead to higher rates, compared against previous eras within the country and to other countries. School shootings, for example. Unlike any other country and unlike any other time in American life. Sure, we can claim there’s no answers to why this is the case, but it’s fairly obvious to me based on common sense and the evidence: it’s the guns,

If you’re with me this far, then the link to neoliberalism is also obvious. The proliferation of guns is a result of deregulation — by both legislative and judicial (Heller) actions. Deregulation is one aspect of neoliberalism and its general push to minimize government, especially in overseeing industry (in this case, the gun manufacturers).

That’s one example and there’s plenty more to say about it. Ditto for the others.

Further, it would be helpful for you to show that there has been an increase, and when it started. — Philosophim

I’ve already posted three links showing exactly that, at the request of Agent Smith — above. I took for granted that people here are well aware of the opioid crisis, the rise of mass shootings, and the general increase in the number of suicides. To say nothing of the (also obvious) rise of political division, media sensationalism, anger and depression of the populace, etc. All reported quite widely.

I also want to be clear that I'm not angry with you or that you're stupid. — Philosophim

Nor I. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother responding seriously.

It appears your main gripe is with my OP framing, and that’s fair enough. It’s arguable whether being provocative is the best way to open a serious discussion. I find it piques interest and does more to get people to pay attention than a disquisition on economics. But that’s me.

So maybe these policies of which you speak are a symptom, as 180 Proof noted; but the underlying causes have been around a lot longer. And when you start calling old things by new names, you may be losing something of value. — Pantagruel

I never claimed an ultimate cause. The neoliberal era has a beginning and will have an end. It’s part of a broader socioeconomic state-capitalist system within a Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman heritage, etc. Fine.

I’m dealing with the problems and policies we’re currently living with — not with ultimate causes and not with the history of the world. This thread is specifically about deaths of despair and their roots in the aforementioned (neoliberal) policies.

A policy can only have impact if it forces someone to do something or act in a particular way. The repealing or absence of such a policy does not because nothing bears on no one. — NOS4A2

In the running for one of the stupidest statements made on this forum. :clap:

And the absence of food does not cause starvation. — unenlightened

And the absence of pesticide doesn’t increase the numbers of ants. The absence of gun control laws doesn’t increase the number of guns (and hence shootings by gun), etc.

Imagine having to resort to such logic.

So neoliberal ideas came to power through the consent of various parties, and the parties worth mentioning involved were states, corporations, and unions. — Moliere

The ideas of Friedman and Hayek were around for decades, and were useful in a general push by the ruling class to beat back the gains of the New Deal era and the 1960s movements. It’s all laid out very well in the Powell memo and the Crisis of Democracy. Worth reading both.

But this isn’t a thread on the history of neoliberalism. Nor will you find great information about it from Tweets.