this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023

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YSK that “neoliberal” refers to a discrete set of economic policies including deregulation, privatization, and so-called “free trade” implemented by both center-right and center-left parties (self.youshouldknow)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by metic to c/youshouldknow

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Why YSK: I’ve noticed in recent years more people using “neoliberal” to mean “Democrat/Labor/Social Democrat politicians I don’t like”. This confusion arises from the different meanings “liberal” has in American politics and further muddies the waters.

Neoliberalism came to the fore during the 80’s under Reagan and Thatcher and have continued mostly uninterrupted since. Clinton, both Bushs, Obama, Blair, Brown, Cameron, Johnson, and many other world leaders and national parties support neoliberal policies, despite their nominal opposition to one another at the ballot box.

It is important that people understand how neoliberalism has reshaped the world economy in the past four decades, especially people who are too young to remember what things were like before. Deregulation and privatization were touted as cost-saving measures, but the practical effect for most people is that many aspects of our lives are now run by corporations who (by law!) put profits above all else. Neoliberalism has hollowed out national economies by allowing the offshoring of general labor jobs from developed countries.

In the 80’s and 90’s there was an “anti-globalization” movement of the left that sought to oppose these changes. The consequences they warned of have come to pass. Sadly, most organized opposition to neoliberal policies these days comes from the right. Both Trump and the Brexit campaign were premised on reinvigorating national economies. Naturally, both failed, in part because they had no cohesive plan or understanding that they were going against 40 years of precedent.

So, yes, establishment Democrats are neoliberals, but so are most Republicans.

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[–] Gradually_Adjusting 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You need to understand, our two party system is not part of the actual government as it was designed. They are basically a pack of oligarchs running a good cop-bad cop routine on the electorate.

Our voting system naturally favors this dynamic. Anywhere you see "first past the post", ask if the people feel like they're voting for the leaders they'd prefer, or against the candidates that scare them the most. Oligarchic duopoly is the dominant game theoretic strategy inherent to FPTP.

[–] Aceticon 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I actually come from a country with a mathematically rigged voting system (not quite as much as the US, but still the current guys in power got 41% of votes and have an absolute parliamentary majority with 52% of parliamentary representatives) but lived for almost a decade in The Netherlands (which has Proportional Vote) as well as about the same in the UK (which is more like the US in that regard than the rest of Europe) and my impression is that there are 2 things pushing that dynamic in countries with such rigged voting systems vs the ones with Proportional Vote like The Netherlands:

People do a lot of tactical voting in FPTP and similar because they can't find electable parties whose combination of ideas of how the country and society should be managed aligns mostly with theirs, so they vote for a "lesser evil" and often driven by "kicking the bad guys out" rather than "bring the good guys in". This makes it seem like the parties of the de facto power duopoly are more representative than they really are - in a PV system they wouldn't get anywhere as many votes because even people with niche takes on politics would find viable representation in parties with a much more similar take so wouldn't vote for them and would in fact be more likelly to vote positivelly rather than negativelly.
The press itself in countries with the representative allocation systems rigged for power duopoly tends to present most subjects as having two sides only. This is complete total bollocks: people are complicated, social systems are complicated and almost no social/economic subject out there is so simple that there are only two reasonable ways of handling it and no more than two. This kind trains the public to look at things as two sided, reinforcing the idea that the system is representative as well as the us-vs-them mindless tribalism and even bipartisanism rather than the politics of consensus building.

[–] zombuey 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We have two organizations that peddle in power. The GOP and The DNC. They are private "non-profit" companies. They have employees and everything and they are free to do whatever is needed to push the candidate they think will best serve their needs first. They both sell that power to clients. These days those clients are more direct and they collect through campaign donations, job guarantees, speaking fees, consulting contracts through families, trade deals, stock tips, family opportunities, Since Citizen's United PAC money, and sometimes but rarely nowadays direct pay offs. The corruption is right in the open the difference between here and elsewhere is its all perfectly legal.

[–] Gradually_Adjusting 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're not wrong, but I'd warn against any false equivalency here. It's a pretty simple ethical dilemma and the least we can do is minimize the harm being done by the system with our votes.

[–] zombuey 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wasn't comparing them at all. If one or the others interest happen to better align with yours then thats a happy coincidence. For all but 1% of Americans the DNC will better align with their interests and covers a far more diverse group of interests. Just don't confuse that with your interests being priority for them outside of their need for your support.

[–] Gradually_Adjusting 3 points 1 year ago

Just elaborating on your point, not disagreeing at all. One can be better while both are shamefully lacking in many structural ways.