Neoliberalism, in detail - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Modern liberalism. Civil rights and liberties, State responsibility to the people (welfare).
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#15176384
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoliberalism/

In fairly exhaustive detail (and helpful outline form), this Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article covers neoliberalism, its history and development and its current state of art.

Neoliberalism is the still the default political philosophy of the western industrial democracies, and needs to be comprehensively understood by everyone.

At its most basic, neoliberalism is simply the intersection of capitalism and representative republicanism.

A critical conclusion is that
neoliberalism no longer faces greater analytic hurdles than other political positions like conservatism or socialism.


Or to put it in other terms, neoliberalism does exist and scholarship is gradually coalescing around a coherent view.
#15176463
Neoliberalism is a failure because it doesn't cope with the direction or the consequences of making profit the talisman of all human value in these societies. It is a horrible system with a terrible result.
#15233014
Tainari88 wrote:Neoliberalism is a failure because it doesn't cope with the direction or the consequences of making profit the talisman of all human value in these societies.

As you would know if you had read the article, that is not what neoliberalism proposes. Rather, it contends that we cannot know what people "should" value, but that as market exchange is based on consent, and consensual interactions maximize people's opportunities to achieve whatever they as individuals value, an economy founded on market exchange is best for achieving all people's human values. In this formulation, profit merely records how much more goods and services are worth to consumers than they cost to produce. This contention seems well founded -- but there is in reality a very large fly in the ointment: most profit in fact goes to rentiers, speculators, and other unproductive sectors, not producers. The question, then, is why and how does neoliberalism go so wrong in achieving its worthy-sounding goal?
It is a horrible system with a terrible result.

Right. The problem with neoliberalism is its inherent contradiction. It identifies capitalism as the system that minimizes non-consensual interactions, but ignores the fact that capitalism is itself based on the biggest non-consensual interaction of them all: the forcible removal, without just compensation, of everyone's rights to liberty, and the conversion of those rights into the private property of the privileged, especially landowners. Neoliberalism does not understand that its "consensual" market interactions are all based on duress because many of the property "rights" it takes as givens, especially private titles of ownership to land, are in reality privileges based not on consent but on nothing but brute force.
#15233039
Truth To Power wrote:As you would know if you had read the article, that is not what neoliberalism proposes. Rather, it contends that we cannot know what people "should" value, but that as market exchange is based on consent, and consensual interactions maximize people's opportunities to achieve whatever they as individuals value, an economy founded on market exchange is best for achieving all people's human values. In this formulation, profit merely records how much more goods and services are worth to consumers than they cost to produce. This contention seems well founded -- but there is in reality a very large fly in the ointment: most profit in fact goes to rentiers, speculators, and other unproductive sectors, not producers. The question, then, is why and how does neoliberalism go so wrong in achieving its worthy-sounding goal?

Right. The problem with neoliberalism is its inherent contradiction. It identifies capitalism as the system that minimizes non-consensual interactions, but ignores the fact that capitalism is itself based on the biggest non-consensual interaction of them all: the forcible removal, without just compensation, of everyone's rights to liberty, and the conversion of those rights into the private property of the privileged, especially landowners. Neoliberalism does not understand that its "consensual" market interactions are all based on duress because many of the property "rights" it takes as givens, especially private titles of ownership to land, are in reality privileges based not on consent but on nothing but brute force.


TTP, brute force is what international capital has used all over the globe to force nations and banks and economics to bow down to certain global monopolies. That is reality.

If you notice my -10 rating on economics I don't believe in private capital running amok. For me the best ways one should view everything is with what is best for the WHOLE. Not what is best for a few. I only support what is best for the whole.

In the end I am not an Egyptian Pharoah TTP. I am not taking the food, pets, spouses, furniture and so on to the afterlife. For me? Materialism should be about meeting a human need. Put limits on acquisitions. If it means I start consuming beyond my ability to produce? It is an exercise in excess. I would rather have all the people in the entire globe's basic needs met rather than keep thinking I need ten vacation homes and have the equivalent of 100,000 entire lifetime savings in my pocket.

In the end? I am going to die like all the rest of the mortals. And money and capital needs to circulate and to serve the society rather than have people entrapped in debt and worrying about where their next meal is coming from. That doesn't liberate me. It makes me unsafe. It perpetuates crime, it creates insecurity, and it makes dysfunction inevitable. Inequality makes dysfunctional societies. That is why I am a socialist. If I believed truly that profit and capital are the core of justice? I would be a capitalist. I am not.

For me profit is about control of a resource, land or labor. And some capitalists are much greedier than others. But they all share the idea that markets and capital somehow contain justice. They really don't TTP. All they do is assign value to something. And that is kind of fictional when you think about it. It is just we live in a human society that has to think something living and breathing like human beings, land, plants, animals, and nature are somehow controllable, can be sold, and can be objectified. For me? They are part of living beings. And trying to control something that is more powerful than yourself or your human society? Is living in absolute denial. You live in denial you come up with false solutions to problems that exist because you can't let control go and accept that the idea of owning a living thing you depend on and in which you can not live without or any other human being can live without and you privatize something that belongs to ALL....is a form of insanity that only healthy sane people can get out of.

Capitalism is a form of crazy ass insanity out of control. ;)
#15233299
Tainari88 wrote:TTP, brute force is what international capital has used all over the globe to force nations and banks and economics to bow down to certain global monopolies. That is reality.

Right. You might want to read Superimperialism by Prof. Michael Hudson, which describes how global financial institutions have been bent to force poor countries into debt to western (especially American) banks in order to facilitate the private appropriation of their public infrastructure and natural resources. If Hudson is a bit too academic for you, John Perkins tells the concrete nuts and bolts story of how this is done in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.
If you notice my -10 rating on economics I don't believe in private capital running amok. For me the best ways one should view everything is with what is best for the WHOLE. Not what is best for a few. I only support what is best for the whole.

The neoliberals also say they support what is best for the whole; they just argue that Smith's Invisible Hand, by harnessing private self-interest in service to the general interest, provides the best way to achieve it. Moreover, it is undeniable that they have a lot of empirical evidence for that view in the general prosperity and abundance observed in market-based economies compared to sharing- or command-based economies.
In the end I am not an Egyptian Pharoah TTP. I am not taking the food, pets, spouses, furniture and so on to the afterlife. For me? Materialism should be about meeting a human need. Put limits on acquisitions.

But what kind of limits? On the amount of money or wealth someone acquires? IMO it makes a lot more sense to put the limit on HOW those things are acquired. If someone gets rich by making others richer, through commensurate productive contribution, why would you have a problem with that? It is when people get rich through privilege, by making others poorer, that I object to it. It is much more common to get rich by privilege than by production, because the profits of production tend to be competed away, whereas the profits of privilege can't be competed away.
If it means I start consuming beyond my ability to produce? It is an exercise in excess. I would rather have all the people in the entire globe's basic needs met rather than keep thinking I need ten vacation homes and have the equivalent of 100,000 entire lifetime savings in my pocket.

For many people, consumption and acquisition of wealth and possessions are markers of status, and status is one thing there can never be enough of to go around.
And money and capital needs to circulate and to serve the society

Will people risk their purchasing power to serve society through productive investment without the prospect of profit? Why would they?
rather than have people entrapped in debt and worrying about where their next meal is coming from.

But what is the real problem? Is the cause of the problem the physical fact that someone needs to produce in order for anyone to consume? Or is the actual problem the fact that producer and consumer alike must both pay the landowner just for permission to produce or consume?
That doesn't liberate me. It makes me unsafe. It perpetuates crime, it creates insecurity, and it makes dysfunction inevitable. Inequality makes dysfunctional societies.

If you think there is any possible way to make everyone equal, or eliminate inequality, you are delusional. You merely refuse to know the fact that there is a very great difference between inequality that results from justice and inequality that results from injustice.
That is why I am a socialist.

No. You are a socialist because you refuse to know the facts that prove socialism is even worse than capitalism; and capitalism is merely the other side of the same refusal to know the same facts.
If I believed truly that profit and capital are the core of justice? I would be a capitalist. I am not.

Can you find a willingness to know what consent is?
For me profit is about control of a resource, land or labor.

But you are objectively incorrect. Profit is just revenue less expenses. Control of resources is obtained either justly, by making just compensation or a commensurate contribution to production, or unjustly, by legal privilege or illegal plunder.
And some capitalists are much greedier than others.

Can you find a willingness to know the difference between owning producer goods and thereby making a contribution to production, and owning privileges that legally entitle the owner to demand a share of production in return for no contribution to production?
But they all share the idea that markets and capital somehow contain justice.

Consensual exchange inherently contains justice. Property in the fruits of one's labor inherently contains justice. It is property in others' rights to liberty, as embodied in, e.g., a slave deed or land deed, that offends justice.
They really don't TTP. All they do is assign value to something.

Markets measure value.
And that is kind of fictional when you think about it. It is just we live in a human society that has to think something living and breathing like human beings, land, plants, animals, and nature are somehow controllable, can be sold, and can be objectified.

Land and nature do not live or breathe. Human beings, land, plants and animals can be controlled. Plants and animals can be sold, and so can human beings and land if the law enables it.
And trying to control something that is more powerful than yourself or your human society? Is living in absolute denial.

It's an open question what is more powerful.
You live in denial

No, you do. See above. All socialists and capitalists live in denial of the same fundamental fact of objective physical reality.
you come up with false solutions

No, my solution is the true one, as proved by the success of every attempt to implement it. Yours is the false one, as proved by the failure of every attempt to implement it.
to problems that exist because you can't let control go and accept that the idea of owning a living thing you depend on and in which you can not live without or any other human being can live without and you privatize something that belongs to ALL....is a form of insanity that only healthy sane people can get out of.

Incomprehensible gibberish.
Capitalism is a form of crazy ass insanity out of control.

Capitalism is a system of economic organization based on a mistaken view of what is rightly property -- but not as mistaken as socialism's view of what is rightly property.
#15233453
@Truth To Power I finally met someone I can learn from in debate. i am happy to get to know you. First off I already read your first two books. Perkins and Superimperialism.

I read also how you ignored a lot of @ckaihatsu and your debating in other threads. The gibberish part that you say I wrote and you not understanding? I think that is where the lack of understanding stems from. I am wondering if we can work on that eh?

I think you have what I call a legal and technical mind. And you interpret that as being objective. I find that what that winds up being? Is trained. And trained minds do not make for the ability to abandon the training and go off into other types of thinking eh?

But I think I like you a lot. So let us see where it takes us?

What do you see as the principal flaw of neoliberal economics TTP?

What is your solution to injustice eh?

I am interested in your answers. And regardless of the outcome of our debates here and in other threads?

You are a lot of fun.
#15233463
Tainari88 wrote:@Truth To Power I finally met someone I can learn from in debate. i am happy to get to know you. First off I already read your first two books. Perkins and Superimperialism.

It's good to encounter someone who knows Hudson and Perkins. I am a little surprised at your response, as you seemed a bit hostile, and I responded in kind.
I read also how you ignored a lot of @ckaihatsu and your debating in other threads.

@ckaihatsu is very prolific, and I don't have time to answer everything he writes as fully as I would like. He also repeats the same Marxist trash over and over, and I don't like having to repeat my refutations.
The gibberish part that you say I wrote and you not understanding? I think that is where the lack of understanding stems from. I am wondering if we can work on that eh?

I meant that your sentence was ungrammatical to the extent that I couldn't follow what you were saying.
I think you have what I call a legal and technical mind. And you interpret that as being objective. I find that what that winds up being? Is trained. And trained minds do not make for the ability to abandon the training and go off into other types of thinking eh?

Maybe. It is true I have a trained mind. I have a degree in philosophy, with honors, and also studied a lot of math and science at university. I intended to go to grad school in philosophy, but my professors discouraged me, and in fact refused to give me references. Actually, I was impatient with their abstractions, some of which I considered meaningless, and often tried to push my philosophy classes in the direction of what are now the disciplines of cognitive science and evolutionary psychology, which my professors did not appreciate.
But I think I like you a lot. So let us see where it takes us?

Gracious!
What do you see as the principal flaw of neoliberal economics TTP?

Its unquestioning assumption that privilege, especially in the form of private property in things that are not rightly private property, can be a valid basis for relationships in a market economy.
What is your solution to injustice eh?

There are different causes of injustice, and some have no solutions. The injustices I concern myself with are those that are inflicted legally, by our institutions, because those are injustices we can permanently eliminate if we will only choose to do so.
You are a lot of fun.

Finally, somebody gets it!!!
#15233483
@Truth To Power wrote:

Maybe. It is true I have a trained mind. I have a degree in philosophy, with honors, and also studied a lot of math and science at university. I intended to go to grad school in philosophy, but my professors discouraged me, and in fact refused to give me references. Actually, I was impatient with their abstractions, some of which I considered meaningless, and often tried to push my philosophy classes in the direction of what are now the disciplines of cognitive science and evolutionary psychology, which my professors did not appreciate.


Aha, they did not give you references. They got pissed at you for not being obedient eh? Lol. I do like you indeed. You are impatient with their abstractions? That makes sense. Philosophy is very much an exercise in concepts dealing with abstractions.

It's good to encounter someone who knows Hudson and Perkins. I am a little surprised at your response, as you seemed a bit hostile, and I responded in kind.


I am not really hostile.

In fact, you will have to be patient with me TTP. I have a son that is 11 years old. I am going to be leaving in about a week to the states from Mexico to go and deal with some matters. But I will do my best to keep debating with you about all kinds of things.

I meant that your sentence was ungrammatical to the extent that I couldn't follow what you were saying.


You will have to say to me, Tainari, please tell me what this can mean in a very clear and standardized form of English? Lol. You see TTP, I am an interpreter and I have Spanish in my brain and English and French and sometimes I am watching documentaries in Portuguese as well. And I write in that and read in those languages all the time. My mind 'clicks over' and it is all a jumble of mish-mash of--Oye chico, es que vamos a rebuznar en el debate con La Verdad al Poder,La vérité au pouvoir, Verdade ao Poder, etc. So the grammar does get tied up in that scene in the click-over. So I apologize to you for that. Just say Tainari88, back to Earth here....let go of the United Nations in your head....it is me TTP....

Its unquestioning assumption that privilege, especially in the form of private property in things that are not rightly private property, can be a valid basis for relationships in a market economy.


So what do you think about a market economy and valid relationships within it? Are you an Ayn Rand follower?

She advocated rational egotism and so on? Do you agree with her spin on it or not?

I don't agree with neoliberalism.

There are different causes of injustice, and some have no solutions. The injustices I concern myself with are those that are inflicted legally, by our institutions, because those are injustices we can permanently eliminate if we will only choose to do so.


Aha, you got to act as a group for that with a goal. Not as single individuals. Again, the ability to change injustice is not really individual. Well you can be let out of prison with a presidential pardon. But? Who put in the prez who signed the pardon eh? Individual? No. The group.
Finally, somebody gets it!!!


I get it. Debate should be fun in this way. Why debate with someone who agrees with you all the time eh? I won't agree with you. But I will insist on having fun!!

Let me see. I am in Mexico and in Colorado the next few weeks or so. I don't know where you might be located? But let us see. Where the debate winds up?

Ever since the gold standard was ended by the Nixon administration changed a lot of economics.

Treasury bonds.

#15233490
Tainari88 wrote:So what do you think about a market economy and valid relationships within it?

Inasmuch as the market reconciles people's differing preferences through consensual exchange, it is a good allocative mechanism that preserves rights. The problem is that what neoliberals are pleased to call "free" markets are not actually free in the least, as they are predicated on the forcible removal, without just compensation, of people's rights to liberty, and the legal conversion of those rights into other people's private property. A market in which some people own and buy and sell other people's rights to liberty is not a free market. It is a slave market.
Are you an Ayn Rand follower?

I was quite a Randroid in my teens and twenties (another point of conflict with my philosophy professors). I believe she had some crucial insights. But she also got some crucial points wrong.
She advocated rational egotism and so on? Do you agree with her spin on it or not?

No. She was ultimately just another dealer in abstractions who never really accepted Darwin. I'm more impressed with the arguments of evolutionary psychology.
I don't agree with neoliberalism.

Neither do I.
Ever since the gold standard was ended by the Nixon administration changed a lot of economics.

Gold doesn't work as money in the modern context.
#15233494
Tainari88 wrote:@Truth To Power I finally met someone I can learn from in debate. i am happy to get to know you. First off I already read your first two books. Perkins and Superimperialism.

I read also how you ignored a lot of @ckaihatsu and your debating in other threads. The gibberish part that you say I wrote and you not understanding? I think that is where the lack of understanding stems from. I am wondering if we can work on that eh?

I think you have what I call a legal and technical mind. And you interpret that as being objective. I find that what that winds up being? Is trained. And trained minds do not make for the ability to abandon the training and go off into other types of thinking eh?

But I think I like you a lot. So let us see where it takes us?

What do you see as the principal flaw of neoliberal economics TTP?

What is your solution to injustice eh?

I am interested in your answers. And regardless of the outcome of our debates here and in other threads?

You are a lot of fun.



You should stop creating the injustice.

The more you do, the worse things get. You expend so much energy FORCING your ways on others against nature, that the unintended (and intended) consequences are much worse than the ailment itself.

You actually create the problems by pushing your ideology and preconceived notions as fact, and then worry about the second and third order effects afterwards. Honestly, you are the problem!
#15233497
BlutoSays wrote:You should stop creating the injustice.

What is your evidence that he is? I have identified the facts that prove our institutions are creating almost all the injustice.
The more you do, the worse things get.

Evidence?
You expend so much energy FORCING your ways on others against nature, that the unintended (and intended) consequences are much worse than the ailment itself.

Speaking of forcing one's ways on others against nature, with consequences much worse than the ailment itself, what do you think a title of private ownership to land does?

You actually create the problems by pushing your ideology and preconceived notions as fact, and then worry about the second and third order effects afterwards. Honestly, you are the problem!

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