Citations Needed Podcast: The Neoliberal Optimism Industry

[Deleted member 41271]

Good episode.

Dude, you're privileged to say this when you live in the highest standard of living in the history of human civilization.

The stats don't lie; Marxists do.

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Tell that to POC being shot, LGBT people being murdered, and to the upcoming upheaval once climat change hits.


None of these are inevitable, sure - but we're not acting all the same. And haven't for over 50 years now, when it comes to the climate. It's not likely to change for the betterwithout drastic changes. Saying it is getting better would be lying. it's not, it's absolutely not. It was - but we're in a clear downturn now, and accelerating.

One doesn't have to be a marxist to see that.

I think it's important to settle whether "neoliberal", as it's popularly understood, is Americentric or endemic to the Western hemisphere.

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Germany uses it the same way.

 

[Cocaloch]

Its not a political stream or whatever that is studied by any serious academic. Give a definition of the term, than you Will immediatly see that it has no actual value.

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Besides the fact that I already mentioned it indeed is, I'd suggest you make claims that aren't so obviously wrong. Behold the fruit of 2 seconds of searching.

https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=Neoliberalism&acc=off&wc=on&fc=off&group=none

Its a US CENTRIC view that doesnt hold up in Europe.

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Wait, so what is it, not real or US centric? That seems to be a bit of a contradiction doesn't it.

I assume when you mean Europe you're not including Britain because that wouldn't be good for your argument. So obviously when we label big cultural movements like this there tends to be an ideal type, probably Britain here, and specific contextual situation can differ in a lot of the particulars. See Patriotism in 18th century Europe, more or less based on the Wilkites and the Dutch, and Nationalism in 19th century Europe, based on France or Germany. Doesn't mean the words are meaningless.

There are loads of issues in the field, but a lack of social awareness isnt one. Globally at least. Both econometrics and stakeholderbased approaches were pioneered at my school, so I guess thats why I feel quite strongly about it.

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Well I can't speak as to the academic culture of Economics outside of the US, UK, and Ireland (and given your comment I'm assuming you're from Norway where I know few non-Historians, though ironically several have used Neoliberalism before) but given the general importance of the first two to World Academic culture I think we can pretty clearly say there's some sort of issue. I have no doubt some places may be better about it than others, but lets not pretend that the US and UK don't dominate the field. Again non of this is saying every Economist is a moron or anything, but there are elements of the fields culture that have problems.

Economics by virtue of how it works is bound to move in a more positivist direction than the other social sciences. Public reception has exacerbated this.

Not every school of Economics is Chicago/QUOTE]

You misread me. I think Chicago is actually quite good at contextualizing its metrics and entering into debate if only because the rest of the SSD at Chicago means there's a conversation going on.

and I would say Economics is better than most scientific fields at examining its own field.

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This is like when Americans compare themselves to Third World Countries. Of course Economists are better at studying human activity than natural scientists, they are social scientists. But let's compare it to the other social sciences. Economics trends so far towards positivism that many economists aren't even particularly aware of the fact their opinions on the field's construction of knowledge are debatable and intensely philosophical in nature.

I assure you that no one takes that term seriously anywhere else.

That's not to say the criticism that is embodied by that term isn't valuable.

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Again I thought you said it wasn't real at all.

For the record from personal experience I've heard it from colleagues from the German, French, Spanish, and various Latin American academies. This is ignoring the fact that it's quite common throughout the Anglosphere.

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Germany uses it the same way.

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Exactly. For someone claiming something is Americancentric he certainly seems to just be pulling from personal experience when he says no one uses the word.

 

[Cocaloch]

As the book was on austerity, it spends a lot of time talking about austerity as implemented in the EU for the last decade or two. Granted the German ordoliberals are different from the Austrian school but it's not called the Austrian school for no reason. Going by what I remember of the book, it seems Keynesian economics was homegrown in the US and then neoliberalism was eventually imported from Europe right before/during the Reagan/Thatcher years.

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Keynesianism was certainly British, just look at the name. The Keynesian-Fordism consensus as some call it, i.e. the political-economy behind Keynesianism's actual social implementation, had more of an American genesis.

This thread's getting derailed over word definitions.

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Turns out words are very important to talking about things.

 

[Necromanti]

Not really a pipe dream when it's been proven with Moore's Law and with synthetic biology and advanced AI on the way.

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Well, it depends on what you mean by synthetic biology. In terms of directly impacting the quality of people's lives, I'd say that's still a ways away. And when it does, it will initially benefit only a certain percentage of the population, which seems to go back to the heart of the issue.

And on the note of privilege, I'm sure most of us here are privileged enough to not live in areas where armed conflicts are still on-going. But of course, many are not going to care about things that do not personally and directly impact them.

 

[Ogodei]

Collective action hinges on everyone believing they have something to lose if the status quo were allowed to continue. Baseless optimism breeds apathy and complacency. Optimism in the face of adversity is good, up to an extent, but only if it drives a push for action. The 2016 midterm turn out was fueled by hatred and fear of the Trump administration as well as the belief that we can do better.

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This is a good read on it. Optimism is important because celebrating what is possible when we collectively put our minds to it is important to inspire new successes. You just can't let it lead you to assume that things will sort themselves out in time. We got where we are because of action and it's important to note that and celebrate that: it is possible to do better because we have done great things before.

 

[Antrax]

histrionics on a personal level, but at the social and cultural one it's the assumption that's everything is good and that things naturally get better that's the much bigger problem

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I didn't say things naturally get better. They don't. People fought hard to make those changes.

But if the response to modern injustice is to say it's the worst it's ever been and how could it possibly get better, etc.... then the only logical response is suicide.

I agree that it's wrong to tell people to just wait for change, but I stand by my use of nihilist to describe how a lot of people behave in the modern political sphere; that the bad things will always happen. Just see how people react if you post "I think this organized protest can affect change on this issue." Do people jump in with fist pumps and calls for joining? Or do they start talking those activists down and trying to convince them that none of it matters and stop getting their hopes up? I've seen the latter more than the former for a few years now, and it's toxic and ultimately harmful to these movements.

 

[bangai-o]

Citations Needed is one of the best political podcasts and they have a lot of great episodes. I'll have to listen to this one before I can comment.

Also, they post the transcripts for their podcasts on Medium

https://medium.com/@CitationsPodcst...lopment-shaming-the-global-south-cf399e88510e

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cool. thanks for the link.

 

[phonicjoy]

As the book was on austerity, it spends a lot of time talking about austerity as implemented in the EU for the last decade or two. Granted the German ordoliberals are different from the Austrian school but it's not called the Austrian school for no reason. Going by what I remember of the book, it seems Keynesian economics was homegrown in the US Keynesian took hold first during the Ford/New Deal years, and then neoliberalism was eventually imported from Europe right before/during the Reagan/Thatcher years.

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Your right in that the thread is getting derailed, but in Economics there is no contradiction between keynesian Economics and "neoliberalism". The school coming after keynes is referred to as monetarist.

 

[HeyNay]

That was eye-opening. Thanks for sharing OP, working my way through some other episodes now.

 

[ReAxion]

Citations Needed is great but not always a jump-to listen for me. Need to be in the right mood.

 

[entremet]

Way to subtweet every entrement thread.

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LOL. A lot of my threads are bad news, bro! But I do hold an optimistic view of the future.

I'll listen to this. I'm not against taking in viewpoints that challenge mine. However, based on the OP, there are some misinterpretations here. There is no industry at all. There's Gates, Pinker, and the late Hans Rosling. That's a tiny segment of people.

Moreover, each of these people didn't make it a personal mission to talk about human progress. For Rosling and Pinker, they found this data looking while doing other research. Both were surprised that it was not being reported at all by anyone.

And finally, I do agree that we have massive problems to overcome, but humanity has also overcome a lot as well. There's a balance between pragmatic problem solving and complete despair and hopelessness. I think we overemphasize the latter way too much. If you want to do that, go ahead, but I'd rather be part of the solution.

Ultimately, the modern news cycle creates a world of despair. That's not an accurate picture of the world.

 

[Deleted member 48897]

Your right in that the thread is getting derailed, but in Economics there is no contradiction between keynesian Economics and "neoliberalism". The school coming after keynes is referred to as monetarist.

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I mildly disagree inasmuch as I'd say that you can't have corporate statism without public divestment (i.e., austerity), which I'd say is opposed to Keynesian theory. Privatization was a huge part of the Thatcher regime

 

[samoyed]

If you want to do that, go ahead, but I'd rather be part of the solution.

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The solution is revolution.

 

[Deleted member 6230]

LOL. A lot of my threads are bad news, bro! But I do hold an optimistic view of the future.

I'll listen to this. I'm not against taking in viewpoints that challenge mine. However, based on the OP, there are some misinterpretations here. There is no industry at all. There's Gates, Pinker, and the late Hans Rosling. That's a tiny segment of people.

Moreover, each of these people didn't make it a personal mission to talk about human progress. For Rosling and Pinker, they found this data looking while doing other research. Both were surprised that it was not being reported at all by anyone.

And finally, I do agree that we have massive problems to overcome, but humanity has also overcome a lot as well. There's a balance between pragmatic problem solving and complete despair and hopelessness. I think we overemphasize the latter way too much. If you want to do that, go ahead, but I'd rather be part of the solution.

Ultimately, the modern news cycle creates a world of despair. That's not an accurate picture of the world.

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You should listen to the episode first lol

 

[Orin_linwe]

I've had this thread open in a tab. It sounds interesting; will give it a listen when I'm in the mood for it. Thanks for sharing; cheers.

 

[phonicjoy]

I mildly disagree inasmuch as I'd say that you can't have corporate statism without public divestment (i.e., austerity), which I'd say is opposed to Keynesian theory. Privatization was a huge part of the Thatcher regime

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I was trying to say that neoliberalism is not a school of Economics. From what Ive read its an empty term, to be filled with whatever policies one dislikes.

 

[phonicjoy]

Besides the fact that I already mentioned it indeed is, I'd suggest you make claims that aren't so obviously wrong. Behold the fruit of 2 seconds of searching.

https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=Neoliberalism&acc=off&wc=on&fc=off&group=none



Wait, so what is it, not real or US centric? That seems to be a bit of a contradiction doesn't it.

I assume when you mean Europe you're not including Britain because that wouldn't be good for your argument. So obviously when we label big cultural movements like this there tends to be an ideal type, probably Britain here, and specific contextual situation can differ in a lot of the particulars. See Patriotism in 18th century Europe, more or less based on the Wilkites and the Dutch, and Nationalism in 19th century Europe, based on France or Germany. Doesn't mean the words are meaningless.



Well I can't speak as to the academic culture of Economics outside of the US, UK, and Ireland (and given your comment I'm assuming you're from Norway where I know few non-Historians, though ironically several have used Neoliberalism before) but given the general importance of the first two to World Academic culture I think we can pretty clearly say there's some sort of issue. I have no doubt some places may be better about it than others, but lets not pretend that the US and UK don't dominate the field. Again non of this is saying every Economist is a moron or anything, but there are elements of the fields culture that have problems.

Economics by virtue of how it works is bound to move in a more positivist direction than the other social sciences. Public reception has exacerbated this.





Exactly. For someone claiming something is Americancentric he certainly seems to just be pulling from personal experience when he says no one uses the word.

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Look at the search results you've quotes at me. I dont see any leading policy or economic journals. I dont know how jstor ranks its results, but the first one is by a professor of cultural analysis, whatever that entails.

Here is my result on searching for cultural marxism, a notabele bullshit term. Even more results, must mean it has even more meaning /s


It had obviously entered the mainstream US cultural discourse, but so has cultural marxism. Sorry if my wording was imprecise. It hasnt here, luckily.

Im mostly agitating against use of the word in an Economics context, especially as a follow up to Keynsian Economics, which is plainly false.

I didnt know positivism was a dirty word here. For what its worth, At my school we had extensive courses in the limits of Economics in a philosophical sense.

 

[Fantastical]

I started listening to this podcast a few months ago and it's really good and opened up my way thinking about many of the topics they discussed.

 

[Staf]

Looks interesting. Will give it a listen, thanks for the tip OP! Never heard of this podcast before.

 

[Skelepuzzle]

EdibleKnife Thank you so much for recommending this to me a while ago, I legit had it confused with CitationNeeded which is... much different, haha. The guys actually gripe about the name confusion in one podcast. This is an honest to god series of well thought out discussions.

 

[samoyed]

Economic positivism can be seen as dangerous as it dehumanizes people in an attempt to reduce them to so called "rational" predictable actors. And it is generally blind to suffering (or so I assume? this is just a personal observation), which should be a more important part of policy-making than it currently is.

 

[A More Normal Bird]

Look at the search results you've quotes at me. I dont see any leading policy or economic journals. I dont know how jstor ranks its results, but the first one is by a professor of cultural analysis, whatever that entails.

Here is my result on searching for cultural marxism, a notabele bullshit term. Even more results, must mean it has even more meaning /s


It had obviously entered the mainstream US cultural discourse, but so has cultural marxism. Sorry if my wording was imprecise. It hasnt here, luckily.

Im mostly agitating against use of the word in an Economics context, especially as a follow up to Keynsian Economics, which is plainly false.

I didnt know positivism was a dirty word here. For what its worth, At my school we had extensive courses in the limits of Economics in a philosophical sense.

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When the term neoliberal economics is used it's referring to policies, institutions etc... not a school of academic economics. It's a commonplace term in academia and any attempt to argue that it's uniquely US-focused or not used seriously is wrong.

Also, your search for cultural marxism picked up all results containing both cultural and marxism, you need to place the term in quotation marks when it's more than one word long. Doing such a search yields only 519 results (for me). By contrast, doing a search for neoliberal or neoliberalism returned in excess of 60,000.

 

[phonicjoy]

When the term neoliberal economics is used it's referring to policies, institutions etc... not a school of academic economics. It's a commonplace term in academia and any attempt to argue that it's uniquely US-focused or not used seriously is wrong.

Also, your search for cultural marxism picked up all results containing both cultural and marxism, you need to place the term in quotation marks when it's more than one word long. Doing such a search yields only 519 results (for me). By contrast, doing a search for neoliberal or neoliberalism returned in excess of 60,000.

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If you call it neoliberal economics, then you are argueing for a framework that can differs from "regular economics" which it isnt. No-one talks about "centrist economics" or "right-wing economics" , it's apparently just describing policy goals someone disagrees with. I've heard people call themselves liberal, never neo-liberal. Why is that do YOU think?

So what field does it come from, or where is it researched? Everything described in this thread is just liberalism with a dose of denouncement. it was argued as an economic school earlier in the thread. Like I said, that is what ticked me off. I also can't think of an aspect of what neoliberalism is supposed to be that cannot be seen in actual political streams without some form of judgement and a slanted view. From what I see in jstor it is only studied as a cultural phenomenon. which to me means it's empty in terms of policy goals and methods.

Liberalism has a different meaning in US politics than it has in the rest of the world, so shouldn't neo-liberalism be US centric by definition?

You're right about the jstor search.

 

[ry-dog]

Humanprogress.org is the worst of all those think tanks, funded by the Koch Brothers, literally says in their mission statement they are biased and uses misleading stats (ie: shows wage dollar amount increasing, but doesn't show wages adjusted for inflation or purchasing power). It's used by all of those "the left is ruining academia types" like Peterson and Shapiro, without a hint of irony, to discredit people criticising authority

 

[phonicjoy]

Economic positivism can be seen as dangerous as it dehumanizes people in an attempt to reduce them to so called "rational" predictable actors. And it is generally blind to suffering (or so I assume? this is just a personal observation), which should be a more important part of policy-making than it currently is.

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Economists are well aware of this, and people like Kahneman have received Nobel prizes for trying to adres these issues.

Also, even before Kahneman, the field was aware it was working with models, not reality. Ceteris Paribus is the unofficial motto of economics, and we all know that it's flawed.

It's not blind to suffering, there entire subfields devoted to welfare for instance. But economists (in academics) in general don't prescribe policy goals. We just describe the mechanisms. Where you want the equilibrium to lie is up to politicians. Think of it more as a social science that likes to think it's exact. Thats also where most issues stem from in my opinion.

 

[samoyed]

I'm acquainted with Kahneman's and Thaler's mainstream books. Their work (and recognition) is relatively recent, right? While economists are aware they're working with models and not real people, as you say, if a politician or just a general demagogue gets the bright idea to misuse and abuse these concepts to push some sort of positivist political philosophy, I feel academia has some responsibly to step in and say "no you are getting it totally wrong and you are really dumb".

I learned about "the invisible hand of the free market" via casual osmosis long before I ever cracked open an economics book. Sometime during the game of cultural telephone, there was a critical failure, and now we have an entire subculture of people who think other people are rational beings or that engaging with others as rational beings rather than as humans is desirable.

Let me rephrase then, economic positivism, in the hands of laymen, can lead to extremely harmful mypoia.

 

[A More Normal Bird]

So what field does it come from, or where is it researched? Everything described in this thread is just liberalism with a dose of denouncement. it was argued as an economic school earlier in the thread. Like I said, that is waht ticked me off. I also can't think of an aspect of what neoliberalism is supposed to be that cannot be seen in actual political streams without some form of judgement and a slanted view.

Liberalism has a different meaning in US politics than it has in the rest of the world, so shouldn't neo-liberalism be US centric by definition?

You're right about the jstor search.

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Almost every field of the humanities/social science will have a significant amount of work related to neoliberalism, as Cocaloch mentioned earlier in the thread. This is because in the modern sense it refers to the political and ideological developments coming from the shift away from the post-war Keynesian (more accurately neo-Keynesian) consensus, something that took place across the globe, not just the US (also, the "liberal" in neoliberal comes from the traditional meaning of liberalism as a political philosophy, not the common US meaning). Basically, if you're studying recent society in the developed world (and the developing world, and their relations) there's something to be gained from looking at neoliberalism. That said, obviously fields like political economy, international relations, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies etc... are going to interrogate the concept more directly than say, linguistics.

I think there's no denying that it's a term that is often used a bit liberally (sorry) or even in some contexts pejoratively but that's hardly unique to it. Socialist, fascist, populist etc... all see similar variations in use. As for judgemental/slanted views, I think that comes with the territory.

EDIT: I wrote this reply before you edited your post. Unfortunately I'm having a bit of difficulty following you and I'm not quite clear what point you're trying to make (especially with the leap from neoliberalism being studied as a part of cultural studies to an absence of policy). If it helps, I consider a core element of neoliberalism to not be simple blind advocacy of markets (as is sometimes claimed), but a focus on their construction, extension and operation, even if that means regulation. Also, perhaps have a skim of this article Joseph Stiglitz wrote in the wake of the GFC entitled "The End of Neo-liberalism?". I'm including it not to necessarily endorse any of Stiglitz's arguments, but to provide a bit more context for the term and serve as evidence of its use by a Nobel winning economist (progressive sure, but certainly not a radical).

 

[samoyed]

I would like to point out that the common US usage of the word "neoliberal" is unrelated to our usage of word "liberal". "Liberal" is (from a layman American POV) a synonym for social and/or economic progressives, and a synonym for members of the Democratic Party. It bears almost no connection to classic liberalism of the Adam Smith lineage, because our education system sucks and no one really learns economics in high school at all (unless their school was very good). "Neoliberal", as a pejorative, is exclusively used by that class of well-educated poli-sci thinkers and commentators who have studied the history of classical liberalism and how it evolved over time into "neoliberalism". When Trump or Fox News rails against "the liberals", there is no economic ideation there whatsoever. It has a timbre similar to "the Jews" or "the blacks".

 

[Deleted member 6230]

People usually say "capital L Liberalism" to distinguish the philosophical school of thought from the colloquial use of liberal in American politics, media, and punditry.

 

[A More Normal Bird]

People usually say "capital L Liberalism" to distinguish the philosophical school of thought from the colloquial use of liberal in American politics, media, and punditry.

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Unless you're in Australia, where "small l liberal" means liberal political philosophy and "liberal" (spoken)/Liberal (written) means the Liberal Party. I wonder what they say in Canada?

 

[Cocaloch]

Look at the search results you've quotes at me. I dont see any leading policy or economic journals.

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Ah yes leading economics or policy journals are the only thing you'll accept, that doesn't smack of insularism at all, you've convinced me I was wrong about that charge.

Also I don't even need to look back at the results, because I distinctly remember the first time Princeton University Press was on there. You're going to have a hard time convincing a historian that Princeton University Press is not reputable.

I dont know how jstor ranks its results, but the first one is by a professor of cultural analysis, whatever that entails.

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And we can actually stop the discussion here. This is absolutly a case-in-point about how Economists trend towards positivism and are dismissive of a lot of things outside of their field.

That's ignoring the blatant hypocracy of complaining about people critqiuing your discipline, but then just randomly shitting on one you profess to know nothing about.

Did you honestly think about that at all?

Here is my result on searching for cultural marxism, a notabele bullshit term. Even more results, must mean it has even more meaning /s

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The difference with cultural marxism, as I mentioned above, is that it was a Nazi Antisemetic conspiracy theory in its origins. Neoliberalism is of academic coinage. It's only lately that it's become popular.

It had obviously entered the mainstream US cultural discourse, but so has cultural marxism. Sorry if my wording was imprecise. It hasnt here, luckily.

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Okay, so your claim is it's not popular in Norway. I'll accept that. That's very different than your earlier claims. Ironically all my Norwegian friends have used the word at one time or the other, but that could just be selection bias.

Im mostly agitating against use of the word in an Economics context, especially as a follow up to Keynsian Economics, which is plainly false.

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Okay, I'm a historian of political-economy, and this is the bog standard narrative. So you're going to have to explain exactly how this one is plainly false, when it's seen as something of a trivial if not tautological claim.

I didnt know positivism was a dirty word here. For what its worth, At my school we had extensive courses in the limits of Economics in a philosophical sense.

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It's not a dirty word here if by here you mean era, which tends heavily towards things like positivism and prescriptivism or any other philosophy that people thinks lets them score dumb internet points, but it's a dirty word in the Humanities and most of the Social Sciences. It's also a dirty word for anyone that has seriously thought about epistemology for the last several decades at least.

 

[phonicjoy]

Almost every field of the humanities/social science will have a significant amount of work related to neoliberalism, as Cocaloch mentioned earlier in the thread. This is because in the modern sense it refers to the political and ideological developments coming from the shift away from the post-war Keynesian (more accurately neo-Keynesian) consensus, something that took place across the globe, not just the US (also, the "liberal" in neoliberal comes from the traditional meaning of liberalism as a political philosophy, not the common US meaning). Basically, if you're studying recent society in the developed world (and the developing world, and their relations) there's something to be gained from looking at neoliberalism. That said, obviously fields like political economy, international relations, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies etc... are going to interrogate the concept more directly than say, linguistics.

I think there's no denying that it's a term that is often used a bit liberally (sorry) or even in some contexts pejoratively but that's hardly unique to it. Socialist, fascist, populist etc... all see similar variations in use. As for judgemental/slanted views, I think that comes with the territory.

EDIT: I wrote this reply before you edited your post. Unfortunately I'm having a bit of difficulty following you and I'm not quite clear what point you're trying to make (especially with the leap from neoliberalism being studied as a part of cultural studies to an absence of policy). If it helps, I consider a core element of neoliberalism to not be simple blind advocacy of markets (as is sometimes claimed), but a focus on their construction, extension and operation, even if that means regulation. Also, perhaps have a skim of this article Joseph Stiglitz wrote in the wake of the GFC entitled "The End of Neo-liberalism?". I'm including it not to necessarily endorse any of Stiglitz's arguments, but to provide a bit more context for the term and serve as evidence of its use by a Nobel winning economist (progressive sure, but certainly not a radical).

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My thoughts on it are as chaotic as my Posts, because many things are conflated here.

I think my crticism comes down to the defining of neoliberalism as post-keynsian, as that implies Some sort of economic field, which is ridiculous.

Even in the piece by stiglitz you linked, he referred to it as a political ideology.

As a political ideology, it never gained foothold in mainland Europe I would argue. And the usage of the term in European politics is limited to Those outside government, using it in a derogatory manner.

Whenever Economics is mentioned while referring to neo-liberalism, it just irritates the hell out of me, because the ideology just dismisses all the limitations all mainstream economists learn in their first semester.

Calling it an ideology would imply Some sort of reasoning, and framework of theories. I wouldn't even say that much.

To me, neo-liberal basically means anti-intellectual dipshit I guess.

I hope this is somewhat clearer.

 

[Cocaloch]

If you call it neoliberal economics, then you are argueing for a framework that can differs from "regular economics" which it isnt. No-one talks about "centrist economics" or "right-wing economics" , it's apparently just describing policy goals someone disagrees with. I've heard people call themselves liberal, never neo-liberal. Why is that do YOU think?

So what field does it come from, or where is it researched? Everything described in this thread is just liberalism with a dose of denouncement. it was argued as an economic school earlier in the thread. Like I said, that is what ticked me off. I also can't think of an aspect of what neoliberalism is supposed to be that cannot be seen in actual political streams without some form of judgement and a slanted view. From what I see in jstor it is only studied as a cultural phenomenon. which to me means it's empty in terms of policy goals and methods.

Liberalism has a different meaning in US politics than it has in the rest of the world, so shouldn't neo-liberalism be US centric by definition?

You're right about the jstor search.

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This was already mentioned above in the thread, it's the Chicago school. If you're really from some place that doesn't use the word and don't really know what it means then why are you taking such great issue with it. Obviously you wouldn't know what analytical value it would have, and that's not a slight. I just honestly can't imagine saying a word is bad without understanding it at a fudemental level.

Though to be honest at this point I don't know what you are arguing.

 

[phonicjoy]

Ah yes leading economics or policy journals are the only thing you'll accept, that doesn't smack of insularism at all, you've convinced me I was wrong about that charge.

Also I don't even need to look back at the results, because I distinctly remember the first time Princeton University Press was on there. You're going to have a hard time convincing a historian that Princeton University Press is not reputable.



And we can actually stop the discussion here. This is absolutly a case-in-point about how Economists trend towards positivism and are dismissive of a lot of things outside of their field.

That's ignoring the blatant hypocracy of complaining about people critqiuing your discipline, but then just randomly shitting on one you profess to know nothing about.

Did you honestly think about that at all?



The difference with cultural marxism, as I mentioned above, is that it was a Nazi Antisemetic conspiracy theory in its origins. Neoliberalism is of academic coinage. It's only lately that it's become popular.



Okay, so your claim is it's not popular in Norway. I'll accept that. That's very different than your earlier claims. Ironically all my Norwegian friends have used the word at one time or the other, but that could just be selection bias.



Okay, I'm a historian of political-economy, and this is the bog standard narrative. So you're going to have to explain exactly how this one is plainly false, when it's seen as something of a trivial if not tautological claim.




It's not a dirty word here if by here you mean era, which tends heavily towards things like positivism and prescriptivism or any other philosophy that people thinks lets them score dumb internet points, but it's a dirty word in the Humanities and most of the Social Sciences. It's also a dirty word for anyone that has seriously thought about epistemology for the last several decades at least.

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I think we are not discussing the same points, and that is mostly my fault. I dont mean to shit on anyones field.

I hope my post above remedies that somewhat.

With regards to positivism, I think that economists like to see them selves more as part of the exact sciences, which has its own set of issues, but explains our preference for empericism.

 

[phonicjoy]

This was already mentioned above in the thread, it's the Chicago school. If you're really from some place that doesn't use the word and don't really know what it means then why are you taking such great issue with it. Obviously you wouldn't know what analytical value it would have, and that's not a slight. I just honestly can't imagine saying a word is bad without understanding it at a fudemental level.

Though to be honest at this point I don't know what you are arguing.

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This was already mentioned above in the thread, it's the Chicago school. If you're really from some place that doesn't use the word and don't really know what it means then why are you taking such great issue with it. Obviously you wouldn't know what analytical value it would have, and that's not a slight. I just honestly can't imagine saying a word is bad without understanding it at a fudemental level.

Though to be honest at this point I don't know what you are arguing.

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Now unless Im totally off base, even the Chicago School does not argue markets are per definition infallible, and I personally have only studied that wing as it relates to the monetarists

 

[Cocaloch]

Now unless Im totally off base, even the Chicago School does not argue markets are per definition infallible, and I personally have only studied that wing as it relates to the monetarists

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Of course no economist says anything so vulgar. It's the popular reception of and political turn based on the Chicago school that did that. I said it above somewhere but I'll repeat it again. Neoliberalism was originally only used for a movement within economics but was broadened to include its wider effect as an intellectual/political/cultural shift.

No one think Friedman said "People don't think the free market be but it do" and that was that. But it clearly comes from him, Thatcher, and Regan.

 

[A More Normal Bird]

My thoughts on it are as chaotic as my Posts, because many things are conflated here.

I think my crticism comes down to the defining of neoliberalism as post-keynsian, as that implies Some sort of economic field, which is ridiculous.

Even in the piece by stiglitz you linked, he referred to it as a political ideology.

As a political ideology, it never gained foothold in mainland Europe I would argue. And the usage of the term in European politics is limited to Those outside government, using it in a derogatory manner.

Whenever Economics is mentioned while referring to neo-liberalism, it just irritates the hell out of me, because the ideology just dismisses all the limitations all mainstream economists learn in their first semester.

Calling it an ideology would imply Some sort of reasoning, and framework of theories. I wouldn't even say that much.

To me, neo-liberal basically means anti-intellectual dipshit I guess.

I hope this is somewhat clearer.

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I guess the thing to reiterate here is that neoliberalism refers to a political shift that actually took place and is ongoing. It's subsequent to Keynsianism (I definitely wouldn't say Post-Keynesian, because that's the name of an actual school of economic thought) in terms of the uses and public statements of "economics" by politicians and institutions. It's the change from Nixon saying "we're all Keynesians now," to Thatcher saying "there's no such thing as society" (and their respective policy differences).

I'm a critic of neoliberalism but certainly wouldn't associate it with anti-intellectualism (unless I was feeling elitist); it is typically associated with bureacracy, politicians, academics, the punditry etc... It's important to stress that neoliberalism in its modern form isn't strict libertarianism and can be expressed in a variety of forms and to varying degrees (incidentally, just this week I have spoken to a European political economist who has looked at the development of and responses to neoliberalism in Sweden and Austria who would certainly disagree with your claim that it isn't a factor in mainland Europe). For example, the move to floating exchange rates can be argued to be part of the neoliberal shift and yet it's a policy I'm generally in favour of (funnily enough there's an article on this written by Australian economist John Quiggin in the 1990s that argued that "globalisation" was an overused buzzword with little meaning, and that "neoliberalism" was the real thing to focus on).

I think we are not discussing the same points, and that is mostly my fault. I dont mean to shit on anyones field.

I hope my post above remedies that somewhat.

With regards to positivism, I think that economists like to see them selves more as part of the exact sciences, which has its own set of issues, but explains our preference for empericism.

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I wouldn't call economics empirical, by and large. Even econometrics isn't strictly empirical; note that this is separate to debates about the usefulness or quality of some econometric work/tools and is more related to the philosophy of mathematics and statistics. At the least it is an open debate.

 

[phonicjoy]

Of course no economist says anything so vulgar. It's the popular reception of and political turn based on the Chicago school that did that. I said it above somewhere but I'll repeat it again. Neoliberalism was originally only used for a movement within economics but was broadened to include its wider effect as an intellectual/political/cultural shift.

No one think Friedman said "People don't think the free market be but it do" and that was that. But it clearly comes from him, Thatcher, and Regan.

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I've been reading up on this, and it seems in the media "the Chicago School"is used for market fundementalist ideas. I know if from academics, where there is no single "Chicago School" , if it is used, it refers to monetarists. And I would still rail against the argument that it ever referred to a specific movement in Economics.

Friedman might adhere to this ideology (seems he does), but thats on him. The monetarists have been pushed to the sidelines for a while now.

 

[phonicjoy]

I guess the thing to reiterate here is that neoliberalism refers to a political shift that actually took place and is ongoing. It's subsequent to Keynsianism (I definitely wouldn't say Post-Keynesian, because that's the name of an actual school of economic thought) in terms of the uses and public statements of "economics" by politicians and institutions. It's the change from Nixon saying "we're all Keynesians now," to Thatcher saying "there's no such thing as society" (and their respective policy differences).

I'm a critic of neoliberalism but certainly wouldn't associate it with anti-intellectualism (unless I was feeling elitist); it is typically associated with bureacracy, politicians, academics, the punditry etc... It's important to stress that neoliberalism in its modern form isn't strict libertarianism and can be expressed in a variety of forms and to varying degrees (incidentally, just this week I have spoken to a European political economist who has looked at the development of and responses to neoliberalism in Sweden and Austria who would certainly disagree with your claim that it isn't a factor in mainland Europe). For example, the move to floating exchange rates can be argued to be part of the neoliberal shift and yet it's a policy I'm generally in favour of (funnily enough there's an article on this written by Australian economist John Quiggin in the 1990s that argued that "globalisation" was an overused buzzword with little meaning, and that "neoliberalism" was the real thing to focus on).


I wouldn't call economics empirical, by and large. Even econometrics isn't strictly empirical; note that this is separate to debates about the usefulness or quality of some econometric work/tools and is more related to the philosophy of mathematics and statistics. At the least it is an open debate.

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Why bring Keynes in at all? Just to indicate some sort of time of origin? It's needlessly confusing politics and economic theory.

I think the bolded is where I get confused as someone with a background in Economic academia, because ideas like Reagonomics were ridiculed at my school, and for good reason.

Market fundementalism in Europe in general has been limited to specific political parties, which has limited its influence. As well as stronger unions, and specific arrangments such as structural meetings between employers and unions. I don't know about the current conditions in Austria and Sweden though.

I'm curious why you would see a move to floating interest rates as neo-classical, what would define that in that case according to you? To me it is just a logical mechanical move, and if I want to get political I would probably say anti-imperialist. Bretton Woods was never going to work forever.

We were taught globalisation was a misnomer as well, I can't find the chart I was looking for, but it's interesting to see trade between continents was actually pretty large in the past.

Economist do like to think of themselves in that way though. We get data from past events and fit a model to it. I'm not saying this is a "pure" method or even necessarily correct, because like I said we are all quite aware of the philosophical issues. But we like to pretend we are physicists. The behaviour troupe even likes to do experiments :)

 

[Cocaloch]

I've been reading up on this, and it seems in the media "the Chicago School"is used for market fundementalist ideas. I know if from academics, where there is no single "Chicago School" , if it is used, it refers to monetarists. And I would still rail against the argument that it ever referred to a specific movement in Economics.

Friedman might adhere to this ideology (seems he does), but thats on him. The monetarists have been pushed to the sidelines for a while now.

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As both an academic and an alumnus of Chicago I can assure you the term is widely accepted. Meanwhile the point isn't that anyone adheres to everything he's ever said, it's his impact on discourse and culture both intellectual and popular.

 

[Cocaloch]

Why bring Keynes in at all? Just to indicate some sort of time of origin? It's needlessly confusing politics and economic theory.

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This is what I'm pointing out is a problem. You're acting like people are putting them together when I'd say it's incredibly difficult if not impossible to tease on or the other out into some ideal type form. To then say that Economists are particularly aware of the philosophy behind it is interesting to say the least.

By the way how many economists do you think have really read even Smith, Mill, or Marx, let alone general epistemology. There's some, but I can assure you it's not a majority.

But we like to pretend we are physicists.

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This should be a giant red flag

 

[phonicjoy]

As both an academic and an alumnus of Chicago I can assure you the term is widely accepted. Meanwhile the point isn't that anyone adheres to everything he's ever said, it's his impact on discourse abd culture both intellectual and popular.

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Cool, what field.

 

[Cocaloch]

Cool, what field.

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I've mentioned it several times in this thread?

 

[samoyed]

To me, neo-liberal basically means anti-intellectual dipshit I guess.

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This doesn't really work for me, because when a lefty Twitter account calls Hillary a "neoliberal shill", I understand the gist of what they mean (she's pro-capital, progressive when it suits her goals, part of the privileged class that protects and rubs elbow with the privileged class, regardless of the veracity of these claims I feel the sentiment behind it), but I wouldn't call her anti-intellectual. Macron is another good example as we see in the gilets jaunes thread. Charles Koch is another major threat to global human welfare and he's characterized by being actually really good at what he does, namely, undermining democracy with boatloads of cash.

Broadly the threat of neoliberalism (as I see it) is that they are not anti-intellectual, but actually extremely competent at manipulating public perception against the interests of the lower classes. Maybe what you identify as neoliberals is what I'm familiar with as libertarians, particularly the dumb sovereign citizen kind or any number of ideological branches living in a Randian lala-land. Or perhaps the laypeople and voters who've drunk from the neoliberal koolaid and now also vote in favor of tax breaks for the rich, directly or indirectly, and see businessmen as the heroes of society.

If I had to sum it up would be that anyone who thinks millionaires and billionaires are "the provider of jobs" and should receive more money in the form of tax breaks/tax exemptions, is a neoliberal. That's why I brought up Keynes in the first place because his defining legacy was demand side economic policy and it wasn't until Friedman's work that we got politicians like Reagan and Thatcher and the invention of supply side Jesus. America still lives under Friedman's shadow.

I am unfamiliar with this term, monetarist. I assume it encapsulates the stuff I'm talking about here.

 

[phonicjoy]

This doesn't really work for me, because when a lefty Twitter account calls Hillary a "neoliberal shill", I understand the gist of what they mean (she's pro-capital, progressive when it suits her goals, part of the privileged class that protects and rubs elbow with the privileged class, regardless of the veracity of these claims I feel the sentiment behind it), but I wouldn't call her anti-intellectual. Macron is another good example as we see in the gilets jaunes thread. Charles Koch is another major threat to global human welfare and he's characterized by being actually really good at what he does, namely, undermining democracy with boatloads of cash.

Broadly the threat of neoliberalism (as I see it) is that they are not anti-intellectual, but actually extremely competent at manipulating public perception against the interests of the lower classes. Maybe what you identify as neoliberals is what I'm familiar with as libertarians, particularly the dumb sovereign citizen kind or any number of ideological branches living in a Randian lala-land. Or perhaps the laypeople and voters who've drunk from the neoliberal koolaid and now also vote in favor of tax breaks for the rich, directly or indirectly, and see businessmen as the heroes of society.

If I had to sum it up would be that anyone who thinks millionaires and billionaires are "the provider of jobs" and should receive more money in the form of tax breaks/tax exemptions, is a neoliberal. That's why I brought up Keynes in the first place because his defining legacy was demand side economic policy and it wasn't until Friedman's work that we got politicians like Reagan and Thatcher and the invention of supply side Jesus. America still lives under Friedman's shadow.

I am unfamiliar with this term, monetarist. I assume it encapsulates the stuff I'm talking about here.

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Monetarist is the school Friedman belongs to. Its seen as the counter to Keynesian Economics. I would be surprised if Friedman adhered to supplyside Economics, because its ridiculed in economic academics.

 

[ZealousD]

The world is shit.

The world has always been shit.

There are lots of ways in which the world is shittier now than it was in the past. But there are also many ways in which the world is less shit now than it used to be. In fact, overall, generally things are probably less shitty now than they've ever been.

But the world is still shit.

 

[sultrines]

More like it's disingenuous to say that society is falling apart when he's living in the most peaceful and prosperous period of human historY. Are there problems? Yes, but they can be solved through innovations such as carbon capture, renewable energy, and other exponential technologies.

Check out Abundance by Peter Diamandis. It's a lot more enlightening about the process of improving our standard of living with new innovations.

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We have only few decades left until the climate is royally fucked and the top 10% is the one who is most responsible for carbon emissions

 

[samoyed]

Monetarist is the school Friedman belongs to. Its seen as the counter to Keynesian Economics. I would be surprised if Friedman adhered to supplyside Economics, because its ridiculed in economic academics.

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I looked around and you're right. The two must've been conflated in my head from seeing them mentioned so often together. Supply-side seems to be the politician's perversion of the Chicago school of thought during its heydey and Friedman is only related by association due to his stature at Chicago as well as his advisory role with both Reagan and Thatcher.

 

[Lathentar]

I've read both Pinker books on this topic (Better Angels and Enlightenment Now) and enjoyed both of them. I'll post more tomorrow when I get the chance, but found this quote in enlightenment now while doing a bit of cross checking against the transcript of the podcast.

The point of calling attention to progress is not self-congratulation but identifying the causes so we can do more of what works.

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