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.

    • aski3252@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Globalized trade has been a thing long before neo-liberalism existed, arguably longer than capitalism has existed. Equating neo-liberalism with “global/globalized trade” is incredibly reductive…

      • KuchiKopi@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I didn’t see that comment as reductive. More like pointing out a part of neo-liberalism that the commenter thought was good.

        In other words, the comment is simply “globalized economy is good.” The comment is not what you’re inferring: "neo-liberalism is good because globalized economy is good "

        • utopianfiat@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yes this is actually what I meant.

          I do not subscribe to neoliberal economics- if anything I’m just left of the average Keynesian.

          • Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I’m Georgist, and I agree with you that global trade is good. Why would we purposely do to ourselves what we do to our adversaries during wartime? One certainly doesn’t have to subscribe to all of neoliberalism to believe global trade is good.

    • KuchiKopi@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yep, the best way to prevent rich powerful assholes from getting us into huge wars is to make it extremely unprofitable. Don’t want to kill your market or labor force. Don’t want to disrupt your supply chain. Etc.

      • utopianfiat@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Literally the Ukraine war is an excellent example of this. Second most powerful army in the world fighting a much smaller and poorly equipped army. Now only the second most powerful army in Russia.

        • Sektor@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I wouldn’t say an army with airforce, patriots, himars, bunch of javelins and now western tanks is poorly equipped.

          • utopianfiat@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            With the exception of the air force, most of this stuff came after Russia began the invasion in 2014. The Ukranian Air Force, absent support from allies, is actually kind of a liability since it’s largely Mikhoyan and Sukhoi materiel where the maintenance, modernization, and operational expertise is concentrated in Russia. Ukraine basically had to invent its own supply chain from scratch.

    • wclinton93@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      On the whole, for sure. But that doesn’t make it any more palatable for workers when jobs are relocated from their area.

      • kautau@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Or the workers in the nation where the work is moved, and since companies are min-maxing their profits with no regulation, you have factories with suicide nets

      • utopianfiat@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Right, but that’s less of a consequence of Globalization and more of a consequence of our national economy being structured in a way that offsets risk onto the most vulnerable working class folks. If we had universal healthcare not reliant on employment, reskilling assistance, and some kind of basic income, it would be easier to both protect people and reap the benefits of Globalization.

        • queermunist@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          our national economy being structured in a way that offsets risk onto the most vulnerable working class folks

          i.e. neoliberalism

          Internationalism is good. Globalism is not. All globalism means is open borders for capital and hard borders for workers.

          • utopianfiat@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Globalism when used by like 95% of people includes dropping immigration restrictions, so I’m not sure what you’re on about here.

            • queermunist@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Not really. They emphasize “legal” immigration, by which they mean a series of restrictions on how people are allowed to enter the country and what qualifies them to become citizens. The actual implementation of neoliberal policies always includes strict border controls, limited asylum seeking, 2nd class citizenship for migrants, and harsh penalties for migrating “wrong” and not jumping through all the legal and financial hoops.

              Capital moving freely while migrants die in the Mojave and drown in the Mediterranean.

              • utopianfiat@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Again, 95% of people who use the term “globalist” to describe someone else associate it with open borders. I’m not sure what you’re on about here.

                • queermunist@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  People who describe themselves as globalists generally reject the idea of open borders. Labor visas, not the free movement of labor.

                  What you’re talking about is a smear, not reality.

                  • utopianfiat@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    I describe myself as a globalist and I explicitly believe in open borders. I’m not sure what you’re on about here.

                • BeautifulMind ♾️@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  When you’re talking about neoliberalism, ‘globalism’ also has a lot to do with trade and international finance- from the 1940s (after fallout of the great depression and the World Wars) Keynesian economics was ‘in’, and international lending agreements upheld countries’ ability to conduct nation-level managed/mixed economies- but when the neoliberals swung into power, the new order of the day was to strip countries of their self-managing ability in ways that made them accessible to/exploitable by global conglomerates and corporations:

                  At Bretton Woods in 1944, the use of fixed exchange rates and controls on speculative private capital, plus the creation of the IMFand World Bank, were intended to allow member countries to practice national forms of managed capitalism, insulated from the destructive and deflationary influences of short-term speculative private capital flows. As doctrine and power shifted in the 1970s, the IMF, the World Bank, and later the WTO, which replaced the old GATT, mutated into their ideological opposite. Rather than instruments of support for mixed national economies, they became enforcers of neoliberal policies.

                  The standard package of the “Washington Consensus” of approved policies for developing nations included demands that they open their capital markets to speculative private finance, as well as cutting taxes on capital, weakening social transfers, and gutting labor regulation and public ownership. ~ https://prospect.org/economy/neoliberalism-political-success-economic-failure/

                  So, in this sense, ‘globalization’ not just the opening of borders for labor and immigration, it is the swing away from ‘nationalization’ of economies and of national economic sovereignty, to prevent countries from impeding the flow of capital (and corporate power) into and out of their borders on behalf of global finance and colonial power

        • afraid_of_zombies2@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yes which is why you made one just now.

          Criticism of the economic policies of a group that is focused on economic policy is appropriate.

          Sorry your bff’s like student loans debt