Neoliberalism: Oversold? (2016)
‘Neoliberal’ is a stick to beat the dog and nothing more. I skew authoritarian and although I’m not  , I do see eye to eye with them on some axioms (chiefly utopian ideals, and meaning preceding existence). Neoliberalism thinking is more or less classical liberalism with some recompiling to reduce tension with international &#x2F; global interests. I haven’t spent a ton of time thinking about it but I’d say that they probably formulate classical ideas around things like bureaucracy and Government. It’s hard to argue against neoliberalism where it’s successful but the term has been stolen by rent-seekers who seek rent and call the arrangement neoliberalism.<p>The U.N is a great example of failed neoliberalism – by and large it’s not a highly effective organization, but it does provide a venue for effective actors to collaborate. It’s apparent that the U.N could be more cost-effective. I’m sure there are a million counter examples but most of the functional value of the U.N could be replaced by slack. Before you show me the million counter examples, just consider, “if the U.N were using its budget effectively, wouldn’t there be more examples of the good work they do?”.<p>The Marshall plan is a great example of successful neoliberalism. Say what you will about authoritarian systems but they get one thing right about recessions &#x2F; depressions: it’s a waste to have so many good workers sit idle. The Marshall plan made it possible to hire Europeans to rebuild their country. The heavily indebted, war torn nations couldn’t afford to do that themselves (at least under capitalism – which is why it was critical to execute the plan so that people didn’t have to revert to more communist &#x2F; centrally planned regimes) and it’s probably better to get folks back to work rebuilding their nation than letting them stew about and wonder what a glorious revolution would look like.<p>You can call austerity thinkers whatever you want, but the doctrine seems to be correlated with multi-national corporatist favoritism and a fetishized view of free markets. Regardless of their intentions, the people called ‘neoliberals’ have created a system where massive gains are privatized, the rule of law is pervasive but the application of law has an impact bias, and losses are socialized except when they aren’t in which case they seek the pound of flesh from people who can’t say no rather than people who should have had skin in the game.  At best, this is ‘business as usual’ (at least for the status quo that’s seen the world massively destabilized), at worst this is the worst type of welfare &#x2F; theft – coerced wealth transfer from working stiffs to people who have entrenched interests.<p>We can compare and contrast two relatively similar approaches. You know who rebuilt Japan after the war? Japanese folks did. You know who rebuilt South Korea after the Korean war? The Koreans. You know who rebuilt Iraq? Politically connected Americans.<p>Maybe the Americans were more cost-effective, but I doubt it. And even if so, maybe it’s better if we keep the surplus value in the country. It seems like people tend to value stability higher as they get wealthier. I imagine ISIS would have had a harder time changing things up in Iraq if people were happier with the status quo – better institutions, more opportunity, and surplus value (profit) is key to making investments. The guy who started Hyundai got his seed money from repairing jeeps for the U.S Army during the Korean war. Now, his company employs  65k South Koreans. Entrepreneurs need a way to get to their first success, and good neoliberals seem to value that and bad neoliberals seem to have a bias towards “we’ll only consider the people who are already entrepreneurs”.<p>But South Korea became a first world nation and Iraq became the birthplace of ISIS. You know who bears the worst consequences of ISIS? It’s not the Americans who got money to rebuild Iraq – although they may get some more business.<p>Tl;dr and conclusion - 
All politics is tribal, and the fundamental political question is that of “who is my friend, and who is my foe?”. Scarcity seems to make people draw tighter lines around their tribe and see less in common with their foe and that’s really bad for diverse democracies. Neoliberals seem to pay lip service to acknowledging problems but their solutions don’t seem to address the underlying problems so long as someone is making money off the problem.<p>A neoliberal strawman might agree “rents are too high” but it’ll say “let’s just sell public housing to developers and cut rent assistance – it’ll work itself out”. But they won’t do things like strike down zoning laws and invest in transportation to reduce the cost (in time &#x2F; money) of getting around.