this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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Why YSK: I’ve noticed in recent years more people using “neoliberal” to mean “Democrat/Labor/Social Democrat politicians I don’t like”. This confusion arises from the different meanings “liberal” has in American politics and further muddies the waters.

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

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

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

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

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[–] utopianfiat@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Globalized trade is good actually

[–] aski3252@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 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.

[–] aski3252@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thank you for clearifying, I have misinterpreted your comment in that case.

[–] KuchiKopi@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I love how civil everyone is being! And I appreciate that you edited your earlier comment.

[–] KuchiKopi@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] utopianfiat@lemmy.world 1 points 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.

[–] Gabu@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Much more than globalized trade, globalized sharing of knowledge, awareness and circumstance - perhaps even globalized power, one day. The fight against capitalism will definitely require a great plan to take global communication away from private capital.

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Yes.

Pushing every poor country to invest on the same export industries because your ideology believes they are inferior people that can only ever do that, or because you want them to subsidize your local consumers of those industries is not a good thing.

But people can't handle any complexity, and this get turned into "advocated global trading".

[–] wclinton93@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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 1 points 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 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] BeautifulMind@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] utopianfiat@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"National economic sovereignty" meaning what, exactly?

[–] BeautifulMind@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's the notion that by being a country you should be able to make and enforce your own economic policies for the benefit of your citizenry instead of, for example, for the benefit of outside capital.

In reality, the right of countries to do basic things like enforce their own labor regulations and put limits on outside capital's access to their resources (or to publicly own resources) has been deeply infringed upon if not outright violated; look at how United Fruit basically toppled governments that put worker's rights or land ownership rules at odds with company profits.

The rest of this conversation talks a lot about 'globalism', I brought up 'national economic sovereignty' to distinguish economic self-rule from the kind of globalized rule that turned countries into banana republics, essentially ruled by puppets on behalf of foreign corporate interests.

[–] utopianfiat@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you think the economic sovereignty of a fascist dictatorship that expropriates property by ethnicity ought to be recognized? Note that I'm not asking if you're for supporting fascists, because you can be openly belligerent against a nation who you nonetheless recognize as sovereign over their economy.

If not, I'm interested to hear your standards for what economic sovereignty should be respected.

[–] BeautifulMind@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think that 'economic sovereignty' as such is a value-neutral proposition; it can be done for good or ill. I consider it like anything else in the toolbox; a chainsaw can be helpful or terrifying, depending on who has it and what they decide to do with it. Is a federated republic a good or bad thing because some of the people with power in it might be fascists? I think those are separable notions; in my view, sovereignty and federation are useful for what they get you- for example they are means of checking power located elsewhere.

Since you're asking my views on supporting fascism, that's a hard 'no' from me and if you're trying to guess from my use of 'nationalism' and its buzzwordy association with fascists that I'm trying to carve out a toehold to legitimize fascism under the aegis of nationalism, you're reading between the lines for something I'm not arguing.

Are you suggesting that Guatemala or any of the other Banana republics were fascist dictatorships for expropriating land? If so, I have opinions about the US toppling democracies in Latin America and calling *them *fascist or racist along the way to justify it- not only is it the pot calling the kettle black, it's the opposite of what happened.

[–] utopianfiat@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I'm referring to contemporary arguments about whether trade agreements with countries which had previously been Russian or Chinese client states are "imperialism"

[–] queermunist@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

[–] queermunist@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it's pretty clear "what I'm on about." I've explained it pretty thoroughly, even if you keep just repeating yourself.

What are you on about? You're just... Using globalization wrong.

[–] utopianfiat@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think pragmatically you need to have some basis for taxing a subset of people, and thus those people will have to be "citizens" subject to certain different rules- but most privileges and duties should apply to residents irrespective of their citizenship status. That's basically how US state borders work and those borders are considered "open" even though there is a concept of state citizenship.

As long as states exist, citizenship has to exist, but that doesn't mean we should regulate who can enter, live, and work in our country on the basis of origin, social class, or other things that aren't like "is this person entering to escape from a crime in their country that we would have punished" or "is this person entering to start a fascist uprising" etc.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Living within the US, I don't need to apply for citizenship every time I move to a different state. The law applies to me equally even if I only just crossed the border for lunch, and the only special rules are related to residency; as long as I live in a state I count as a resident, I can vote and send my kids to school and have to pay taxes etc.

That is what open borders actually looks like. That is what the free movement of labor means. Residency, not citizenship.

Globalists do not want this. They need hard borders and citizenship to control the movement of labor. Work visas can be revoked, are tied to a place of employment, and are temporary. Perfect labor units for neoliberal capitalism.

[–] utopianfiat@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's basically what US citizenship looked like at the outset of America- until the Immigration Act was passed, you sent a letter to your local Justice of the Peace declaring your intent to remain in America and that commemorated your citizenship.

As previously stated, I am a globalist and I agree with open borders.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Surely you remember citizenship wasn't available to everyone back then.

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[–] afraid_of_zombies2@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Downplay your views on student loans

[–] utopianfiat@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What views on student loans? What the fuck do student loans have to do with globalism?

[–] afraid_of_zombies2@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes what does education have to do with the global economy. Clearly nothing.

Why don't you just admit your views on the topic?

[–] utopianfiat@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why don’t you just admit your views on the topic?

Because answering random trivia about my views isn't relevant to the conversation, I have explained this over and over.

Why are you so insistent on engaging in bad faith whataboutism? You clearly have some view in mind that you think I hold. Why don't you say what it is first so I can tell you that you're wrong and we can stop this masturbatory fantasy of yours before you waste any more of my free time?

[–] afraid_of_zombies2@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] utopianfiat@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

Choke on my dick.

[–] afraid_of_zombies2@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Cough.....student loans...cough

[–] utopianfiat@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What does that have to do with globalism?

[–] afraid_of_zombies2@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] utopianfiat@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Deflecting is when you bring up something totally irrelevant to the subject matter. Nobody asked my opinion on student loans in this thread, and it's not germaine to globalism.

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[–] billstickers@aussie.zone 0 points 1 year ago

Who is our/we? You’re literally in Lemmy.world.

[–] afraid_of_zombies2@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Student loans debt slavery is bad actually.

Neoliberals hate when this is brought up.

[–] utopianfiat@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And cheese is made of cow's milk. Non sequiturs are fun!

[–] afraid_of_zombies2@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] utopianfiat@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

Globalism doesn't have a view on student loans buddy, sorry to break your bubble.