Edit: If the wikipedia page wasn't clear enough, the 14 definitions and comments below should show that the term "neoliberalism" is a broken dog whistle at best. You might as well go outside and yell at the clouds while you're at it.

[–] RickRussell_CA@beehaw.org 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is it? Neoliberalism describes a modern conservative movement closely aligned to libertarian philosophy. Privatization, elimination of government programs, tax reduction, laissez-faire capitalism are all under the neoliberal umbrella.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

[–] AnomalousBit@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wow, that is not what I expected Neoliberalism to mean. Thank you for the lesson. When I read about Neo-(x-political-term) I generally think of new ideas around it, not ideas reaching back to WWII. My biggest concern after reading your link is:

The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is often used pejoratively.

Also, the last few paragraphs of Current Usage emphasize it's use as a dog whistle:

"Several writers have criticized the term "neoliberal" as an insult or slur used by leftists against liberals and varieties of liberalism that leftists disagree with."

and

"the word is nothing more than a political slur, or a term without any analytic power"

I still think it would serve us all to be more precise about what exactly is failing us.

[–] RickRussell_CA@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago

I think that in the minds of Friedman, Hayek, Mises et. al. (who coined the term neoliberal after WW2), it was meant to marry modern pro-market economic ideas (the "neo" part) with classically liberal social ideals, reaching back to the Enlightenment. I think they intended it as a counter to socialism, which combined anti-market ideas with regressive ideas around social and civil liberty (at least, in practical application in the wake of WW2).

But yes, in modern parlance it is often a slur aimed at pro-corporate capitalist kleptocracy.

[–] Piers@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

When I read about Neo-(x-political-term) I generally think of new ideas around it, not ideas reaching back to WWII.

Everything was new at some point. Things are named relative to when they happen, not relative to when you hear about them.

[–] brenno@lemmy.brennoflavio.com.br 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Important to mention that Neoliberalism is a therm not really used by people by people who defend liberty, capitalism and free market policies. It's not something academic for example. Basically you won't find liberals calling themselves neoliberals.

It is often used by people that does not agree with liberalism, sometimes in a pejorative way, other times to aggregate a group of heterogeneous people, and sometimes mixing different policies and aspects of modern western societies.

Citing the Wikipedia article that explains and has sources on this:

The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is often used pejoratively.[21][22] English speakers have used the term since the start of the 20th century with different meanings.[23] However, it became more prevalent in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s; it is used by scholars in a wide variety of social sciences,[24][25][26] as well as by critics,[27][28][29] to describe the transformation of society in recent decades due to market-based reforms.[30] The term is rarely used by proponents of free-market policies.[31] Some scholars reject the idea that neoliberalism is a monolithic ideology and have described the term as meaning different things to different people as neoliberalism has mutated into multiple, geopolitically distinct hybrids as it propagated around the world.[32][33][34] Neoliberalism shares many attributes with other concepts that have contested meanings, including representative democracy.[35]

[–] RickRussell_CA@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean, sure, the term can be misused. But "neoliberal" was adopted by Hayek, Mises, Friedman et. al. to describe their philosophy of liberty, capitalism, and free market policies. So it's not completely inappropriate to associate "neoliberal" with those principles.

[–] brenno@lemmy.brennoflavio.com.br 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Do you have sources on this? I did a quick research and the only thing that I found was this article that argues that Neoliberalism definition changed over time and it would be an anachronism to take how the therm is used today (for example in this post) to define what they mean at the time, and the closest definition for them would be liberals, not neoliberals anymore. Which is totally fine given the time that has passed, and specially how political definitions are hard to define without context (example on how we consider left and right nowadays and 200 years ago for example, its not the same ideas)

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/history-of-neoliberal-meaning/528276/

[–] RickRussell_CA@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoliberalism/

This entry explicates neoliberalism by examining the political concepts, principles, and policies shared by F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and James Buchanan, all of whom play leading roles in the new historical research on neoliberalism, and all of whom wrote in political philosophy as well as political economy. Identifying common themes in their work provides an illuminating picture of neoliberalism as a coherent political doctrine.

...

But several recent book-length treatments of neoliberalism (Burgin 2012; Biebricher 2018; Slobodian 2018; Whyte 2019) have helped give form to an arguably inchoate political concept. As Quinn Slobodian argues,

in the last decade, extraordinary efforts have been made to historicize neoliberalism and its prescriptions for global governance, and to transform the “political swearword” or “anti-liberal slogan” into a subject of rigorous archival research. (2018: 3)

Along similar lines, Thomas Biebricher (2018: 8–9) argues that neoliberalism no longer faces greater analytic hurdles than other political positions like conservatism or socialism.

In light of this recent historical work, we are now in a position to understand neoliberalism as a distinctive political theory. Neoliberalism holds that a society’s political and economic institutions should be robustly liberal and capitalist, but supplemented by a constitutionally limited democracy and a modest welfare state. Neoliberals endorse liberal rights and the free-market economy to protect freedom and promote economic prosperity. Neoliberals are broadly democratic, but stress the limitations of democracy as much as its necessity. And while neoliberals typically think government should provide social insurance and public goods, they are skeptical of the regulatory state, extensive government spending, and government-led countercyclical policy. Thus, neoliberalism is no mere economic doctrine.

... etc ...

[–] gamey@feddit.rocks 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The actual work of Milton Friedman and co. should work best for that, they don't hide it! ;)

[–] RickRussell_CA@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

"Neoliberalism and Its Prospects". 1951

https://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/57816

[–] gayhitler420@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

You won’t find liberals calling themselves neoliberals because the term itself was always used to refer to anticommunism after the defeat of the axis powers.