Remember that famous scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail? The one where a man is pushing a cart full of bodies through a village during the plague crying, “Bring out your dead!” and someone deposits what he claims is a corpse, only for the body to cry out, “I’m not dead yet!”? Well, much the same could be said for neoliberalism, which is at peak opprobrium, and widely derided as a multi-decade failure that has produced Trump and populist backlash around the world. With the threat of trade and tariff wars looming larger than ever—amplified by the president-elect’s social media threats to slap 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico—the proverbial final nails appear to be headed into the neoliberal coffin.
Economic neoliberalism does not take into account that we're not playing on a level playing field. China builds things with slave labor, and no developed country can compete with that. The only pressure that can be realistically applied is economic. No sane country is going to challenge them militarily.
What this had done in the US and elsewhere is destroy not only communities and our manufacturing base, but the identity of the displaced workers. That has created the current populism here. One party is speaking to those workers and communities, one has not only turned its back on them, but it actively shames them. Whether it's nonsense like, "learn to code" or the dismissive, "flyover country", those people are justifiably angry.
What I'm still not getting is the rise of authoritarianism from an economic perspective. I have one mind that says autocrats are really just plutocrats working for other plutocrats to turn democracies into kleptocracies. But I am also of a mind that says people are confused and frightened by the rapid acceleration of change, and are looking for alpha males to make them feel safer. But if I also buy the plutocrat narrative, these people are being conned big time.
No of course it's not dead and it didn't fail. It succeeded beyond its wildest dreams. And the best—domestic austerity, plutocracy, social contraction the likes of which we haven't seen since Dickens breathed—is yet to come. Hayek said that all collective activity leads to fascism. Oh how he projected, how his accusations were confessions.
A problem with neoliberalism is that the mobility of capital is not matched by a mobility of labor. $$$ can go where labor is cheap but labor cannot go where pay is better. Hence the alleged US "border crisis". And the huge income gaps which you note in your piece (left behind workers, etc). I think 1990s neoliberalism is actually quite dead, at least politically. But trade agreements advantageous to big investors will undoubtedly continue. Also, world incomes rose at the same time as neoliberalism spread as you noted, but correlation is not causation. Democracy also spread (with notable reverses), as did technology and productivity. New markets opened and flourished despite, not because of the grinding pressure of rentier style capitalism at top. Still the rentier capitalists expanded control of world markets to the point where, world wide, a couple of 1000 multimillionaires and billionaires now own a controlling share of the world's individual housing stock. This is a trend neoliberalism emphatically supported. It's alive and well while the ideology that spawned it fades and goes dark. Tariffs don't touch the people at the top. I.e. the successes of neoliberalism accrued mostly to the 1%, as they did before the ideology and as they will after, if present trends continue (as they almost certainly will).
Depends on one's definition of neoliberalism I guess. If by neoliberalism you simply mean globalization in general, you are correct. But if by neoliberalism you mean rigged trade deals, crushing debt slavery and usury, literal chattel slavery, "structural adjustment programs", "austerity", union-busting, privatization of everything, and the ravenous pillaging and plundering the Global South (while hollowing out the Global North's working class), all for the benefit of the global oligarchy, then that's basically Reverse Robin Hood Economics. That is, rob from the poor, give to the rich, and torpedo the middle class. It's the same old "trickle down" scam, only now on a global scale. And that's NOT a good thing!
What we need to move towards is what is known as "alter-globalization", that is, genuinely free AND fair trade.
But I do believe tariffs are like applying leeches to cure anemia.
The incoming administration isn’t out to undo free trade with tariffs. They are looking to get rich from granting exemptions to said tariffs.
Indeed. They want rigged trade for their own benefit, kind of like, well, the very same neoliberalism they claim to dislike.
Respectfully...
Economic neoliberalism does not take into account that we're not playing on a level playing field. China builds things with slave labor, and no developed country can compete with that. The only pressure that can be realistically applied is economic. No sane country is going to challenge them militarily.
What this had done in the US and elsewhere is destroy not only communities and our manufacturing base, but the identity of the displaced workers. That has created the current populism here. One party is speaking to those workers and communities, one has not only turned its back on them, but it actively shames them. Whether it's nonsense like, "learn to code" or the dismissive, "flyover country", those people are justifiably angry.
China does not use “slave labor.” In fact, its workers now earn average wages well above many other countries. Just less than in US/EU
China most certainly does.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/against-their-will-the-situation-in-xinjiang
https://www.state.gov/forced-labor-in-chinas-xinjiang-region/
https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/country-studies/china/
Exactly! And such slavery is a NEGATIVE-sum game for all but the oligarchs.
Thanks..helpful perspective.
What I'm still not getting is the rise of authoritarianism from an economic perspective. I have one mind that says autocrats are really just plutocrats working for other plutocrats to turn democracies into kleptocracies. But I am also of a mind that says people are confused and frightened by the rapid acceleration of change, and are looking for alpha males to make them feel safer. But if I also buy the plutocrat narrative, these people are being conned big time.
No of course it's not dead and it didn't fail. It succeeded beyond its wildest dreams. And the best—domestic austerity, plutocracy, social contraction the likes of which we haven't seen since Dickens breathed—is yet to come. Hayek said that all collective activity leads to fascism. Oh how he projected, how his accusations were confessions.
BINGO
A problem with neoliberalism is that the mobility of capital is not matched by a mobility of labor. $$$ can go where labor is cheap but labor cannot go where pay is better. Hence the alleged US "border crisis". And the huge income gaps which you note in your piece (left behind workers, etc). I think 1990s neoliberalism is actually quite dead, at least politically. But trade agreements advantageous to big investors will undoubtedly continue. Also, world incomes rose at the same time as neoliberalism spread as you noted, but correlation is not causation. Democracy also spread (with notable reverses), as did technology and productivity. New markets opened and flourished despite, not because of the grinding pressure of rentier style capitalism at top. Still the rentier capitalists expanded control of world markets to the point where, world wide, a couple of 1000 multimillionaires and billionaires now own a controlling share of the world's individual housing stock. This is a trend neoliberalism emphatically supported. It's alive and well while the ideology that spawned it fades and goes dark. Tariffs don't touch the people at the top. I.e. the successes of neoliberalism accrued mostly to the 1%, as they did before the ideology and as they will after, if present trends continue (as they almost certainly will).
Depends on one's definition of neoliberalism I guess. If by neoliberalism you simply mean globalization in general, you are correct. But if by neoliberalism you mean rigged trade deals, crushing debt slavery and usury, literal chattel slavery, "structural adjustment programs", "austerity", union-busting, privatization of everything, and the ravenous pillaging and plundering the Global South (while hollowing out the Global North's working class), all for the benefit of the global oligarchy, then that's basically Reverse Robin Hood Economics. That is, rob from the poor, give to the rich, and torpedo the middle class. It's the same old "trickle down" scam, only now on a global scale. And that's NOT a good thing!
What we need to move towards is what is known as "alter-globalization", that is, genuinely free AND fair trade.
But I do believe tariffs are like applying leeches to cure anemia.