Coombs wrote:
I'm not sure neoliberalism is a useful term at all. It's too unspecific in that we mostly talk about its effects, which are wildly different across the world. Financialization on Wall Street, manufacturing in China, what are we really talking about here?
Daz wrote:
@ Coombs
I understand your argument, but I disagree with your assertion that neoliberalism has ceased to be a useful term or that it's actual effects across the world are really all that 'wildly different'.
A big problem (which Burnwinter touched on) is that neoliberalism still tends to be viewed by many on the left (including Fraser from my brief reading)through a Marxist/neo-Marxist lens, where the focus is on neoliberalism as either economic theory or political ideology. Such 'pure' conceptualisations struggle to properly interrogate or understand what neoliberalism actually ends up looking like on the ground, after it has been forced to negotiate with political, cultural, historical and geographical realities (that's not to say that there aren't any really good neo-Marxist accounts kicking around, or that Marxist analysis has nothing to offer the debate).
Terrific couple of posts, guys.
Personally I think the term "neoliberalism" has become a real problem. It has to be weighed against the slightly less recent history to which it's held in contrast, which is the post-WWII "trente glorieuses" experienced in most of the developed world, a period during which the labour movement was still quite strong, economic inequality was less, key public amenities were either present or being established, and the foundation for the blossoming of womens' and race rights struggles was being laid.
The prevalent pejorative use of the term neoliberalism is therefore very strongly associated with a revanchism of the ideals of post-WWII social democracy through modern variants of its concepts like a UBI, Sanders' pledges on tuition, etc.
In the US from what I've seen, this reactionary tendency now has its political identity in the form of the DSA, and outlets like Jacobin as its intellectual vanguard.
It is telling, however, that this reaction also elides the less convenient points of the post-WWII covenant—its coexistence and dependence upon "racial capitalism" (as discussed by Brennan in her response to Fraser), and with economic exploitation overseas, and with a world economy from long before the current configuration of globalisation, where the production of most goods occurred domestically.
And how, because of this, this reaction also finds itself allied with a Trumpism-curious reconstructive left nationalism of a particularly toxic and delusional variety, one that finds itself willing to accede to "concerns" about immigration and asylum.
The way I see it the post-WWII prosperity about which this nostalgia exists, having the historical form of concessions won, and social infrastructure built for the masses originated in the decisive cowing of capital by destructive war and the relative strength and unity of the labour movement in industrial economies.
At the moment, we don't have the political tools to re-regulate capital in its metastasised, globalised, financialised and speculative form, and we can't build these tools within national political frameworks.
This, along with the fact that resurgent nationalism is the antithesis of any solution to global problems like those of climate change and human movement, is why I strongly advocate an anti-nationalist viewpoint, and why I don't have great faith in progressive parliamentary politics, whether it's Corbyn, or the Australian Greens, or the DSA or the Democrats, to deliver what we need.
