neo-liberalism explained...

 

THE FREE MARKET VS NEOLIBERALISM

I think it is important to make a clear distinction between 'free market' thinking and 'neo liberalism', as many people confuse the two. One reason for this is, neo liberals also strongly advocate for a 'free market' although this usually translates to wage suppression, 'liberal' work conditions and tax cuts, whilst expecting market regulation when it comes to providing a stable legal and transactional environment and of course, bailouts in a crisis.

Social democracies around the world utilise a mixed model, using liberal or 'free' market strategies to varying degrees, such as partial privatisation of state services or using market demand to stimulate the economy. For these practices to be classed as the fully fascistic form of capitalism; USA fundamentalist neoliberalism, the following conditions need to apply:

1. Fundamentalist neoliberalism is a predatory capitalist philosophy that only extends the ideal of market freedom to pursue profit without restraint, for the upper social class.

2. Fundamentalist neoliberalism means total and aggressive privatisation of all sectors, health education and infrastructure, amounting to a transfer of collective property to corporations.

3. Extreme individualism, or the cult of personal responsibility, is the guiding moral philosophy. This is designed to normalise the view that any help from the state is a 'moral hazard'.

4. The belief (this is the worse one) that poverty and the expansion of poverty is a force for social good upon which civilisation itself can be forged. Just as greed is good, so is poverty.

5. The criminalization of dissent and an over extended police force/military. Punitive policing and sanctions against beneficiaries goes hand in hand with a reduction of social support.

6. The denigration and suppression of intellectualism. The denial of emperical evidence, knowledge and research

7. Absolutism. Fundamentalist neo liberals say again and again , that their ideology is a perfect design. Any dilution of its purity through attempted social engineering is the only possibility of its failure. It is the only path to 'pure' civilisation.

I think it's part of the neo liberal myth and cult to attempt to blurr the lines between essentially predatory capitalist practice (Neo liberalism) and traditional variants of social democracy that designs a balance between the forces of enterprise and responsibilities to social and environmental costs via regulation.