Rough but edited (and significantly expanded) lecture transcript. Part of Econ 135: The History of Economic Growth Course Unit 5. After Neoliberalism Comes "Polycrisis": extra-economic dimensions...
I like this analysis a lot, but I do have a couple of disagreements. First, as I said in a comment on a previous post, I don't think there are any legitimate populists. The vast majority of "populism" is merely rhetorical, designed to bring the "populist" into power so that he and his friends can be in charge instead of that other guy and his friends. There could hardly be any better recent example than Trump, who relies on false promises to solve everyday problems combined with racist, misogynist, and other bigoted promises that play to fear of the "other". It's the same strategy we saw in the original Populist movement, in the Jim Crow South, in Italy in 1922, in Germany in 1933, in Hungary and India recently, and elsewhere. The only question is exactly where Trumpism will land on that spectrum, and there is no landing place that allows for much hope in the near future.
The other dispute involves a conclusion that I've come to only recently and with a great deal of regret. I now think that capitalism and democracy are incompatible. The reason is that capitalism creates two major problems. You identified the inequality arising from Neo-Liberalism so I don't need to add anything here. But the other problem is that capitalism creates enormous uncertainty in the population at large: is my job secure? am I keeping up with my neighbors? are "those people" getting stuff that I deserve and they don't? Etc. That uncertainty translates very readily into fear. And whether fear leads to hate or fear is the mind killer, the result either way is an emotion which pseudo-populists and actual fascists can exploit.
I'd like to be optimistic here, if for no other reason than I want my grandchildren to live in a decent world, but right now I'm not. There were too many missed opportunities in the past 16 years and it's hard to see how we can get those back.
I fear the term 'neo-liberal' will confuse future students for at least a century. Were the ideas new or liberal? No, it was just a cynical label. Surely a better term can be created.
It's a major conundrum. It takes a fair amount of education to grok "neo-liberalism," and, under "neo-liberalism," we've both rationed and embarrassed education. But calling the policies "capitalist" is, while cleaner, crude-sounding, thanks again in some part to "neo-liberalism" itself. Without efficient labels, how can we hope to win in the new media ecology, with its premiums on brevity and emotionality?
I agree that 'capitalist' is too vague. The economic theory is closer to neo-classical, but more ruthless (reactionary classical?, reactionary econ?). The thinker who might best be credited with it is Friedman (Friedmanism?). I don't like any of them, and defer to smarter people.
At the level of politics, I wonder if "Reaganite" might not be best, at least in the USA. "Neoliberal" just seems to airy and faceless, as well as snooty.
I was struck by your framing of Neo-Liberalism as being anti-big: big government, big business, big labor. I think is quite correct for early neo-liberals. People like Knight, Lippman, and Simons (maybe Viner).
But something happens along the way, and neo-liberalism drops its aversion to big business by the 70's. Reagan is clearly anti-government, anti-labor. But in the background, he is anti anti-trust.
Contrast this with Simon's manifesto (from Wikipedia): A Positive Program for Laissez Faire (1934) : “Eliminate all forms of monopolistic market power, to include the breakup of large oligopolistic corporations and application of antitrust laws to labor unions. A Federal incorporation law could be used to limit corporation size and where technology required giant firms for reasons of low-cost production the Federal government should own and operate them... Promote economic stability by reform of the monetary system and establishment of stable rules for monetary policy... Reform the tax system and promote equity through income tax... Abolish all tariffs... Limit waste by restricting advertising and other wasteful merchandising practices.”
Thus, by the 70's we get a bastard version of neo-liberalism, that is in fact not neo-liberal or classical liberal at all. Simmon’s antipathy to big business is replaced with the Powell memo and Rehnquist. Note also Simmon’s antipathy to advertising (hard not to hear the voice of Veblen here). Try to imagine 20th and 21st century media without the influence of corporate advertising. Remember also Lippmann’s caustic critique of mass media. No real need to turn to Frankfurt School here.
I think you're right about the need to review our communications habits, but I also fear that doing so requires the very well-informed, non-splintering mass movement that may be impossible now, inside the media and power ecology that we have, under intensely sponsored encouragement, permitted to form around us. (I'd add Neil Postman to your list on that topic.) Elsewhere, I'd also mention Anthony Giddens, who saw the culture war as deep (coming from economic wealth and contraception/feminism) and global and prone to provoking backlashes. I also fear the ironic underbelly of the old "culture of poverty" claptrap: culture does build up and does matter and does take time to un-wreck. If we keep stupefying and scaring ourselves, leave most people with only minimal K12 tools, and continue turning our universities into techno-medical institutes, we may be toast at the level of collective ideation.
Brad, IMO, you’ve done a great job with several sections of your lecture. However, you’re teaching the “college-educated elite.” Because of that I worry that you may be giving them a skewed perspective—that of a prosperous, highly educated macroeconomist who has little personal experience with people unlike himself. Some of your comments about “loss of privilege,” the inflation recovery ,and the stock market suggest to me that you don’t know people in rural or Rust Belt areas or the “non-college-educated class” in general. It’s not just that they get lies for news.
I commented to an earlier post of yours and suggested you read Sohrab Ahmari’s “Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty—and What to Do About It.” It’s a condemnation of neoliberalism from a conservative. Today I read an article by Dana Milbank that very well summaries the same issue and the problems it’s caused: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/29/democrats-working-people/. From the article: “For nearly a half century, and particularly over the past two decades, corporate America has plunged workers ever deeper into job and income insecurity. Employers, benefiting from weakened labor laws and lax enforcement of those that remain on the books, have been forcing workers into erratic schedules, hiring them as contractors or temporary or gig workers and stealing their wages… Wealth inequality has soared, earnings have become less dependable, and most workers report that they feel stressed, unappreciated, disconnected and distrustful of their employers. They are surveilled on the job, sanctioned for expressing themselves and subjected to dehumanizing workplaces.”
Yes, I agree that the present communication system stinks. However, it’s not the only thing that does. So does a political/capitalist system that rewards mainly the rich and powerful. People have long memories. And, as you and Dr. Shklar suggested, people need security and many have not found it in the neoliberal political/capitalist system. Neoliberalism helped the rich and powerful 0.1%, but also did not hurt the next 9.9%, which you and I and most of your readers are part of. We were especially helped during Clinton’s administration. The remaining 90% suffered. See “The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/ for a great discussion of this. In 2018, Matthew Stewert outlined what is now known as the “college-educated elite.”
The Great Recession seems to have added more fuel to that fear. Obama’s unwillingness to help the myriad people who lost their jobs and/or homes, while the people who caused the crash walked off with slaps on the wrist and more money “in order to save the economy” showed many that our democratic system was broken --government has been taken over by the rich and powerful. I blame the problem on how corporations are incorporated and financed and how they, in turn, fund politicians and then write the laws the politicians pass. I understand why people want drastic change in government and the economy. So do I. Do you have any suggestions for how this can be changed?
BDL's assumption that the neoliberal era has ended, that we've moved into Gramsci's in-between, feels suspect. An overriding pillar of the era was shaping government to support the purposes of the "free market" (aka that of the corporate and wealthy elite), It seems that trend will likely continue under Trump, even evolving to some newer, higher level—kleptocracy perhaps. The neoliberal era also meant hostility to unions, business deregulation, privatization of public assets, outsourcing of gov't services. I'd expect that to all continue and grow under Team Trump, seeking to profit from all the above.
I like this analysis a lot, but I do have a couple of disagreements. First, as I said in a comment on a previous post, I don't think there are any legitimate populists. The vast majority of "populism" is merely rhetorical, designed to bring the "populist" into power so that he and his friends can be in charge instead of that other guy and his friends. There could hardly be any better recent example than Trump, who relies on false promises to solve everyday problems combined with racist, misogynist, and other bigoted promises that play to fear of the "other". It's the same strategy we saw in the original Populist movement, in the Jim Crow South, in Italy in 1922, in Germany in 1933, in Hungary and India recently, and elsewhere. The only question is exactly where Trumpism will land on that spectrum, and there is no landing place that allows for much hope in the near future.
The other dispute involves a conclusion that I've come to only recently and with a great deal of regret. I now think that capitalism and democracy are incompatible. The reason is that capitalism creates two major problems. You identified the inequality arising from Neo-Liberalism so I don't need to add anything here. But the other problem is that capitalism creates enormous uncertainty in the population at large: is my job secure? am I keeping up with my neighbors? are "those people" getting stuff that I deserve and they don't? Etc. That uncertainty translates very readily into fear. And whether fear leads to hate or fear is the mind killer, the result either way is an emotion which pseudo-populists and actual fascists can exploit.
I'd like to be optimistic here, if for no other reason than I want my grandchildren to live in a decent world, but right now I'm not. There were too many missed opportunities in the past 16 years and it's hard to see how we can get those back.
I fear the term 'neo-liberal' will confuse future students for at least a century. Were the ideas new or liberal? No, it was just a cynical label. Surely a better term can be created.
It's a major conundrum. It takes a fair amount of education to grok "neo-liberalism," and, under "neo-liberalism," we've both rationed and embarrassed education. But calling the policies "capitalist" is, while cleaner, crude-sounding, thanks again in some part to "neo-liberalism" itself. Without efficient labels, how can we hope to win in the new media ecology, with its premiums on brevity and emotionality?
I agree that 'capitalist' is too vague. The economic theory is closer to neo-classical, but more ruthless (reactionary classical?, reactionary econ?). The thinker who might best be credited with it is Friedman (Friedmanism?). I don't like any of them, and defer to smarter people.
At the level of politics, I wonder if "Reaganite" might not be best, at least in the USA. "Neoliberal" just seems to airy and faceless, as well as snooty.
Yes, though it would be good to have a term that applied to Europe.
I was struck by your framing of Neo-Liberalism as being anti-big: big government, big business, big labor. I think is quite correct for early neo-liberals. People like Knight, Lippman, and Simons (maybe Viner).
But something happens along the way, and neo-liberalism drops its aversion to big business by the 70's. Reagan is clearly anti-government, anti-labor. But in the background, he is anti anti-trust.
Contrast this with Simon's manifesto (from Wikipedia): A Positive Program for Laissez Faire (1934) : “Eliminate all forms of monopolistic market power, to include the breakup of large oligopolistic corporations and application of antitrust laws to labor unions. A Federal incorporation law could be used to limit corporation size and where technology required giant firms for reasons of low-cost production the Federal government should own and operate them... Promote economic stability by reform of the monetary system and establishment of stable rules for monetary policy... Reform the tax system and promote equity through income tax... Abolish all tariffs... Limit waste by restricting advertising and other wasteful merchandising practices.”
Thus, by the 70's we get a bastard version of neo-liberalism, that is in fact not neo-liberal or classical liberal at all. Simmon’s antipathy to big business is replaced with the Powell memo and Rehnquist. Note also Simmon’s antipathy to advertising (hard not to hear the voice of Veblen here). Try to imagine 20th and 21st century media without the influence of corporate advertising. Remember also Lippmann’s caustic critique of mass media. No real need to turn to Frankfurt School here.
I think you're right about the need to review our communications habits, but I also fear that doing so requires the very well-informed, non-splintering mass movement that may be impossible now, inside the media and power ecology that we have, under intensely sponsored encouragement, permitted to form around us. (I'd add Neil Postman to your list on that topic.) Elsewhere, I'd also mention Anthony Giddens, who saw the culture war as deep (coming from economic wealth and contraception/feminism) and global and prone to provoking backlashes. I also fear the ironic underbelly of the old "culture of poverty" claptrap: culture does build up and does matter and does take time to un-wreck. If we keep stupefying and scaring ourselves, leave most people with only minimal K12 tools, and continue turning our universities into techno-medical institutes, we may be toast at the level of collective ideation.
Brad, IMO, you’ve done a great job with several sections of your lecture. However, you’re teaching the “college-educated elite.” Because of that I worry that you may be giving them a skewed perspective—that of a prosperous, highly educated macroeconomist who has little personal experience with people unlike himself. Some of your comments about “loss of privilege,” the inflation recovery ,and the stock market suggest to me that you don’t know people in rural or Rust Belt areas or the “non-college-educated class” in general. It’s not just that they get lies for news.
I commented to an earlier post of yours and suggested you read Sohrab Ahmari’s “Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty—and What to Do About It.” It’s a condemnation of neoliberalism from a conservative. Today I read an article by Dana Milbank that very well summaries the same issue and the problems it’s caused: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/29/democrats-working-people/. From the article: “For nearly a half century, and particularly over the past two decades, corporate America has plunged workers ever deeper into job and income insecurity. Employers, benefiting from weakened labor laws and lax enforcement of those that remain on the books, have been forcing workers into erratic schedules, hiring them as contractors or temporary or gig workers and stealing their wages… Wealth inequality has soared, earnings have become less dependable, and most workers report that they feel stressed, unappreciated, disconnected and distrustful of their employers. They are surveilled on the job, sanctioned for expressing themselves and subjected to dehumanizing workplaces.”
Yes, I agree that the present communication system stinks. However, it’s not the only thing that does. So does a political/capitalist system that rewards mainly the rich and powerful. People have long memories. And, as you and Dr. Shklar suggested, people need security and many have not found it in the neoliberal political/capitalist system. Neoliberalism helped the rich and powerful 0.1%, but also did not hurt the next 9.9%, which you and I and most of your readers are part of. We were especially helped during Clinton’s administration. The remaining 90% suffered. See “The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/ for a great discussion of this. In 2018, Matthew Stewert outlined what is now known as the “college-educated elite.”
The Great Recession seems to have added more fuel to that fear. Obama’s unwillingness to help the myriad people who lost their jobs and/or homes, while the people who caused the crash walked off with slaps on the wrist and more money “in order to save the economy” showed many that our democratic system was broken --government has been taken over by the rich and powerful. I blame the problem on how corporations are incorporated and financed and how they, in turn, fund politicians and then write the laws the politicians pass. I understand why people want drastic change in government and the economy. So do I. Do you have any suggestions for how this can be changed?
BDL's assumption that the neoliberal era has ended, that we've moved into Gramsci's in-between, feels suspect. An overriding pillar of the era was shaping government to support the purposes of the "free market" (aka that of the corporate and wealthy elite), It seems that trend will likely continue under Trump, even evolving to some newer, higher level—kleptocracy perhaps. The neoliberal era also meant hostility to unions, business deregulation, privatization of public assets, outsourcing of gov't services. I'd expect that to all continue and grow under Team Trump, seeking to profit from all the above.