Wednesday, April 12th, 2017
Stephan: Neoliberalism is a Republican policy world view that seems to be grossly misunderstood. Today I heard someone use it in the sense of "new liberalism." The person speaking clearly believed it was socially progressive. It is, in fact, a philosophy of governance that was a major factor in what caused the American middle class to implode. Here is a good exegetic essay on how that happened. When you hear the word neoliberalism, just substitute the word "greed," because that is the essence of neoliberalism. On the basis of social outcome data Republican governance is more expensive, less productive, and less pleasant to live under.
If you’re a middle-class American baby boomer or Gen Xer, you might have spent much of the past decade wondering what went wrong. If you’re a boomer, there’s a good chance you’re still working well after you thought you’d retire.
And if you’re part of Generation X, you’re probably less wealthy than your parents were at the same age. Meanwhile, all across the U.S., pension funds are underfunded and will almost certainly have to default on some of their obligations to retirees.
It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, middle-class Americans looked forward to a future of wealth and leisure. If you were a small-business owner, or an engineer, or a lawyer at a small firm, you might not have expected to be rolling in it, but you probably didn’t think things would go so badly awry.
Who’s responsible? Who took your prosperity? Donald Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro might tell you it was China, while his political aide Steve Bannon might tell you it was immigrants. Free-market think-tank types might tell […]
The Mono Party, consisting of both Democrats and Republicans, took it in the name of globalism.