Re: "neo-liberal" Re: [xmca]schools-without-computers-by-choice-and-conviction-that-they-dont-help-kids

[Bill Kerr <billkerr@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 6:55 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>wrote:

(moving to this thread)
>
>
> On 31 October 2011 00:45, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
> > C'mon Huw! :) "Neo-liberal" is an extremely common term in public
> > discourse here in Australia. Of course I can't answer for the US, even
> > though the ideas arrived here from the US. Here's the Wikipedia entry:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism which shows its specific
> > meanings in a number of different countries. I would say that the term
> came
> > in in the wake of the failure of both Keynes and Milton Friedman, though
> > the notion is very sympathetic to Milton Friedman's ideology, but not so
> > closely associated with control of the macro-economic levers by central
> > government. Part of the difficulty of accepting the term in the US may be
> > the use of "liberal" as a term of abuse by those who are in fact
> > "neo-liberals". The ideas are native to the US but the choice of word is
> > somewhat "un-American." :)
>

Naomi Klein in *Shock Doctrine* says the in the US the word is
neoconservatism

*This liberation from all constraints is, in essence, Chicago School
econom­ics (otherwise known as neoliberalism or, in the U.S.,
neoconservatism): not some new invention but capitalism stripped of its
Keynesian appendages*
*(p. 253)*



> >
> > Andy
> >
> >
> Yes, I briefly checked the wiki link.  Re, "As such, the term is not
> associated with any definite ideology and is usually used accusingly and
> derogatorily against others, rather than as a self-label."
>
> Which is consistent with (the political) polluting of the usage of "neo"
> and "liberal".  It might be more honest to say "fake liberal", only that
> would be more constructive, rather than using it to accuse someone (or
> something) as belonging to an ideology that is ill thought out whilst,
> apparently, imputing the stupidity of the term to the target of one's woe.
>
> If its an ill-thought name at the vanguard of thinking that cannot attain
> to constructive use, why bother with it?
>

Milton Friedman in *Capitalism and Freedom* claims that his use of the word
liberalism (not neoliberalism) is consistent with 19C usage but that
unfortunately the word liberalism has had its meaning changed (but
nevertheless he sticks to using it in the absence of a better alternative):

*The nineteenth-century liberal regarded an extension of freedom as the
most effective way to promote welfare and equality; the twentieth-century
liberal regards welfare and equality as either prerequisites of or
alternatives to freedom. In the name of welfare and equality, the
twentieth-century liberal has come to favor a revival of the very policies
of state intervention and paternalism against which classical liberalism
fought. In the very act of turning the clock back to seventeenth-century
mercantilism, he is fond of castigating true liberals as reactionary!*
*(p. 13)*


So, yes, Huw, the word neoliberalism is a word invented by others to either
describe or abuse Friedman. He self described as in the 19C liberal
tradition.

I found this page useful and entertaining (but not sure how accurate) in
describing some differences between Adam Smith liberal and Milton Friedman
(neo) liberal, http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/neoliberalism.html



> Huw
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