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In the spirit of continuing last weeks discussion, and the suggestion by @georgioz to define an exonym like Neoliberalism versus one that is more divisive such as fascism. The term "neoliberal" was first used as a pejorative term by the socialist left to describe US economic policy as far back as the 1930's, however, its was quickly defined in 1951 by Milton Friedman arguably the best known neoliberal, who proudly took the definition and ran with it, which has continued to the current day. This has not stopped it from being used, primarily by the left as a slur--some prose examples are Cornell West calling Ta'Nehisi Coates a neoliberal for his lack of criticism of wall street. To me, there are 5 key features of a neoliberal, they are as follows:
Some studies have indicated that those describing themselves as neoliberal tend to score higher in areas such as self-efficacy, self-esteem, self-reliance, but have poorer health outcomes. Similar to the term "capitalist" which also was used as a slur by the socialist left for those interested in free trade and private profits, it was adopted to describe those who were unapologetically "pro-business", specifically large business and unfettered economic growth through almost any means possible.
I would argue that neoliberal has more meaning than some of the terms we discussed last week because its proponents have actively adopted it and have proudly worn the label for decades. More importantly, the vast majority of both proponents and detractors would largely agree on its definition, while other terms like woke, fascist, etc are more commonly used as a slur than a self descriptor, thus have had significant "definition creep".
What are your thoughts?
Hmm. Can you remind me of the point being made here? You're trying to differentiate neoliberal as an exonym from woke because people accept the label neoliberal but not woke? If that's the case then suppose nothing at all changes about the population, you still have people who believe and espouse every bit of this cluster's beliefs but refuse to accept any label. These neoliberals were highly related, constantly quoting each other and repeating each other's arguments. When you met someone who was in favor of one of these policies you knew with a 95% chance they'd support all the other policies but they just insisted there was no legitimate way to refer to their memeplex. What would you do then? Until we can square that circle I'm not sure what the point of the comparison is or even what your point is. If woke isn't meaningful then what can I call the highly correlated cluster of beliefs?
On the level of criticism of your definition of neoliberal I think you have some sneer phrases baked in. Few like to be associated with the phrase "trickle down" preferring something like supply side policies. "Too big to fail" also has some negative connotations. A neoliberal would say it was a policy failure to let banks become too big to fail but bailouts were still the prudent option given the circumstances, truncating it to that is ignoring important parts of their understanding of the events and their real concern for moral hazard. Neoliberal tends to approximately map to neoclassical economics, basically Adam Smith but with modern economic modeling.
The point is that unlike terms such as "woke" or "fascist", "neoliberal" label is more likely to accurately describe the person being mentioned than the first two. This is despite the "neoliberal" label being an exonym, and the reason for this is that it was widely adopted as a term by the people being described by it. This isn't really happening with "woke", especially now.
I think something more descriptive such as "social justice warriors", "DEI proponents" or "applied intersectionality" would be much more apt. It also is more likely to be used by those people to describe themselves.
I think this is a very prescient critique and you are correct, "trickle down" and "too big to fail" are indeed sneer terms. Your alternative of "supply side" are not just less loaded, but are also more descriptive in an academic sense. I'm not sure if there is an alternative term outside of the longer summary of that neoliberal position that you described above--but your point stands.
I guess I have some problems with these as alternatives. Of them only really SJW selects the whole of the blob and I think it'd have the same problem of being rejected as a label by many that it fits if for no other reason that it's a kind of silly formulation. I don't know how long you've been aware of this particular naming dispute but there was a move to call them social justice activists which I'm happy to use but never really got wide adoption. I suspect because it's a mouthful.
The problem, I think, is that this blob intentionally wants to resist being named because it wants to assert its contentious beliefs as normal, the null hypothesis of ideologies. This is a very privileged and powerful position to be in. It lets them stake out radical positions and if those positions prove disastrous it doesn't taint the rest of the ideology. They don't want the failure of things like "defund the police", a sentiment widely shared by adherents of this blob, to color people's perception on the other ideas they propose.
I guess my question for you is do you deny the existence of this blob entirely? As in do you deny that there is a large contingent of people on the left that are bought into nearly every radical left leaning position including but not limited to:
If you point to a person with this perspective on any one of these issues I would bet they have something like a 95% chance to believe in every other. That's really seems like a group that I should be able to easily point to.
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I think thats a questionable mash-up. Neoliberalism started out with 1) and 2). In recent times, it means something more wonkish/technocratic, with lots of pigouvian taxes and subsidies, and generally in favour of redistribution. This is because the name stuck to an academic tradition more so than an ethical one, and the people who went into economics shifted over time.
Since OP mentioned Milton Friedman as the defining figure of neoliberalism—a characterization I mostly agree with, mind you—here’s what I think Friedman would have to say about the aforementioned 5 points:
Basically agree; Friedman did write a bit about social libertarianism here and there (in particular, I remember his opposition to the draft) but his focus was of course on free-market economics—which he saw as necessary but not sufficient for a liberal (in the European sense) political order.
Agree, but perhaps object to the somewhat-pejorative term “trickle-down economics”
Agree in principle, though in practice would be against so-called “free trade agreements” that are full of un-free pork-barrel incentives (see also: Friedman’s famous support of a negative income tax in theory, but opposition to the EITC in practice, on the grounds that he wanted to simultaneously get rid of all other federal welfare)
Mostly disagree, with perhaps some exceptions for national defense and alleviating the worst kinds of poverty (though on the latter point, he favored direct cash transfers). Certainly Friedman would not be in favor of industrial policy.
This would have Friedman spinning in his grave. The only remotely similar thing that Friedman would support is the government not allowing a massive contraction of the money supply, so as to avoid repeating the mistake of the Great Depression. But this is a far cry from “bailouts for companies”.
I’m not claiming that these 5 points are a bad definition of neoliberalism as it stands today, necessarily. It’s just that the definition of neoliberalism has shifted in a more interventionist and less free-market direction since Friedman’s time, due in large part, I think, to the kinds of personalities that go into academic economics and the attendant wonkish/“soft paternalist” culture that the field has adopted.
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You are just continuing to privilege your own perspective on any given term, above the term's actual history and usage.
Proponents of "woke" actively adopted it and wore it proudly for decades (though it did not "go viral" until more recently); many still wear it proudly today.
If a particular word is getting in the way of you making a substantive point clear, then by all means, taboo it. But very close to nobody is confused by the use of words like woke, fascist, or neoliberal. If those words are being used in a merely pejorative way, the audience generally understands this, whether or not they can articulate it. If I say "Hitler was a Nazi," essentially no one outside of small children and the mentally infirm is seriously confused if I later say "Obama is a Nazi." People will in general understand that the first claim is historical, and the second, rhetorical.
But deciding to taboo words should be something you do in the process of clarifying discourse on a particular point of substance. Sweeping declarations distinguishing "woke" and "fascist" from "neoliberal" would be inadvisable linguistic prescriptivism even if you had the facts and history right--and you don't even seem to have that going for you.
The same can be said for you and your argument.
And in my experience, a plurality of people feel that the word "woke" does not describe them accurately. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any polling on this at this time.
In example above, there have been instances of people calling both Bush and other republicans a nazi in an unironic way. Are you just going to ignore those instances because it does not jive with your argument? What would you call its use in those examples?
I don't think you have established with evidence, that the history of the terms differs from what I proposed. And the fact of the matter is that if you hear a hypothetical person described as "woke", "fascist" or "neoliberal", which is more likely to be an accurate description of the person when one knows little to no information about this hypothetical person? The term with the least amount of baggage. If someone is called a "neoliberal" the shoe probably fits at least to some extent. The same cannot be said for "woke" these days, nor fascist, which almost certainly is not accurate.
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