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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   29663 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 2024

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The term "neo-liberal" originates from a 1951 Milton Friedman essay, Neo-Liberalism and its Prospects.

...A new faith must avoid both errors. It must give high place to a severe limitation on the power of the state to interfere in the detailed activities of individuals; at the same time, it must explicitly recognize that there are important positive functions that must be performed by the state. The doctrine sometimes called neo-liberalism which has been developing more or less simultaneously in many parts of the world and which in America is associated particularly with the name of Henry Simons is such a faith. No one can say that this doctrine will triumph. One can only say that it is many ways ideally suited to fill the vacuum that seems to me to be developing in the beliefs of intellectual classes the world over. Neo-liberalism would accept the nineteenth century liberal emphasis on the fundamental importance of the individual, but it would substitute for the nineteenth century goal of laissez- faire as a means to this end, the goal of the competitive order. It would seek to use competition among producers to protect consumers from exploitation, competition among employers to protect workers and owners of property, and competition among consumers to protect the enterprises themselves. The state would police the system, establish conditions favorable to competition and prevent monopoly, provide a stable monetary framework, and relieve acute misery and distress. The citizens would be protected against the state by the existence of a free private market; and against one another by the preservation of competition. The detailed program designed to implement this vision cannot be described in full here. But it may be well to expand a bit on the functions that would be exercised by the state, since this is the respect in which it differs most from both 19th century individualism and collectivism. The state would of course have the function of maintaining law and order and of engaging in “public works” of the classical variety. But beyond this it would have the function of providing a framework within which free competition could flourish and the price system operate effectively. This involves two major tasks: first, the preservation of freedom to establish enterprises in any field, to enter any profession or occupation; second, the provision of monetary stability....

I agree that afterwards, it has became a poorly defined slur, used most often by leftist academics opposed to neoliberalism and adopted by nearly no one.

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