We live in an exceedingly unequal society which has long shown the trend of its life to be toward more and not less inequality, all as those who hold power are more openly contemptuous of doing anything to redress inequality than they have been in a very long time. Naturally those whose task it is to justify their ways to the public spend a lot of time trivializing that inequality's significance in the public mind. One common argument they make to this end holds that the poor aren't badly off materially, really. Only their pride suffers because "society" has placed less value on their contributions than, for example, that of such "geniuses" and "entrepreneurs" as Jeffrey Epstein and Elizabeth Holmes and the titans of shareholder activism--for where would the world be without them to LEAD!
However, contrary to this exceedingly stupid story so beloved by the psycho-babble addicts the reality is that the poor do suffer from much more than feeling "less than" (bad enough as that is), and not only psychically but materially. For contrary to what idiots who talk about a "knowledge economy" would have us believe we still live in a thoroughly material world where a great deal of old-fashioned toil is what keeps the world going round, physically tiring, dangerous, dirty, body-destroying work little relieved by the technological stagnation that has been the real legacy of our "entrepreneurs," excelling as they do not at the technological INNOVATION! they keep talking up, just the technological hype that endlessly proves to be all smoke and no fire. All as, of course, that same order of things has meant that those sneered-at working people bear the brunt of an economic situation in which the markets where they are required to meet their everyday needs for housing, health care and everything else are organized not around their demands as the "consumer is king" propaganda has it, but those of the rentiers and speculators who are the true kings here--all as, when these decide that for the moment the toil of said working folks is not required, the latter are thrown upon a social safety net said kings are eroding to nothing in the name of defending the Makers from the Takers.
Especially when faced with these particular circumstances it is easy to imagine that life's tolls will mount up faster for the have-nots than for the haves, that they will indeed age faster and die earlier--perhaps by a significant margin. And as it happens the scientific data testifying to the correctness of this expectation seems increasingly abundant, and much of it formidable. However, it also seems that a scientifically-based or scientist-endorsed "big picture" view is elusive, certainly if one equates such a picture with, for example, an estimate of how much more quickly the poor age, or how much "older" the latter are likely to be physically or mentally at a given point in their lives when compared with the better-off. Certainly the layperson who sifts the research can feel that the researchers are looking at lots and lots of trees without seriously trying to describe the forest--while the explanation that this is just a matter of scientists being rigorous in handling the data will not do. After all, said scientists are operating in a field where hucksterism and quackery run rampant, as one sees in the media's breathlessly reporting dubious results ("Studies show . . .) ever seized upon for the sake of selling half-baked diet and fitness plans. Rather the motivation would seem to be the politics of the matter, and specifically political squeamishness about scientists flatly telling "the poors" that "You're aging faster than the rich, you'll be old beyond your years at every stage of your life, and you'll die sooner."
Still, going by the studies I have seen I do not think it unreasonable to suggest that the gap between those who may be judged relatively poor and the relatively well-off numerous enough to be statistically measurable for the benefit of a study--not the super-rich with their weirdo Wellness-to-keep-us-alive-until-immortality-comes-along schemes but people we would probably think of as "middle class"--may have the former aging about ten percent faster than the latter. Now think about what that means in concrete terms. At the age of 62 the poorer man is apt to be physically and mentally functioning more like his better-off peer will at 68. At 67 he is likely to be functioning more like the other man will at 74--all as, less able to retire than his wealthier peer, he endures the greater discomfort of continuing in that job, starting with hauling himself out of bed to, perhaps, endure a long commute aboard an overcrowded bus such as his better-off peer would never have deigned to ride even in the years when their health and strength was at its peak. When he is actually 74 . . . well, at this rate he probably won't make it to 74.
None of this is obscure, but it is unpublicized by those who receive their brass checks for having made us, for example, think about Sydney Sweeney's political affiliation instead. Even so, I suspect that working people understand the reality all too well.
Thursday, September 18, 2025
Writing About Neoliberalism: Some Thoughts
Some years ago certain members of the commentariat began attacking the meaningfulness of the word "neoliberal" as a descriptor of economic policy, insisting it was an empty epithet. Initially seeming to me a very strange claim given that its use had long been established by that point it quickly became apparent that this was really an attack against those who criticized the economic policies of figures like Hillary Clinton or Britain's Blairites and preferred to them those of a Bernie Sanders, or a Jeremy Corbyn --a piece of bad faith hippie-punching by centrist political hacks who would likely never have dared attempt such against opponents who had a mainstream platform from which to fight back. Like Jonathan Chait. And Washington Monthly (of course) politics editor Bill Scher. And Nick Cohen (given space for the last in the Guardian, a reminder of where that paper really stands).
Still, considering the rancor it did seem to me that if they were false charges made in bad faith by political hacks users of the term were not invulnerable to it because of how theorists of the concept had explicated it in the past. Certainly such figures as a David Harvey, one of the principal popularizers of the concept, had provided a good deal of insight, not least in his important book A Brief History of Neoliberalism, reading which one understands that this was a particular program rooted in certain ideas and offering particular prescriptions (market fundamentalism, commending to the public deregulation and privatization, etc.) that, picked up and advanced as part of a right-wing political counter-offensive, changed economic life all over the world in significant ways, and in the process changed much else as well (not least in bringing about the postmodern "cultural condition" to which he had previously devoted a book). All the same, if getting much right there is much else that the conventional, short, explanation of the matter does not capture (many of those who explain neoliberalism miss or fail to properly stress the financialization that is fundamental to it, or to acknowledge, let alone reconcile, the libertarian and anti-statist theory and rhetoric with the reality of the massive state role in the model, e.g. less welfare for humans but more for corporations)--imperfections of which the centrists denying the concept's usefulness made the most. As this suggested broadly comprehensive explication of the concept and its various dimensions in a way that could really and truly be treated as a touchstone for those discussing the subject was scarce, in part because much of the work that would have enabled this seemed to have gone undone. Academics approaching the records of particular governments, or the functioning of economies, tended to write a lot about a very little, rather than vice-versa, in that way reflective of academic life encouraging and rewarding not those who deal with the basics on which everything else rests (like clear, strong and illuminating definitions), but those who do not worry overmuch about such matters as they set about specializing minutely, the more in as the appearance of rigor all too often counts for more than the reality. This is reflective, too, of how due to those same priorities, even after the specialists may have done very good work, few much concern themselves with "what it all means," as we can only hope to understand when someone bothers to try to produce a useful big picture from it--all as, I suspect, academics, perhaps not unnaturally for people who set store by ideas, tended to overrate the significance of these as against hard facts of power and material results in telling the story (looking too much at the musings of would-be philosophes, of whom they too often tend to be in awe, and too little at what the money men hoped to get).
To be entirely fair I do not know that the relevant scholars did a worse job with neoliberalism than they did anything else (these are, again, failures pervading the whole world of scholarship today), but these failures mattered the more precisely because the commentariat has been so hostile to their findings (such that, for example, those who criticized neoliberalism as neoliberalism had to defend their reasoning much more carefully than, for example, the Anti-Communist bashing that model). That encouraged me to try to work things out for myself--searching after a definition and description that would better account for just how contradiction-riddled (frankly, dishonest) the neoliberal Agenda was, and how the result did not go according to plan, but still represented a meaningful departure from what came before that could meaningfully be identified as neoliberalism. This extended to my examining the record of many "neoliberal" politicians in a comprehensive way (specifically Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama) to see whether their records did indeed correspond to the neoliberal line. It also extended to developing a conception of how the neoliberal model works in some detail and how neoliberalism was distinguishable not just from what I called "Keynesian Fordism,", but at the same time also from mere classical liberalism, or financialization for that matter; and empirically testing that model against the available statistical data using such metrics as investment, assets, trade, profits, central government-to-GDP ratios and much else to develop a picture of how policymakers and investors and the forces they unleashed restructured the U.S. economy in particular during the neoliberal era. It extended, too, to my using this understanding of neoliberalism to examine particular facets of the matter, like what neoliberalism has meant for the expectations and reality of technological innovation, and even the ways in which working people are living their lives (or finding themselves unable to do so).
To make a long story short I concluded that, yes, neoliberalism, complex as it may be, is indeed a sound, strong, useful concept for describing the economic thinking, policymaking, economic history of the last half century; that one can justly refer to the governments of the United States and Britain of this period as having been neoliberal governments, whose policies produced a distinct economic model, with great, varied, ubiquitous consequence extending into the cultural sphere. I don't know that I convinced anyone else of all this, but then I don't know that that was a realistic prospect. Again, those in the mainstream who put down the concept were doing so in bad faith, all as those who did find the concept useful didn't need convincing, as at any rate all this was probably a bit over the heads of the public, which online rarely looks at such things as working papers of any kind, let alone about such subjects as these. Still, even after many years of researching, thinking, revising as I researched and thought again I stand by the body of work I produced, and the position to which it led me, which is infinitely more than can be said for the brass check earners who fill up the opinion pages in the newspapers, magazines, wire services, news channels and web sites that command a totally unwarranted respect from people of conventional mind--all as it seems to me that a real understanding of neoliberalism is growing only more important as we try to make sense of where the world is headed now.
Still, considering the rancor it did seem to me that if they were false charges made in bad faith by political hacks users of the term were not invulnerable to it because of how theorists of the concept had explicated it in the past. Certainly such figures as a David Harvey, one of the principal popularizers of the concept, had provided a good deal of insight, not least in his important book A Brief History of Neoliberalism, reading which one understands that this was a particular program rooted in certain ideas and offering particular prescriptions (market fundamentalism, commending to the public deregulation and privatization, etc.) that, picked up and advanced as part of a right-wing political counter-offensive, changed economic life all over the world in significant ways, and in the process changed much else as well (not least in bringing about the postmodern "cultural condition" to which he had previously devoted a book). All the same, if getting much right there is much else that the conventional, short, explanation of the matter does not capture (many of those who explain neoliberalism miss or fail to properly stress the financialization that is fundamental to it, or to acknowledge, let alone reconcile, the libertarian and anti-statist theory and rhetoric with the reality of the massive state role in the model, e.g. less welfare for humans but more for corporations)--imperfections of which the centrists denying the concept's usefulness made the most. As this suggested broadly comprehensive explication of the concept and its various dimensions in a way that could really and truly be treated as a touchstone for those discussing the subject was scarce, in part because much of the work that would have enabled this seemed to have gone undone. Academics approaching the records of particular governments, or the functioning of economies, tended to write a lot about a very little, rather than vice-versa, in that way reflective of academic life encouraging and rewarding not those who deal with the basics on which everything else rests (like clear, strong and illuminating definitions), but those who do not worry overmuch about such matters as they set about specializing minutely, the more in as the appearance of rigor all too often counts for more than the reality. This is reflective, too, of how due to those same priorities, even after the specialists may have done very good work, few much concern themselves with "what it all means," as we can only hope to understand when someone bothers to try to produce a useful big picture from it--all as, I suspect, academics, perhaps not unnaturally for people who set store by ideas, tended to overrate the significance of these as against hard facts of power and material results in telling the story (looking too much at the musings of would-be philosophes, of whom they too often tend to be in awe, and too little at what the money men hoped to get).
To be entirely fair I do not know that the relevant scholars did a worse job with neoliberalism than they did anything else (these are, again, failures pervading the whole world of scholarship today), but these failures mattered the more precisely because the commentariat has been so hostile to their findings (such that, for example, those who criticized neoliberalism as neoliberalism had to defend their reasoning much more carefully than, for example, the Anti-Communist bashing that model). That encouraged me to try to work things out for myself--searching after a definition and description that would better account for just how contradiction-riddled (frankly, dishonest) the neoliberal Agenda was, and how the result did not go according to plan, but still represented a meaningful departure from what came before that could meaningfully be identified as neoliberalism. This extended to my examining the record of many "neoliberal" politicians in a comprehensive way (specifically Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama) to see whether their records did indeed correspond to the neoliberal line. It also extended to developing a conception of how the neoliberal model works in some detail and how neoliberalism was distinguishable not just from what I called "Keynesian Fordism,", but at the same time also from mere classical liberalism, or financialization for that matter; and empirically testing that model against the available statistical data using such metrics as investment, assets, trade, profits, central government-to-GDP ratios and much else to develop a picture of how policymakers and investors and the forces they unleashed restructured the U.S. economy in particular during the neoliberal era. It extended, too, to my using this understanding of neoliberalism to examine particular facets of the matter, like what neoliberalism has meant for the expectations and reality of technological innovation, and even the ways in which working people are living their lives (or finding themselves unable to do so).
To make a long story short I concluded that, yes, neoliberalism, complex as it may be, is indeed a sound, strong, useful concept for describing the economic thinking, policymaking, economic history of the last half century; that one can justly refer to the governments of the United States and Britain of this period as having been neoliberal governments, whose policies produced a distinct economic model, with great, varied, ubiquitous consequence extending into the cultural sphere. I don't know that I convinced anyone else of all this, but then I don't know that that was a realistic prospect. Again, those in the mainstream who put down the concept were doing so in bad faith, all as those who did find the concept useful didn't need convincing, as at any rate all this was probably a bit over the heads of the public, which online rarely looks at such things as working papers of any kind, let alone about such subjects as these. Still, even after many years of researching, thinking, revising as I researched and thought again I stand by the body of work I produced, and the position to which it led me, which is infinitely more than can be said for the brass check earners who fill up the opinion pages in the newspapers, magazines, wire services, news channels and web sites that command a totally unwarranted respect from people of conventional mind--all as it seems to me that a real understanding of neoliberalism is growing only more important as we try to make sense of where the world is headed now.
Not Just Thatcher, But Reagan
Recently reading the details of the German government's euphemistically named "Growth Booster" (read: big giveaway to business and the rich in the name of supply-side theory that was never really anything else) I found myself thinking not so much of Margaret Thatcher as Ronald Reagan, and not just because Friedrich Merz of Blackrock's plan also prominently features an accelerated depreciation schedule. There was also the way in which the tax cuts were combined with not just plans for social spending cuts (of which we are now starting to hear significantly details), but plans to drastically raise defense spending, which is much more Reagan than Thatcher if one is looking for precedents. After all, foreign policy hard-liner that Thatcher was, her government was anything but open-handed with the British armed forces--her deficit hawkishness more than a pose to that extent, at least.
The fact that European governments like those of the ultra-Establishment Merz are embracing bigger defense budget alongside the usual "Robin Hood in reverse" of robbing the poor to give to the rich via the usual tax and spending cuts seems worthy of remark. If continental politicians have long hoped to be their country's Thatcher, their hoping to be its Reagan is something newer, with the case of that other pillar of the European project, France, telling. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, if not without his pretensions on the international stage, was more concerned with economic reforms on the home front. By contrast the current French President, Emmanuel Macron, seems to look to the more international affairs-minded Reagan--and to go by certain of his rhetoric, that subsequent Republican President, Bush II, as well--as a model here. In this as in so many other ways it would seem that European policymakers, who were never so different in outlook from their American counterparts as those who bought into silly fantasies (or desperate dreams) of a more enlightened European elite pursuing a more enlightened path seemed prepared to believe, have been growing more brazen about that as they press harder to get more American-style policies, not only where hardcore neoliberalism at home is concerned, but the more "muscular" foreign policy they have for so long wanted. So much so that the governments of the Dutch and Czechs are apparently quite happy to turn their armies into franchises if not reserves of the successor of the World War II Wehrmacht that has now come under the control of a government headed by a profoundly uncouth yet also treacherous Chancellor whose ascent to office on an historically slight vote testifying to his lack of any genuine popular mandate has not inhibited him about going for broke pursuing an Agenda that most certainly includes arming for confrontation with "the East." Meanwhile in France, where the heirs of the "Better Hitler Than Blum" crowd are as close to (re)taking power as they have ever been since the fall of the Vichy regime, the present occupant of the Élysée Palace strives not to be outdone in plundering the public for the sake of turning what, Marianne tells us, is described by the French army's own officers as "an army of majorettes" into a more credible fighting force, also means to outdo Merz in aggressiveness about sending that force eastward as he calls for a "coalition of the willing" to be led by himself, of course--possibly to an even greater disaster than the world got the last time a President used that language.
Of course, all this is not going over well with the European publics. The German public, whose vote for Merz's party was, again, very low (less than a quarter of the electorate voted for Merz and his party), seems easily dividable into that part of it which never trusted him to begin with (likely, a great majority of the 76 percent of the German electorate that did not vote for him), and that part of it which feels betrayed by him (some 73 percent of Germans already feeling that way as he assumed office, with his subsequent performance not improving that, only 1 in 5 Germans seeing him as trustworthy), as pretty much all of that public detests him (his approval rating standing at a dismal 29 percent last month).
Of course, all this does not get the press it ought to in the States, but if anything American coverage of France may be even more muddled due to how, in contrast with Merz, whose lavish expenditures on styling and makeup seem to have not added to his charm in their eyes (he is Mr. Vain!), the American press fawns over Emmanuel Macron--with in particular a significant part of the identity politics-mad American commentariat so consumed with ecstasies over the "handsome" and "powerful" (middle-aged) man being married to a woman old enough to be his (senior citizen) mother (much more to their taste than the not-so-handsome Sarkozy's capping off his rise to the top by marrying '90s glory days of the supermodel supermodel Carla Bruni right in the Palace, cuz it's good to be the king!). Too much consumed with ecstasies over his "unconventional" began-with-a-Lifetime-Channel-movie-of-the-week marriage to spare much thought to his policies, and the opinion of his electorate about those policies--not least as reflected in his string of failed Prime Ministers, to which (the still less handsome?) Francois Bayrou has just been added by a no confidence vote prompted by the aggressiveness of his particular grab after the pocketbooks and social rights of France's working people. Still, the fact remains that anyone even minimally informed about the situation should need no introduction to his troubles that way. (After all, even the American press couldn't completely ignore the upheaval of 2023.) Especially as the hard realities of what it will take to not just fund, but man, the Not-So-New-Model-Armies of the European Establishment's militaristic dreams (make no mistake, they are inching back toward conscription) Europe's "leaders" will not be able to expect that pompous lectures about defense being "the greatest public benefit of all" will suffice to make the plebs rally to their standards.
The fact that European governments like those of the ultra-Establishment Merz are embracing bigger defense budget alongside the usual "Robin Hood in reverse" of robbing the poor to give to the rich via the usual tax and spending cuts seems worthy of remark. If continental politicians have long hoped to be their country's Thatcher, their hoping to be its Reagan is something newer, with the case of that other pillar of the European project, France, telling. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, if not without his pretensions on the international stage, was more concerned with economic reforms on the home front. By contrast the current French President, Emmanuel Macron, seems to look to the more international affairs-minded Reagan--and to go by certain of his rhetoric, that subsequent Republican President, Bush II, as well--as a model here. In this as in so many other ways it would seem that European policymakers, who were never so different in outlook from their American counterparts as those who bought into silly fantasies (or desperate dreams) of a more enlightened European elite pursuing a more enlightened path seemed prepared to believe, have been growing more brazen about that as they press harder to get more American-style policies, not only where hardcore neoliberalism at home is concerned, but the more "muscular" foreign policy they have for so long wanted. So much so that the governments of the Dutch and Czechs are apparently quite happy to turn their armies into franchises if not reserves of the successor of the World War II Wehrmacht that has now come under the control of a government headed by a profoundly uncouth yet also treacherous Chancellor whose ascent to office on an historically slight vote testifying to his lack of any genuine popular mandate has not inhibited him about going for broke pursuing an Agenda that most certainly includes arming for confrontation with "the East." Meanwhile in France, where the heirs of the "Better Hitler Than Blum" crowd are as close to (re)taking power as they have ever been since the fall of the Vichy regime, the present occupant of the Élysée Palace strives not to be outdone in plundering the public for the sake of turning what, Marianne tells us, is described by the French army's own officers as "an army of majorettes" into a more credible fighting force, also means to outdo Merz in aggressiveness about sending that force eastward as he calls for a "coalition of the willing" to be led by himself, of course--possibly to an even greater disaster than the world got the last time a President used that language.
Of course, all this is not going over well with the European publics. The German public, whose vote for Merz's party was, again, very low (less than a quarter of the electorate voted for Merz and his party), seems easily dividable into that part of it which never trusted him to begin with (likely, a great majority of the 76 percent of the German electorate that did not vote for him), and that part of it which feels betrayed by him (some 73 percent of Germans already feeling that way as he assumed office, with his subsequent performance not improving that, only 1 in 5 Germans seeing him as trustworthy), as pretty much all of that public detests him (his approval rating standing at a dismal 29 percent last month).
Of course, all this does not get the press it ought to in the States, but if anything American coverage of France may be even more muddled due to how, in contrast with Merz, whose lavish expenditures on styling and makeup seem to have not added to his charm in their eyes (he is Mr. Vain!), the American press fawns over Emmanuel Macron--with in particular a significant part of the identity politics-mad American commentariat so consumed with ecstasies over the "handsome" and "powerful" (middle-aged) man being married to a woman old enough to be his (senior citizen) mother (much more to their taste than the not-so-handsome Sarkozy's capping off his rise to the top by marrying '90s glory days of the supermodel supermodel Carla Bruni right in the Palace, cuz it's good to be the king!). Too much consumed with ecstasies over his "unconventional" began-with-a-Lifetime-Channel-movie-of-the-week marriage to spare much thought to his policies, and the opinion of his electorate about those policies--not least as reflected in his string of failed Prime Ministers, to which (the still less handsome?) Francois Bayrou has just been added by a no confidence vote prompted by the aggressiveness of his particular grab after the pocketbooks and social rights of France's working people. Still, the fact remains that anyone even minimally informed about the situation should need no introduction to his troubles that way. (After all, even the American press couldn't completely ignore the upheaval of 2023.) Especially as the hard realities of what it will take to not just fund, but man, the Not-So-New-Model-Armies of the European Establishment's militaristic dreams (make no mistake, they are inching back toward conscription) Europe's "leaders" will not be able to expect that pompous lectures about defense being "the greatest public benefit of all" will suffice to make the plebs rally to their standards.
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