krebscycle

[Published 2014]

Anti-neoliberalism has become the ideology of the nostalgia left – mostly white guys who miss the Imaginary 1970s. In the Imaginary 1970s, Che berets were cool, FDR’s New Deal had Wall Street Tamed, the White Working Class was Union Strong and Pro-Big-Government,  Regulators were not Captive, the Rule of Law was Majestic, and there were no “disappointing” black guys in the White House.

In Europe and South America and even Canada, “liberal” means  no-tariffs, “free trade”, and few regulations of industry  – often this is called “conservative” in the USA.  In the US, “liberal” means what is called “social-democrat” in those countries except with more emphasis on civil rights. The term “neoliberal” originated in the 1950s when Milton Friedman used it for his “updated” version of the old anti-regulations “liberal”  (although he added universal basic income which is now considered very hip “socialism” and was necessary back when so many people remembered the depression.). In the 1970s “neoliberal” was used by Latin Americans to describe the free trade ideology the World Bank and IMF imposed on Latin America, aided by military torture states that the CIA helped put into power – Economic Freedom Fighters according to right wing economists. That was a really bad theory  but it wasn’t really new,  it was exactly what European powers had imposed on their colonies and weaker countries for 300 years or more.

Then a group of moderate Democrats in the 1980s in the USA called themselves “neoliberals”, apparently without knowing about the other uses, as a way of distinguishing themselves from Old Liberals like Ted Kennedy and as an attempt to compete better with the neoconservatives. These neoliberals wanted to make government more “market friendly” and they did some good things (SCHIP, EITC), some bad things (Clinton’s welfare “reform” and NAFTA) and some dumb stuff (like Gary Hart’s political suicide on the “Monkey Business”).  The US liberalism in this type of neoliberal is exemplified by  Robert Rubin, the neoliberal Sec. Treasury under Clinton and former Citibank Prince, who now says that America’s primary economic problem is weak unions – not a position the European Style Liberals would embrace.

But anti-neoliberalism is something else. It is an effort by certain parts of the old left to deal with the collapse of socialism as a movement by re-imagining the New Deal and 1950s America as leftism.  You know, the good old days before the civil rights, feminist, and gay lib movements made straight white guy revolutionaries so marginal. It recasts “neoliberal” as an invective to be used against that black guy in the White House or really any Democrat and it’s usually accompanied by a bunch of bitter whining. Anyways, it sucks.