This is not any kind of formal academic gloss on one of the most contested and considered terms in contemporary political history, neoliberal. I’m not qualified to write one of those. This is an attempt to convey what a lot of people mean when they use the term “neoliberal” in the context of 21st century progressive politics and what it meant in the recent past. This is a scribbling about my perception of how a contested term rose and fell and changed over time. I will leave the meaning of neoliberalism to others. But “neoliberalism” meant something in left-of-center political debates ten or fifteen years ago, and it was used like a comma, and now it means something different or less and I think about it a lot.
Traditionally neoliberalism had much more to do with conservatism than liberalism. It was Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher who brought us a neoliberal revolution in the 1970s and 80s, after all. But you can read history books about that. In 2021 “neoliberal” as a pejorative tends to mean those who support traditionally progressive ends through the traditionally libertarian means of minimal intervention into the economy. Those ends include recognizably liberal or progressive ones such as shared prosperity and minimal standards of material security and comfort for all people as actualized in (for example) universal health coverage. Those means include recognizably libertarian or classically liberal ones such as free trade in the form of the elimination of tariff walls and other impediments to trade across borders, deep resistance to regulation, and a general embrace of a hands-off approach to economics that sees creative destruction as a necessary aspect of a healthy capitalist economy.
Neoliberalism is fundamentally an economic orientation and the term itself typically has little to say about an adherent's views on social or foreign policy. Almost universally, those called neoliberals are supportive of typically liberal views on social issues, such as gay marriage, but there is no existential reason for this orientation other than the fact that people with any socially conservative views simply are regarded as conservatives in our political culture. The reason arises in part from neoliberalism's former place as a reformist current within conventional American liberalism; neoliberalism was/is the dominant orthodoxy among American liberals writ large and controlled the Democratic party almost without challenge from the first Clinton administration to the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign. Whether it still does is a question for another time.
Neoliberals, whether “real” or simply those who have been accused of such, are all over the map in terms of foreign policy, from the generally dovish early neoliberals such as Michael Kinsley and Mickey Kaus to the committed "liberal interventionists" within the Obama administration. Some critics of neoliberalism, such as Marxist geographer David Harvey, believe that an aggressive foreign policy such as that of the contemporary United States is an inevitable aspect of neoliberalism, as the expansion of available labor markets is necessary for the production of cheap material goods that powers the consumption economy.
Though contemporary neoliberals advocate for free markets, they are clearly distinguishable from conservatives and libertarians economically. Neoliberals today are almost all Keynesian, again in contrast to the terms origins, and prefer a countercyclical economic and fiscal policy that uses central banks and stimulus spending to "prime the pump" of the private sector economy and encourage growth during economic slumps or recession. In this sense, neoliberals tend to see the economy and its cycles as socially conditioned and subject constantly to policy manipulation, as opposed to libertarians, who see the economy as an organic or even spiritual phenomenon that exists independent of the policies and governments that surround it.
This difference tends to make 21st century neoliberals natural foes of austerity measures, which interfaces easily with another major difference with conservatives and libertarians, the push for redistribution. In contrast with someone like Milton Friedman, who both helped define the term and to complicate its basic meaning, people called neoliberals today tend to believe that the best, most effective way of eliminating traditional or entrenched inequality is through redistributive social programs. In keeping with their traditional hands-off economic stance, they prefer programs that come with minimal restrictions: food stamps are better than a handout of preselected foods, but cash with which food (or anything else) can be bought is even better. Because of the necessity of paying for these redistributive programs, today’s neoliberals are far more amenable to taxation than conservatives, again a contrast with whatever we might call Friedman, Reagan, and Thatcher.
While these basic contours define the philosophy, they are inadequate for understanding neoliberalism as a social phenomenon. Critics of neoliberalism frequently complain about the philosophy's tendency to advocate for market solutions to all human problems, for market and economic structures in all human organizations, and for market values as the only values. For example, the neoliberalization of the modern university is lamented because it seeks to impose the logic, methods, and goals of commercial enterprises on institutions that were specifically created for noncommercial ends, namely the creation and dissemination of knowledge. Arguments between neoliberals and leftists are frequently unproductive in part because of a disagreement about whether economic activity is a means or an end, or whether economic growth is necessary and sufficient in the pursuit of solving a particular social program. At an extreme, neoliberalism can involve the elevation of what is typically thought as a means to an end, economic efficiency, to an end of political action itself.
The relationship between the left and neoliberals has traditionally been vexed and unhappy, and the term’s staying power as an insult stems from this antagonism. In part, this is indicative of the fact that arguments are often most personal when they stem from agreement about goals but disagreement about methods. What's more, there are deep, perhaps irresolvable divisions between the two groups, leftists and today’s neoliberals. One of the most passionate disagreement involves orientation towards labor, both in terms of labor writ large and organized labor in particular. Leftists such as left liberals, socialists, and Marxists typically describe politics in terms of power, where neoliberals typically describe politics in terms of economics. Traditionally, leftists believe that political progress depends upon the balance of power between corporations and the moneyed on one hand and workers and the poor on the other. Because neoliberals prefer the mechanisms of redistribution and growth through the relatively unfettered process of capitalism, left-wing critics frequently identify a failure on their part to adequately address the power disparity between capital and wage earners. This is particularly acute given the left wing's belief that moneyed interests such as banks and the wealthy have captured the democratic process through economic power.
Traditionally, the left wing in American politics has been the champion of organized labor and union power. Neoliberals tend to run from indifference towards labor unions, seeing them as quaint or past their usefulness, such as with the younger generation of neoliberal pundits like Ezra Klein or Matt Yglesias did at one point, to outright resistant to them, such as with Kaus. This lack of support for unionism typically stems from the belief that unions stand in the way of corporate efficiency, which in turn restricts the economic growth that neoliberals believe is the only effective means to improving living standards. A typical dispute between leftists and neoliberals might stem, for example, from a round of heavy layoffs at a prominent company and a union dispute stemming from same. Leftists identify the power disparity between workers and corporation as an impediment to fairness and humanitarian outcomes, and highlight the human costs of so many workers being denied their livelihoods. Neoliberals, at least in stereotype, insist that the efficiency gained from the layoffs will improve the company's productivity and ultimately contribute to economic growth, and that adequate social safety nets can ameliorate the effects of this “creative destruction.” (In general, traditional leftists tend to identify individuals in their capacity as workers, neoliberals in their capacity as consumers.) This leads to accusations from leftists of callousness and from neoliberals of opposition to economic growth.
This contributes to the sense in which those called neoliberals have traditionally tended to be proceduralists. That is, they have identified the relatively unfettered flow of capitalism, along with the “dynamism” or “disruption” that causes widespread job loss, as the engine of positive social change, and are deeply resistant to interventions that jeopardize that flow. Leftists, in contrast, tend to be more concerned with outcomes, having far less faith that capitalism will eventually produce the bounty that ends suffering. This contributed to a constant fights about regulation between neoliberals and leftists, although for whatever reason regulation writ large seems to be far less publicly salient than it was when I started writing about politics 15 years ago. (Land use policy is a clear exception.) A typical skirmish in the blogosphere of the Aughts might have involved leftists arguing that a specific example of regulation would prevent unnecessary risk or suffering, with neoliberals arguing that the regulation would ultimately reduce the incentive for economic activity that would in turn have positive effects in growing the economy. But since such arguments lack the cultural and social vitriol that defines political debate today they are rarely had now.
The procedural quality of neoliberal discourse frequently contributed to a kind of meta-disagreement. Leftists were frequently frustrated by neoliberal claims that they do not propose an alternative. Because neoliberalism is/was the dominant discourse of our economic policy apparatus, stretching back to the Reagan-Thatcher revolution, and because our political media was likewise dominated by neoliberal sentiment thanks to the synthesis between corporatism and neoliberalism, it was easy for neoliberals to see economic political questions as necessarily a matter of achieving a more efficient economy, whether in the macro or micro sense. Leftists, meanwhile, often admitted that a particular economic intervention would have a negative impact on efficiency, but that the benefits in human welfare outweigh those costs. This misalignment in perspective was one of the many reasons arguments between the two groups are so frequently angry. What’s changed now is not so much anything inherent to the argument itself but rather that the default member of the political media now defines themselves as a socialist in some sense, which means that the perceived burden of proof lies on those arguing for efficiency rather than compassion.
The "there is no alternative" attitude was intimately related to the controversy over the “wonk.” Wonks are policy analysts who tend to conduct their analysis and their discussions in a dispassionate way, typically referring to empirical evidence in chart or graph form (though rarely assembling that evidence themselves), and frequently constraining their considerations to the immediately procedural or technical in a way that, critics say, restricts the boundaries of the possible. Wonks do indeed tend to be neoliberal, although this is not universal. Matt Bruenig is a socialist wonk, Mike Konczal is a left liberal wonk, Tyler Cown a libertarian wonk, Oren Cass a conservative wonk. There was a time when wonkery was the default form of engagement in American political commentary, but here again the post-Occupy, Bernie-influenced turn in tone in media has had significant consequence. Following the financial crisis, many grew to see wonkish detachment not as an indication of sobriety and seriousness but rather as an ugly indifference to the visceral elements of political debate. As the wonk receded the angry table-pounding leftist took his place.
This element of tension between leftists and neoliberals also stemmed from the activist tradition within left-wing circles, which privileges political relationships and solidarity in a long-term effort to change philosophical and moral convictions, which stands in direct and frequently ugly tension with the very specific, narrow definition of adult political discourse typical to neoliberals of the time, who had a tendency to reply to less-direct philosophical arguments by asking “what's your policy prescription?” Today’s political discourse fixates on problems and not solutions.
That social and communicative tension must be accounted for to understand this broad divide. For while both sides can and do articulate very specific and technocratically-oriented disagreements about best practices, the unhappiness of those disagreements are essentially cultural. Neoliberals, with their embrace of capitalism as the best (or least-worst) method for improving human welfare, have been natural optimists. Leftists generally and socialists particularly tend to practice a kind of defensive pessimism, out of a conviction that optimism can obscure suffering and the continued need for change. The symmetry between neoliberalism's desire for ever-more-efficient economies and the desires of corporate entities fosters mutual suspicion between neoliberals and the fundamentally anti-corporate left. Neoliberalism, owing to its reformist roots, reminds leftists uncomfortably of the tradition of anti-leftist purges within American liberalism, such as in the Truman era or the immediate post-9/11 era. Finally, the tendency of neoliberals to move rightward over time is naturally of concern to leftist critics, evidence in the extreme by Mickey Kaus, who became over time functionally identical to a movement conservative and in so doing faded into obscurity after a long period of influence. Note, however, that there are rare exceptions, such as Paul Krugman, who moved markedly to his left in his communicative style after a long career as a standard-issue neoliberal, though whether that affective change matters is a different question.
Perhaps no issue better illustrated the differences between neoliberals and leftists than education reform. Most neoliberals are deeply antagonistic towards teachers unions, seeing them as a major impediment to the kind of innovation and disruptive practice that leads to improved outcomes. Leftists identify teachers as workers and teacher unions as a legitimate expression of basic rights. Neoliberals view tenure and job security for teachers as a clear barrier to effective change; leftists, as a hard-earned job benefit that raises the standard of living of a large class of poorly-compensated workers. At issue, too, is what mechanisms best create positive change in society, and whether a corporate model can really be applied to all domains of human activity. For left-wing critics of neoliberalism (like me), the broad failure of preferred “market-oriented” reforms like charter schools, private school vouchers, or merit pay is indicative of the limitations of applying market solutions to every human problem. Unsurprisingly, this opinion is not shared by most neoliberals.
And the collapse of bipartisan consensus towards certain cherished assumptions among school reformers, principle among them the importance of testing and the preeminence of quantitative metrics, is related to this cultural divide. In 2012 I would have told you that the largescale dismantling of teacher unions and the replacement of traditional publics with charter schools was an inevitability. Now that movement is deeply wounded, thanks to the only political argument that has any salience anymore, the claim that it’s racist. Of course, by appearing to oppose the very idea of rigor, teacher unions and their allies are likely generating an intense backlash.
Where are now? It’s hard to say. One of my meta beliefs about politics in 2021 is that we are witnessing a kind of definitional collapse; basic notions of political affiliation appear to be crumbling around us, though most in various camps seem unaware that it’s happening, as they’re so intensely fixated on culture war. Certainly it appears that leftists and socialists muscled their way into the national debate if not actually into power, and in doing so muscled neoliberalism a little bit out.
And of course Trump happened and destabilized our system. Everyone came together to oppose his bizarre brand of brutish anti-technocracy, and since socialists shouted the loudest they sucked up a lot of the oxygen. Trump is out of office, but he remains the singular obsession of our political class, and so there is some sense of détente among traditional enemies like leftists and neoliberals (or “neoliberals.”) The short-term political exigency of opposing brutal austerity measures and rebuilding the social safety net is certainly an area where leftists and neoliberals can and should work together. What's more, many or most leftists share with neoliberals a desire to remove restrictions on the kind of redistributive payments governments can make to those who need them. “Just give people money” is a rallying cry that can be voiced by both groups. The socialist left's recent re-embrace of a Universal Basic Income or similar scheme, despite a lot of internal machinations about its function or the potential superiority of a jobs guarantee, actually synthesizes quite nicely with neoliberal concerns. For those of us who think that market socialism is a likely next stage of human macroeconomy, this is reason for optimism. In the most basic level, the real and deep commitment among most people described as neoliberals towards providing for the worst off and reducing suffering offers a common point of agreement against those who believe that differences in ability and chance will always create some degree of economic pain and necessary suffering. This, too, is a marked contrast with what was once meant by neoliberalism.
The longer term is more difficult. Many neoliberals, whatever their short-term anti-Trump allegiances and friendliness to social programs, are among the most enthusiastic of capitalists. Meanwhile, many leftists such as myself see the market economy as necessarily producing injustice and undermining democracy through the capture of political structures by capital. Disciplining capital, particularly the investment banks and financial corporations that produce so much instability in the economy and put so many wage-earners at risk, is seen by many leftists as an absolute key element of long-term progress; most neoliberals are decidedly unlikely to participate in that effort. It's an open question whether there is room to rebuild non-economic civic structures and community ties that could reinvigorate our civic responsibility within the neoliberal macroeconomic frame in which we live. Opposing the marketization of everything will never produce this kind of solidarity.
Yet perhaps there's reason for hope. Though I am a skeptic of political salvation through technology, perhaps the capital-biased technological change that we've witnessed will lead necessarily to a redefinition of the human species writ large not as workers but as the beneficiaries of automation that can secure human welfare. While the wonkish journalists might never man the ramparts in the fight for the next stage of human economic evolution, I see the new generation of the wonkish and their market orientation as amenable enough to a redefinition of human flourishing away from the purely economic that they could be partners in solidarity, in a new movement towards universal material security and comfort. Perhaps we can all transcend mutual distrust, I don't know. I'm not generally an optimistic person. But you’ve got to find hope where you can.