The New Class War

[Dacien]

I can't eye roll hard enough at the above.

These kinds of back-and-forths are information gold mines.

[unfilteredJW]

These kinds of back-and-forths are information gold mines.

It's a loud angry child being their usual intellectually dishonest self and someone who I have no idea how they've managed to patiently explain the same things to the same people ad nauseam without developing crippling alcoholism.

It was fun to read the first time.

[Mittens]

I'm noping this one out.

On second thought this one part caught my attention:
@Endus

Y'know, I never claimed there weren't any neoliberal influences. I said they weren't neoliberal governments and economies, which was your claim. The existence of significant government involvement proves this to be true; they are not bastions of neoliberal thinking. The articles you're talking about are criticising some specific neoliberalism-influenced policies, but those aren't the entire governmental/economic system.

This is a pretty weird claim. If neoliberalism underpins most forms of government how can you claim its a niche? The distinction you try to make is really petty. The economic system's of Germany, China, India, and others might not be directly neoliberal but they seek much of the same objectives and achieve the same end result. Free trade, entrepeneurship over state actions, freer movement of labor, robust private sector over state sector, individualism over collectivism and what not. And most of them follow neoliberal reforms once developed, China is deregulating much of its economy, same with India and slowly imitating western insitutions.

[Cthulhu 2020]

What does that even mean? How many posts of yours do think it takes for someone figure out your rhetorical bullshit? (Hint: not many.) Also, you really should put quotation marks around things you're quoting.

I'd be impressed, but it really doesn't take all that much to see through Theo's hypocritical BS. Most of us either ignore her or taunt her. If you actually engage her in a real argument that most of the time she can never refute, she'll ignore you. She goes after the low hanging fruit using dog whistles and whines about Hillary and the Dems, and yet strangely never seems to have a beef with Trump and the Republicans fucking the country over. She's got a hard on for hating the left. While she doesn't do any direct defending of the Trump administration, her seething hatred for Hillary has manifested in denying any and all Trump crimes, because his crimes basically illigetizime his win, and legitimize Hillary and the Dems.

It's an interesting dynamic. But I'm kind of impressed you spotted it so quickly... but then again, it's not that hard for most people to spot.

[Endus]

I'm noping this one out.

On second thought this one part caught my attention:
@Endus

This is a pretty weird claim. If neoliberalism underpins most forms of government how can you claim its a niche? The distinction you try to make is really petty. The economic system's of Germany, China, India, and others might not be directly neoliberal but they seek much of the same objectives and achieve the same end result. Free trade, entrepeneurship over state actions, freer movement of labor, robust private sector over state sector, individualism over collectivism and what not. And most of them follow neoliberal reforms once developed, China is deregulating much of its economy, same with India and slowly imitating western insitutions.

The key word here is "underpins", which I would argue is not fundamentally true. China in particular is definitely not pursuing neoliberal goals, even if they're shifting into a form of state capitalism; it's still highly authoritarian and government is deeply involved in the economy's management. I don't think you can really call it "deregulated" when they still have structures such as the Great Firewall managing Internet access. It's more that the regulations the Chinese government is focusing on have more to do with social control than social welfare. Germany may have engaged in austerity measures and such, and the Merkel government is fairly right-wing, but the nation still has a lot of social democracy in its makeup, almost aggressively so in counterbalancing the Nazi Reich and trying to purge that legacy from their ideological "soul" so to speak.

When you compare to nations like Canada, the UK, France, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany might be "more neoliberal", but that doesn't make it definitively and fundamentally such. Much the same way that adding some bacon bits to a salad makes it "more meaty", but it isn't making the salad a piece of meat.

Is it that I'm using the word "niche"? I'm using that to describe "neoliberalism" in the pure ideological sense. Thinking that some measures that are neoliberal could have some benefit, with some management, isn't really a "neoliberal" argument, it's more just mainstream conservative. Which Theo was careful to separate out as distinct, I might add, and I've been operating under that basis thus far, that anything "mainstream conservative" is not what Theo is talking about when they say "neoliberal".

To bring this back around, since the '30s, the main push behind the development of Western society has been various forms of social democracy. That is the core underpinning of Western society, in the 20th Century. We've seen a recent rise in some neoliberal thinking, but I would not agree that it's become all that fundamental to Western society. Measures like social welfare, however, have.

[Mittens]

The key word here is "underpins", which I would argue is not fundamentally true. China in particular is definitely not pursuing neoliberal goals, even if they're shifting into a form of state capitalism; it's still highly authoritarian and government is deeply involved in the economy's management. I don't think you can really call it "deregulated" when they still have structures such as the Great Firewall managing Internet access. It's more that the regulations the Chinese government is focusing on have more to do with social control than social welfare. Germany may have engaged in austerity measures and such, and the Merkel government is fairly right-wing, but the nation still has a lot of social democracy in its makeup, almost aggressively so in counterbalancing the Nazi Reich and trying to purge that legacy from their ideological "soul" so to speak.

When you compare to nations like Canada, the UK, France, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany might be "more neoliberal", but that doesn't make it definitively and fundamentally such. Much the same way that adding some bacon bits to a salad makes it "more meaty", but it isn't making the salad a piece of meat.

Is it that I'm using the word "niche"? I'm using that to describe "neoliberalism" in the pure ideological sense. Thinking that some measures that are neoliberal could have some benefit, with some management, isn't really a "neoliberal" argument, it's more just mainstream conservative. Which Theo was careful to separate out as distinct, I might add, and I've been operating under that basis thus far, that anything "mainstream conservative" is not what Theo is talking about when they say "neoliberal".

To bring this back around, since the '30s, the main push behind the development of Western society has been various forms of social democracy. That is the core underpinning of Western society, in the 20th Century. We've seen a recent rise in some neoliberal thinking, but I would not agree that it's become all that fundamental to Western society. Measures like social welfare, however, have.

Before I continue, I'm not claiming China is a neoliberal paradise of any sort, just that its following its footsteps.

See:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ver-technology
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/09/chin...al-sector.html

Anyway, neoliberal reforms are not small, they are big and basically distort how states approach policy:

1) Preference to tax income and consumption over corporations.



2) The WTO which is the trade institution based on neoliberal principles and enforcer of them.

3) Floating currencies.

4) IMF and other financial institutions that basically make the global finance system. (Loans and whatnot)

In your comparison this is not bacon, its the bowl that contains the salad.

[Jastall]

I'm noping this one out.

On second thought this one part caught my attention:
@Endus



This is a pretty weird claim. If neoliberalism underpins most forms of government how can you claim its a niche? The distinction you try to make is really petty. The economic system's of Germany, China, India, and others might not be directly neoliberal but they seek much of the same objectives and achieve the same end result. Free trade, entrepeneurship over state actions, freer movement of labor, robust private sector over state sector, individualism over collectivism and what not. And most of them follow neoliberal reforms once developed, China is deregulating much of its economy, same with India and slowly imitating western insitutions.

That sounds more like classical capitalism than ''neoliberalism', (which honesly is a term that was so overused, especially by left-wing people using it as a strawman, that it lost much of its meaning). China in particular is anything but neoliberal, the State maintains a crushing ascendant over the private sector and is far more hands-on than in America for example. If you dig into Germany's economy, it is also not the same beast as the US or UK at all.

I also have a hard time accepting the premise that socialism and social democracy are irrelevant in modern politics when the largest expense of any modern State, by far, are social programs like healthcare, even in the US. Something which would be unthinkable 150 or even a hundred years ago. That just happens to co-exist with free enterprise and globalization because it is the compromise that Western society made in order to preserve a social peace while simultaneously enabling the rampant economic inequality that is inevitable with free enterprise. The world isn't a divide between The Marxists and The Neoliberals, that's an incredibly reductive view of politics.

[Triks]

That sounds more like classical capitalism than ''neoliberalism', (which honesly is a term that was so overused, especially by left-wing people using it as a strawman, that it lost much of its meaning). China in particular is anything but neoliberal, the State maintains a crushing ascendant over the private sector and is far more hands-on than in America for example. If you dig into Germany's economy, it is also not the same beast as the US or UK at all.

I also have a hard time accepting the premise that socialism and social democracy are irrelevant in modern politics when the largest expense of any modern State, by far, are social programs like healthcare, even in the US. Something which would be unthinkable 150 or even a hundred years ago. That just happens to co-exist with free enterprise and globalization because it is the compromise that Western society made in order to preserve a social peace while simultaneously enabling the rampant economic inequality that is inevitable with free enterprise. The world isn't a divide between The Marxists and The Neoliberals, that's an incredibly reductive view of politics.

The only countries in the West that can be described as Neoliberal are the UK and the USA. All Western countries are social democracies with only Norway being more of a democratic socialist. The EU is a trade organisation so it's liberal by default.

For the bold part, I only see Americans and Britons making this argument. I think it's more to do with their political systems where parties can get away with being as left or as right as they want rather than anything else.

[Levelfive]

I'd be impressed, but it really doesn't take all that much to see through Theo's hypocritical BS. Most of us either ignore her or taunt her. If you actually engage her in a real argument that most of the time she can never refute, she'll ignore you. She goes after the low hanging fruit using dog whistles and whines about Hillary and the Dems, and yet strangely never seems to have a beef with Trump and the Republicans fucking the country over. She's got a hard on for hating the left. While she doesn't do any direct defending of the Trump administration, her seething hatred for Hillary has manifested in denying any and all Trump crimes, because his crimes basically illigetizime his win, and legitimize Hillary and the Dems.

It's an interesting dynamic. But I'm kind of impressed you spotted it so quickly... but then again, it's not that hard for most people to spot.

Well in fairness to @Theodarzna, we have no idea what percentage of any given post of hers is actually her own work.

I don't see a collapse leading to anything but a pulling away from Globalization as elite classes schism, or the elite classes are indeed destroyed and replaced by a new elite classes that would be themselves schismed from one another.

- - - Updated - - -



Land ownership and private armies to protect it might. David Ricardo believed that in a three-way struggle among landlords earning rent, capitalists earning profits, and workers earning wages, landlords might eventually prevail. In an economy with low or no productivity growth, landlords, bankers, and other rentiers might displace the managers of the industrial sector as the dominant class. Just as managerialism succeeded bourgeois capitalism and feudalism, so managerialism in an age of technological and economic stagnation might give way in turn to what Peter Frase in Four Futures: Life after Capitalism (Verso, 2016) has called “rentism.”

(Emphasis mine.)

From the article in question:

"David Ricardo believed that in a three-way struggle among landlords earning rent, capitalists earning profits, and workers earning wages, landlords might eventually prevail. In an economy with low or no productivity growth, landlords, bankers, and other rentiers might displace the managers of the industrial sector as the dominant class. Just as managerialism succeeded bourgeois capitalism and feudalism, so managerialism in an age of technological and economic stagnation might give way in turn to what Peter Frase in Four Futures: Life after Capitalism (Verso, 2016) has called “rentism.”"

[primalmatter]

Call me crazy but I don't think a bunch of trust fund communists are going to topple the working class.

[Theodarzna]

Before I continue, I'm not claiming China is a neoliberal paradise of any sort, just that its following its footsteps.

See:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ver-technology
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/09/chin...al-sector.html

Anyway, neoliberal reforms are not small, they are big and basically distort how states approach policy:

1) Preference to tax income and consumption over corporations.



2) The WTO which is the trade institution based on neoliberal principles and enforcer of them.

3) Floating currencies.

4) IMF and other financial institutions that basically make the global finance system. (Loans and whatnot)

In your comparison this is not bacon, its the bowl that contains the salad.

So in your opinion....

Is comparing Neoliberals to AnCaps accurate or inaccurate? I think it is as inaccurate as saying Social Democracy is just another term for Marxism, but one could grossly overgeneralize to that point if they wanted to.

And is the idea that Social Democracies are largely subject to Neoliberal order then accurate? After all you call it the bowl holding the salad?

[Jastall]

And is the idea that Social Democracies are largely subject to Neoliberal order then accurate? After all you call it the bowl holding the salad?

What's this idea that one must be subject to the other? Public services are largely the product of socialism-derived ideas, especially in countries where left-wing policies are more embraced, while economic elites prefer liberalism because it's good for their business. In fact, government and private enterprise working closely with each other is arguably one of the defining characteristics of modern democracy, and even social democracies. We can argue who has the most influence over the other till we're blue in the face, but taking for granted that neoliberalism dominates all social democracies and that Marxism is a more relevant political force (of all things) is one hell of an intellectual shortcut motivated by bias more than anything else.

[Theodarzna]

What's this idea that one must be subject to the other? Public services are largely the product of socialism-derived ideas, especially in countries where left-wing policies are more embraced, while economic elites prefer liberalism because it's good for their business. In fact, government and private enterprise working closely with each other is arguably one of the defining characteristics of modern democracy, and even social democracies. We can argue who has the most influence over the other till we're blue in the face, but taking for granted that neoliberalism dominates all social democracies and that Marxism is a more relevant political force (of all things) is one hell of an intellectual shortcut motivated by bias more than anything else.

The idea is that if one fundamentally underpins much of what constitutes globalization, than one could be reasonable in concluding Neoliberalism is dominate and other ideologies are subordinate.

Also, despite the love of Free Markets, NeoLiberals are often as socially lefty as any Social Democrat. NeoLiberalism and socially Progressive pieties are in no measure counter to one another. Justin Trudeau being living proof of that. But one ideology informs the most important, far reaching and global policies. Globalization is as far as one can reasonably tell, a NeoLiberal project. Considering the original article was precisely about Globalization and the issues of powerful and disempowered classes in light of a globalized world, I think its fair to say Neoliberalism is more dominate. Public services exist, sure, but are liable to be privatized at the behest of central banks, WTO's diktats and at the directive of the IMF. Look at Greece, Italy, Ireland, Spain, ect ect. Or any third world country made to privatize every service under the sun.

Which brings me back to the class issue. The articles points are many but one worth highlighting is the idea that a transnational elite class having no incentive or motivation to care about the lower classes, and without competition among themselves, nor threats from above and certainly no possible threat from below, what this could mean. After all; you have an extremely affluent powerful class that has no conceivable enemies and no discernible reason to behave in a moral way towards their socioeconomic inferiors other than perhaps personal moral conscious.

[Mittens]

So in your opinion....

Is comparing Neoliberals to AnCaps accurate or inaccurate? I think it is as inaccurate as saying Social Democracy is just another term for Marxism, but one could grossly overgeneralize to that point if they wanted to.

Obviously not. Neoliberalism pretty much needs organizations that enforce it. In Ancapistan utopia there would be no such thing as WTO, Free trade agreements wouldn't be the mess they are or EU enforcing balanced budgets policies.

[Jastall]

The idea is that if one fundamentally underpins much of what constitutes globalization, than one could be reasonable in concluding Neoliberalism is dominate and other ideologies are subordinate.

Also, despite the love of Free Markets, NeoLiberals are often as socially lefty as any Social Democrat. NeoLiberalism and socially Progressive pieties are in no measure counter to one another. Justin Trudeau being living proof of that. But one ideology informs the most important, far reaching and global policies. Globalization is as far as one can reasonably tell, a NeoLiberal project. Considering the original article was precisely about Globalization and the issues of powerful and disempowered classes in light of a globalized world, I think its fair to say Neoliberalism is more dominate. Public services exist, sure, but are liable to be privatized at the behest of central banks, WTO's diktats and at the directive of the IMF. Look at Greece, Italy, Ireland, Spain, ect ect. Or any third world country made to privatize every service under the sun.

Which brings me back to the class issue. The articles points are many but one worth highlighting is the idea that a transnational elite class having no incentive or motivation to care about the lower classes, and without competition among themselves, nor threats from above and certainly no possible threat from below, what this could mean. After all; you have an extremely affluent powerful class that has no conceivable enemies and no discernible reason to behave in a moral way towards their socioeconomic inferiors other than perhaps personal moral conscious.

You contradict yourself. On the one hand you say that neoliberals are socially left (which is far from an accepted fact but I'll let it slide) then say they have no motivation or incentive to aid the lower classes. So why is it that welfare policies (which are most definitely leftist) are so widely adopted in every single Western state then, including the US? Shits and giggles?

And what constitutes as neoliberalism anyway? Supporting free enterprise, knowing the caveats that it has? Then by this ridiculously broad definition everyone but hardcore socialists and communists are neoliberals. By that same kind of logic, I could say anyone who supports the State having any sort of power is a Marxist. I would be wrong of course.

And it's funny that Greece and Italy are always brought up, but never places like Portugal who honored their obligation fairly and thus were free to go on about their business. Or Iceland which went the other way around, nationalizing stuff to bail themselves out of their crisis. Were they crushed under the globalist heel for their impudence? No, their problems got sorted, some people whined about it but they were left alone.

Seems like you're trying to bend reality to your bias rather than the other way. You're throwing words around but I'm not impressed by your reasoning at all. Are there powerful economic interests around the world pushing for globalization? Sure, but it's more of an economic imperative rather than any sort of nefarious conspiracy to bring the world to heel. If anything the Western nations and peoples are the big winners of globalization, getting low-priced goods while the cheap labor in places like Mexico, Bangladesh and China support our countries while having far lower qualities of life.

[unfilteredJW]

Well in fairness to @Theodarzna, we have no idea what percentage of any given post of hers is actually her own work.



(Emphasis mine.)

From the article in question:

"David Ricardo believed that in a three-way struggle among landlords earning rent, capitalists earning profits, and workers earning wages, landlords might eventually prevail. In an economy with low or no productivity growth, landlords, bankers, and other rentiers might displace the managers of the industrial sector as the dominant class. Just as managerialism succeeded bourgeois capitalism and feudalism, so managerialism in an age of technological and economic stagnation might give way in turn to what Peter Frase in Four Futures: Life after Capitalism (Verso, 2016) has called “rentism.”"

Well, we didn't need proof of their dishonesty (as the posting history does a damn fine job), but thanks for making it crystal.

Plagiarists are fucking awful.

[Theodarzna]

Obviously not. Neoliberalism pretty much needs organizations that enforce it. In Ancapistan utopia there would be no such thing as WTO, Free trade agreements wouldn't be the mess they are or EU enforcing balanced budgets policies.

So the following statement about Neoliberalism:

Absolutely and concretely false. You're confusing "neoliberalism" with "literally any form of capitalism in any way whatsoever". That's the nonsense I was talking about. Neoliberalism is a fairly niche and extreme point of view, delving deeply towards anarcho-capitalist theory.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/neoliberalism.asp

arguing its delving deeply towards Anarcho-Capitalist theory is not a fair statement or assessment of the ideology.

- - - Updated - - -

You contradict yourself. On the one hand you say that neoliberals are socially left (which is far from an accepted fact but I'll let it slide) then say they have no motivation or incentive to aid the lower classes. So why is it that welfare policies (which are most definitely leftist) are so widely adopted in every single Western state then, including the US? Shits and giggles?

And what constitutes as neoliberalism anyway? Supporting free enterprise, knowing the caveats that it has? Then by this ridiculously broad definition everyone but hardcore socialists and communists are neoliberals. By that same kind of logic, I could say anyone who supports the State having any sort of power is a Marxist. I would be wrong of course.

And it's funny that Greece and Italy are always brought up, but never places like Portugal who honored their obligation fairly and thus were free to go on about their business. Or Iceland which went the other way around, nationalizing stuff to bail themselves out of their crisis. Were they crushed under the globalist heel for their impudence? No, their problems got sorted, some people whined about it but they were left alone.

Seems like you're trying to bend reality to your bias rather than the other way. You're throwing words around but I'm not impressed by your reasoning at all. Are there powerful economic interests around the world pushing for globalization? Sure, but it's more of an economic imperative rather than any sort of nefarious conspiracy to bring the world to heel. If anything the Western nations and peoples are the big winners of globalization, getting low-priced goods while the cheap labor in places like Mexico, Bangladesh and China support our countries while having far lower qualities of life.

I am saying Neoliberals often have lefty social pieties. So for example Justin Trudeau follows Harpers plans to bring in cheaper foreign workers for the oil fields and to expand the oil fields, but requires companies to advertise among native americans and disadvantaged groups and hire a certain proportion of women to various positions.

As for why the US has social programs, there was a time when social welfare programs were an accepted idea, but increasingly they are slated for dismantling and getting new ones is next to impossible politically. This predates my lifetime and I suspect most people on this forums lifetime. Hence why Obama made Americans buy private insurance rather than just expand Medicare for everyone, and why Hillary Clinton did not favor that policy either. As for Globalization, notice none of the trade treaties really emphasize social democratic ideals or principles, only Neoliberal ones. So the international superstructure that makes up Globalization is certainly not conducive to or focused on Social Democracy.

Iceland isn't the entire planet. Russia also bucks the trend in rejecting a lot of those policies, so does Iran. And Portugal being out on good behavior really doesn't prove much. They complied with various demands made by Neoliberal institutions and were allowed to carry on with less interference. It speaks to who is the master and who isn't.

As for who benefits from Globalization, I'd argue its only a specific class in the West, but I will be fair and say that wages have incrementally risen a bit in many of those countries even at the expense of becoming polluted hellholes and having horrific labor violations.

Finally I've not said anything about intent, only the nature of class and power dynamics. Somebody with power, with no plausible threat to that power and no pressure to use that power in a good way for the wider group is a major danger for anyone underneath that person(s). I am not sure WHY this is considered controversial really.

[Mittens]

So the following statement about Neoliberalism:


arguing its delving deeply towards Anarcho-Capitalist theory is not a fair statement or assessment of the ideology.

LMAO @Endus

Hayek wasn't against the existence of a state or social spending, he pretty much said that such conditions were needed in order to ensure a well-functioning society that respected property rights. Milton Friedman another defender of neoliberalism pretty much said that something akin to the federal reserve had to exist in order to ensure a constant money supply. These are all positions an-caps and many libertarians oppose.

[Jastall]

So the following statement about Neoliberalism:


arguing its delving deeply towards Anarcho-Capitalist theory is not a fair statement or assessment of the ideology.

- - - Updated - - -



I am saying Neoliberals often have lefty social pieties. So for example Justin Trudeau follows Harpers plans to bring in cheaper foreign workers for the oil fields and to expand the oil fields, but requires companies to advertise among native americans and disadvantaged groups and hire a certain proportion of women to various positions.

As for why the US has social programs, there was a time when social welfare programs were an accepted idea, but increasingly they are slated for dismantling and getting new ones is next to impossible politically. This predates my lifetime and I suspect most people on this forums lifetime. Hence why Obama made Americans buy private insurance rather than just expand Medicare for everyone, and why Hillary Clinton did not favor that policy either. As for Globalization, notice none of the trade treaties really emphasize social democratic ideals or principles, only Neoliberal ones. So the international superstructure that makes up Globalization is certainly not conducive to or focused on Social Democracy.

Iceland isn't the entire planet. Russia also bucks the trend in rejecting a lot of those policies, so does Iran. And Portugal being out on good behavior really doesn't prove much. They complied with various demands made by Neoliberal institutions and were allowed to carry on with less interference. It speaks to who is the master and who isn't.

As for who benefits from Globalization, I'd argue its only a specific class in the West, but I will be fair and say that wages have incrementally risen a bit in many of those countries even at the expense of becoming polluted hellholes and having horrific labor violations.

Finally I've not said anything about intent, only the nature of class and power dynamics. Somebody with power, with no plausible threat to that power and no pressure to use that power in a good way for the wider group is a major danger for anyone underneath that person(s). I am not sure WHY this is considered controversial really.

The issue you get is that you simplify events a lot to fit your narrative. You use Trudeau as an example as if he was indicative of much, but it's not as if other world leaders are a carbon copy of him or as if the Prime Minister of Canada was the only important decision maker in that country. He most definitely is not, and immigration is not really under his sole purview.

All politics is local. This is a well known maxim, and while it's not 100% true it's very often the case. For instance the dismantling of programs in the US isn't part of some grand global conspiracy; indeed, it is done by Republicans, some of whom are fierce proponents of Trump's anti-globalism agenda. In Europe it was done to specific countries that defaulted to their obligations, due in large part to the rather stupid idea of attempting to unify extremely varied economies under one standard and one currency. All the countries we could use as examples or counter-examples of being ground under the boot of neoliberalism have their own story.

Plus, having to abide by the wills of your creditors isn't exactly unheard of in history, and looking at the recent history of Greece I'd say it is far more a case of one country's finances and politics being all kinds of messed up, rather than the evil IMF and EU imposing their tyranny on a defenseless victim. Were austerity policies pushed? Yeah, they were. Were they successful? By and large, no they weren't. Now there's a pushback and austerity has become a dirty word in the West. This is not really a clear case of class warfare or of neoliberalism triumphing. A trend happened, it didn't catch on, we'll go after something else sometime in the future.

We've only benefited a bit from globalization? Rofl, that's rich. We sit at our computers whose parts come from all over the globe, drive cars assembled in Mexico, wear clothes made in Bangladesh or India, use a hundred everyday tools probably made in China or Vietnam, go to the store and buy bananas from Latin America that are cheaper than the apples grown a few miles from the grocery, and are surrounded by all kinds of goods designed by minds in Japan, Korea, Germany, the UK, and who knowns how many other countries. All of these things would be considerably more expensive if entirely made at home. Yet some pretend that we're bigger victims of globalization than the workers that would kill to have half of the privileges we got, because we lost some jobs in manufacturing. Is globalization entirely positive? No, obviously not, nothing is and there are always improvements to be made, especially in regards to the living conditions of the people in developing countries.

And if you want to get rid of power dynamics, get rid of mankind. It is literally never going away. But at least in the West we have some influence over our leaders and policies rather than being expected to put up with what the local king or dictator says.

[Theodarzna]

LMAO @Endus

Hayek wasn't against the existence of a state or social spending, he pretty much said that such conditions were needed in order to ensure a well-functioning society that respected property rights. Milton Friedman another defender of neoliberalism pretty much said that something akin to the federal reserve had to exist in order to ensure a constant money supply. These are all positions an-caps and many libertarians oppose.

Thank you for the clarifications.

One more question, since it comes up a bit here.

Is there anything that would preclude a Neoliberal oriented person from holding Progressive or lets say commonly Lefty social views on say Same-Sex Marriage, Feminism, Racial Equality, Trans Rights? ect? I.E. is there anything about the ideology that divorces one from having those sorts of stances?