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Is there anyone who says, "I am a neoliberal"? I have never run across anyone who says that. And this is a problem with this article because it is a term that I have only seen used by those who are criticizing free market philosophy. I have only seen it used as a straw man term, so to speak, used in essence as a slur. How can you define a belief system when no one stands up and says, "Yes that is what I believe"? How can you have a belief system that doesn't have any self-described adherents? Would it be better to merge this with another article, say on free market philosophy or classical economics? -- Bruce Hall ( talk) 05:05, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Doesn't take that much finding, just wrap the phrase in quote tags: http://black-print-on-red.webs.com/apps/blog/show/next?from_id=5850285 "I am a libertarian, not a conservative... I am a capitalist not a marxist... I am a Neoliberal not a Nationalist... I am pro-American not anti-American"
http://iyinoluwa.org/2010/01/warming-up-to-winter.html "One of the questions on our final essay, worth about 30% of the final grade asks us if "alternatives to neoliberal globalization can prevail". No doubt, that sounds like a good question -except I am a neoliberal who thinks no alternatives to neoliberal globalization exist in the first place".
http://4rexpro.com/conservatives-have-a-problem-with-neo-liberals-forex-account/ "I kept seeing “neo liberal” as a derogatory term, and being a liberal, I looked it up. After reading on Wikipedia, I guess I am a neo liberal as well"
While I've responded to your challenge pretty easily, it was also rather pointless as none of the above would count as RS's for WP purposes, especially the one that mentions WP, as that would create a paradoxical circularity with all kinds of self-referential nesting that could endanger the logic of an encyclopedia. They are merely personal accounts by people who have thought about the political alternatives on offer and chosen to identify themselves as 'neoliberal' (which is what you were asking for after all). There is a view that 'neoliberal' is a word rather like 'Tory' which originated as an insulting epithet, but ultimately became adopted by the Tories themselves in the UK. It's also a word that is used widely and routinely among academics, some of whom use the word as an insult, many more attempting to use it in a neutral sense, but all in as much agreement as it's possible for academics to form (they make their living by disagreeing with each other after all), that there is a definable set of ideas, values and policies that can be categorised as 'neoliberal'. Higher up in this discussion page you'll find examples from RS's of neutral and even positive usages of the term. Including this one from Tim Worstall of the Adam Smith Institute: http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/international/more-on-this-neo%11liberalism-thing/ "Or as those desiring that near a billion people escape poverty and join us in enjoying the fruits of the bourgeois lifestyle should perhaps be saying, neo-liberalism is dead: long live neo-liberalism." River sider ( talk) 09:53, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
The problem stems from the fact that outside the USA liberal means political and economic freedom, i.e. free minds and free markets as the slogan of the libertarian Cato Institute says. Thus, neo-liberal means nothing more than the revival of liberalism. However, in the USA, where they changed the meaning of the word liberal, the term neo-liberal is confusing. It brings back the original meaning of liberal as in classical liberal. I originally noticed the term neo-liberal in non-American writers. If the term neoliberal becomes embraced by advocates of the free market in the USA it will have to come with a revival of the original meaning of liberal. As the term progressive becomes the more common term for social democrats the term liberal might revert to its international meaning, i.e. libertarian. I see that at times when the phrase economic liberal is used. Otherwise, the term neo-liberal is mostly a non-American term or academic term. It is widely used and needs a page in wikipedia. However, I believe it should be nothing more than a link to libertarianism or classical liberalism. After all, it is the revival of classical liberalism in the latter part of the 20th century. Jason from nyc ( talk) 13:14, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Rüstow coined the term and used it regularly to label himself. It is easy to find published sources for this. For Erhard I could find only a source in German [1] ( Translation), for Einaudi [2]. Here is a list of other persons who calls themselves "neoliberal" [3]. -- Obzova ( talk) 17:07, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
The above list contains names of persons that are commonly classified as neoliberal and some of them used the term to label themselves as neoliberal. For example Rüstow - who coined the term at the Colloque Walter Lippmann [4] [5] - used it regularly to label himself. Röpke was a good friend of Rüstow and used also the term sometimes to label himself, though he didn't like the expression [6]. Erhard stated that he is commonly classified as neoliberal and that he accept this classification. Further Erhard label Eucken, Röpke, Rüstow, Hayek and Böhm as neoliberal [7]. Einaudi labeled here and here ("we neoliberals") himself as neoliberal and labeled here Erhard as "the most famous exponent of this school of thought". Friedman used the term self-referentially in an article [8]. -- Obzova ( talk) 23:18, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
O.K., I have added the article as discussed. Please correct my English. -- Obzova ( talk) 23:25, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
User:Byelf2007 changed the sourced statement "It was in West Germany where neoliberal ideas were first implemented. The neoliberal economists around Ludwig Erhard could draw on the theories they had developed in the 1930s and 1940s..." into "Neoliberal economists such as Ludwig Erhard would use the theories he developed in the 1930s and 1940s..." with the comment "that's a stretch" [16]. Could Byelf2007 explain this please? I can't see a stretch, Germany is considered as the first implementation of neoliberal ideas in many sources and all neoliberals pointed out this. A stretch it would be to write that this was a 100% implementation of neoliberalism but nowbody contradicts that neoliberal ideas were implemented. Even Erhard and Müller-Armack stated that themselves und Rüstow, the originator of the term "neoliberalism" considered the terms "neoliberalism" and "social market economy" as synonyms [17]. -- Obzova ( talk) 11:23, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
Some issues for the Mont Pelerin Society Section:
The following sentence is verbatim from Mirowski's book and violates copyright laws: "Hayek and others believed that classical liberalism had failed because of crippling conceptual flaws and that the only way to diagnose and rectify them was to withdraw into an intensive discussion group of similarly minded intellectuals." It should be summarized or paraphrased. I can't do it because I can't tell from the books context what the "crippling conceptual flaws" were.
I'm afraid the following is also verbatim (from Helleiner's book) except for the italic insert: "After its initial success, it continued under the leadership of Hayek to promote neoliberal ideas and met almost every year in different countries."
The last sentence also verbatim and has to be paraphrased. Jason from nyc ( talk) 03:40, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
I changed the wording of several sentences by consulting the references and summarizing as best as I could. I added the Nash reference since Mirowski quoted Nash and Nash had more information that confirms the Mont Pelerin as the leading force in neo-liberalism in the years after WWII. I tried to keep the internationalist nature of the movement clear. And I tried to express the extremely isolated nature of out-of-power and out-of-fashion intellectuals. Jason from nyc ( talk) 05:11, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
This description is not neutral. I can bring many sources that confirms that all neoliberals refused a welfare state, possibly only Müller-Armack acceptet a very limited welfare state for a time. Only Rüstow called Mises "paleoliberal". I can't comprehend that this should be relevant for this article. Mises surely was quite extrem inside of the neoliberalism but all neoliberals except Rüstow accepeted him as one of them. And that Hayeks "more radical rejection of state intervention was rejected by the German neoliberals" is a exaggeration. This is just one point of view that has been rejected by others [21] [22]. -- Obzova ( talk) 17:14, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
P. Sainath, a rural journalist, Magsaysay (and a whole other list) award winner, described as "one of the world's leading authorities on hunger", author of bestseller "everybody loves a good drought", journalism professor, and more categorically criticizes neo liberal policies. His lecture globalizing inequality and many others, a film made about his journalistic work on the consequences of neo-liberal policies manifesting as farmer suicides is called "nero's guests". I don't know how to edit here, but he has a page here on wikipedia too and countless videos on youtube and articles all over the internet about the devastating impact of neoliberal policies on the poor and farmers of India and inequality worldwide.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.181.85.235 ( talk) 08:10, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
If you can't point to a single schooler which defines himself as a "neoliberal" than the article is completely misleading, neoliberal is not in fact a school of though but rather a term used by the left, and the left only, and only in that context. If I am not mistaken in the above claim regarding this not being used to denote a truly distinct school of thought I suggest the article be dramatically altered to reflect this or merged to economic liberalism.-- MeUser42 ( talk) 21:53, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Again, the article as it currently is is a gross misdirection. -- MeUser42 ( talk) 11:06, 29 February 2012 (UTC)Neoliberalism is a contemporary term denoting economic liberalism often used by the political left when referring to policies supportive of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets tand globalization. Neoliberals refers to those who seek to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the political and economic priorities of the world.
Your original contention is that the term is not used by neoliberals themselves, but only by 'lefts'. If you read the sections I refer you to (and many of the references in the article itself), you will see for yourself that the term is used by neutrals, and even a few of the neoliberals themselves, though I'm perfectly willing to accept that this is still a rare event. It's certainly a VERY commonly used term across an extraordinarily wide variety of academic fields, and in everyday political life. Equally, you'll find frequent use of the term 'terrorist' by opponents of terrorism, and by neutrals, but very few people who will identify themselves as 'terrorists'. This does not mean that terrorism is not a suitable topic for WP. I say I have a cough, my doctor says I have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder. Does the existence of COPD become more real or more valid for WP if I self-identify with that term? River sider ( talk) 15:14, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
I have been busy beavering away and writing an extended definition section, which is located at User:Aphenine/neoliberalism-draft, and I was wondering, would anyone please be so kind as to give me some initial feedback on it? Eventually, I'd like to add this to the start of the article, as a way of shedding some light on the debate about whether neoliberalism is/is not different from classical liberalism and whether it is a pejorative solely invented by the left by trying to define as precisely and in a way to minimise bias as much as possible.
To give a little context for the reason why I wrote that section and why I think it's badly, badly needed, I tried to write the shock therapy article and I got horribly lost trying to explain the theoretical reasons why shock therapy did or did not work. I knew, from reading lots of stuff on the left, that the theoretical basis for some attempts were tied in with something called neoliberalism and that this was different in some way from normal free market theory which I did not understand. But when I looked up this article, I didn't understand anything any better then I did before and I was even more confused. Being even more confused, I started to look up the term beyond Wikipedia and there I got even more confused, and I started to realise that, basically, the meanings of just about every term in liberalism, not least neoliberalism itself, are completely fluid. No one means the same thing when they use half the terms and Wikipedia is riddled with this too. So classical liberalism can mean economic liberalism, libertarianism or liberalism, while liberalism may mean social liberalism, while economic liberalism may mean economic libertarianism, economic liberalism or the economic component of classical liberalism and so on and so forth.
Reading up about the views of principle figures in the neoliberalism movement didn't help either. For example, the back of my Frederick Hayek book tells me he is the grandfather of neoliberalism. But, even though I haven't managed to finish it, it does not take a genius to figure out that Hayek's views have little to do with Friedman,. While Friedman has little to do with Thatcherism under Tony Blair, which has little to do with Noam Chomsky. In fact, they don't really have much to do with each other, really. But they are all eminent authors/politicians who have written/practised neoliberalism and which other eminent people have looked at and said "that is neoliberalism" and "that is what you should look at to understand it".
This lead me to realise that any attempt to define neoliberalism is imperilled because picking any definition of neoliberalism excludes the others automatically, and this leads to bias which leads to a bad article. Arguing about this article is also becomes pointless, since it is true that, by excluding some definitions, the claim "this is not neoliberalism" will always be true, and debates will happen, and happen again, and everyone will get nowhere really fast and with lots of vigour, because every side is right and arguing at cross-purposes.
However, because I believe that any set of views can be rationalised and unified into a coherent argument no matter how contradictory they seem at first (and this, this is a challenge, if ever I met one), what I've tried to do is present and define all the strands of neoliberalism as accurately as possible so we can all agree about what we're talking about when we decide what we agree on, and what we disagree on. More importantly, I also want to show why what they have in common, how they link to each other and why they all, in the final reckoning, deserve to be in this article. Even if no one wants it to go in the article, it might help other people make more rational decisions about bias and avoid the same old arguments, and I would consider that worthwhile.
Aphenine ( talk) 15:46, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
I've done parts 1 and 2 of the last section.
For number 2, you can see the new article at Economic liberalization in the post-war (post WWII) era, if you're interested. I gave it a quick introduction and also added something about West Germany at the end of WW2 since that's the only liberalisation I know that happened between the end of WW2 and the 1970s wave. Since the new article definitely mentioned post-WW2, I couldn't leave that out. There needs to be some way to link from here to that article, but I haven't figured out a natural way to do that yet.
This leaves number 3, rebalancing. I have two new proposals for the rest of this article that I'd like to discuss. They maybe controversial, so these I want discussed before I'll touch the article any more. Aphenine ( talk) 19:50, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
The first proposal is to take the description of the Washington Consensus in the Policy implications section and move it under policy in the Classical Neoliberal section, completely removing the leading paragraph. I believe that would be the best place for it to go and the Washington Consensus ideas strike me as more classical than economic. I know that often they've been interpreted in an economically liberal way and that this would make putting them in the classical section a matter of bias. However, I think the bias would balance out with an accompanying section in the corrupted neoliberalism which talks about how the Washington Consensus has been cherry picked, or the Economic Neoliberalism section could have a policy part of its own, mentioning the Washington Consensus and the economic interpretation. - Aphenine ( talk) 19:50, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
The second proposal I have is to remove the Support and Opposition sections, or to change them in some way. I get the feeling that they are a response to the innate bias in the article. The idea was seems to have been that, if the article is biased, it could only be fixed by adding more bias in the opposite way. The Expanded definition section talks about much of the same issues without making any attempt at judgement, so my thought is that they may have outlived their usefulness and that's why I propose they be removed, or something done to make them useful again. Any thoughts? - Aphenine ( talk) 19:50, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
The list of ten points between this article under Policy Implications and the Washington Consensus articles have some differences which seem to be significant to my non-expert eye. Particularly interesting is point 7:
Liberalization of inward foreign direct investment; -- Washington Consensus
Liberalization of the "capital account" of the balance of payments, that is, allowing people the opportunity to invest funds overseas and allowing foreign funds to be invested in the home country -- this article
However, a quote included on Washington Consensus from Williamson, the author:
"I of course never intended my term to imply policies like capital account liberalization (...I quite consciously excluded that), monetarism, supply-side economics, or a minimal state (getting the state out of welfare provision and income redistribution), which I think of as the quintessentially neoliberal ideas. If that is how the term is interpreted, then we can all enjoy its wake, although let us at least have the decency to recognize that these ideas have rarely dominated thought in Washington and certainly never commanded a consensus there or anywhere much else..."
Given the clarity of the quotation above, I have changed point 7 in Policy Implications to be consistent with the Washington Consensus article, but perhaps someone with more area knowledge could expand this point to make it clear that neoliberalism includes capital account liberalization as part of its understanding of the Washington Consensus.
-- Tommy.rousse ( talk) 14:28, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Ok, I've had some time to get feedback from other people and I'm going to start carrying out the changes agreed in the last section. This section exists so that I can write out what I'm thinking. The idea being in a crowd-sourced environment, if you see what I am thinking and you can see the grand master plan, then you can work with me on it, or carry on if something were to happen to me and I couldn't finish. It also provides a chance to discuss and disagree before major changes get committed, or just revert and start again if there's a better way of doing it that suggests itself halfway through.
I think I'll start with stating the aim of the reorganisation. The aim is to change this article to recognise that there is not one single type of neoliberalism but many, and to reflect this diversity in this article in an unbiased and accurate way.
So far, the plan for this involves:
The next bit talks about issues relating to creating a diverse article I came across in when I was writing the changes I'm proposing to merge into the article.
I thought long and hard about how to reflect the different ways neoliberalism is perceived, and I thought that a definition would work best. I thought this would work best because there are lots of terms used to describe the various forms of neoliberalism. Some of them do not use the word neoliberalism at all, but other terms, and sometimes the same term is used for different forms of neoliberalism. This makes it horrendously confusing to write anything about neoliberalism. Writing a definition avoids that entirely. Instead of worrying what people call neoliberalism, it's possible to infer what people meant when it's used and create a self-consistent definition for whatever is being discussed. Much pain is avoided. Terminology is also implies a linguistic element, which would be fun to look at, the changing evolution of the term and the like, but I'm no good at that and I think it would be complicated.
One of the huge problems with doing things with definitions is that there is very little independent research into the different types of neoliberalism. There are very few sources that I've been able to find that provide any acknowledgement of the difference and fewer that even bother to identify the different types. How does anyone decide what constitutes a definition of neoliberalism? It worried me in an article that is supposed to be unbiased and crowd-sourced, someone, somewhere is providing a definition of neoliberalism and controlling the article. This is bad. So I came up with the following criteria:
You'll notice the section I wrote obeys those rules. The only exception is that economic neoliberalism is not logically distinct from philosophical or hybrid neoliberalism, but they are logically distinct from it. If you understand programming, then they are sub-classes of economic neoliberalism. I separated them in order to make the text easier to follow and put the links in the text, not in the way the section headings are arranged, in order not to get too many subheadings, but there's no reason it can't be changed if someone wants to. Each definition also hopefully makes itself clear about why it is distinct from another one.
Also, once something is identified as neoliberalism, I then go to sources that are associated, even if they haven't been directly called neoliberalism by anyone. I don't have a problem with this, because it's logically consistent, but others might.
So far, the changes I'm proposing to merge have five forms of neoliberalism in the. There is no reason why there are five. So far, five works well and they obey the rules. As far as I know, I've included every thing that has been called neoliberalism by notable people. There is no reason there can not be more, although I strongly doubt there can be less, because I really can't make them fit together logically, although other people are welcome to try. I have been wondering whether to include a sixth to include libertarian forms of neoliberalism, which argue that economic neoliberalism can be done without any form of state at all using standard libertarian arguments, but I'm still on the fence on that one.
This is worrying me a lot. There are very few sources on classifying neoliberalism that I've been able to find. I may be wrong, but I've taken that to mean there aren't any, and therefore any attempt to rely solely on sources and verifiable material to do this is doomed to failure. So Wikipedians have to do that themselves, which could be considered original research. However, if Wikipedians don't do this, it's impossible to make the article unbiased and neutral, which is also against Wikipedia rules. So I've taken the view that maintaining NPOV is more important and the least of evils. I don't know if that would be a universal view, though. Maybe I shouldn't be worrying about this, as I just found the Wikipedia Be Bold statement and the Wikipedia Does Not Have Firm Rules principle.
There are many sources describing the contemporary phenomenon of neoliberalism; I really don't think the page is original research, although there may be some originality to the way it's organized. I'll try and sprinkle some sources in there. Groupuscule ( talk) 08:02, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
I had to come up with section headings. Apart from classical and economic neoliberalism, I'm ashamed to admit I made them up. I couldn't see any way around it. Feel free to change them if it makes sense.
Aphenine ( talk) 20:59, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for all of your work on this! But now it almost seems as though this could be a separate article. I feel as though a lot more needs to be done on the phenomenon itself, as opposed to the definition! IMO this is a really important topic that requires an accessible article. Groupuscule ( talk) 08:07, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't want to eliminate all of this work too hastily. Seeking other opinions! Groupuscule ( talk) 19:54, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
I think we need a section on accounts the effects of neoliberalism on 'developing' / 'third world' / 'ex-colonial' countries (role of World Bank, IMF etc). There's a whole section of literature out there on this aspect of the topic that we've not yet represented adequately in the substantive text, and it's a sizeable proportion of humanity to miss out. River sider ( talk) 11:16, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
As in the Policy implications section. If anyone has the time. -- MeUser42 ( talk) 01:18, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
It is flabbergasting how the editors of this page have contrived to construct an argument validating the term 'neoliberalism' when even Harvey and Steger & Roy, listed in the references section but obviously not read very thoroughly by anyone editing this page, clearly state that any such validity must be so inclusive that it could refer to almost any form of economics or politics someone wishes to attack.
What economists and politicians openly declare themselves as neoliberals? If defining features of neoliberalism are so broad that they include elements of every policy in the Western world since WWII, the term is useless as a description of anything at all, and unworthy of all this astonishing collection of trivia, except, perhaps, as a mention about a term latched onto by news media and the international left to refer to something they couldn't really explain.
The bottom line here is that this article also does nothing at all to explain neoliberalism, rather than attempting to suggest that elements of right wing politics and neoclassical economics have been condensed into a nonexistent conspiracy by a shadowy group called neoliberals who no one can point to.
This is why I don't edit at Wikipedia very often any more: the zeal to make something out of nothing has overtaken rationality and any pretense at pursuing encyclopaedic endeavours. Good luck with this ridiculous fabrication. It serves as an example why Wikipedia's credibility is declining steadily. Peter S Strempel | Talk 11:02, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
1st time. Hope I don't mess this up.
A note about credibility in introduction.
In regards to the previous criticism by peterstremple, it might be that the introduction includes a preponderance of examples that perhaps stand in support of Neoliberal ideals. Several are offered before the first citation. A short paragraph summing up criticisms of the concept are paraphrased above two citations! This comes across as lopsided. More balance might be sought for the introduction of such a controversial topic.
Also, using terms such as 'nanny state' and 'dead-hand' without a link to definitions and history can create the interpretation that these are code-words for certain political discourse, which might also lead to the perception of bias. And on a related note the term New Right seemed so striking that it certainly should have an entry and a link of its own.
Lastly, on an editorial note, I did not understand the usage of the word 'enforces' in the sentence, 'Neoliberals envision individuals primarily as market participants, and states as enforces for markets.' I'm not sure if this is a typo that should be 'enforcer'.
I hope this helps. Keep on trucking!
79.52.120.211 (
talk)
05:49, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
[decided my comment wasn't helpful and deleted it 71.205.142.149 ( talk)] 71.205.142.149 ( talk) 23:48, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
The claim in the intro that neoliberalism is part of "mainstream economics" is extremely POV. What does "mainstream" mean? How does neoliberalism apply to governments that oppose neoliberalism like social democratic governments? I suggest that that sentence be changed to say that neoliberalism is "a prominent economic theory utilized in many capitalist economies". That is more precise is not POV-pushing.-- R-41 ( talk) 00:44, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
This article is fairly biased against neoliberalism. As a school of thought that is supported by the majority of mainstream economists, it at least warrants equal amounts of support and criticism. In this article, criticism and examples of adverse effects in a small sample of countries (comprised almost exclusively of Latin American countries) are abundant and the benefits of market liberalization are ignored.
I believe this violates Wikipedia's neutrality policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.110.235.129 ( talk) 04:21, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | → | Archive 10 |
Is there anyone who says, "I am a neoliberal"? I have never run across anyone who says that. And this is a problem with this article because it is a term that I have only seen used by those who are criticizing free market philosophy. I have only seen it used as a straw man term, so to speak, used in essence as a slur. How can you define a belief system when no one stands up and says, "Yes that is what I believe"? How can you have a belief system that doesn't have any self-described adherents? Would it be better to merge this with another article, say on free market philosophy or classical economics? -- Bruce Hall ( talk) 05:05, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Doesn't take that much finding, just wrap the phrase in quote tags: http://black-print-on-red.webs.com/apps/blog/show/next?from_id=5850285 "I am a libertarian, not a conservative... I am a capitalist not a marxist... I am a Neoliberal not a Nationalist... I am pro-American not anti-American"
http://iyinoluwa.org/2010/01/warming-up-to-winter.html "One of the questions on our final essay, worth about 30% of the final grade asks us if "alternatives to neoliberal globalization can prevail". No doubt, that sounds like a good question -except I am a neoliberal who thinks no alternatives to neoliberal globalization exist in the first place".
http://4rexpro.com/conservatives-have-a-problem-with-neo-liberals-forex-account/ "I kept seeing “neo liberal” as a derogatory term, and being a liberal, I looked it up. After reading on Wikipedia, I guess I am a neo liberal as well"
While I've responded to your challenge pretty easily, it was also rather pointless as none of the above would count as RS's for WP purposes, especially the one that mentions WP, as that would create a paradoxical circularity with all kinds of self-referential nesting that could endanger the logic of an encyclopedia. They are merely personal accounts by people who have thought about the political alternatives on offer and chosen to identify themselves as 'neoliberal' (which is what you were asking for after all). There is a view that 'neoliberal' is a word rather like 'Tory' which originated as an insulting epithet, but ultimately became adopted by the Tories themselves in the UK. It's also a word that is used widely and routinely among academics, some of whom use the word as an insult, many more attempting to use it in a neutral sense, but all in as much agreement as it's possible for academics to form (they make their living by disagreeing with each other after all), that there is a definable set of ideas, values and policies that can be categorised as 'neoliberal'. Higher up in this discussion page you'll find examples from RS's of neutral and even positive usages of the term. Including this one from Tim Worstall of the Adam Smith Institute: http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/international/more-on-this-neo%11liberalism-thing/ "Or as those desiring that near a billion people escape poverty and join us in enjoying the fruits of the bourgeois lifestyle should perhaps be saying, neo-liberalism is dead: long live neo-liberalism." River sider ( talk) 09:53, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
The problem stems from the fact that outside the USA liberal means political and economic freedom, i.e. free minds and free markets as the slogan of the libertarian Cato Institute says. Thus, neo-liberal means nothing more than the revival of liberalism. However, in the USA, where they changed the meaning of the word liberal, the term neo-liberal is confusing. It brings back the original meaning of liberal as in classical liberal. I originally noticed the term neo-liberal in non-American writers. If the term neoliberal becomes embraced by advocates of the free market in the USA it will have to come with a revival of the original meaning of liberal. As the term progressive becomes the more common term for social democrats the term liberal might revert to its international meaning, i.e. libertarian. I see that at times when the phrase economic liberal is used. Otherwise, the term neo-liberal is mostly a non-American term or academic term. It is widely used and needs a page in wikipedia. However, I believe it should be nothing more than a link to libertarianism or classical liberalism. After all, it is the revival of classical liberalism in the latter part of the 20th century. Jason from nyc ( talk) 13:14, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Rüstow coined the term and used it regularly to label himself. It is easy to find published sources for this. For Erhard I could find only a source in German [1] ( Translation), for Einaudi [2]. Here is a list of other persons who calls themselves "neoliberal" [3]. -- Obzova ( talk) 17:07, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
The above list contains names of persons that are commonly classified as neoliberal and some of them used the term to label themselves as neoliberal. For example Rüstow - who coined the term at the Colloque Walter Lippmann [4] [5] - used it regularly to label himself. Röpke was a good friend of Rüstow and used also the term sometimes to label himself, though he didn't like the expression [6]. Erhard stated that he is commonly classified as neoliberal and that he accept this classification. Further Erhard label Eucken, Röpke, Rüstow, Hayek and Böhm as neoliberal [7]. Einaudi labeled here and here ("we neoliberals") himself as neoliberal and labeled here Erhard as "the most famous exponent of this school of thought". Friedman used the term self-referentially in an article [8]. -- Obzova ( talk) 23:18, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
O.K., I have added the article as discussed. Please correct my English. -- Obzova ( talk) 23:25, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
User:Byelf2007 changed the sourced statement "It was in West Germany where neoliberal ideas were first implemented. The neoliberal economists around Ludwig Erhard could draw on the theories they had developed in the 1930s and 1940s..." into "Neoliberal economists such as Ludwig Erhard would use the theories he developed in the 1930s and 1940s..." with the comment "that's a stretch" [16]. Could Byelf2007 explain this please? I can't see a stretch, Germany is considered as the first implementation of neoliberal ideas in many sources and all neoliberals pointed out this. A stretch it would be to write that this was a 100% implementation of neoliberalism but nowbody contradicts that neoliberal ideas were implemented. Even Erhard and Müller-Armack stated that themselves und Rüstow, the originator of the term "neoliberalism" considered the terms "neoliberalism" and "social market economy" as synonyms [17]. -- Obzova ( talk) 11:23, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
Some issues for the Mont Pelerin Society Section:
The following sentence is verbatim from Mirowski's book and violates copyright laws: "Hayek and others believed that classical liberalism had failed because of crippling conceptual flaws and that the only way to diagnose and rectify them was to withdraw into an intensive discussion group of similarly minded intellectuals." It should be summarized or paraphrased. I can't do it because I can't tell from the books context what the "crippling conceptual flaws" were.
I'm afraid the following is also verbatim (from Helleiner's book) except for the italic insert: "After its initial success, it continued under the leadership of Hayek to promote neoliberal ideas and met almost every year in different countries."
The last sentence also verbatim and has to be paraphrased. Jason from nyc ( talk) 03:40, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
I changed the wording of several sentences by consulting the references and summarizing as best as I could. I added the Nash reference since Mirowski quoted Nash and Nash had more information that confirms the Mont Pelerin as the leading force in neo-liberalism in the years after WWII. I tried to keep the internationalist nature of the movement clear. And I tried to express the extremely isolated nature of out-of-power and out-of-fashion intellectuals. Jason from nyc ( talk) 05:11, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
This description is not neutral. I can bring many sources that confirms that all neoliberals refused a welfare state, possibly only Müller-Armack acceptet a very limited welfare state for a time. Only Rüstow called Mises "paleoliberal". I can't comprehend that this should be relevant for this article. Mises surely was quite extrem inside of the neoliberalism but all neoliberals except Rüstow accepeted him as one of them. And that Hayeks "more radical rejection of state intervention was rejected by the German neoliberals" is a exaggeration. This is just one point of view that has been rejected by others [21] [22]. -- Obzova ( talk) 17:14, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
P. Sainath, a rural journalist, Magsaysay (and a whole other list) award winner, described as "one of the world's leading authorities on hunger", author of bestseller "everybody loves a good drought", journalism professor, and more categorically criticizes neo liberal policies. His lecture globalizing inequality and many others, a film made about his journalistic work on the consequences of neo-liberal policies manifesting as farmer suicides is called "nero's guests". I don't know how to edit here, but he has a page here on wikipedia too and countless videos on youtube and articles all over the internet about the devastating impact of neoliberal policies on the poor and farmers of India and inequality worldwide.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.181.85.235 ( talk) 08:10, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
If you can't point to a single schooler which defines himself as a "neoliberal" than the article is completely misleading, neoliberal is not in fact a school of though but rather a term used by the left, and the left only, and only in that context. If I am not mistaken in the above claim regarding this not being used to denote a truly distinct school of thought I suggest the article be dramatically altered to reflect this or merged to economic liberalism.-- MeUser42 ( talk) 21:53, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Again, the article as it currently is is a gross misdirection. -- MeUser42 ( talk) 11:06, 29 February 2012 (UTC)Neoliberalism is a contemporary term denoting economic liberalism often used by the political left when referring to policies supportive of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets tand globalization. Neoliberals refers to those who seek to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the political and economic priorities of the world.
Your original contention is that the term is not used by neoliberals themselves, but only by 'lefts'. If you read the sections I refer you to (and many of the references in the article itself), you will see for yourself that the term is used by neutrals, and even a few of the neoliberals themselves, though I'm perfectly willing to accept that this is still a rare event. It's certainly a VERY commonly used term across an extraordinarily wide variety of academic fields, and in everyday political life. Equally, you'll find frequent use of the term 'terrorist' by opponents of terrorism, and by neutrals, but very few people who will identify themselves as 'terrorists'. This does not mean that terrorism is not a suitable topic for WP. I say I have a cough, my doctor says I have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder. Does the existence of COPD become more real or more valid for WP if I self-identify with that term? River sider ( talk) 15:14, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
I have been busy beavering away and writing an extended definition section, which is located at User:Aphenine/neoliberalism-draft, and I was wondering, would anyone please be so kind as to give me some initial feedback on it? Eventually, I'd like to add this to the start of the article, as a way of shedding some light on the debate about whether neoliberalism is/is not different from classical liberalism and whether it is a pejorative solely invented by the left by trying to define as precisely and in a way to minimise bias as much as possible.
To give a little context for the reason why I wrote that section and why I think it's badly, badly needed, I tried to write the shock therapy article and I got horribly lost trying to explain the theoretical reasons why shock therapy did or did not work. I knew, from reading lots of stuff on the left, that the theoretical basis for some attempts were tied in with something called neoliberalism and that this was different in some way from normal free market theory which I did not understand. But when I looked up this article, I didn't understand anything any better then I did before and I was even more confused. Being even more confused, I started to look up the term beyond Wikipedia and there I got even more confused, and I started to realise that, basically, the meanings of just about every term in liberalism, not least neoliberalism itself, are completely fluid. No one means the same thing when they use half the terms and Wikipedia is riddled with this too. So classical liberalism can mean economic liberalism, libertarianism or liberalism, while liberalism may mean social liberalism, while economic liberalism may mean economic libertarianism, economic liberalism or the economic component of classical liberalism and so on and so forth.
Reading up about the views of principle figures in the neoliberalism movement didn't help either. For example, the back of my Frederick Hayek book tells me he is the grandfather of neoliberalism. But, even though I haven't managed to finish it, it does not take a genius to figure out that Hayek's views have little to do with Friedman,. While Friedman has little to do with Thatcherism under Tony Blair, which has little to do with Noam Chomsky. In fact, they don't really have much to do with each other, really. But they are all eminent authors/politicians who have written/practised neoliberalism and which other eminent people have looked at and said "that is neoliberalism" and "that is what you should look at to understand it".
This lead me to realise that any attempt to define neoliberalism is imperilled because picking any definition of neoliberalism excludes the others automatically, and this leads to bias which leads to a bad article. Arguing about this article is also becomes pointless, since it is true that, by excluding some definitions, the claim "this is not neoliberalism" will always be true, and debates will happen, and happen again, and everyone will get nowhere really fast and with lots of vigour, because every side is right and arguing at cross-purposes.
However, because I believe that any set of views can be rationalised and unified into a coherent argument no matter how contradictory they seem at first (and this, this is a challenge, if ever I met one), what I've tried to do is present and define all the strands of neoliberalism as accurately as possible so we can all agree about what we're talking about when we decide what we agree on, and what we disagree on. More importantly, I also want to show why what they have in common, how they link to each other and why they all, in the final reckoning, deserve to be in this article. Even if no one wants it to go in the article, it might help other people make more rational decisions about bias and avoid the same old arguments, and I would consider that worthwhile.
Aphenine ( talk) 15:46, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
I've done parts 1 and 2 of the last section.
For number 2, you can see the new article at Economic liberalization in the post-war (post WWII) era, if you're interested. I gave it a quick introduction and also added something about West Germany at the end of WW2 since that's the only liberalisation I know that happened between the end of WW2 and the 1970s wave. Since the new article definitely mentioned post-WW2, I couldn't leave that out. There needs to be some way to link from here to that article, but I haven't figured out a natural way to do that yet.
This leaves number 3, rebalancing. I have two new proposals for the rest of this article that I'd like to discuss. They maybe controversial, so these I want discussed before I'll touch the article any more. Aphenine ( talk) 19:50, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
The first proposal is to take the description of the Washington Consensus in the Policy implications section and move it under policy in the Classical Neoliberal section, completely removing the leading paragraph. I believe that would be the best place for it to go and the Washington Consensus ideas strike me as more classical than economic. I know that often they've been interpreted in an economically liberal way and that this would make putting them in the classical section a matter of bias. However, I think the bias would balance out with an accompanying section in the corrupted neoliberalism which talks about how the Washington Consensus has been cherry picked, or the Economic Neoliberalism section could have a policy part of its own, mentioning the Washington Consensus and the economic interpretation. - Aphenine ( talk) 19:50, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
The second proposal I have is to remove the Support and Opposition sections, or to change them in some way. I get the feeling that they are a response to the innate bias in the article. The idea was seems to have been that, if the article is biased, it could only be fixed by adding more bias in the opposite way. The Expanded definition section talks about much of the same issues without making any attempt at judgement, so my thought is that they may have outlived their usefulness and that's why I propose they be removed, or something done to make them useful again. Any thoughts? - Aphenine ( talk) 19:50, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
The list of ten points between this article under Policy Implications and the Washington Consensus articles have some differences which seem to be significant to my non-expert eye. Particularly interesting is point 7:
Liberalization of inward foreign direct investment; -- Washington Consensus
Liberalization of the "capital account" of the balance of payments, that is, allowing people the opportunity to invest funds overseas and allowing foreign funds to be invested in the home country -- this article
However, a quote included on Washington Consensus from Williamson, the author:
"I of course never intended my term to imply policies like capital account liberalization (...I quite consciously excluded that), monetarism, supply-side economics, or a minimal state (getting the state out of welfare provision and income redistribution), which I think of as the quintessentially neoliberal ideas. If that is how the term is interpreted, then we can all enjoy its wake, although let us at least have the decency to recognize that these ideas have rarely dominated thought in Washington and certainly never commanded a consensus there or anywhere much else..."
Given the clarity of the quotation above, I have changed point 7 in Policy Implications to be consistent with the Washington Consensus article, but perhaps someone with more area knowledge could expand this point to make it clear that neoliberalism includes capital account liberalization as part of its understanding of the Washington Consensus.
-- Tommy.rousse ( talk) 14:28, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Ok, I've had some time to get feedback from other people and I'm going to start carrying out the changes agreed in the last section. This section exists so that I can write out what I'm thinking. The idea being in a crowd-sourced environment, if you see what I am thinking and you can see the grand master plan, then you can work with me on it, or carry on if something were to happen to me and I couldn't finish. It also provides a chance to discuss and disagree before major changes get committed, or just revert and start again if there's a better way of doing it that suggests itself halfway through.
I think I'll start with stating the aim of the reorganisation. The aim is to change this article to recognise that there is not one single type of neoliberalism but many, and to reflect this diversity in this article in an unbiased and accurate way.
So far, the plan for this involves:
The next bit talks about issues relating to creating a diverse article I came across in when I was writing the changes I'm proposing to merge into the article.
I thought long and hard about how to reflect the different ways neoliberalism is perceived, and I thought that a definition would work best. I thought this would work best because there are lots of terms used to describe the various forms of neoliberalism. Some of them do not use the word neoliberalism at all, but other terms, and sometimes the same term is used for different forms of neoliberalism. This makes it horrendously confusing to write anything about neoliberalism. Writing a definition avoids that entirely. Instead of worrying what people call neoliberalism, it's possible to infer what people meant when it's used and create a self-consistent definition for whatever is being discussed. Much pain is avoided. Terminology is also implies a linguistic element, which would be fun to look at, the changing evolution of the term and the like, but I'm no good at that and I think it would be complicated.
One of the huge problems with doing things with definitions is that there is very little independent research into the different types of neoliberalism. There are very few sources that I've been able to find that provide any acknowledgement of the difference and fewer that even bother to identify the different types. How does anyone decide what constitutes a definition of neoliberalism? It worried me in an article that is supposed to be unbiased and crowd-sourced, someone, somewhere is providing a definition of neoliberalism and controlling the article. This is bad. So I came up with the following criteria:
You'll notice the section I wrote obeys those rules. The only exception is that economic neoliberalism is not logically distinct from philosophical or hybrid neoliberalism, but they are logically distinct from it. If you understand programming, then they are sub-classes of economic neoliberalism. I separated them in order to make the text easier to follow and put the links in the text, not in the way the section headings are arranged, in order not to get too many subheadings, but there's no reason it can't be changed if someone wants to. Each definition also hopefully makes itself clear about why it is distinct from another one.
Also, once something is identified as neoliberalism, I then go to sources that are associated, even if they haven't been directly called neoliberalism by anyone. I don't have a problem with this, because it's logically consistent, but others might.
So far, the changes I'm proposing to merge have five forms of neoliberalism in the. There is no reason why there are five. So far, five works well and they obey the rules. As far as I know, I've included every thing that has been called neoliberalism by notable people. There is no reason there can not be more, although I strongly doubt there can be less, because I really can't make them fit together logically, although other people are welcome to try. I have been wondering whether to include a sixth to include libertarian forms of neoliberalism, which argue that economic neoliberalism can be done without any form of state at all using standard libertarian arguments, but I'm still on the fence on that one.
This is worrying me a lot. There are very few sources on classifying neoliberalism that I've been able to find. I may be wrong, but I've taken that to mean there aren't any, and therefore any attempt to rely solely on sources and verifiable material to do this is doomed to failure. So Wikipedians have to do that themselves, which could be considered original research. However, if Wikipedians don't do this, it's impossible to make the article unbiased and neutral, which is also against Wikipedia rules. So I've taken the view that maintaining NPOV is more important and the least of evils. I don't know if that would be a universal view, though. Maybe I shouldn't be worrying about this, as I just found the Wikipedia Be Bold statement and the Wikipedia Does Not Have Firm Rules principle.
There are many sources describing the contemporary phenomenon of neoliberalism; I really don't think the page is original research, although there may be some originality to the way it's organized. I'll try and sprinkle some sources in there. Groupuscule ( talk) 08:02, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
I had to come up with section headings. Apart from classical and economic neoliberalism, I'm ashamed to admit I made them up. I couldn't see any way around it. Feel free to change them if it makes sense.
Aphenine ( talk) 20:59, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for all of your work on this! But now it almost seems as though this could be a separate article. I feel as though a lot more needs to be done on the phenomenon itself, as opposed to the definition! IMO this is a really important topic that requires an accessible article. Groupuscule ( talk) 08:07, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't want to eliminate all of this work too hastily. Seeking other opinions! Groupuscule ( talk) 19:54, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
I think we need a section on accounts the effects of neoliberalism on 'developing' / 'third world' / 'ex-colonial' countries (role of World Bank, IMF etc). There's a whole section of literature out there on this aspect of the topic that we've not yet represented adequately in the substantive text, and it's a sizeable proportion of humanity to miss out. River sider ( talk) 11:16, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
As in the Policy implications section. If anyone has the time. -- MeUser42 ( talk) 01:18, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
It is flabbergasting how the editors of this page have contrived to construct an argument validating the term 'neoliberalism' when even Harvey and Steger & Roy, listed in the references section but obviously not read very thoroughly by anyone editing this page, clearly state that any such validity must be so inclusive that it could refer to almost any form of economics or politics someone wishes to attack.
What economists and politicians openly declare themselves as neoliberals? If defining features of neoliberalism are so broad that they include elements of every policy in the Western world since WWII, the term is useless as a description of anything at all, and unworthy of all this astonishing collection of trivia, except, perhaps, as a mention about a term latched onto by news media and the international left to refer to something they couldn't really explain.
The bottom line here is that this article also does nothing at all to explain neoliberalism, rather than attempting to suggest that elements of right wing politics and neoclassical economics have been condensed into a nonexistent conspiracy by a shadowy group called neoliberals who no one can point to.
This is why I don't edit at Wikipedia very often any more: the zeal to make something out of nothing has overtaken rationality and any pretense at pursuing encyclopaedic endeavours. Good luck with this ridiculous fabrication. It serves as an example why Wikipedia's credibility is declining steadily. Peter S Strempel | Talk 11:02, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
1st time. Hope I don't mess this up.
A note about credibility in introduction.
In regards to the previous criticism by peterstremple, it might be that the introduction includes a preponderance of examples that perhaps stand in support of Neoliberal ideals. Several are offered before the first citation. A short paragraph summing up criticisms of the concept are paraphrased above two citations! This comes across as lopsided. More balance might be sought for the introduction of such a controversial topic.
Also, using terms such as 'nanny state' and 'dead-hand' without a link to definitions and history can create the interpretation that these are code-words for certain political discourse, which might also lead to the perception of bias. And on a related note the term New Right seemed so striking that it certainly should have an entry and a link of its own.
Lastly, on an editorial note, I did not understand the usage of the word 'enforces' in the sentence, 'Neoliberals envision individuals primarily as market participants, and states as enforces for markets.' I'm not sure if this is a typo that should be 'enforcer'.
I hope this helps. Keep on trucking!
79.52.120.211 (
talk)
05:49, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
[decided my comment wasn't helpful and deleted it 71.205.142.149 ( talk)] 71.205.142.149 ( talk) 23:48, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
The claim in the intro that neoliberalism is part of "mainstream economics" is extremely POV. What does "mainstream" mean? How does neoliberalism apply to governments that oppose neoliberalism like social democratic governments? I suggest that that sentence be changed to say that neoliberalism is "a prominent economic theory utilized in many capitalist economies". That is more precise is not POV-pushing.-- R-41 ( talk) 00:44, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
This article is fairly biased against neoliberalism. As a school of thought that is supported by the majority of mainstream economists, it at least warrants equal amounts of support and criticism. In this article, criticism and examples of adverse effects in a small sample of countries (comprised almost exclusively of Latin American countries) are abundant and the benefits of market liberalization are ignored.
I believe this violates Wikipedia's neutrality policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.110.235.129 ( talk) 04:21, 30 August 2012 (UTC)