Neoliberalism: There is No Alternative Megathread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > Neoliberalism: There is No Alternative Megathread

Maximo Roboto: Feb 4, 2012

https://twitter.com/giorgiomomurder/status/1516112101512687617
https://twitter.com/giorgiomomurder/status/1516113306913628169

# ? Apr 18, 2022 20:13

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# ? May 6, 2024 20:19

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Arguably all Erdogan and Duterte have done is create ideal economic conditions for a neoliberal institution to "rescue" their economy.

# ? Apr 18, 2022 21:44

animist: Aug 28, 2018

they're just too cowardly to invoke the name of xi

# ? Apr 19, 2022 00:34

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

i wrote a long post about this a while back but the whole point of neoliberalism is that it insists the state can't do anything except graft, so it's no surprise that even neoliberal autocrats don't bother pursuing any projects except graft

# ? Apr 19, 2022 01:14

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

DIY Grafts

# ? Apr 19, 2022 01:14

err: Apr 11, 2005; I carry my own weight no matter how heavy this shit gets...

End of History 2

# ? Apr 19, 2022 01:19

Nix Panicus: Feb 25, 2007

Why would anyone think Putin would want to create industrial redevelopment or whatever? He came to power as a direct result of the West looting Russia, he's a gangster living out his dream of being powerful and in charge.

vyelkin posted:

i wrote a long post about this a while back but the whole point of neoliberalism is that it insists the state can't do anything except graft, so it's no surprise that even neoliberal autocrats don't bother pursuing any projects except graft

Its so confusing when neoliberals get all smug and think pointing out the government is corrupt is the ultimate argument against state services. The government is corrupt because neoliberal institutions have completely co-opted it, that is not a good argument for putting even more power in the hands of neoliberal institutions! Government is, theoretically, responsive to the people, while corporations and financial institutions are manifestly not. Why would anyone ever prefer zero mechanism for accountability over a corrupt but perhaps salvageable mechanism?

# ? Apr 19, 2022 01:25

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

Nix Panicus posted:

Why would anyone think Putin would want to create industrial redevelopment or whatever? He came to power as a direct result of the West looting Russia, he's a gangster living out his dream of being powerful and in charge.

Its so confusing when neoliberals get all smug and think pointing out the government is corrupt is the ultimate argument against state services. The government is corrupt because neoliberal institutions have completely co-opted it, that is not a good argument for putting even more power in the hands of neoliberal institutions! Government is, theoretically, responsive to the people, while corporations and financial institutions are manifestly not. Why would anyone ever prefer zero mechanism for accountability over a corrupt but perhaps salvageable mechanism?

it's because they think that there's always a theoretical private version that would provide the same result without being corrupt, because clearly if they were corrupt then a competitor could come along and not be corrupt and therefore outcompete the corrupt actor. It's transparently wrong, but to dismantle why it's wrong you're implicitly butting up against the foundational belief that the private sector is inherently more efficient than the public sector. This was a big part of the post I was thinking of from a while ago, so I went and found it:

vyelkin posted:

yeah, the whole point of neoliberalism wasn't necessarily to use the state to enforce technocratic capitalism, it was about removing the ability of the state to do anything else. end of history meant end of state power, and third way leaders more than anybody else made sure that "the state can't do anything" became the defining ideology. people might acknowledge that the state had the theoretical authority to do things, but they made sure that the ideological apparatus surrounding the state constantly reaffirmed that it shouldn't, both because it was theoretically wrong and because it was inefficient. everything is more effective when someone other than the state does it, so why would you ever want the state to do anything even if you acknowledge that it can?

what state capacity did remain was, as dreylad says, used to funnel state money to private individuals. sometimes this was in the form of pure graft, but more often it was rooted in the privatization of the state. neoliberal ideology says capitalism is the only system that works and efficiency is more important than efficacy. capitalism is driven by the profit motive which drives people to efficiency, and neoliberalism says the problem with the state is it doesn't have a profit motive so it can never be efficient, even if it is effective - the state might get the thing done that you want, but it will waste resources doing it, so there will always be a theoretical private initiative that could reach the same result for less expenditure. and so the privatization of the state took place, both because of graft but also because of an ideological belief that only privatization could lead to efficiency. and this didn't only apply to things neoliberals dislike about the state, but about everything--private police, private prisons, private soldiers. why spend money creating an effective police force, prison, or military when you could contract it out, get the same result for less expenditure, and get the chance to give a big contract to your friend from university while you're at it? the state still exists but it primarily exists as a clearinghouse for taxpayer money to go to private contractors who provide state functions. the principal thing that changes when government changes hands is not the basic ideology of how the state should operate, but rather which group of well-connected donors get the big taxpayer-funded contracts

of course, it should go without saying that this system only works when the good times are rolling. as soon as it faces a systemic crisis that can't be solved in the course of a single fiscal quarter using a public-private contract, it collapses because the state no longer has the capacity to do effective long-term planning and the private contractors either aren't interested in it or aren't capable of doing it either. neoliberalism teaches that there is nothing outside the market, and so it cannot conceive of problems that are legitimate market failures. it either stalls on those problems, acknowledging that they exist but remaining unable to solve them, or its ratcheting mechanism reassures the neoliberal mind that the solution is more of the market, because these market mechanisms cannot fail, because there is no ideological alternative to them. the pandemic or climate change are problems that exist outside the market and that cannot be solved by the market, because in both cases the short-term profit incentives cause drastic long-term consequences far out of proportion to the short-term choices that caused them

this is why we keep doubling down on bad responses to both these systemic problems, because our political class is entirely wedded to the neoliberal view of the world as one big market where private enterprise is the driving force of history and where the only efficient thing for the state to do is to get out of the way, but these problems are ones that are made worse by the market, not better, and therefore cannot be solved through this model. sometimes a far-sighted individual might break the trend and try to do what's healthy in the long-run, but the short-term incentives to stab that person in the back and go back to opening the economy or burning coal are just too great, and because nothing exists outside the market our leaders simply cannot conceive of a long-term solution that might overcome the short-term perversions of the profit motive.

# ? Apr 19, 2022 01:36

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

err posted:

End of History 2

# ? Apr 19, 2022 01:51

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# ? May 6, 2024 20:19

AxGrap: Jan 11, 2005; ☝☯ Ŧ𝓤𝒸Ҝ 𝓨𝕠𝔲! 🐼👽

vyelkin posted:

it's because they think that there's always a theoretical private version that would provide the same result without being corrupt, because clearly if they were corrupt then a competitor could come along and not be corrupt and therefore outcompete the corrupt actor. It's transparently wrong, but to dismantle why it's wrong you're implicitly butting up against the foundational belief that the private sector is inherently more efficient than the public sector. This was a big part of the post I was thinking of from a while ago, so I went and found it:

Good posts, thanks.

# ? Jul 11, 2023 03:50

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > Neoliberalism: There is No Alternative Megathread