Sure, fix all those wonky "special characters" after I finish reading the original post...

Yeah, sorry about that. We had some posting issues and had to delete and then repost this.

This whole thing seems to be about journalists and bloggers looking for a new catchphrase. Tempest, meet Teapot.

The next fight must be to demonize the insane clown posse that is the GOP, until it fractures into at least 2 pieces.

Then we'll all be better off.

And a hue and cry rose up throughout the land, "Neoliberalism is dead -- long live protoliberalism." (Yawn!) And the pseudo-intellectuals in Washington rejoiced, because all was well throughout the Beltway.

Although this article from across the pond has more to do with Brooks' earlier column about conservatism and human nature, it's still relevant to this discussion...:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2031700,00.html

I think we're trying to remove the thorns from a different paw at this point. We've had this unfiltered economic libertarianism for so long that it's hard for people to see that it isn't the solution for everything...

While it's true the folly of center-left vs left pissing matches has become especially clear during the past 6 years, the it should have been pretty obvious from '94 on.

Neoliberalism, according to the pundits, seems to be a way to guarantee corporate oligarchy profits while keeping just a smidge of the New Deal in effect to demonstrate their compassion.

a system that encourages and rewards work

This kind of talk makes me angry. The best reward for working is the pay, but, of course, the neoliberals did not bother to raise the minimum wage or do anything to raise wages for the bottom 75% of the economy.

neoliberals have achieved much of what they set out to achieve:

Entrenched Reaganism.

There's been a lively debate, on and off line, about David Brooks's column on Sunday asserting that neoliberalism, as a political-intellectual movement, is dead.

The big bully.

Picking on a defenseless ideology.

I'm not sure what the reforms of the VA and FEMA have to do with any of the particular positions which distinguished "neoliberalism" as a political movement distinct from anything else within American political liberalism, ditto with the replacement of high-rise public housing with alternative forms.

I don't see any of the other domestic policies cited as necessarily successes. Sure, the changes cited have occurred, but have the benefits those changes were designed to affect been produced? Have the reforms in public aid done better than the old liberal policies at attacking durable poverty? Has COPS reduced crime more than would have been expected from age demographics alone?

Neoliberalism has done things, but has, as a domestic policy movement, neoliberalism acheived anything except the realization of conservative values through liberal rhetoric?

That's the question that needs to be answered before we can discuss whether neoliberalism should have a future.

At the very least, one does not hear liberal critics of neoliberalism arguing that we should bring back AFDC, or build more high-rise public housing, or get all those community police off the street.

Certainly, one does hear liberal critics of neoliberalism arguing that welfare reform is a failure. The others are largely irrelevant: while both were embraced by neoliberals, neither was so against significant opposition from traditional liberals in the first place: they aren't issues on which neoliberals and other liberals were divided to start with.

This whole thing seems to be about journalists and bloggers looking for a new catchphrase.

Perhaps. But I think its mostly neoliberals seeing a resurgence of less compromising strains of liberalism driven by popular reaction against both the last several years of Republican rule and the factions of the Democratic establishment that failed to stand up to the Republicans during it, and worrying that they may not be running the show in the Democratic Party any longer if the resurgence isn't channelled properly.

Neoliberals don't have as much power argueing philosophical differences with liberals as they used to, since much of the left is now more motivated by revenge than by philosophy.

I still don't understand what people mean by "neoliberal" in any context other than describing the policies of organizations such as the IMF and the WTO. I can't tell if neoliberal, used to describe U.S. politicians and pundits, means "liberal but willing to criticize other liberals" or "liberal but willing to cut deals with conservatives" or "pragmatic as opposed to dogmatic" or what. And who gets to define "pragmatic" anyway? Is that pragmatic in terms of policy or pragmatic in terms of strategy? And how do you measure it? Howard Dean's 50-state strategy did not look "pragmatic" until quite late in the 2006 campaign.

But let me say this. Paul Glastris wrote "it's what Bill Clinton spent most of his presidency doing. Ending 'welfare as we know it' by replacing AFDC with a system that encourages and rewards work."

It is telling that real liberals including Paul Wellstone and Daniel Moynihan voted against the 1996 welfare "reform" legislation. (There were 21 No votes in the Senate, all Democrats.) Yes, the existing welfare system needed reforming, and yes, the legislation of 1996 included some needed reforms. But that law included some shameful and perverse provisions, such as a lifetime cap of five years of receiving benefits. The effect of this cap is that someone who received a small supplemental benefit for five years while working part time and completing a degree program, and gets her life turned around, but subsequently lose her employment, is ineligible for any benefit at all &mdash along with her minor children. The legislation also limited access to Food Stamps, which historically has always been regarded as a nutrition program, not a welfare program.

Real liberals were willing to stake their careers to the refusal to "reform" welfare in a way that punished people trying to improve their lives, and caused American children — whom nobody expects to be self-sufficient — to experience hunger.

So from this example, may I infer that "neoliberal" means "refusing to take a stand against to punishing Americans trying to improve their lives, and willing to allow American children to experience hunger"?

As a practical matter its seems both liberal & neoliberal now mean - "A democrat who gets to sell out every core tenant of liberalism except those dealing with sex"

I find it funny that Moynihan is held up as an example of "true liberalism." He was always very hard to typecast.

MJ, originally I selected a different senator who is now identified as quite liberal, but I looked at the list of 21 Nays in the Senate and I chose Moynihan to convey a bit of the spectrum.

Paul Glastris conveniently left out the trade agreements that sold the middle class down the river, althought I saw that Joel did mention the WTO.

Anyway let me attempt a definition of Neoliberal:

Def: A Neoliberal is an elite former liberal who is willing to sell out the working class to the highest bidder and who can easily be frightened into joining the Republic party in its smarmy flag waving and faux patriotism and from there into participating in its dangerous military adventurism.

There, I think that about says it.

Joel.

Moynihan was the architect of the modern welfare state. I remember his pleas at the time, not just in defense...but for general public attention and activism on the issue of welfare.

He’s a predictable vote against inasmuch as dismantling of welfare rights as a federal entitlement was a dismantling of what he had constructed.

I had never even heard of "neoliberalism" until Brooks' column, but maybe that's because even though I've followed politics pretty closely for 20 years (since high school), I never got into the real mechanics of it until recently.

But even then, it seems as though it's just another convenient label that really signifies ... well, who the hell knows.

We can all define a Neoconservative, but there really isn't a well-defined archetype for a "neoliberal." And maybe that's the problem. As others have noted, is it just someone more willing to sacrifice New Deal programs, or someone who isn't willing to go as far left as others? Seriously ... I can't figure it out.

As far as AFDC goes, maybe someone could explain to me when, exactly, it went away.

The mother of my daughter (who I not-so-lovingly refer to as "Welfare Sucking Slut") has worked less than three months TOTAL in 15 YEARS. She's not disabled, just uneducated and unwilling to take a job for $7 an hour, even though those are the only ones she's qualified to do.

So how the holy hell does she still get handouts if this program is no longer around? And why am I paying for it? (Note: It's not traditional child support I pay -- it's paying back the welfare she sucks from the rest of us.)

At the very least, one does not hear liberal critics of neoliberalism arguing that we should bring back AFDC, or build more high-rise public housing, or get all those community police off the street.

Paul, do these three things, and the other items you mentioned like Bosnia and Kosovo, really have a consistent thread tying them together we can attribute to "neoliberalism", or is this just the case of appropriating positive things whether or not they really fit together under any rubric?

If the former, please provide a cogent definition or explanation of neoliberalism.

I see cmdicely has beat me to it, though I would still love an answer and cogent explanation. I'm really not familiar with the in's and out's of neoliberal Democrats, so I haven't dismissed a connection with all these things, just don't understand it at the moment.

I can't tell if neoliberal, used to describe U.S. politicians and pundits, means "liberal but willing to criticize other liberals" or "liberal but willing to cut deals with conservatives" or "pragmatic as opposed to dogmatic" or what.

Its mostly a name for a specific movement within American liberalism that focuses on a specific, largely market-oriented, pragmatic criticism of what it saw as existing liberal dogmatism. Of course, to make that criticism, it had to be willing to criticize other liberals, but its hardly the only strain within liberalism. Because its critique often saw more market oriented approaches to liberal objectives as more effective, it often was more able to make common ground with conservatives than other strains of liberalism.

And who gets to define "pragmatic" anyway?

It is a "pragmatic" difference with other strains of liberalism because it does not differ on fundamental goals or values, but criticizes the effectiveness of means. That is, the defining distinction between it and other strains of liberalism is based on pragmatics rather than ideology.

That is not to say that one side or the other is more pragmatic; that's the question at issue in the debate between neoliberals and other liberals.

So from this example, may I infer that "neoliberal" means "refusing to take a stand against to punishing Americans trying to improve their lives, and willing to allow American children to experience hunger"?

You might, but you'd be wrong to do so. First, the welfare reform bill that actually passed was not simply what the neoliberals wanted, it was a compromise with the conservatives. (Yes, I know a lot of my fellow non-neo liberal friends will say that's a meaningless compromise, but there is an important distinction there.) The neoliberals in general did not want the provisions you point to as the worst, they felt that the benefits from the good provisions would outweigh the harms from the bad provisions, and that the work incentives in the new bill would do enough better of a job of really getting people out of long-term dependency and into functioning jobs that would start them on the way up out of poverty that it would be worth the costs.

Now, I don't agree that it was a good compromise looked at from the perspective of the time, and I think that the evidence that its good has outweighed its harms is dubious at best. And I won't disagree that a certain number of those taking neoliberal rhetorical positions are, in fact, conservatives who've found that that's the best way to sell conservative policies to liberals. But there have certainly been serious ideas about how to better acheive liberal policy goals from the neoliberal sphere, and while I'm not a big fan of neoliberalism in general, I also don't think liberals do themselves any favor if we stick out fingers in our ears and yell "Conservative! Conservative! Conservative!", anytime someone suggests a more market-based, less "big government" approach to acheive a liberal ideal.

The neoliberals are certainly right to say that liberals should not dogmatically hold to old ideas about the best means to acheive liberal ends, and must look to what really works. But that also means that, when the neoliberals have had a central hand in shaping policies, their works too must be held up to see did they work.

And in the fields where they most disagreed with the other liberals, I don't see a whole lot of clear positive results.

David Greenberg at the New Republic has an interesting breakdown of the subject:

http://www.tnr.com/blog/openuniversity?pid=88380

I see neo-liberalism as a viewpoint that will not and should not disappear.

I always remember reading Charles Peters comments on the beginning of the term. He and the Washington Monthly were accused of being "neo-conservatives" who reject their previous liberal ideas to become conservatives. His response was they were "neo-liberal" who believe in liberal ideas but seek ways to make them work effectively. In other words, pragmatism over dogma. The neo-liberal view is not to settle for the ways things are, but to make continual progress. The neo-liberal view does not reject ideas for dogmatic reasons because they involve "market solutions" or "conservative ideas."

I'd say neoliberalism is about as "dead" as Snake Pliskin and just as trustworthy.

Neoliberals were (are??) almost as anti-labor as Republicans. Neoliberal Democrats share much of the responsibility for transfering American-owned manufacturing to low wage countries in the name of globalism.

I feel much like Richard Feynman did when he was taking a philosophy class discussion on the book Process and Reality by Alfred North Whitehead. The discussion [after clicking, search for "Whitehead"] was about the term "essential object" and Feynman asked a question that revealed that every participant in the discussion about essential objects had a different understanding of what an essential object is, or means in the context of Whitehead's philosophy. I can't help thinking that the term "neoliberal" is as undefined among Americans as the term "essential object" was among Feynman's Princeton philosophy classmates.

There are some liberals who don't understand the role of incentives or the need for an economic system to reward risk-takers and entrepreneurs in order to avoid stagnation. But most liberals do understand that there is no "free lunch" and that people on welfare should have a path to gainful employment or self-employment. So, I still don't see a good definition of how a neoliberal differs from any other liberal.

Among conservatives, I see a distinct group called neoconservatives, who believe in tax cuts and "small government" except in areas such as huge military and mindless enforcement of drug laws, and an America-first view that ignores the fact that every country including America lives in a complex global ecology of nations. There are other conservatives other than neocons, such as the old standby mainline Rockefeller Republicans and the social conservatives who oppose homosexual rights but may be economically moderate.

But I don't understand a parallel distinction on the liberal side.

I think a number of the commentators have a misunderstanding regarding neo-liberals and are equating them with conservatives.

This magazine is at the center of neo-liberal movement. Take a minute to look at the features archive (hyperlink on the upper left hand side) and you will see that that this magazine is very liberal, just not dogmatic.

Among conservatives, I see a distinct group called neoconservatives, who believe in tax cuts and "small government" except in areas such as huge military and mindless enforcement of drug laws, and an America-first view that ignores the fact that every country including America lives in a complex global ecology of nations.

Most of that, except for the "huge military" and the "America-first view..." part has nothing to do with neoconservatism. Neoconservatism isn't "small government" at all, its government/economic view is more like corporatism in the style of fascism (though it arrives at it from a different direction, through its state socialism background in Trotskyism, and like the Leninists that are its ideological ancestors, focuses on advancing an elite that will bring the rest of society along behind—unlike its Communist forebears, though, and enabling the alliance with traditional conservatism, it has chosen to coopt existing capitalists as its vanguard rather than seizing capital and instituting when leftists critics of Soviet-style Communism have called "state capitalism".)

There are other conservatives other than neocons, such as the old standby mainline Rockefeller Republicans and the social conservatives who oppose homosexual rights but may be economically moderate.

But I don't understand a parallel distinction on the liberal side.

That's because neoliberalism isn't a parallel to the neoconservative movement, even though it has occasionally been painted that way by liberal critics who mistake it for an ideologically distinct movement or by neoconservative critics like Irving Kristol ("A neoconservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality. A neoliberal is a liberal who has been mugged by reality but isn't pressing charges.")

Rather, the unifying feature of neoliberalism is pragmatic (as discussed upthread) criticism of the means employed by other liberals with a preference toward more market-oriented means. Its an approach to liberalism which can coexist with essentially any ideological strain of liberalism.

Its not an ideologically distinct subgroup of liberals, so if you look for such a group to hang the label on, you won't find it, and you will continue to be frustrate.

There are some liberals who don't understand the role of incentives or the need for an economic system to reward risk-takers and entrepreneurs in order to avoid stagnation. But most liberals do understand that there is no "free lunch" and that people on welfare should have a path to gainful employment or self-employment. So, I still don't see a good definition of how a neoliberal differs from any other liberal.

A neoliberal differs from "any other liberal" in believing that the specific policies embraced by most other liberals (particularly, those of the 1960s and 1970s; after that, the influence of neoliberals on the liberal mainstream makes it harder to make a distinction) do not, in fact, work to achieve the liberal goals they are designed to serve, and that more market oriented policies would, in fact, do better.

That's the nature of a pragmatic criticism as distinct from ideological difference. Its not about believing in different goals. Its about different beliefs about what works to acheive those goals.

Take a minute to look at the features archive (hyperlink on the upper left hand side) and you will see that that this magazine is very liberal, just not dogmatic.

One problem with neoliberalism in the modern context is, inasmuch as the critiques it has were ever valid, there isn't a liberal orthodoxy against which the neoliberal position is distinct any more. Inasmuch as there is a liberal orthodoxy and establishment any more, it supports the kind of more market-oriented approach that neoliberalism proposed.

Neoliberalism is the dogmatic faction of 'liberalism.' The Washington Consensus demonstrates neoliberals dogmatically rely upon the 'free market' to solve economic and social problems. The smug satisfaction of neoliberal millionaire politicos and elitist pundits that they took thousands of needy people off of welfare and put them to work in dead end jobs that provide just enough compensation to live is another indication of their dogmatic belief in the 'market' to solve social ills.

Neoliberals are laissez faire pigs with lipstick.

cmdicely

Wait is cmdicely a "neoliberal"?

Like Mr. Glastris, I'm not particularly unashamed to call myself a neoliberal these days. To be sure I wouldn't have done so five or six years ago when I was going through my "socialist undergrad" phase, but at some point either reality or class consciousness (three cheers for underemployed petit bourgeois technocrats like me, etc.) hit.

I certainly am not surprised by the allegation that "neoliberals are just liberals who hate poor people," etc. (my paraphrazing of every single comment thus far invoking "free trade"). Because that's certainly a sticking point. Actually, there are a lot of sticking points: trade being one, another being the idea of "reforming" Social Security (it may be the conservatives pushing it now, but let's not forget that neoliberals at the New Republic and elsewhere helped birth this turkey).

If neoliberalism has hit upon hard times these days, it's for several reasons.

First, I think it is because it is no longer relevant; as Mr. Glastris suggests, these Bush Republicans have screwed things up so badly that its just not good enough for us neolibs to respond with dense position papers about raising the chocolate ration.

Second, the implementation of the free trade ideal was terrible; the agreements got hi-jacked by special interests and the labor and environmental side agreements to NAFTA didn't have enough bite. I recogniz that to some people that statement makes about as much sense as a Trotskyite claiming that the Soviet Union would have worked just fine if it weren't mismanaged by Stalin and the gang; yes, I am implying that the problem with free trade is that there isn't enough free trade.

The reason why trade is such a problem is because, as it becomes apparent that free trade hurt people more than it could or should have - notwithstanding the positive effects of NAFTA and the WTO on our economy - neoliberals looked out of touch. Neoliberalism was never a particularly populist philosophy, and trade was probably the final straw.

Third, "efficiency" and "quality" (I think it's fair to say that neoliberalism stands for efficient, high-quality big government) don't have much sloganeering power, and in the last decade neoliberalism doesn't seem to have any more power to inspire the American imagine than your typical humdrum middle-management fad-of-the-month crap.

Cursed double negatives, I meant to say I'm "not particularly ashamed" or "I'm unashamed."

I'm a Texan, George W. was my governor when I was in public school.

Make the Pie Higher.

Brojo is case in point of the knee-jerk liberals that neo-liberals are reacting to. If Brojo would look at the magazine articles, it is clear that this neo-liberal magazine is anything but a suck up to corporate interests and the right.

I have been around many paleo-liberals. If you mention certain issues, you can see there knees spasm. If you give a thoughtful, but non-traditional answer, you are considered a right-wing bushie. The problem is they don't solve problems, they just like feeling smug that they are good liberals.

For me, a devoted subscriber to and reader of every word of the Monthly since 1981, neoliberalism has always been about returning to the values of FDR: honoring work, narrowing the gap between rich and poor, and making government work for the good of all the people.

America is, and always has been, a liberal democracy. Democracy because it is a government of the people, and liberal because we are a nation of immigrants (slavery and the genocide of Native Americans being our original sins, for which we are still paying.)

Every time I vote, I choke up with tears in gratitude to my immigrant ancestors who made the profoundly liberal decision to leave their native lands and carve out a new life in the frightening wilderness that was America.

Every great achievement of America and America has been a liberal - or progressive - one.

That is the great challenge of liberalism - neo-, proto- or otherwise: to continue those great achievements, to face our life-threatening problems with the clear eyes of realism and the courage of progressive ideals.

Shame on every so-called Democrat who cannot or will not stand up and say, this is what I believe.

Thomas Friedman is a neo-liberal. If you enjoy being a neo-liberal, you must enjoy Thomas Friedman. Future generations will read his debates with Ignatio Ramonet to understand the debate between neo-liberals and liberals.

Neo-liberals are generally moderately nice people who might feel bad about poverty, but who primarily were wooed by the mountebanks and charlatans commonly called, "economics professors." I disagree, CMDicely; many liberals (at least those who read the Great Transformation) actually have a goal of limiting the spread of dogmatic acceptance of market based valuations. The entire practice of economics is tainted by the fundamental, underlying assumption; "if people acted rationally, in a world with no transaction costs, then..." Bah. Neoliberals have been the willing tools of the right wing for the past thirty years. Notice how far to the right the debate about government moved during their reign of terror; people genuinely refuse to identify with the term "liberal" today, in part due to neo-liberal assaults. As for the specific policy proposals mentioned, many poor people would like to see AFDC come back, and if enough resources were devoted to hi-rise projects, they would have achieved their intended purpose. "Rewarding risk takers" is the kind of bromide neo-liberals constantly uttered; see Friedman, Thomas (as mentioned above).

Father Figure: Are you suggesting that risk takers should not be rewarded? Then say goodbye to your personal computer, whose many technologies were not invented in the U.S.S.R.

Part of the confusion stems from how the term "neoliberal" is used. For me and many others, neoliberalism has little to do with being a political liberal and more with being an economic liberal. I write more on demystifying neoliberalism on my humble weblog.

Wait is cmdicely a "neoliberal"?

More of an ex-neoliberal. Certainly when I graduated from high school in 1990 and first voted in a Presidential election in 1992, I was broadly sympathetic to neoliberalism. Over the next few years, learning more (both from broader readings of theory and history, and more current events) led me to be broadly disatisfied with the broad sweep of neoliberalism; but I still think that open-mindedness about means is important, I just don't think the neoliberal tendency to favor a particular style of market reform is particularly often the right alternative (even where more traditional liberal means might be suboptimal) to diverge from traditional approaches of acheiving liberal ends. I do think there are many liberals to quick to have a kneejerk reaction of anything that smacks of a market-oriented approach, but then I think that neoliberals can be just as dogmatic in reaction to anything that hints of traditional liberalism (even if it is a novel approach that borrows something from traditional liberal approaches, rather than a blind repetition) or worse yet anything that might be characterized as "socialist".

Yeah Joel, say goodbye to the internet too... oh, wait, not so much. Say goodbye to genetic mapping... oh wait, not so much. And so on. That's quintessential neo-liberal; all bromide, no analysis.

The future looks bleak for US liberals of all stripes unless they can do something about
a)liberalizing trade by getting the agri-subsidies out.
b)reducing powers sought and unsought by the military-entertainment complex
c)rebalancing the budget
d) encouraging co-ops and mutualism instead of nanny statism.
e) committing to reducing the overall size and power of the state over time AND placing sunset clause provisions on all future legislation.
f) finding market ways-and-means of reducing fascism and encouraging their use over the net.
The PAM plan for example.

"The key flaw in the stance that most progressives have taken on economic issues is that they have accepted a framing whereby conservatives are assumed to support market outcomes, while progressives want to rely on the government. This framing leads progressives to futilely lash out against markets, rather than examining the factors that lead to undesirable market outcomes. The market is just a tool, and in fact a very useful one. It makes no more sense to lash out against markets than to lash out against the wheel. The reality is that conservatives have been quite actively using the power of the government to shape market outcomes in ways that redistribute income upward." Dean Baker "The Conservative Nanny State,"

The mother of my daughter (who I not-so-lovingly refer to as "Welfare Sucking Slut") has worked less than three months TOTAL in 15 YEARS. She's not disabled, just uneducated and unwilling to take a job for $7 an hour, even though those are the only ones she's qualified to do.

So how the holy hell does she still get handouts if this program is no longer around? And why am I paying for it?

Both your taste in women and your ability to deal with the consequences of your own actions speak so well of you. You must be a wonderful person.
Speaking disparagingly of a woman with whom you have a child is another charming trait.

Nobody should take $7/hour jobs. They are demeaning, and they don't provide a living wage. Those jobs should be eliminated; people shouldn't be motivated to work by fear of poverty. They should be motivated by love of their work.