The welfare state pays a lot more money in unemployment benefits over in the US than it does here in the UK too, but that’s a totally separate issue.

I think you’re so used to living in the wealthiest country in the world that you’ve lost perspective on what “just enough to survive” means.

I’m not rationalising anything. Again you live in a fantasy world.

Well… the use of the word is owed to lefties (and some others) reminding the Mont Pelerin Society that they were the first to coin the term. The fact that MPS members and supporters have ditched the word because of its unpleasant associations with its howling failures ( eg Thatcherism and Pinochet’s Chile) is interesting in itself.

I’m fascinated as to how you rationalise the hoards of people risking their lives to cross Central America and the Arizona and New Mexican deserts or the hundreds of thousands drowning in the Mediterranean to escape African poverty. Or the people of Port Au Prince who eat mud pies to stave off the pains of hunger? Presumably this is a lifestyle choice? Or perhaps they need to see your graphs so that they know that while they may lack food, shelter, medical care and education, they’re actually doing fine according to the statistics?

Your (McDougall) ridiculous theoretical
postings are what I would expect from first year undergrad students
without much ability. They bear no relationship to reality and you cite
no sources, no statistical data, nothing — because there is nothing to
sustain the fraudulent claims that you are making.

Your ridiculous theoretical postings are what I would expect from first year undergrad students without much ability. They bear no relationship to reality and you cite no sources, no statistical data, nothing — because there is nothing to sustain the fraudulent claims that you are making.

Your ridiculous theoretical postings are what I would expect from first year undergrad students without much ability. They bear no relationship to reality and you cite no sources, no statistical data, nothing — because there is nothing to sustain the fraudulent claims that you are making.

I don’t know an awful lot about the history of economics but didn’t the classical liberals subscribe to the labour theory of value? In which case, Neoliberalism is not the same at all.

A Modest Proposal was a satire which could well have been applied to Thatcher and Blair’s governments but it predates Liberalism, let alone neoliberalism.

I referred you to examples of what Blair actually did. Academies and stealth privatisation of public services are concrete neoliberal policies. What he believes (nothing much) is irrelevant.

You have to be kidding. Corbyn and McConnell are the most obvious examples but I’ve seen the term used for Nicola Sturgeon(!) and several SNP MSPs and MPs.

By and large though, it is true to say that most Marxists are honest about their affiliation while most Neoliberals are not. Having said that, Neoliberals are damned easy to spot so it doesn’t really present the problem you say it does.

“…while a lot of the people called “neoliberal” by others have relatively little in common, hence the difficulty.”

They will certainly have differences – as Marxists do. But what they do have in common is fundamental – a preference for market over democratic solutions.

Your ridiculous theoretical postings are what I would expect from first year undergrad students without much ability. They bear no relationship to reality and you cite no sources, no statistical data, nothing — because there is nothing to sustain the fraudulent claims that you are making.

Negative and positive liberties are frequently confused, However, this binary distinction is nowhere near sufficient in a modern world where the power of the State is essential in order to protect citizens’ economic rights, especially with regard to global monopolies, abusive cartels, banking, employment issues… the list is endless. These issues were perhaps less compelling at the time Hayek wrote his key texts, but unlike Marx’s writings they proved far from prophetic. They share with Marx the misfortune of having been put into practice by political crooks and idiots — roughly half a century later than the implementation of communist ideology.,

That’s irrelevant. In common with most of his contemporaries he accepted their dogma – his NHS “reforms” and tax policies are pure neoliberalism – because he thought it would serve him well personally.

“…and your two examples most certainly are not applications of that society’s ideology. ”

What a peculiar claim! You are saying that neither James Buchanan nor Margaret Thatcher subscribed to the aims of the MPS? Buchanan was one of its most prominent and influential members. As pointed out in the text, Thatcher actually declared that the Constitution of Liberty “is our programme”. Are you suggesting that someone made these facts up?

“You are shifting from a narrow definition to a broad definition well illustrating the slippery use of the word by Leftists…”

Its definition and scope has broadened as its adherence has grown. This is one of the many ways in which it increasingly resembles Marxism.

“Hayek rightly said “You can have economic freedom without political freedom, but you cannot have political freedom without economic freedom.” ”

He said it but that doesn’t make it fact. The economic freedom he and his associates advocated for the benefit of the rich would effectively cancel out political freedom for the rest of us. This is what I meant by “making ideologically loaded and contentious assertions as if they are empirically proven facts.”

I am not aware of any Mont Pelerin Society members ever resiling from the conclusion that Pinochet’s brutal Chilean regime is their greatest achievement so far. Neither, to my knowledge, have any of them ever condemned Thatcher for the brutality and perfidy of her regime with regard to the miners’ strike.

“…if that’s part of your concept of neoliberalism then I don’t understand your definition.”

I define neoliberalism as the ideology adopted by the Mont Pelerin Society. I have given you two examples of the application of that ideology here. There are plenty more. What’s not to understand?

Taiwan, Korea and China did not develop as a result of neoliberalism at all. Their economic success involved extensive state interference in business and industry and a great deal of regulation. “Debatable”? Really? Why?

Hong Kong is an artificial niche economy – able to take advantage of a unique relationship to both China and Western nations and simply too small to extrapolate from. It is absurd to attribute its success to neoliberalism.

As far as India’s neoliberal policies are concerned it is simply too soon to tell but I would bet on an impending social and economic disaster accompanied by extremely dangerous political turmoil. More in common with their old imperial masters than they ever bargained for, perhaps.

You are confusing statistics with fact. Statistics are abstractions and mask the fact that overall increases in living standards are often accompanied by localised grinding poverty and that the increased prosperity enjoyed by an individual may well be fleeting as production moves elsewhere and family and communal support is broken up by workforce mobility. It is a mistake often made by intellectuals whose only knowledge of the lives of ordinary people comes from books.

Quite simply, the fact that there are superficial differences between Chicago Neoliberals and (say) ACLU Neoliberals does not nullify the common thread to which they belong any more than the differences between Allthusser and David Harvey mean they cannot both have been Marxists.

“Be clear whether you mean social democrats abandoning state ownership but still decidedly statist, or whether you mean libertarians wanting a very limited state role, and the word might be useful.”

Neoliberalism does not involve “a very limited state role” by any means: Buchanan’s Chilean constitution gave the armed forces the right to intervene in government at their discretion; Thatcher’s government broke new ground in terms of the state spying on trades unionists and political activists and of course using the police to break the heads of strikers and then frame them with criminal offences. A brutal, politicised and democratically unaccountable state is central to Mont Pelerin Society ideology.

And I do not need to read anything again. If you failed to express your intentions clearly, then you need to write it again.

The recent articles regarding Neoliberalism are in response to Ed Conway’s laughable assertion it doesn’t exist. He’s not the first to make the claim, right wing “libertarians” were at it ten years ago, too.

Marxists regard the myriad distinctions between Capitalist models merely dancing on the head of a pin. It’s all “Capitalism” to them.

Don’t quite see how a Marxist can be a neoliberal – or perhaps I’ve missed something!

At any rate I rather agree with Dillow’s questioning whether neoliberalism exists. In fact neoliberalism is arguably just one example of several allegedly wicked ideas thought up by lefities so that lefties can portray themselves as saints by comparison and so as to provide lefties with an evil monster which lefties can be seen to valiantly fight.

Another classic example of this delusion is “hate”. The truth is that it is extremely difficult to prove what anyone’s motives are for doing or saying anything. But lefties are not bothered by mere trifles like the truth or proving evil intent before attributing evil intent to anyone. In the eyes of lefties, anyone disagreeing with a leftie (especially on immigration) is motivated by hate. End of.

Even the IMF calls itself “Neoliberal”: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2016/06/ostry.htm