Neoliberalism: The End?

Doing some bloggingheads with Bob Wright, Mickey Kaus argues that while the "neoliberalism is dead because it won" perspective (attributed to me) and the "neoliberalism is dead because it failed" perspective (attributed to Ezra) can't both be right, they can both be wrong. That's Mickey's perspective -- neoliberalism has won some important battles but has much further to go.

I actually think Ezra and I are both right. Read Paul Glastris and you'll see what I mean. On the one hand, a lot of neoliberal ideas have ceased to be distinctively neoliberal because they've become widely accepted. On the other hand, a lot of neoliberal ideas have ceased to be distinctive because lots of neoliberals -- like Paul -- have abandonned the idea that progressive politics can do without entitlement programs or labor unions. In short, most of neoliberalism's good ideas have become mainstream liberal ones, and the remaining distinctively neoliberal ideas tend to be bad ones that have very little left-of-center support these days. The early neoliberals, in short, had a tendency to want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but the bathwater really did need to be thrown out. Fortunately, it mostly has been thrown out these days, and relatively few people are left who want to throw out the baby. Hence, the salience of this dispute has tended to be eclipsed while, at the same time, 9/11 has prompted new divisions about different questions.

3/15/07 1:57PM del.icio.us this incoming links

Comments

Neoliberalism is dead because the modern conservative movement has now fallen flat on its face. Neoliberalism was just a reaction to a time when the nation as a whole bought into a number of right-wing mythologies and overgeneralizations (Democrats are fiscally irresponsible and weak on foreign policy, government regulation is always bad and inefficient, the media has a strong liberal bias, the drug war protects our children, etc, etc). Left-leaning politicians had to either cater to this inbalance or stay rooted in the reality-based world. Neoliberalism was the effort to cater to this inbalance. Now that the imbalance has been revealed to be a fraud, and people see through the mythologies and overgeneralizations of the 80s and 90s, neoliberalism is obsolete. There's no need to run from the reality-based world in order to get progressives elected.

Posted by: thehim on March 15, 2007 02:29 PM

Matt, I think it's time to abort the baby metaphor.

Posted by: Gregorio on March 15, 2007 02:37 PM

And Kaus is a special case -- he could care less about the bathwater, he just want to kill the baby.

Posted by: peep on March 15, 2007 02:38 PM

Boo-urns, Gregario.

Posted by: Jack Roy on March 15, 2007 02:39 PM

Neo as in new? Nothing lasts and most of this stuff is happening and on it's way out or transforming before it's called Neoliberalism or post or whatever. Tired.

Posted by: judson on March 15, 2007 02:53 PM

What I find interesting is the antipathy that Kaus has towards Ezra Klein -- the same antipathy that he has towards Bob Kuttner (but not, for example, towards Josh Marshall, Eric Alterman, Kevin Drum, Matt Stoller, Matt Yglesias or other members of the New Zoo Review). Why is that? What is it about Ezra, Bob Kuttner and (we have to include him) Andrew Sullivan that so irritates Kaus?

I have to admit, as someone who's read the guy for twenty-odd years, I am curious.

And Neoliberalism is both dead and undead. Depends on whether you think that Mickey has much of a consituency. Once he won on welfare reform, I'd say he probably doesn't (even though he's enormously entertaining to read).

Posted by: IP Guy on March 15, 2007 03:00 PM

Could you be more specific about which neoliberal ideas are gone and which are here to stay?

I am a Democrat and I still believe in free trade, balanced budgets, school vouchers (or as a second best solution increased funding in public schools), a carbon tax, and expansions of the earned income credit.

Are there any other fiscally moderate, socially liberal, and liberal on foreign policy Democrats out there still?

Posted by: golddog on March 15, 2007 03:01 PM

I'm a bit more cynical about this whole issue. Neoliberalism did have a major political benefit: it helped erase the (right-wing-perpetuated) stereotype of the Dems as a party that wanted to take from the rich/middle class and give to the (lazy, crime-ridden, undeserving) poor. The killing of AFDC is the obvious example, along with the stampede away from busing and affirmative action. This certainly helped the Dems, and in the long run will help progressivism, but in the short run we're seeing a major increase in severe poverty. I'd call that a decidedly mixed record.

Posted by: beckya57 on March 15, 2007 03:03 PM

What is it about Ezra, Bob Kuttner and (we have to include him) Andrew Sullivan that so irritates Kaus?

Kaus hates the American Prospect, so that may explain Ezra and Kuttner. Always has; you can go way back with him and see the dismissive comments. Is it my imagination, or is he nicer about Yglesias since he left his staff position?

The Sullivan thing looks very personal. Sullivan was TNR editor when Kaus did a lot of writing there; I wonder what happened.

Posted by: matt on March 15, 2007 03:10 PM

Why does Mickey Kaus hate babies?

Posted by: dj moonbat on March 15, 2007 03:10 PM

Why does Mickey Kaus hate babies?

Because, unlike him, they have a future.

Posted by: peep on March 15, 2007 03:22 PM

I still maintain that on foreign policy the rift between liberalism and neoliberalism has closed, thanks mostly to George W. Bush. But that crooked bankruptcy bill that had so much support from Democrats like Steny Hoyer makes me think that there are plenty of debates to occur within the Democratic Party. What confounds me is why so much of the tension between liberals and neoliberals still surrounds foreign policy.

The problem is probably grounded in politics rather than principle. Both sides have conceded that Iraq is a disaster and was probably doomed to be from the start, but neoliberals are probably concerned with the conception of being "weak" on national security. That's certainly Hillary's attitude.

Posted by: Matthew Struhar on March 15, 2007 03:24 PM

Maybe, Matt, you could learn from John Edwards. It's not the hard. Come on. Just say it:

I. Was. Wrong.

There, don't you feel better?

Posted by: david mizner on March 15, 2007 03:32 PM

I don't think there ever was a rift between traditional liberals and neoliberals on foreign policy. What I'm gathering from all these posts is that neoliberalism was a school of thought that had to do with economic policy, not foreign policy. To the extent that it had anything to say on foreign policy at all, it was about the Soviet Union and the Cold War (seeing as how it was invented in the '80s).

The liberal hawks who supported the Iraq War are a different group of people. The takeaway point here is not "let's go easy on the war hawks" but "'neoliberal' doesn't mean what you think it means, don't blame the war on an unrelated group." That's why a lot of neoliberals opposed Iraq - not just a small percentage of them, but a substantial number, enough to show that the two groups aren't strongly correlated at all. There are reasonable objections that can be raised against actual neoliberal policies, but those objections should be raised on their own merits, not by tying them to some other issue.

Posted by: JP on March 15, 2007 07:11 PM

"And Kaus is a special case -- he could care less about the bathwater, he just want to kill the baby."

that cracked me up.

Posted by: chris on March 15, 2007 07:46 PM

That's a fair point, JP.

I also should have pointed out that adherents to the academic school of neoliberal thought were generally opposed to the war, considering the basis of neoliberalism is greater cooperation. The hawkish libs who are commonly called neoliberals aren't really neoliberals in the academic sense.

Posted by: Matthew Struhar on March 15, 2007 08:46 PM

Matt forgot to mention that neo-liberalism had a significant role in the Bush administration's approach to the invasion of Iraq. By 1998, the neo-liberalism of Bill Clinton had taken up conservative ideas on balancing the budget, welfare reform, globalization, and pumping up defense spending. Clinton himself seemed to be thinking pretty hard about invading Iraq in response to the famous neo-con letter urging invasion. Neo-liberalism seemed triumphant and the emphasis on compassionate conservativism in George Bush's 2000 campaign can be seen as a reflection of neo-lib influence.

At the same time, however, the bulk of the Republican Party was making a hard turn to the right to re-establish "clear differences" between themselves and Democratic neo-liberals. Once in office, the Bush administration adapted an extremely aggressive approach toward neo-liberal types like Tom Daschle, refusing to negotiate with him as Senate leader and campaigning hard against him right from the beginning of Bush's term. The same approach was taken with other neo-lib politicians while the Republicans refused to acknowledge the least bit of common ground with neo-lib journalists, think tank types, or Clintonistas.

Reflecting on the run-up to the Iraq invasion, it's evident that the Bush administration conducted themselves in ways that ensured that neo-lib Democratic politicians could not support the invasion whole-heartedly. Thus, the Iraq invasion allowed the Republicans to separate themselves neo-liberal Democratic politicians and treat them as though they were "mere liberals."

The beauty of this strategy was that the Bush administration received support from the neo-liberal defense establishment and journalists like Thomas Friedman, Mickey Kaus, and the rest of the guys at Slate. As a result, they could play the various neo-liberals off against each other and against the more straight-forward war opponents.

In the final analysis, neo-liberalism didn't just die. It was killed by the Bush administration, the GOP Congressional leadership, and the right-wing attack media. They pushed the Republican Party so far to the right that neo-libs could no longer figure out any kind of viable moderation. With the collapse of the middle ground, neo-liberalism became an unattractive and faintly dishonest way of viewing the world and neo-libs began going their left and right ways--Joe Lieberman and Mickey Kaus notably to the right, the New Republic to the left.

Now, it appears that neo-liberals may be catching up to their deaths in a very belated Sixth Sense kind of way. But neo-liberalism is still dead.

Posted by: Ric Caric on March 15, 2007 09:39 PM

There's nothing neoliberals can do to salvage their reputation. It was a movement designed to purge the Democratic party of it's base. IT would never matter if some of their ideas were good, they were too brutish and too nasty to ever be forgiven, even if they have come around. This is why triangulation sucks as a political strategy, it destroys the trust between a party and it's leadership and prevents political maneuvering as a result. Much of the complaints of the majority of the party, that leadership isn't really trying to end the war, comes from this mistrust. We just don't believe our elected officials are even honestly trying. That's the true legacy of neoliberalism.

Posted by: soullite on March 16, 2007 07:28 AM

Good comment.Thanks admin.

Posted by: youtube on November 16, 2007 02:09 PM

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