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Very powerful quote: >Many in the United States fear a Trump election because there might be an explosion of state repression against the vulnerable, particula

Very powerful quote: >Many in the United States fear a Trump election because there might be an explosion of state repression against the vulnerable, particularly against specific racial and ethnic minorities. And yet, the neoliberal state has already created a penal system to rival the world’s most authoritarian dictatorships. The United States imprisons more citizens (total and per capita) than any other country on Earth, and African Americans and Latinos at a vastly over-represented rate. Many fear Trump would bring massive deportations of undocumented immigrants. And yet, the neoliberal state already engages in mass deportations, at the level of millions during the current administration, with countless more waiting in dire conditions in the world’s largest network of immigrant detention camps. Many fear a Trump election would bring mass persecution, surveillance, and restrictions for American Muslims. And yet, the neoliberal state already spies on Muslims, administers religious tests at borders, and polices Muslims for nothing more than their religious practices. Many fear a Trump election might bring economic ruin, and yet, for most Americans, wealth is vanishing, wages stagnant, real unemployment steady.

argonaut 10y ago
To be clear, though, "American liberalism" is not "neoliberalism" as the article uses the term. Neoliberalism most closely maps to the fiscal (e.g. non-religious, non-populist), Establishment conservatism of America.
- ab5tract 10y ago
  No, it really doesn't. We used to distinguish between 'neoconservative' and 'neoliberal', but the only line in the sand between them was one was from the Republican party and the other was from the Democratic party. But since the only significant ideological difference is whether Israel is to be protected for religious reasons (neocon) versus economic ones (neolib), the term neocon has gone out of fashion. Neoliberalism has always been the term applied to the form of justice-free economic globalization pushed by the "left" (that is, pushed by the leaders who co-opted the institutions of the left, starting with Carter and continued under Clinton and Obama). Europe does not consider "liberal" as a political category ("liberal on issues like health care") and instead carries only the economic connotations and is more or less a synonym or neoliberalism. I wish we could push this to "Establishment conservatism", but the truth is that the vast majority of neoliberalisation was initiated under a Democratic president.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Neoliberalism and neoconservative are very differvent, and both involve more than international trade. While support for neoliberal trade had extended beyond the Republican Party in the US by the end of the Reagan/Bush period (which both produced the Perot phenomenon as a reaction as Clinton largely backed neoliberalism trade -- but much of the Democratic Party in Congress did not, hence NAFTA implementing legislation being passed on the back of Republican votes), support for neoliberal trade and even moreso the domestic policy aspects of neoliberalism like privatization of public services remained much higher in the Republican Party (prior to the current election campaign, where things are more in flux.) Neoconservatism isn't about mutually-beneficial free trade the way neoliberalism is, it's more about US imperialist foreign policy aimed at securing control of key economic resources and imposing privatization on the domestic economies of the new colonies as a means for US-aligned capitalists and corporations to secure control of key segments of the economy. There's a little bit of overlap between the two in that Neoconservatism involves selective and forceful export of some of the domestic policy components of neoliberalism, but they are rather different ideas (and both, historically, more attached to both the political right in general and the US Republican party when it comes to US political parties.)
  - argonaut 10y ago
    You are again mistaking "American liberalism" with "neoliberalism." You are correct that economic globalization is part of "neoliberalism", but it is not part of "American liberalism." Now, you are certainly correct that Democrats espouse economic globalization, but so do economic conservatives (who are distinct from populist conservatives). This is reflective of the fact that the Democrats have drifted closer to the center over the past few decades, and are now really a centrist party, possibly center-left. But support for unions is not neoliberalism. Support for a higher minimum wage is not neoliberalism. You also have to be careful about the term "neoconservative." It is typically used only to describe a specific hawkish foreign policy philosophy, and has little to do with economics (and typically doesn't have anything to do with trade - but this is a blurry line).
bsder 10y ago
> The United States imprisons more citizens (total and per capita) than any other country on Earth, and African Americans and Latinos at a vastly over-represented rate. The marijuana legalization votes are striking back at this. It's not a full fix by any means, but it's sure going to reduce the number of people thrown in jail--especially minorities.
- rayiner 10y ago
  It's not much of a fix at all. Very few of the people in prison are there for either possessing or trafficking in marijuana: http://m.gazette.com/legalization-didnt-unclog-prisons/article/1548308 http://m.gazette.com/legalization-didnt-unclog-prisons/artic.... In Colorado, drug-related charges are only down 23% post legalization. Of course, marijuana charges rarely resulted in jail time to begin with, so the impact on prison population is a lot less than that. Even releasing every drug prisoner would only have a modest effect on incarceration rates: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/releasing-drug-offenders-wont-end-mass-incarceration http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/releasing-drug-offenders-.... It would drop the prison population by about 15%, but we would still have ten times the incarceration rate of Denmark.
  - AndrewKemendo 10y ago
    In Colorado, drug-related charges are only down 23% post legalization It would drop the prison population by about 15% I mean those are pretty huge numbers really. An almost 1/4 reduction in charges (which are the starting point for imprisonment) is massive IMO.
    - rayiner 10y ago
      Drug legalization is something we need to do, for sure. But it's frustrating to see the conversation regarding prison reform always get co-opted by legalization advocates. Denmark has less than 1/10th the incarceration rate of the U.S. If we were listing the top 5 reasons for that disparity, drugs probably wouldn't even make the cut (especially considering drugs--including marijuana--are illegal in Denmark!)
- 10y ago

argonaut 10y ago

To be clear, though, "American liberalism" is not "neoliberalism" as the article uses the term. Neoliberalism most closely maps to the fiscal (e.g. non-religious, non-populist), Establishment conservatism of America.

ab5tract 10y ago
No, it really doesn't. We used to distinguish between 'neoconservative' and 'neoliberal', but the only line in the sand between them was one was from the Republican party and the other was from the Democratic party. But since the only significant ideological difference is whether Israel is to be protected for religious reasons (neocon) versus economic ones (neolib), the term neocon has gone out of fashion. Neoliberalism has always been the term applied to the form of justice-free economic globalization pushed by the "left" (that is, pushed by the leaders who co-opted the institutions of the left, starting with Carter and continued under Clinton and Obama). Europe does not consider "liberal" as a political category ("liberal on issues like health care") and instead carries only the economic connotations and is more or less a synonym or neoliberalism. I wish we could push this to "Establishment conservatism", but the truth is that the vast majority of neoliberalisation was initiated under a Democratic president.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  Neoliberalism and neoconservative are very differvent, and both involve more than international trade. While support for neoliberal trade had extended beyond the Republican Party in the US by the end of the Reagan/Bush period (which both produced the Perot phenomenon as a reaction as Clinton largely backed neoliberalism trade -- but much of the Democratic Party in Congress did not, hence NAFTA implementing legislation being passed on the back of Republican votes), support for neoliberal trade and even moreso the domestic policy aspects of neoliberalism like privatization of public services remained much higher in the Republican Party (prior to the current election campaign, where things are more in flux.) Neoconservatism isn't about mutually-beneficial free trade the way neoliberalism is, it's more about US imperialist foreign policy aimed at securing control of key economic resources and imposing privatization on the domestic economies of the new colonies as a means for US-aligned capitalists and corporations to secure control of key segments of the economy. There's a little bit of overlap between the two in that Neoconservatism involves selective and forceful export of some of the domestic policy components of neoliberalism, but they are rather different ideas (and both, historically, more attached to both the political right in general and the US Republican party when it comes to US political parties.)
- argonaut 10y ago
  You are again mistaking "American liberalism" with "neoliberalism." You are correct that economic globalization is part of "neoliberalism", but it is not part of "American liberalism." Now, you are certainly correct that Democrats espouse economic globalization, but so do economic conservatives (who are distinct from populist conservatives). This is reflective of the fact that the Democrats have drifted closer to the center over the past few decades, and are now really a centrist party, possibly center-left. But support for unions is not neoliberalism. Support for a higher minimum wage is not neoliberalism. You also have to be careful about the term "neoconservative." It is typically used only to describe a specific hawkish foreign policy philosophy, and has little to do with economics (and typically doesn't have anything to do with trade - but this is a blurry line).

bsder 10y ago

> The United States imprisons more citizens (total and per capita) than any other country on Earth, and African Americans and Latinos at a vastly over-represented rate. The marijuana legalization votes are striking back at this. It's not a full fix by any means, but it's sure going to reduce the number of people thrown in jail--especially minorities.

rayiner 10y ago
It's not much of a fix at all. Very few of the people in prison are there for either possessing or trafficking in marijuana: http://m.gazette.com/legalization-didnt-unclog-prisons/article/1548308 http://m.gazette.com/legalization-didnt-unclog-prisons/artic.... In Colorado, drug-related charges are only down 23% post legalization. Of course, marijuana charges rarely resulted in jail time to begin with, so the impact on prison population is a lot less than that. Even releasing every drug prisoner would only have a modest effect on incarceration rates: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/releasing-drug-offenders-wont-end-mass-incarceration http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/releasing-drug-offenders-.... It would drop the prison population by about 15%, but we would still have ten times the incarceration rate of Denmark.
- AndrewKemendo 10y ago
  In Colorado, drug-related charges are only down 23% post legalization It would drop the prison population by about 15% I mean those are pretty huge numbers really. An almost 1/4 reduction in charges (which are the starting point for imprisonment) is massive IMO.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    Drug legalization is something we need to do, for sure. But it's frustrating to see the conversation regarding prison reform always get co-opted by legalization advocates. Denmark has less than 1/10th the incarceration rate of the U.S. If we were listing the top 5 reasons for that disparity, drugs probably wouldn't even make the cut (especially considering drugs--including marijuana--are illegal in Denmark!)
10y ago