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Since when is austerity a neoliberal policy? Or neoconservative? Or anything from any prevailing modern style of politics?

• mseebach 9y ago
  Austerity is the policy for when the money runs out. Neoliberalism is the convenient scapegoat for that fact. Practically all the countries that are under "austerity" (few of the policies actually implemented in these countries fit the dictionary definition of "austerity", except perhaps Greece) were following supposedly Keynesian policies of spending in downturns, except they forgot the bit about consolidating in upturns. The 00's were a huge upturn, yet most of the countries now under austerity were spending freely. Then the crash hit, and they had to spend even more, and then came a downturn and suddenly spending was actually problematic. But yeah, economic liberals are the bad guys, and they were also the bad guys 10-15 years ago when they warned that governments should step back, consolidate and prepare for a rainy day.
• stan_rogers 9y ago
  "Neoliberal" refers to economics, not politics as such. Obviously, the two are inextricably linked on some level, but neoliberal economics tends to be associated with what most people would call conservative politics these days, tending towards libertarianism.
  • geezerjay 9y ago
    > "Neoliberal" refers to economics, not politics as such. "neoliberal" is actually an entirely political philosophy which specifically dictates what the role of a government and state should be in a capitalist economy. Without the neoliberal diktats, it's just plain old capitalism.
• dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Since when is austerity a neoliberal policy? Austerity in the public sector is an expression of neoliberal priority of reduced public regulatory and tax burden as the means to achieve economic growth, which produced a preference to relieve fiscal imbalance with spending rather than revenue-side measures.
• nyolfen 9y ago
  austerity in tandem with privatization of state enterprises are perhaps the two pillars of what is generally described as neoliberal policy. neoliberal policy is a long-burning reaction to the stagnation and perceived failures of mid-century welfare state policies.
• nickbauman 9y ago
  Before we used the term "Economics", people used the term "Political Economics". It belies the fact (certain microeconomic modeling aside) that all economic theory is underpinned by moral assumptions or moral arguments. This is why it will never be a science.
  • dragonwriter 9y ago
    > all economic theory is underpinned by moral assumptions or moral arguments. No, its not. There is both descriptive economic theory and prescriptive economic theory. Only the latter meets your description. Now, it's true that the latter is often accompanied by nonscientific descriptive dogma, but that no more precludes scientific descriptive economics than the existence of nonscientific dogma about the origin of the universe makes it impossible for scientific cosmology to exist.
    • nickbauman 9y ago
      There are Nobel laureates who work down the hall from each other that do not agree on the meaning of the terms "asset bubble" or "market failure", or arguably even "debt" for starters. I find it hard to imagine a "descriptive economic theory" without relatively unshakably agreed upon definitions of these terms.
• qntty 9y ago
  Neoliberalism refers primarily to the 20th-century resurgence of 19th-century ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism. These include economic liberalization policies such as privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade, and reductions in government spending in order to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
• rdtsc 9y ago
  This is looking at the economic axis not the political one. I wonder if you are thinking about American politics there with liberals as Democrats and conservatives as Republicans, with their respective agendas.