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Maybe some of this is due to how little variation there is: I've yet to see a politician who isn't neoliberal (though Trump was more than a bit fascist at times
by toomanyducks 5y ago
Maybe some of this is due to how little variation there is: I've yet to see a politician who isn't neoliberal (though Trump was more than a bit fascist at times). Even 2019-20 Andrew Yang still built his ideas (mainly UBI) off of neoliberalism, and imo, appealed to a ton of more traditional neoliberal values: that UBI is about providing equally and flatly for everyone, not specifically and directly helping the disenfranchised and indirectly aiding worker control of the means of production (how I'd view its effects). And then he abandoned the UBI campaign this year, becoming even more centrist.
Then, if we shift our focus further left, we see Bernie Sanders, who is just not all that socialist because he's really working within the neoliberal framework that his years of politics conditioned him to work in. Further left than that, well, there are no anarchists or communists in politics.
I could make the case that this is here (and bad) bc neoliberalism will slide towards fascism if we give equal weight to everyone's ideas, but that does feel like I'm sinking further into divisions, and it presupposes that my positive opinions about the far left are actually supported by facts, regardless of any ground truth. But really, it wouldn't be an issue if we had more variety in ideology: discussion would be more varied and more thorough, we'd all question our own ideology's assumptions just a bit more, and overall it would be easier to engage in someone else's ideas if you knew they weren't coming from the same baseline as you.
Neoliberalism is not a neutral or balanced ideology: let's have more communists, socialists, anarchists, libertarians, hell, maybe a few fascists or stalinists could do some good.
- zozbot234 5y agoThere's no such thing as neoliberalism. "Neoliberalism" is a fake bogeyman that Latin American populists came up with when they needed something to blame for the failure of their policy choices.
- toomanyducks 5y agoThat is not something I've ever heard before - could you explain further, provide some links maybe?
- 1270018080 5y agoSelf described neoliberals will be surprised when they learn neoliberalism isn't real.