Rufus Polson
Aug 27, 2017 · 1 min read

Neo-liberal does have a meaning, though. It’s a term used both by the left and in some parts of academia to refer to a political ideology which promotes free markets, reduced social safety nets, “free trade” agreements, financial and other deregulation, and somewhat paradoxically very strong patent and copyright laws. It is broadly based on the “efficient market” hypothesis and proponents generally claim to be acting to “free” “the market” with these policies. In practice, it largely boils down to “whatever lets large corporations make bigger profits”, hence the almost nonexistent antitrust enforcement even though efficient markets are supposed to have competition, not oligopolies, and the massive bailouts to failing financial corporations (but not people) during the Great Recession, when a “free” market would have involved letting them fail.

So when someone says “neo-liberal” it isn’t meaningless and it’s not that hard to determine whether the label applies. Unlike “alt-left” for instance.

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    Rufus Polson

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