![]() ![]() There was a big change in political and economic thinking in the 1970s and 1980s and a concomitant shift in policies, around the world. In their haste to condemn neoliberalism with sufficient zeal, the naysayers leave themselves in a contradiction. Even in the most free-market countries the state spends 40-50 per cent of GDP, does extensive redistribution and funds a safety net for the poor. Well, which is it? In the modern world, even “deregulated” industries, such as finance, are very heavily regulated in practice. But they also describe the modern world as neoliberal. Opponents of free markets accuse adherents of ideologically opposing any and every government regulation, and caricature them as leaving children to die in the street and so on. It’s not surprising. Most descriptions of neoliberalism are negative. Save for the president of the Adam Smith Institute, Madsen Pirie, there were years when almost no one would call themselves neoliberal. ![]() ![]() The International Monetary Fund recently published a paper called “ Neoliberalism: Oversold?” (overall, their judgement was a little more sanguine than that sounds). Even those accused of carrying neoliberalism out around the world are not too sure about it. Those seen as the movement’s key intellectual founders, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, did not use the term. Most people, though, would avoid describing themselves as neoliberals. But the world is in a pretty good state, and since the introduction of neoliberalism, it has been getting a lot better. In George Monbiot’s words, it is “ the ideology at the root of all our problems“. Critics also allege that the world is currently run under neoliberalism. The term has become a term of abuse, mostly by those who consider themselves anti-neoliberals.
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