If you're interested, I wrote this up for a sociology course last quarter. It was just a discussion board post so I had to address so many quotes and what not but it was basically about whether neoliberalism is more in line with Amer. Republican party conservatism or liberalism.
Quote:
It is often emphasized when neoliberalism is discussed just how much it shares with the conservative, republican agenda. In many ways, this comparison is an attempt to preserve the pristine façade of the roots of liberalism as if neoliberalism was some bastardization. Liberalism wants to be seen as a possible route for social change even while neoliberalism squelches true democracy across the globe. In actuality, neoliberal tendencies are present in classic liberal writers; there is no gap in which Republican agendas polluted liberalism to create neoliberalism. Neoliberalism should be seen as simply bringing to fruition the logical possibilities within John Locke and Thomas Paine. To explain away neoliberalism as some perversion of liberalism and conservatism actually ignores what conservatism seeks and ultimately mystifies any chance of usurping bourgeois ideology, whether it be conservative or liberal.
One thing that needs to be initially addressed is what exactly is meant by the term neoliberalism. As much as my task is to define neoliberalism through classic liberal texts, it would do well to initially point out what I am referring to. What I mean by neoliberalism is the application of fundamentally liberal ideas and practices within global economic and foreign policy which has resulted in and continues to perpetuate radical inequality, exploitation and tyranny. What I intend to show here is how these contemporary policies arise out of no new shift in thinking but were ultimately inherent in our modern society’s liberal ideology.
As early as Locke, society was a venue for the procurement of life and liberty and most importantly to neoliberals, wealth, “the commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men constituted only for the procuring, preserving and advancing their own civil interests” (Locke 72). Some of these civil interests are “money, land, houses, furniture,” etc., material goods essentially. In Locke’s day and age, this was a response to feudalism and the control of the king. Property wasn’t individualized under feudalism and what one earned wasn’t necessary protected from the grasp of the king if he chose to take it. What this has developed into, in contemporary mindsets, is that society and the people within are there to facilitate the production of wealth as laborers and consumers to be exploited and marketed to.
As an Enlightenment thinker, Locke saw in the individual a source of progress and reason when left unrestrained. His conception of the state of nature contests to that, “all men are naturally in a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature” (Locke 76). To Locke, this individualism opened the gate for a commonwealth of intellectually developed individuals to meet and dictate how their lives are to be run without a despot ruling over their every move. One could finally tend as much as one wanted to one’s personal whims as long as it didn’t intrude on others. Within neoliberalism, this has become a plea for free trade and unregulated markets; every act should be unrestrained or uncontested insofar as a rational individual is committing it. People must be free to become wealthy at the deprivation of others as much as one shouldn’t be forced to participate in some institution, like the military, against their will. That is, people aren’t conscripted until capitalism is challenged or markets are in danger of being lost.
Within Paine’s writing is the foundation for America insofar as he participated in the revolution’s buildup and he early on outlined many parts of the democracy which would be adopted. Paine had a positive outlook towards society while having a negative one towards the government, “government even in its best state is but a necessary evil” (Paine 88). Paine was writing in retaliation to the tyranny of George III and his overbearing taxes and despotic rule over the thirteen colonies. This has been maintained as resentment towards government intervention on individual’s lives but has devolved into interference in the business sector. A desire for government uninvolved in personal affairs has become the desire for no tariffs, welfare, regulation or unions. For neoliberals, government should make itself smaller in order to let corporations grow. Paine declared that “the design and end of government” was simply “freedom and security” (Paine 89). Paine simply wanted the government to protect and facilitate the growth of individuals towards the betterment of society and that hasn’t changed much. Contemporary neoliberals see the government as serving no more need than to wage war, create markets and protect their overseas business ventures. Security no longer applies to individuals but to revenues, as protestors against the WTO get mace in the face and the war in Iraq was waged solely for private companies to benefit off of reconstruction contracts towards rebuilding cities we bombed ourselves.
Now that we’ve traced neoliberalism’s roots back to classic liberalism, is it drawing from conservatism in any ways to form a new agenda for Republicans or is it truly separate from the Right’s way of thinking? Edmund Burke was the original conservative to lash out against the principles of liberalism, in his case, the French Revolution. In direct opposition to classical or neoliberalism, Burke thought “society requires not only that the passions of individuals should be subjected…the inclinations of men should frequently be thwarted, their will controlled, and their passions brought into subjection” (Burke 136). No appeal for the limitless progression of individuals or free self-reign in Burke’s view. Burke saw people as inherently ruthless in need of repression much in the same way Hobbes did. If Burke was to analyze contemporary neoliberalism, he would see it as the rapacious monstrosity it is in need of rules and structure. Because to Burke, “the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement…to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties” (Burke 139). This is much of the role that modern neoliberal policies want the state to play insofar as workers should be subjugated while corporations can run amok across the globe. In Burke’s opinion, manipulation of the state to serve one’s interests is not only wrong but much of what liberals wanted to do. The idea of a contract one agrees to only when it fits one’s own interests was morally repugnant to Burke. To Burke, if the state was to have authority, it was to have it in all aspects of life, an idea which liberalism in any form would not consent to.
What we now have is what exactly neoliberalism is; freedom to accumulate wealth, no governmental regulations on commerce, an insistence on free trade and the protection and military domination of new markets. We also now see that conservatism shares little with neoliberalism and what this means is that both sides of the aisle in contemporary Western society will never truly challenge capitalism. It no longer serves any purpose to distinguish between two veins of liberalism any longer, what is necessary is to emphasize the similarities throughout history to demonstrate the need for an alternative to this bourgeois ideology. What Locke, Paine and Burke wrote towards the end of the eighteenth century has grave consequences for contemporary social change insofar as every aspect of mainstream thinking takes capitalism for granted and refuses to challenge it. Every anti-capitalist movement must now recognize this fact and look towards the creation of alternative forms of life, free from alienation and exploitation. Liberal feminists, labor movements or socialist democratic parties can’t rely on the political process insofar as it is always a struggle between classic liberalism and its propensity towards neoliberalism or conservatism. Radicalizing this process for real change seems a task more comparable to Sisyphus’ than a pragmatic political goal.
