What is neoliberalism? The left’s muddle does not help reverse its progress

Political movements tend to be united by what they oppose, rather than any positive things they stand for. Today the political left unite against a universal enemy, which they name “neoliberalism”. The word is bandied about much as “socialism” is by the political right. But what is it? And is it a useful descriptive term? I believe it is, but that the left is muddled by what it is and is not.

According to Wikipedia neoliberalism started its life in the 1930s as a middle path between classical liberalism on the one hand, and the state planning ideologies of fascism and communism on the other. Classical liberalism advocated a minimal state, and, in practice, a world in which big capitalist corporations could thrive. It was widely blamed for the economic catastrophe that followed 1929 in capitalist economies. Neoliberalism stood for something called a “social market”, backed by a strong state. Nowadays, the left make no real distinction between  classical liberalism and neoliberalism. This speech by Susan George in 1999, and posted recently on Facebook by a friend, illustrates this quite well – a lot of what she rails at should in fact be defined as classical liberalism. This is interesting, and not necessarily wrong. Neoliberal ideas have provided cover for a lot of classical liberal ideas – and neoliberals have seen state socialism as their main enemy, rather than unfettered capitalism.

I think it is best to understand neoliberalism in terms of three core ideas:

• Markets are an unbeatable information exchange. Markets are idolised, because they are seen as the most efficient possible way of reconciling the masses of information that modern societies require to keep moving. This idea of the market as an information exchange, famously advanced by Freidrich Hayek, is a very powerful one, and an advance on the rather abstracted ideas of classical economists.
• People respond to incentives. Pretty much all human behaviour, good or bad, can be understood as a response to external incentives. This is often developed into the idea of all people being independent agents rationally responding to the opportunities around them according to a set of pre-defined preferences – often referred to as homus economicus. However, the idea is deeper and stronger than this theoretically convenient way of looking at things.
• Direct state management is inefficient. This actually follows from the previous two ideas, but takes on a life of its own in the minds of its followers. The state is incapable of processing information about people’s wants and needs with the efficiency of a market; the state’s officers generally respond to their personal incentives, often simply to secure a stable and easy job. Result: gross inefficiency. When any of the known theoretical weaknesses of markets are presented to neoliberal advocates, their response is often to accept them, but to point out that to try and solve them through a state managed solution would make things even worse.

There is a general view, supported by Ms George’s speech, that neoliberalism took hold in the 1980s, under Britain’s Margaret Thatcher and America’s Ronald Reagan’s political leadership, and the economist Milton Freidman providing theoretical heft. From these beginnings it developed into an orthodoxy across the developed world that, according to the left, still grips the political establishment today. The financial crisis of 2007-09 has not drained it of power, as the left thinks it should have done.

There is some puzzlement on the left as to how this neoliberal takeover happened. Ms George paints a glowing picture of the Keynesian consensus that preceded it, and derides any idea that neoliberal ideas had any real persuasive power in their own right. She resorts to a sort of conspiracy theory of coordinated and determined vested interests. Well, I was there, and voted for Mrs Thatcher in 1979 (though not afterwards), and find the rise of neoliberal ideas entirely unsurprising. Britain, in particular, was in a miserable state: and the “Keynesian” consensus was an evident failure. It had failed to respond to the changed world that followed the oil crisis, resulting in unemployment and inflation. We were surrounded by national bureaucracies and nationalised industries of an inefficiency that today people would find unbelievable. Much of what they said, especially about state directed solutions, rang true. Many politically powerful vested interests opposed the change – but the neoliberals were pushing at an open door in the world of ideas.

Trying to put all this in perspective is made harder by the following things that have accompanied the rise of neoliberalism:

• There has been a dramatic change to the industrial and economic base to developed societies since 1945 (well since long before that, of course). In the first phase manufacturing industry advanced, in such a way that much of the capacity built to support the war effort could be readily redeployed (in contrast to what followed the 1914-18 war); this was the basis of an unambiguous economic miracle that lifted many out of poverty. In the second phase, from the 1980s, manufacturing industry became much more efficient, while the appetite for its production hit saturation; the economy switched to services. This has created huge dislocation, and, more recently, the disappearance of mid level jobs. It has driven overall growth in wealth, but also tended to increase inequality. Neoliberal policies have helped this transition forward, but were not the underlying cause of it.
• Capitalist corporations have remained as strong as ever, and have grown increasingly able to press forward their interests in the political system, especially in America. They are not fundamentally neoliberal in outlook (their aim is to rig markets and not empower them, but they usually camouflage their lobbying in neoliberal terms. We should be careful not to exaggerate their power though. The corporations have not had it all their own way: their life expectancy has dramatically reduced over the period. Neither are these faceless corporations entirely managed for the benefit of a small elite; they have also benefited armies of employees, and their institutional shareholders are often pension funds that likewise transmit their gains to ordinary people.
• A lot of theoretical economists have got carried away with their models based on homus economicus, and these have become a soft target for neoliberalism’s critics. But often these criticisms amount to criticising the tactics and not the strategy: about how people respond to incentives, and not the idea that incentives drive behaviour.

Ms George manages to be muddled by all of these things, leading to a speech that can only be called paranoid. I suspect many on the left share her views, though, and feel that they have been vindicated by the events of the decade and a half since. This muddle, and their failure to clear identify and advocate alternative approaches to the neoliberal consensus, means their persuasiveness is doomed to be very limited.

Meanwhile political centrists seem to be trying to recover something of the original neoliberal outlook: the social market. The use of market mechanisms within a society that is still dominated by the state. As somebody who tends to the political centre I would like to say that this offers the most constructive way forward. But I have to  point out that the great financial crisis of 2007-09 resulted from the collapse of just such a middle way philosophy, in the world of finance and banking. While the left blames it on rampant capitalism and greed, cack-handed state intervention was just as much of a problem, and the combination was lethal. It was a neoliberal project in the original sense of the word.

Where does that leave us? A lot of what neoliberals say is true. We need to grow up and recognise that. But a lot of it isn’t; and its failures are currently more important that its successes. Our societies’ institutions have not kept pace with the changed nature of society and the economy. But it will require a large dose of state direction, especially in education and housing, to fix this.