“The core ideas of neoliberalism were obviously simplifications, but they were powerful simplifications, apparently explaining a lot with a little. They told politicians and business leaders what they ought focus on, and what they could reasonably ignore. It turned out that a lot of those things ought not to have been ignored!” @henryfarrell https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/seeing-like-a-matt
@interfluidity @henryfarrell "oops" to what was cited.
"go beyond neoliberalism" Hmm, tanks to extract energy, like in matrix?
"human beings are rational" It is amazing how often this or something like this is said, no matter how often it is proven wrong. It seems irrational that people do this, proving my point.
"Cost-benefit analysis, maximizing growth and only then redistributing benefits [...]" Well, to this chapter, i would like to point out that if the redistribution does not happen in a way that feels ok, people will be unhappy. As i have argued, they are not rational, so it is obvious that they will not attack the actual problem but what is to be seen easily. No surprises here, if one embraces that people are not naturally rational and level headed.
"In his third post, Matt depicts anti-neoliberalism as Bizarro World neoliberalism." I think here, we diverge a bit, since i see the problem in a fundamental misunderstanding of how humans work, while you actually try to take matt as rational. I theorize he behaves perfectly normal, as a human, and is accusing others of irrationality (which are, but not as he sees it) instead of analyzing the actual problem (the missing redistribution, which is only said but not done).
"they want to reconfigure both markets and government to better share political power and influence" Yeah, that would be bad. Can't have feudalism if you share political power. /s
There's some stuff about monopolies following, which i exclude from my answer - this is not about philosophy but just monopolies in action.
"The core project was enabling global markets to flourish by removing inefficient hindrances and regulations. Maximizing wealth was a core goal" If maximizing wealth was a core goal, either redistribution failed spectacularly or the goal was not reached. It kind of falls back on a previous point, since wealth did increase when you look at the numbers.
"Trade was doing perfectly nicely until it was corrupted by the loose ways of geopolitics" Perfectly supports the cited part, and i agree. It trades generating wealth for seeing what actually happens.
"Economic growth is something that you really do want to prioritize much of the time" Idk, if your goal is for people to live good lives, how much good will come off of this? Which part of progress will help, which will hurt? Not self-evident.
Not commenting on the US/China stuff, since i'm not an american tourister.
I really enjoyed your work, hope i didn't offend with my not-so-informed but opinionated approach. If you disagree, please do engage, i would love to discuss.
