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by TulliusCicero 3376 days ago
> neoliberalism is shit and everyone hates it.

Is this similar to how democracy is the worst system of governance except for all the others? What's terrible about neoliberalism that a more populist route will fix without being worse in other ways?
2 comments
gremlinsinc 3375 days ago
Neoliberalism, and for that matter democracy (our Republic actually, since USA isn't a democracy) WAS devised by the 'elite' class. -- Washington, Jefferson, et al were all the elites of their times, Jefferson was a very rich slave owner. The problem I think is we get tied to the 'historical' or national pride of the constitution when there's many flaws in the way our government was setup, and it was always a rigged game - rigged for those with money/economic sway. There has never been a gov't yet that really put the needs of it's poorest people at the forefront of the constitution. (Some european countries come close like Denmark) -- but only after recent changes in the past 100 years -- the problem is changing ANYTHING in a country as big as America with a political establishment that contols BOTH parties is nearly impossible.

Should we blindly follow people who are rich enough to command others? Now that we have the internet/technology why can't we have where we vote on issues, or pick ANYBODY we admire and trust to vote for us? -- I don't want to vote on all tech stuff so I might delegate my vote to Bill Gates on issues tagged 'tech', environmental stuff I'd delegate to Bill Nye, etc..

They could vote or re-delegate their collective votes to someone else like Bernie Sanders, or John Mccain.

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arethuza 3376 days ago
I think the problem is that neoliberalism is an ideology and suffers the same problem as all other ideologies - their advocates only care about purism of concepts and not whether things work or don't work in the real world.

e.g. I'm rather happy with our socialist NHS in the UK - I don't want socialism in many other areas but for health it seems to have made sense. I don't want an ideologue coming along and trying to dismantle it just because they disagree with the founding concepts rather than how it actually works.

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