[adwhit]

It is very peculiar.

Whether it is an attempt to "reclaim" the word or not, that subreddit's usage of "neoliberal" bears little relation it's usage as defined in books such as David Harvey's 'A Brief History of Neoliberalism', where it is most commonly associated with privatization, financialisation, tax cuts, the retrenchment of social welfare and rapid growth in inequality.

Critically, the neoliberal state is not 'smaller', it just prefers deficit spending to tax and prefers to funnel money to private enterprises and the military-industrial complex rather than spend it on it's citizens.

In contrast, /r/neoliberal seems to use the word to mean some sort of libertarianism-lite?

[namlem]

You can be a center-right neoliberal, a center-left neoliberal, or something in between. The sub leans center-left, while traditionally neoliberals have been more center-right.

[pasabagi]

I think the reason is, for the first time in about forty years, neo-liberalism is really under threat. It used to be that neo-liberalism was so dominant as a political creed that it wasn't politics - it was reality. For better or worse, Trump on one side, and Bernie on the other, overturned that. So now, people identify as neo-liberals - while in the past, I imagine, there wouldn't be any point.

[abiox]

perhaps i misunderstand, but these things you list seem to be compatible with libertarianism (at least the right-libertarianism most commonly encountered in the US)

> privatization, financialisation, tax cuts, the retrenchment of social welfare

[gt_]

Neoliberals want to use the state as an enforcement vehicle for private interests, so neoliberalism leads to more corruption of the state while libertarianism seeks to abandon it.

Also, neoliberalism is much more crafty with propaganda, by necessity. Neoliberals use advertising and public relations to mask their alleged conflicting agendas.

For example, Trump is a neoliberal in libertarian clothing, while Clinton is a neoliberal in democrat clothing. They are both neoliberals. If they weren't, they would lack the cooperation from private interests needed to run.

Libertarians lack cooperation from the private sector because their public image is not "supportive, caring",

Democrats lack cooperation from the private sector because their actual political interests (like defending the working class) are in conflict with it.

So, neoliberalism makes the choice easy by combining the best of both worlds: dystopic support for corporate takeover AND the public image of loving kindness.

[dragonwriter]

> Neoliberals want to use the state as an enforcement vehicle for private interests

Which is exactly true of libertarianism, which sees the only role of government as protecting it's model of property rights, which are precisely private interests.

> For example, Trump is a neoliberal in libertarian clothing,

Trump is neither a neoliberal norte does he dress in libertarian clothing. He's more a kleptocrat in authoritarian populist clothing, which is about as far from a neoliberal in libertarian clothing as you can get.

> while Clinton is a neoliberal in democrat clothing.

Neoliberalism is overtly the dominant ideology of the Democratic Party; Hillary Clinton is (and has for a long time been) a neoliberal in neoliberal clothing; though in the 2016 campaign she did try to preempt Sanders by adopting some progressive populist accessories.

[gremlinsinc]

I'd like to say, Trump is more of a nationalist/protectionist candidate, not neoliberal, and he definitely didn't run on neoliberalism, Clinton and the other Republicans (center/right and center/left) are two sides of a narrow coin, but the coin being a neoliberal coin.

Sanders ran as a populist/egalitarian candidate. I feel that neoliberalism will die, in fact the fact that Trump won, is the nail in the coffin, I lean towards Sanders philosophy more, personally, -- but with technological unemployment going to rise to more than 40% of existing jobs being gone by 2030, and income inequality only going to rise even more, there will eventually be a revolution of sorts.

If not a bloody one, then one of ideals, you can see it already in red states turning blue, or more people running for elections than normally would. In Utah for example more people are running as democrats than ever have before during an election cycle. Chances of winning are slim, for sure -- but more people are getting involved because they're starting to realize it's the only way to make a difference. Scientists are even jumping in, because for some reason the 'right' seems to hate science and education.

[gt_]

Parent from 2 up here. For the record I agree with both of the comments under me. All good points. I guess it’s not much help to call Trump a neoliberal. I’ll take that back.