i was reading through my daily briefing on the NYT when the term “neoliberalism” came up. i know what liberal means in the political sense, and tried googling neoliberalism to get a better understanding, but the explanations didn’t make sense to me. help?
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Neoliberalism is the belief that “free market” economic forces can work in situations that aren’t actually markets. For example, neoliberalism in education says we shouldn’t make all taxpayers pay for public schools; we should give parents vouchers so they can choose where to send their kids and their money, and we should let the “losing” schools starve and die. In health care, neoliberalism says we should empower people to choose how to spend their money and choose the care they want, and we shouldn’t have “universal” health care because it’s “inefficient”. It originated in the “Chicago school” of economists after World War 2. In my personal opinion, it’s a well-meaning but harmful fallacy, because it overlooks the fact that people have non-monetary reasons for the things they do, like choosing to get treated for cancer or educating their children. Usually it works out fine for people who have enough money to make those choices, but it destroys the public services and safety nets that are supposed to protect the people who don’t have money.
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