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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Essentially, neoliberalism says that the best way to manage everything is with market forces. So everything should have a market, and if a market doesn’t exist, one should be created.
Something that already has a market for example, would be cars. As more people demand cars, the cost of cars goes up, and simultaneously, car manufacturers make more cars until the supply is high enough that the cost starts to come down, at which point manufacturers make fewer cars. The “correct” number of cars is determined by the market.
Now consider something that doesn’t naturally have a market. Such as clean air. Neoliberals argue that the best way to determine how clean the air should be, is by creating a market for clean air. As an example: People who want clean air can pay companies to produce less pollution. People who don’t want clean air can choose not to pay companies to produce less pollution. Companies will then (theoretically) weigh the cost of going without payments against the reward of producing more products, and the market will determine what the “correct” amount of pollution is.
It is an argument to deregulate everything. It puts all of the power in the hands of those who can afford to participate in the market, and takes power out of the hands of elected legislators and thereby out of the hands of the voters. If you’re too poor to participate in the markets, then you have no say in how your society functions.
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