Like, Roosevelt broke up monopolies, for instance. That stuff was insufficient, but it was SOMETHING. Unlike now, where they just let capitalists do whatever they want.
Like, Roosevelt broke up monopolies, for instance. That stuff was insufficient, but it was SOMETHING. Unlike now, where they just let capitalists do whatever they want.
Neoliberalism was a fringe extremist ideology post-WW2. The people who designed and promoted it (like Mont Pelerin Society and others) actually intentionally avoided publicizing it for decades because they knew it would be viewed as ghoulish. It even was tried and failed in Germany (which was the cause of the Berlin blockade going up) before they return to Keynesian socdem policies.
They waited until a number of things set the stage. Massive upheavals in the last 60s (1968 was a big year in both the US and Europe), success in combating unions in the early 70s, an economic downturn in the 70s, and finally the ultimate boss of Keynesian economics: stagflation.
Once these things had happened and upended peoples' faith in that particular brand of capitalism, it was time to shock it into a new paradigm with the Reagan administration, which was largely advised by neolib ghouls. By that time, neolibs had installed themselves in appointments all throughout the government as well as pioneering the modern think tank.
Can you point to the source for the claim that it was the cause of the wall going up? That would be amazing to be able to cite.
It was from a paragraph in Inventing the Future by Srnicek and Williams. And I slightly misremembered. It wasn't the wall, it was the entire blockade that kicked off the Cold War:
The source 33 they cite is: Peck, Constructions of Neoliberal Reason, p. 57. Here is the relevant information from that:
Eventually Erhard had to eat shit and move back to a socdem approach (his Wikipedia page has info on this and his connections to Mont Pelerin).
Thanks so much for the detailed explanation. Really interesting stuff.
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