• Allonzee@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    I always say neoliberals will affirm your identity and support your right to be who you are!.. As you die in the gutter of exposure and capital defense force brutality. Sorry, free market forces! 🤷

    You can’t eat pride ribbons. You can’t live in pride ribbons. A neoliberal is better than a scapegoating fascist, but so is an empty soda can. Neoliberals are also equally as effective as an empty soda can in opposing fascism, the inevitable outcome of capitalism when left to run amok instead of straightjacketed to serve society as it must be.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      Look, what matters here is that everyone is included equally under oppressive capitalist movements which aim to drain of us of our lifeblood and monetize our very cells.

    • DrivebyHaiku@lemmy.ca
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      8 days ago

      Neoliberal doesn’t actually mean " The newest Brand of liberal" NeoLibralist regimes historically have also been exceedingly anti-queer. The term was coined in the 80’s to describe a burgeoning different brand of liberal government that focused on cutting spending by privatizing swaths of the government. Think Thatcher, Regan and the modern Republican party… See also the early Nazis who historically privatized huge amounts of government to pad the wallets of their supporters but the label was applied retroactively.

      If they are getting rid of government services and outsourcing them to a private company that’s “Neoliberal politics”. You are right that they are effective as an empty soda can at stopping facism but that’s because they are usually better positioned to assume power, give up on democracy and go fascist but they aren’t the group you’re calling out here.

      Really the bar for what “liberal” means is a system with a basic set of rights of the person that cannot be infringed upon by the government, universal rights of the person to own stuff (though not all stuff) and a dedication to some kind of democratic system. Basically it’s become democracy’s basic format and practically everyone in government who isn’t a fascist is some variation of liberal or at least playing by Libralism’s rules. It’s not a statement on socially progressive or socially conservative rhetoric. You’re probably better off specifying " Social Progressives" if you want to be accurate to whom you’re talking about.

      It’s kind of the same rules as “NeoClassisism” which isn’t constantly updated to mean the newest thing. That term got coined to specifically refer to an art style that is now 300 years old. Neo these days practically never refers to anything cutting edge.

      • Tetragrade@leminal.space
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        8 days ago

        No they’re just using the Tankie definition of (neo)liberal: “my enemy”. It’s part of the theory of social fascism, which claims that everyone who disagrees with me is a fascist.

        • nomorecids4434@lemmy.cafe
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          7 days ago

          Ah yes the same argument as the litteral nazis. Good point, I’m sure you will convert a lot of TanKie

        • DrivebyHaiku@lemmy.ca
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          8 days ago

          It’s more like the definition used by Right leaning government to cast Progressive social agendas as the downfall of society because in their case you slap “Neo” on something to mean “Untested and scary”. This isn’t so much a “Tankie” thing so much as a Fox News thing.

          They get away with it because people aren’t taught or don’t absorb the actual technical meanings of different labels for subtypes of political philosophy. Hence why “liberal” has become buzz word to mean “civil rights and social emancipation enthusiasts”, “conservative” is abandoned to be this wishy-washy ground that evokes both a retaliatory resistance to social movements and/or a sort of nebulous (often false) vision of fiscal austerity and “communist” a brush to tar a variety of social movements with that handily has an implicit conspiracy aspect.

          None of these definitions are accurate but they serve to muddy the water. That’s really the point of it. To rob us all of accurate ways to discuss political matters and to create team sport like voting blocks.

  • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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    8 days ago

    Can someone who identifies as a leftist explain to me what “neoliberal” means? I have no fucking clue at this point.

    • superniceperson@sh.itjust.works
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      8 days ago

      ‘Free market,’ market-oriented reform capitalism; think Reagan, Bill Clinton, any moderate or conservative before the trump era.

      It has been the sole economic theory in power in the US since the 1970s, with more or less a sliding scale between more neoliberal (republicans before 2016) and less neoliberal/more classical liberal (Biden’s and Harris’s campaign messaging, not Biden’s actual actions).

      The reason it sounds confusing, especially in memes, is because you think dems and republicans have different economic theories behind their actions, when in actual legislative reality they’re just more or less neoliberal, and the minute differences get overblown in campaign rhetoric.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        The reason it sounds confusing, especially in memes, is because you think dems and republicans have different economic theories behind their actions, when in actual legislative reality they’re just more or less neoliberal, and the minute differences get overblown in campaign rhetoric.

        The funny thing is that it’s Trump, of all people, who represents the first genuine shift away from neoliberalism for the US in 50+ years. That fucker is downright mercantilist.

        Too bad it’s a shift away from neoliberalism in the opposite of the direction the leftists wanted to go.

        • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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          8 days ago

          That fucker is downright mercantilist.

          Also a fake populist. He says things that seem like he will work to benefit the working class, but completely lies to them and screws them over at every opportunity.

          The imminent $6T tax cut for the rich and corporations will be Trump’s magnum opus.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            8 days ago

            fake populist

            AKA “demagogue.” That’s the essential difference between Trump and a populist like Bernie Sanders: Trump is a demagogue; Sanders isn’t.

      • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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        8 days ago

        It has been the sole economic theory in power in the US since the 1970s

        I’m not American so I may be missing something, but I find it hard to say that, for example, Carter and Reagan shared the same economic policy, or Obama and Trump. Only by flattening away any nuance whatsoever would those be called identical.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          First of all, Trump really is very different. All these tariffs are decidedly not neoliberal.

          Trump aside, though, Carter, Reagan and Obama really did share broadly similar policy with regards to free trade treaties and whatnot. The Democrats were better on support for unions, but not so much better that they weren’t willing to throw them under the bus of cheap foreign labor.

          • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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            8 days ago

            Their idea of the rightful role of the state in everyday affairs was rather different though, wasn’t it? If support of free trade were all that’s needed to be a neoliberal, anarchists would be neoliberals too.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      White Karens who drive around with awareness ribbons on their prius and chastise you for calling black people black instead of “African American” and really think that someone needs to do something about the current social crisis as long as it doesn’t upset anyone or anything and as long as everything stays exactly the same, and as long as nobody messes with their investments. They secretly cannot stand people different than themselves and want to retire on a golf course.

      • Quadhammer@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Aka not a liberal. The neolibs people bitch about are not the same as a garden variety liberal who believes human rights(liberty) must take precedent over economic forces. That aligns with a lot of leftist views, but they will be ree-ing after this comment about how marx was an unfathomable god and the only path to utopia is forced authoritarianism under martial law. Eventually the dictator will give up his power when the means are seized because he was the true communist all along.

        Thats all so much easier and less of a gamble than unifying the commoners amirite

    • Saint_La_Croix_Crosse@midwest.social
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      8 days ago

      It mostly means a dedication to deregulation and free markets. More specifically, private-public partnerships. That is the difference between them and Libertarians or Anarcho-Capitalists, since Neoliberals see that the government needs to provide things like courts, military, police, etc. but want to insert private companies to provide government services (e.g. in WW2, soldiers cleaned and laundered the military’s uniforms internally, now a private company will do the laundry for a military base at a 50% markup).

      As all political ideology, in its original formulation, Neoliberalism was a deviation from liberalism, in the Vienna Circle, by its rejection of “political liberalism”. It didn’t believe in formal freedom, democracy, equality, etc. Real freedom is the freedom to buy and sell on an unregulated market, real democracy is the ability to vote with your wallet, and real equality is the lack of regulations protecting one group from another. This is why neoliberals of the 1920s and 30s were pro-fascist, since the fascists were so dedicated to privatization and repressing socialists and communists. Thus preserving the freedom of the market, even if later neoliberals want to walk that back.

    • Keeponstalin@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago
      On Liberalism:

      In contrast, neoliberalism is sometimes constructed as an ideological antagonist of both critical theorists and progressive liberal identities. Marxist scholars conceptualize neoliberalism as a particular historical regime of capitalism, more corrosive and iniquitous than the “embedded liberalism” of the post-war era in Europe and the United States. Similarly, socially progressive liberals criticize neoliberalism for subordinating public life to market forces and for displacing the welfare state commitments of the Keynesian era. Some on the political left collapse the distinction between liberalism and neoliberalism, seeing them as simply two ways of ideologically justifying capitalist rule. Conversely, some of those most likely to be identified as neoliberals are motivated by a deep hostility to political liberals, particularly in right-wing political discourses where liberal operates as code for left-liberal, even socialist, values that are opposed to a free market identity.

      Additional:

      On Leftist ideologies:

      An alternative to both neoclassical and Keynesian explanations and solutions for capitalist crises emanates from the Marxian tradition. Its explanation stresses neither what Keynesians focus on (destabilizing maneuvers by self-seeking individual consumers, producers, merchants, and banks facing an inherently uncertain economy and/or possessing asymmetrical information in regard to markets) nor what neoclassicists pinpoint (market-destabilizing concentrations of private power by market participants and/or public power by the state). Rather, Marxian theory pursues the connections between capitalism’s crises and its distinctive class structure (its particular juxtaposition of capitalists appropriating and distributing the surpluses workers produce). We propose to show these connections in the rest of this paper. On that basis, Marxian theory reaches very different conclusions from those of the neoclassical and Keynesian economists. Briefly, durable solutions to capitalist crises require, in the Marxian view, transition to a different class structure. That is because capitalism’s class structure has so systematically and repeatedly contributed to crises in both the regulated and deregulated forms of capitalism. That is why Marxian theory does not share the fundamental conservatism of both neoclassical and Keynesian economics vis-à-vis capitalism.

      Additional:

    • RickSorkin@lemm.ee
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      8 days ago

      Most of them don’t know either, but they’ll get back to you after they as that brooding cool kid in school.

  • PurpleSkull@lemm.ee
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    8 days ago

    The middle panel is entirely superfluous. Take that out and you have an accurate representation of both the GOP and DNC.

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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      8 days ago

      I do wonder what the makeup of 100 people would have to look like to be perfectly (or as perfect as possible) representative of all demographics, every way we chop them up. Race, nationality, gender identity, sexuality, permanent disfigurement, financial class, whatever.

      • FrostyTheDoo@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        There’s more than 100 possible combinations of race, nationality, gender identity, sexuality disability, etc, so you couldn’t accurately represent the whole human population with 100 people.

        • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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          8 days ago

          Not really trying to get every combination…but that would be an interesting challenge at a larger scale.

          More so…a group of 100 people that is representative of the exact proportion of each individual demographic.

  • njm1314@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    I don’t believe for a minute neoliberals would hold to that half women thing.

    • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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      8 days ago

      Yeah you’ll get one board member, maybe, if they feel like it. The steps needed even just to reform capitalism to eliminate gender inequality are considered way too radical by neoliberals.

    • CosmoNova@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      They sure love to pitch men against women and vice versa deliberately to silence worker rights movements and they’re doing it in more ways than most people are willing to admit. Ask them to close the gender pay gap and a neoliberal will tell you about their women quota and how they placed a woman in a “leading” position (she has no power and didn’t get a raise) and how progressive they are already. Ask them for a raise and a neoliberal will tell you how women have it worse than you. You’re right in a way of course. It’s a convenient diversion for them and nothing more.

      • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        8 days ago

        Back when I lived in Britain and participated in the comments section of The Guardian, I had a local “Feminist” literally tell me that it was more important to flatten the 23% difference in income between the cleaning lady and the night watchman than to flatten the 30,000% difference in income between both of them and the CEO.

        That very same crown generally focused on “breaking the glass ceiling” (i.e. get upper middle class and upper class women such as themselves into those 300x minimum wage positions) and I have never once read a concrete suggestion about addressing the gender inequality for the poorer social classes.

        That last box of the meme matches exactly my own experience with “Modern Feminists” in Britain.

        (Mind you, I lived in other countries and also met older Feminists and they’re generally different and their version of Feminism is actually Egalitarian, though I’ve seen some young women were I live mindlessly ape this Anglo-Saxon neoliberal “Feminism”).

      • Saint_La_Croix_Crosse@midwest.social
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        8 days ago

        No, both are pretty neolib. Even though Carter was the first Democrat neoliberal, Bill Clinton made neoliberalism unquestionable bipartisan orthodoxy post-Reagan, and killed any remnants of New Dealers in the Democratic party.

        • anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          7 days ago

          And neoliberalism has been the dominant economic political policy of both parties since then.

          Ergo - libs are neolibs

    • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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      Well it doesn’t show the libs at all, but liberalism and neoliberalism are basically the same thing. Libs think a free market is all that’s needed, NeoLibs think a market needs state intervention.

  • someguy3@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    I’m convinced that 95% of people that use the word neoliberal don’t know what it means.

  • RickSorkin@lemm.ee
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    8 days ago

    So weird how in all these memes, the leftists are always the hero, yet when the time comes to make the bare minimum of effort to stop a fascist from taking over America-

    They are nowhere to be seen.

    • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
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      8 days ago

      So weird how, every time there’s criticism of the Democratic Party, some pearl clutcher brings out a cynical argument to divert attention from the train wreck that they persist in simping for.

      I’m super tired of the Schrödinger’s Leftist argument - somehow insignificant enough to ignore on policy proposals, yet simultaneously crucial enough to be bullied into electoral compliance.

      If a meme is giving you badfeels because your party keeps taking a rough shit each election whilst choking out grassroots challengers, maybe you should demand a better party instead of posting drive-by takes online?

    • Saint_La_Croix_Crosse@midwest.social
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      8 days ago

      Wait, when was there anti-fascist options for control of America? Was one of the two major parties anti-genocide, or opposed to putting minorities in concentration camps without due process? I think that you just want lower tariffs, so that your Nintendo is cheaper.

      • RickSorkin@lemm.ee
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        8 days ago

        It’s always easy to ask those loaded questions, isn’t it? Especially when they come from a place where there’s no such thing as nuance, and everything is purely black and white for the sake of those that refuse to see the world any other way.

        • Saint_La_Croix_Crosse@midwest.social
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          8 days ago

          How dare you say air is a gas? this table is air and this water is air! You can’t keep to this unreasonable purity politics by saying that my laptop isn’t just solid air! Saying my desk can’t be water is “black and white thinking”.