Re: [PEN-L] query: neoliberals
How about “market fundamentalism”? GK - Jim D. wrote: in my never-ending battle against the use of clichés, I'm looking for a new synonym for neoliberal and neoliberalism. I think marketron is a good replacement for neoliberalism, but marketronism is too clumsy. Any ideas? _ Are you ready for Windows Live Messenger Beta 8.5 ? Get the latest for free today! http://entertainment.sympatico.msn.ca/WindowsLiveMessenger
Re: [PEN-L] query: neoliberals
thanks. I've decided to keep calling them neoliberals. I see neoclassical economics as type of economics and neoliberalism as a political ideology. The overlap of these two sets is largely what I call the Ekon, those crude economists who dominate textbooks and policy discussions. (Marx would have called them vulgar economists.) There are neoclassicals who aren't neoliberals (like Sen?) and neoliberals who aren't neoclassicals (like the Austrian school). On Nov 12, 2007 7:19 AM, Gernot Koehler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: How about market fundamentalism? GK - Jim D. wrote: in my never-ending battle against the use of clichés, I'm looking for a new synonym for neoliberal and neoliberalism. I think marketron is a good replacement for neoliberalism, but marketronism is too clumsy. Any ideas? Are you ready for Windows Live Messenger Beta 8.5 ? Get the latest for free today! -- Jim Devine / Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti. (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
Re: [PEN-L] query: neoliberals
Jim Devine wrote: in my never-ending battle against the use of clichés, I'm looking for a new synonym for neoliberal and neoliberalism. I think marketron is a good replacement for neoliberalism, but marketronism is too clumsy. Any ideas? in Solidarity with the Global War on Cliché, I usually think of clichés as semi-dead metaphors, or at least phrases (rather than single words) that if looked at 'feel' like a metaphor. Neoliberalism was/is not a metaphor, and if it is objectionable I suspect that the diagnosis is not that it's a cliche (any more than water is a cliche for h20) but a misnomer to begin with, a misnomer, however, grounded in the ambiguity of the stem term, liberal. Liberal has always been used in fairly contradictory senses, so NEOliberal was bound to be vague. I guess I'm suggesting that the problem is not the presence of a cliché but the _absence_ of one, i.e., of a technical term (jargon) of sufficient precision. But isn't that the problem with _all_ the major terms of political, social, or economic debate and/or analysis? We just have continually to explain _some_ of our labels each time we write to a different audience or to the same audience on a topic not recently introduced. But if you still want a new term for neoliberalism I would suggest imperialism. ;- Jim Devine
Re: [PEN-L] query: neoliberals
Carrol Cox wrote: I usually think of clichés as semi-dead metaphors, or at least phrases (rather than single words) that if looked at 'feel' like a metaphor. Neoliberalism was/is not a metaphor, and if it is objectionable I suspect that the diagnosis is not that it's a cliche (any more than water is a cliche for h20) but a misnomer to begin with, a misnomer, however, grounded in the ambiguity of the stem term, liberal. Liberal has always been used in fairly contradictory senses, so NEOliberal was bound to be vague. thanks. I don't think all clichés are semi-dead metaphors, since (at least among the left) neoliberalism is a cliché. Neoliberalism has a clear meaning, at least to me: it's a revival of classical (19th century) free-market liberalism. It's confusing, however, since its name is so similar to the main alternative version of liberalism: New Deal liberalism (US soft social democracy). For me the meaning of liberalism is clear. It's a political philosophy (or ideology, if you will) which treats society as if it were a collection of a large number of roughly equal individuals (or individual families) and asks: what's the public interest? It's exemplified by social contract theory (Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau). I guess I'm suggesting that the problem is not the presence of a cliché but the _absence_ of one, i.e., of a technical term (jargon) of sufficient precision. But isn't that the problem with _all_ the major terms of political, social, or economic debate and/or analysis? We just have continually to explain _some_ of our labels each time we write to a different audience or to the same audience on a topic not recently introduced. But if you still want a new term for neoliberalism I would suggest imperialism. ;- I agree with the term imperialism, though neoliberal imperialism differs from previous flavors of imperialism in some ways. The problem is that for the book I'm writing, the focus is entirely on a US audience and US issues. And I'm presenting a critique of the dominant school of economics, not of the economy. -- Jim Devine / Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti. (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
