Comment by spamizbad | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spamizbad | Hacker News Reader

This is certainly my feeling. For me, the biggest things I wrestle with are the contradictions that seem exist in a "Neoliberal" economy.

-Neoliberalism views competitiveness as an inherit trait, everyone must be competitive! Competition is good and produces better outcomes for all! But private actively entities strive to monopolize and reduce competition

- so incentives for competition must be continuously increased using political means

- Everyone wants to be wealthy, but we have to keep the tax and regulatory burden low so we don't discourage anyone from striving for wealth, to the point of shaving base points off of niche taxes

Basically, Neoliberalism doesn't seem to be societies natural order. It's an ideology imposed on us that, ironically, doesn't offer you any direct benefit if you adopt it. If I crush my competitors, I'm better off. If just accept tax and regulations as the cost of doing business, and don't allow it to discourage me, I stand to make more money than the "scaredy-cats" sitting on their thumbs, waiting for deregulation to happen (and also better positioned when the barriers are lifted).

It feels like Neoliberalism's primary benefactors are those who reject it.

> Basically, Neoliberalism doesn't seem to be societies natural order.

That's probably right. The human instinct is tribal and quite suspicious of outsiders, so oppressive conservative totalitarianism is probably the "natural order" for humans, and this explains why we've had to endure so many different instances of it, both left and right, while liberalism (both social and economic), regardless of mind-boggling amounts of evidence in its favour, remains suspicious in very large circles. It feels wrong. Homosexuality? That's against the natural order. Competition? That's against the natural order.

> It's an ideology imposed on us that, ironically, doesn't offer you any direct benefit if you adopt it.

No, the irony is that it does indeed bring direct huge benefits, and you can see the benefits in macro numbers almost instantly. Look at China under Deng Xiaoping. Eastern Europe is night and day between the countries that implemented liberalism after the fall of the Soviet Union, and those that didn't. Pinochet implemented liberal economic policies in Chile, and despite being a horrible totalitarian despot, Chile surged ahead almost immediately, and is still today significantly richer than South American peers with more "natural" policies.

How would you analyze the gains the gains Hugo Chavez's Venezuela made?

Gains? I, uhh, wouldn't. (And also $100 oil).

Really? Lower infant mortality, higher gdp, lower unemployment, much lower extreme poverty, etc...

And much lower availability of fucking toilet paper. Get over yourself.

(yes, I know, it's a "manufacturered shortage" and also big bad USA)

> everyone must be competitive!

That's far from being even remotely true. The whole point of a liberalized economy is to enable anyone that wants to compete to be able to compete. The state should have no right to stop anyone from competing with any established company and much less so with state-sponsored goods and services.

Whoever wants to do their own thing should simply do their own thing. Anyone who prefers to be an employee and get theirs at the end of the month should also be able to do that, and it's fine too. That's it.

> so incentives for competition must be continuously increased using political means

No, again that's far from being remotely true. The point of competition is that it fosters innovation and is a source of progress. Yet, this only makes sense if the driving force is free will, and any investment is done voluntarily.

If however anyone prefers to simply found a commune and live off communal work then that's fine too. In fact, capitalist free market economies do foster the world's most successful cooperative organizations, such as for example the Mondragon cooperative in Spain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

The key factor is free will, and the freedom for anyone to do what they feel like doing.

> Everyone wants to be wealthy,

No, that's not right at all. The point of a liberal economy is that anyone should be free to engage in any economic activity without being sabotaged or hindered by any form of government or state institution. Money is not nor it ever was the driving force behind free market economy. Free enterprise is a synonym of capitalism for a very good reason. Different strokes for different folks, and some folks are happy to just get enough income to live while pursuing an activity that pleases them, even if it is far from being a cash cow or even profitable.

In a nutshell, your arguments are the main problem behind these rabid anti-capitalism nutjobs: they actually don't criticize capitalism, and instead they resort to a massive series of strawmen attacks on imaginary positions that they invented themselves, which have no relation with reality.

> Basically, Neoliberalism doesn't seem to be societies natural order.

That's a narrow view. It comes down to conflict versus cooperation. Both exist in nature and both are beneficial. The trick is in maintaining a balance -- homeostasis -- between the two that promotes healthy growth at large and not just for one group or individual.

Neoliberalism is colonialism via money rather than bullets. After the fall of european colonialism in the mid 20th century, neoliberalism replaced it as as a tool for the elite/banks to extract wealth/resources/labor from the rest.

Just like colonialism or slavery, neoliberalism wasn't meant to benefit ordinary people. Just the elite.

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