For decades, neoliberalism was a political swearword. Utter it in polite society, and you’d see eyes roll or noses wrinkle; utter it in impolite society, and you’d see a bar-fight.
To most, neoliberalism means billionaires in private bunkers, it means a shrinking middle-class fighting each other to stay on the corporate ladder, it means everyone else starving on the streets.
But what if I told you neoliberals were extremely skeptical of runaway corporations and private domination? So much so that they pushed for Universal Basic Income, government health insurance, and even 100% inheritance taxes to secure freedom for everyone and stop systemically dangerous concentrations of power. Well that wouldn’t sound like the neoliberalism you’ve heard of, would it?
And that makes sense. You’ve only heard about neoliberalism from its critics. And while their analysis gets the overall shape right, it’s a fun-house mirror image of the real thing.
Real neoliberalism is a serious political theory that starts from the real-world problems of uncertainty and power. And from there, it pushes for capitalism, democracy, a moderate welfare state, and, above all, freedom.
Politically, it sits somewhere between big-state Keynesian liberal democracy, and full-blooded night-watchman libertarianism. For many, it’s the middle ground option they’ve always wanted, but lacked the language to point at. If that sounds like you, then maybe you’ve been a neoliberal this whole time without even knowing it.
If that doesn’t sound like you, then I don’t expect this newsletter alone will convince you to become a neoliberal. But I promise you’ll understand why neoliberalism is, like, so hot right now.1
It’s popular to think that neoliberalism isn’t a real ideology. It’s an empty label used to dismiss political enemies, not a name that refers to a tradition.
But recent work by the historians2 shows that neoliberalism was a distinctive twentieth century political philosophy centred around three figures: F. A. Hayek,
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