Here is the start of the Britannica.com entry on neoliberalism
neoliberalism, ideology and policy model that emphasizes the value of free market competition. Although there is considerable debate as to the defining features of neoliberal thought and practice, it is most commonly associated with laissez-faire economics. In particular, neoliberalism is often characterized in terms of its belief in sustained economic growth as the means to achieve human progress, its confidence in free markets as the most-efficient allocation of resources, its emphasis on minimal state intervention in economic and social affairs, and its commitment to the freedom of trade and capital.
The rest of this piece is loosely focused around the first of a seminar series on neoliberalism in which Damon Silvers demonstrates how tenets of neoliberalism (market hegemony, government inferiority, inequity irrelevancy, flat earth) have all been demolished as false idols by real life economic activity. The failures arise from faulty components of neoliberslism, not any labels. Repackaging pieces and relabeling names won't address issues or fix problems with free market and supply side economics.
Neoliberalism can be viewed as a global system of private power.
In promoting private interests, neoliberals advanced core principles in support of their policy causes. History shows that these principles are faulty and dangerous.
Failure of Four Tenets of Neoliberalism
Here are four tenants of neoliberalism critiqued. Though neoliberalism might be waning in popularity, misconceptions continue towards punishing governments and less affluent through austerity and neo-austerity.
Market Hegemony
Free market economies are not necessarily more productive, and government intervention often helps.
Recent empirical analysis undermines the decades-old idea that there is a strict tradeoff between equality through redistribution and the efficiency of the economy as measured by GDP growth. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) finds not only that this tradeoff doesn’t exist in practice, but that, if anything, the relationship is the opposite (Berg et al. 2014). In a cross-sectional analysis of countries over the past several decades, the IMF found that lower inequality (as measured after taxes and transfer of incomes) is correlated with faster and more durable growth.
Numerous market failures demonstrate that markets alone are not reliable and do not ensure citizen prosperity or well-being. The global crises starting in 2008-2009 is a notable example in which the reaction has been tainted by a push to restore profits.
the advocates of the thesis of a Global Crises of Capitalism make a strong case, demonstrating the profound and pervasive destructive effects of the capitalist system on the lives of the great majority of humanity.
The problem is that a ‘crises of humanity’ (more specifically of salary ad wage workers) is not the same as a crisis of the capitalist system. In fact as we shall argue below growing social adversity, declining income and employment has been a major factor facilitating the rapid and massive recovery of the profit margins of most large scale corporations.
Moreover, the thesis of ‘global’ crises of capitalism amalgamates disparate economies, countries, classes and age cohorts with sharply divergent performances at different historical moments.
Government Inferiority
Free market economics seeks to limit government involvement in markets and otherwise weaken governments. As an historical result, neoliberalism promotes tyranny through asserting absolute freedom to participate in the marketplace. This ironic outcome results from prioritizing private property rights in policy. This has led to rising inequality, broad insecurity, ineffective government in both liberal and neoliberal economies. Public opinion runs against those outcomes. In response, market fundamentalists push the state towards authoritarianism.
Neoliberal and supply side economics that discount government overlook the reality of how nations have developed.
We must begin by understanding the positive potential of global markets. Access to world markets in goods, technologies and capital has played an important role in virtually all of the economic miracles of our time. China is the most recent and powerful reminder of this historical truth, but it is not the only case. Before China, similar miracles were performed by South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and a few non-Asian countries such as Mauritius. All of these countries embraced globalisation rather than turn their backs on it, and they benefited handsomely.
Defenders of the existing economic order will quickly point to these examples when globalisation comes into question. What they will fail to say is that almost all of these countries joined the world economy by violating neoliberal strictures. South Korea and Taiwan, for instance, heavily subsidised their exporters, the former through the financial system and the latter through tax incentives. All of them eventually removed most of their import restrictions, long after economic growth had taken off.
But none, with the sole exception of Chile in the 1980s under Pinochet, followed the neoliberal recommendation of a rapid opening-up to imports. Chile’s neoliberal experiment eventually produced the worst economic crisis in all of Latin America.
Developed economies taking on more neoliberal and anti-government policies have seen wage stagnation and shifts from labor income to capital income as union membership declines, taxes for the wealthy are cut, and public jobs are lost.
inequality irrelevancy
Neoliberals tell us that inequality doesn’t matter in the face of troubling shifts in wealth and power backed by empirical evidence.
Economic liberalization is positively associated with financialization, while financial activity is positively connected to income inequality.
The impacts of inequality are felt throughout society.
Common economic and social consequences of neoliberal policies include reduced access to social security and increased social inequality (Müller, 2013; Piketty, 2015). Indeed, it has been argued that inequality is not an unintended result but itself an important feature of neoliberal politics because it is supposed to serve as a mechanism to increase competition and productivity (Foucault, 2008; Mirowski, 2014). Rising inequality, in turn, is related to lower levels of social cohesion and trust and a decline of community life (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009). In line with this, researchers have shown that happiness declines as social inequality rises (Oishi, Kesebir, & Diener, 2011; but see Li, Zuckerman & Diener, 2019). This relationship between inequality and happiness is explained statistically by lower perceived fairness and lower generalized trust rather than by lower household income (Oishi et al., 2011). Accordingly, there is already evidence that by fostering social inequality neoliberal politics can have a negative impact on well-being at a societal level. In the present analysis, however, we focus on the impact of neoliberalism on the psychology of individuals.
flat world
Market proponents champion flat world economics in which businesses competing globally deliver the best products most efficiently and with the most stability, all at the lowest cost and with no protection for labor. Deteriorating environmental conditions, for one, disrupt flat world trade. Both social and environmental issues requiring strong coordinated government responses are neglected.
pollution, global climate change, and diminished biodiversity respect no national borders. Solving the environmental challenges of the 21st century will indeed require a ‘flattening’ of national interests (as typified in the Kyoto agreements). Yet, Friedman’s social contract seems to leave no room for justice-related issues of this kind. He is particularly blind to the major contradictions in promoting a consumer-oriented economic vision while still expressing occasional concern for the environmental effects of the new economy
Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic breaks in supply chains show us that the flat world is fragile, at best.
Writer Tom Friedman has asserted that "the world is flat," but for companies operating globally and facing unique challenges in each of the markets where they have suppliers or customers, the world is as round as ever. But rather than viewing regional differences as an obstacle to an effective supply chain, innovative companies are embracing the idea of centrally managing disparately structured operations that have been "localized" to take account of the particular environment in a given geography.
Geopolitics of the 2020’s further highlights the fallacy of relying on social contracts to maintain trade in an unstable political environment.