The title is from the book of the same name by Phillip Mirowski who asks how is it that Neoliberalism still stands-he wrote this in late 2012-not only unrepentant and unbowed but better than ever.
http://www.amazon.com/Never-Serious-Crisis-Waste-Neoliberalism/dp/1781680795/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377715500&sr=1-1&keywords=never+let+a+serious+crisis+go+to+waste
It's no doubt a question that many-who back in late 2008 and 2009 had assumed that NL was in big trouble now and at the least must be seriously hobbled-are now asking. To be sure, this very formulation begs any number of other questions. We can ask if NL really is better than ever. We could argue that it has been hobbled. Or better yet, we could turn the question around and ask him: just what is Neoliberalism anyway?
It's a good question and to his credit it's something he considers in depth, indeed a big part of the book is answering the question of what exactly NL is. The last thing he wants to do is simply volley about this word as just another Left wing curse word-'facist, imperialist, Nazi, etc.' He spends a good amount of time quantifying just what NL is-and to do this starts with figuring out what it isn't either.
What is isn't is just a term of abuse for anyone that is-or you think is-even the slightest little bit Right of Center. Indeed, it isn't one and the same with Neoclassicism-though the mistake is understandable. It is very natural and I myself initially made this mistake-I had read the title as talking about how NC had survived the crisis rather than NL.
Mirowski makes clear that NC is one thing-much older than NL going back to 1871 with it's three Fathers, Walras, Jevons, and Menger-and NL is something distinctly different. According to his etymology the term goes back to the 1930s and was used by both Hayek and Milton Friedman early, in the senes that they asserted a lineage going back to Classical Liberalism (CL)-this claim MIrowski is very skeptical of, to put it mildly.
He defines NL as going back to anyone in the Mt. Pelerin Society-or associated with it. Now this second aspect of asspciation might seem well to wide a net, however, he argues that the list actually proves very stable. I haven't actually seen the list yet-I'm still in the early stages of the book.
He sees NC in many ways complicit with NL but the two are far from one in the same. One very di ly chalked up to a term of abuse and no question it is often used too ephemeral and diffuse a way for it to be very helpful. In this fascinating book, Mirowski proposes to do just that and he seems to me-though Kindle tells me I'm must 8% through it-to be well on his way to doing just that.
The title of the book is doubly interesting as it also seems ro reference Rahm Immanuel's reported comment when the Obama Administration was putting together its fiscal stimulus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yeA_kHHLow
Again, I'm must in the early stages so I don't know if he means to reference Rahm, though it'd be quite a coincidence it he didn't. Yet his complaint is NL's success in comng out of 2008 better than ever and the Obama team there was not pusing for the NL agenda with FS-though I know many Lefties will argue that the Obama team is NL. Again, though, as noted above, this term is used too much. As I ge through it I'll have a better idea on his view of wether the Obama team qualifies.
They may do, to be sure. Not for doing the FS but for letter buying into some level of consolidation-though at a slower pace that wouldn't completely take a meat ax to growth. Mirowski's sketch of the Neoliberals is that they are in their way much less ideological than the Neoclassicals, they do not eschew all use of big government.
Finally, makes a great point that it sure was naive for those remaking Historical Materialists or other assortment of Marxists or anti-capitalists to imagine that the the entire edifice would come crashing down under the weight of being falsified by the financial crisis of 2008. It shows a lack of andy sense of depth for just how social psychology works.
We are wired to resist and acclimate cognitive dissonances where we can. Indeed, this ability is in many ways necessary and salutary. A person's social ego simply can't be that fragile and survive at all. What we've learned from both individual psychology via Freud up to Lacan and Zizek and through social psychology shows quite a different picture. When we believe with all our Souls, Hearts, and Minds that a Prophecy will come to pass and it doesn't, we usually change the meaning of the Prophecy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1617202800/ref=gno_cart_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
In this sense, no one should have believed that beliefs in markets would simply disappear en Toto over night.
http://www.amazon.com/Never-Serious-Crisis-Waste-Neoliberalism/dp/1781680795/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377715500&sr=1-1&keywords=never+let+a+serious+crisis+go+to+waste
It's no doubt a question that many-who back in late 2008 and 2009 had assumed that NL was in big trouble now and at the least must be seriously hobbled-are now asking. To be sure, this very formulation begs any number of other questions. We can ask if NL really is better than ever. We could argue that it has been hobbled. Or better yet, we could turn the question around and ask him: just what is Neoliberalism anyway?
It's a good question and to his credit it's something he considers in depth, indeed a big part of the book is answering the question of what exactly NL is. The last thing he wants to do is simply volley about this word as just another Left wing curse word-'facist, imperialist, Nazi, etc.' He spends a good amount of time quantifying just what NL is-and to do this starts with figuring out what it isn't either.
What is isn't is just a term of abuse for anyone that is-or you think is-even the slightest little bit Right of Center. Indeed, it isn't one and the same with Neoclassicism-though the mistake is understandable. It is very natural and I myself initially made this mistake-I had read the title as talking about how NC had survived the crisis rather than NL.
Mirowski makes clear that NC is one thing-much older than NL going back to 1871 with it's three Fathers, Walras, Jevons, and Menger-and NL is something distinctly different. According to his etymology the term goes back to the 1930s and was used by both Hayek and Milton Friedman early, in the senes that they asserted a lineage going back to Classical Liberalism (CL)-this claim MIrowski is very skeptical of, to put it mildly.
He defines NL as going back to anyone in the Mt. Pelerin Society-or associated with it. Now this second aspect of asspciation might seem well to wide a net, however, he argues that the list actually proves very stable. I haven't actually seen the list yet-I'm still in the early stages of the book.
He sees NC in many ways complicit with NL but the two are far from one in the same. One very di ly chalked up to a term of abuse and no question it is often used too ephemeral and diffuse a way for it to be very helpful. In this fascinating book, Mirowski proposes to do just that and he seems to me-though Kindle tells me I'm must 8% through it-to be well on his way to doing just that.
The title of the book is doubly interesting as it also seems ro reference Rahm Immanuel's reported comment when the Obama Administration was putting together its fiscal stimulus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yeA_kHHLow
Again, I'm must in the early stages so I don't know if he means to reference Rahm, though it'd be quite a coincidence it he didn't. Yet his complaint is NL's success in comng out of 2008 better than ever and the Obama team there was not pusing for the NL agenda with FS-though I know many Lefties will argue that the Obama team is NL. Again, though, as noted above, this term is used too much. As I ge through it I'll have a better idea on his view of wether the Obama team qualifies.
They may do, to be sure. Not for doing the FS but for letter buying into some level of consolidation-though at a slower pace that wouldn't completely take a meat ax to growth. Mirowski's sketch of the Neoliberals is that they are in their way much less ideological than the Neoclassicals, they do not eschew all use of big government.
Finally, makes a great point that it sure was naive for those remaking Historical Materialists or other assortment of Marxists or anti-capitalists to imagine that the the entire edifice would come crashing down under the weight of being falsified by the financial crisis of 2008. It shows a lack of andy sense of depth for just how social psychology works.
We are wired to resist and acclimate cognitive dissonances where we can. Indeed, this ability is in many ways necessary and salutary. A person's social ego simply can't be that fragile and survive at all. What we've learned from both individual psychology via Freud up to Lacan and Zizek and through social psychology shows quite a different picture. When we believe with all our Souls, Hearts, and Minds that a Prophecy will come to pass and it doesn't, we usually change the meaning of the Prophecy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1617202800/ref=gno_cart_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
In this sense, no one should have believed that beliefs in markets would simply disappear en Toto over night.
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