Neoliberalism

To Americans, the idea of a professional sports league with the same slate of teams competing each year is normal. In Europe, it might lay bare how an unthinking application of market logic to cherished traditions and institutions can kill the golden goose.

Parler, the alternative to Twitter, is being strangled by the tech giants. Apple and Google removed the app from their app stores. Amazon removed the company from its web-hosting service. These companies claim these actions serve the public interest. Whatever one thinks of last week’s events, this action in concert marks a milestone. In recent […]

The 1990s called. They want Judy Shelton’s bankrupt ideology back.

Campaign books are not written for the ages. But they can be telltales. A New Catholic Moment: Donald Trump and the Politics of the Common Good is a good example. It indicates a shift away from freedom as the leading motif on the American right and toward solidarity. The book was put together by CatholicVote.org, […]

I never thought I would find myself in wholehearted agreement with Paul Krugman. That is, until I ran across the following passage from his 1996 book Pop Internationalism: “If top government officials are strongly committed to a particular economic doctrine, their commitment inevitably sets the tone for policy making on all issues, even those which […]

In the 1972 presidential campaign, Richard Nixon’s leading theme was “law and order.” Traumatized by urban riots, student protests, and the first wave of what would be a historic increase in crime, voters handed him a historic victory. Nixon won 49 states and 60 percent of the popular vote. In early June, not a few […]

Image: Steve Cukrov – stock.adobe.com Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, by Anand Giridharadas (Alfred A. Knopf, 304 pp. $27) The HBO series “Westworld” was set in a futuristic theme park that featured life-like humanoid robots offering wealthy guests an immersive experience without any fear of lasting consequences. A 2018 book […]

Just a few years ago, it was possible for nationalist Americans to warn foreign enemies like North Korea that the US was a “hyperpower.” A few decades ago, however, the label was a term of abuse: French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine used it to describe an America that had gone beyond even the bounds of […]

Analysts and commentators talk about today’s “precariate.” The term plays on the Marxist notion of the proletariat, recasting it to describe gig workers, college grads whose income is swallowed by student loan debt, and wage-earners who can’t stay ahead of heath costs, childcare costs, car repair bills, and credit card debt. The term is useful. […]

Some time after I first met Oren, we had a good back and forth about neoliberalism, a term that has already appeared several times on this website and is at the forefront of American Compass’s mind. While Oren thought the word useful to describe the reigning economic orthodoxy we both found dissatisfying, I was more […]