Neoliberalism
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It’s the Nihilism, Stupid
Last year, at a conference of political philosophers at Michigan State University, a Yale professor named Bryan Garsten told his colleagues that they were in trouble. The topic of the conference was liberalism—not Ted Kennedy liberalism, but the classical version that predates the modern Democratic Party and indeed America itself. Liberalism is the view that
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Freddie de Boer on Class-First Politics (Updated)
I myself am a class-first leftist, and indeed the penultimate chapter of my new book is titled “Why is Class First?” And the answer is that class comes first because class approaches to politics are the best approach to combating injustice, including racial injustice. Being class-first is an instrumental position, not a moral one; it’s
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Worshipping in the Temple of the Invisible Hand
“I tend to think that most fears about A.I. are best understood as fears about capitalism,” Chiang told me. “And I think that this is actually true of most fears of technology, too. Most of our fears or anxieties about technology are best understood as fears or anxiety about how capitalism will use technology against
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Tom Frank on Liberal Obtuseness
… liberals, intoxicated by their own righteousness, can never figure it out. They keep expecting the right to die off, as if poisoned by its diet of wickedness, and yet the Republicans persist, dreaming up new culture wars against the “liberal elite,” radicalizing themselves continually along the way, refusing to succumb. And what do liberals
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Progressivism in a Post-Liberal World
I do not consider myself a Liberal, but I do think of myself as a Progressive in the late-19th-, early-20th-Century sense, more with the Social Gospel/W. J. Bryan strain than with the Deweyan/statist, managerial liberal strain. I'm a communitarian/subsidiarist who admires Wendell Berry, but who nevertheless recognizes that the technocratic state is a necessity. I
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Sinema Explained
To win Ms. Sinema’s support, Democratic leaders agreed to drop a $14 billion tax increase on some wealthy hedge fund managers and private equity executives that she had opposed, change the structure of a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations, and include drought money to benefit Arizona. (Source) Here's a Dem who really cares about
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How Neoliberalism Captured the Cultural Left I
A version of this essay first appeared in July 2014. It was inspired by Crispin Sartwell's Atlantic article "The Left-Right Political Spectrum is Bogus". This post expands on it and supplements recent posts about how the postmodern cultural left, whether it realizes it or not, is a form of cultural Neoliberalism. It argues that Neoliberalism is
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Cultural Normie + Economic Progressive = Political Winner
If I were a cynical political operative who wanted to construct a presidential candidate perfectly suited for this moment, I’d start by making this candidate culturally conservative. I’d want the candidate to show by dress, speech and style that he or she is not part of the coastal educated establishment. I’d want the candidate to
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Reaganism Finds Its Fulfillment in Trumpism
“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” —Ronald Reagan quoting Thomas Paine in his speech accepting the GOP nomination in July 1980. The increasing divergence—and antagonism—between the red nation and the blue nation is a defining characteristic of 21st-century America. That’s a reversal from the middle decades of the 20th