That's not "liberal economics", that's just "Capitalism in practice".
this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
15 points (85.7% liked)
Memes
45530 readers
713 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Have you noticed how liberalism is always pro-capitalism?
Uh, liberals tend to want to shift capitalism towards something more equitable - you know, something that doesn't leave so many people jobless or homeless.
liberals tend to want to shift capitalism towards something more equitable
No, they don't - they try to reform capitalism to head off revolt against the capitalist status quo. That is why liberal reforms to capitalism (at best) only makes life better for a certain part of the working class - see how Roosevelt's GI Bill left black vets and their communities out in the cold for an example. When this fails to protect the capitalist order, liberal-types will happily co-operate with fascists to violently repress the working class - see Weimar Germany for an example of that.
If you are the reading type, I'd suggest Clara Mattei's The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism - I haven't encountered anyone who explains the history as well as she does.
Liberals are not your friends - Malcolm X was perfectly accurate when he described them as "smiling foxes."
You just said the same thing twice
Where is the difference?
So if your question is in good faith let's break it down a little.
Capitalism is a economic system. It may have some liberal or conservative slant inherently, but in theory there isn't anything implicit.
A liberal or conservative economic policy would be how you manage that economic system. Liberal economic policy should tend to favor rules and regulations to account for the flaws of unchecked capitalism. Conservative policy tends towards less regulation, relying on the market system to set prices for goods and services.
Personally, I'm liberal because the ultimate goal for any capitalist is a monopoly. Often in that situation, you get an unequal power dynamic that allows a company to stay ahead of competition or bully them out of the market, preventing the market from setting prices. Additionally liberal policy tries to regulate negative externalities, such as companies dumping chemicals in a river (such as when the Ohio river caught on fire leading to the creation of the EPA). Frankly, these are real problems inherent in capitalism that conservative policy doesn't address because it makes the rich richer. It's pretty disingenuous to argue that liberal policy is there to benefit the rich.
Anyway, that's a super basic breakdown. None of that is say there isn't corruption from the rich and greedy in politics. Frankly, money equating to political influence is crazy and has allowed the weathly to completely shape world policy. If you want change, look to rank choice voting systems or other ways to move more choice and power back to voters.
I appreciate you trying to answer a question in good faith, but you're conflating 'liberal' with 'vaguely left-leaning', and none of what you've said makes any sense outside of current US political 'discourse' where 'Liberal' means 'slightly left-wing'.
What you describe as liberal economics is closer to Keynsianism or Social Democracy.
In economics, the 'Liberal' school of thought is generally against regulation and interference in the market, seeing it as being 'self-regulating'. In economic terms, Reagan and Thatcher were Liberals - hence them being associated with 'Neoliberalism'.
The whole thing you said about Capitalism tending towards monopoly is actually a very Marxist/Socialist idea - Liberal economic theory tends to argue that monopolies form because of government and that they wouldn't occur in a truly free market (although its more nuanced than that, there's major disagreements over 'Natural Monopolies' etc. within the Liberal school). Source: look up any Liberal economist/thinker and their view on monopolies. E.g Friedman, J.S Mill.
Capitalism being an economic system doesn't make it apolitical. 'In theory' Liberalism and Capitalism are very very closely intertwined, it's not implicit, it's absolutely explicit if you read any Liberal political or economic theory.
Economics is inherently political.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoliberalism/#Libe Sections 3 and 4 of this are a decent starting point.
Also the idea of slightly changing our voting systems as the way to drive change is quite hilarious. Sure, moving away from FPTP would probably help a bit, but it's not like countries with other systems are doing fine. These issues are more fundamental. And historically, fundamental change has never occured through small technical adjustments to political systems.
There's 0 real economists who hold anything close to these views. What a stupid take. Before you downvote, I ask that you find a single source that contradicts my claim. Since all liberal economics is like that, it should be easy, right?
Sure, real economists don't explicitly hold those views. But the kinds of metrics and models liberal economists are fond of using basically lead to that flowchart.
Doesn't matter what academics think or teach when this is what happens in the real world
Examples? I would love some free billions!
Well you need to start with a bunch of billions and some billionaire friends.
Economists may not be like that, but politicians are, and they're the ones that run the economy.
Sure, but that's not what the post is about.
It seem to me like the intention was to say the economics practiced by liberals, not the beliefs of liberal economists. It's phrased ambiguously, but I prefer to interpret things generously.
I don't get it. Billionaires do billionaires things, but this meme being made the same week as a liberal policy requiring fair taxes for the rich to cover social security for the next 75 years makes this poster 100% out of touch.
Liberal in economics and Liberal in US politics mean two very distinct and different things. It's like the way a 'runner' in a race is different to a 'runner' in a restaurant. They're not the same things at all.
Economic liberalism means free trade and deregulation. If it makes money, it's good. Neoliberalism is also referred to as 'hypercapitalism'.
'Liberal' in US politics means 'left of the GOP' and is its own unique thing. It bears no relation to economic liberalism at all. The two may coincide but they're independent of one another.
Which policy is that? Does it have a built in way to prevent accumlation of wealth? Maybe a death tax? Maybe some nationalizing of industry's? No? Then it sounds like you are the one out of touch.
"liberal economics" ? Seriously? This flowchart describes every POS robber baron capitalist for the last several centuries.
Economic liberalism is the economic theory of both American parties. Idk how it came to be applied to only the democratic party but that's incorrect. OP is presumably critiquing economic liberalism from a leftist perspective, of which the Democrats are not
Right?! This is gaslighting pure and simple. Trump gave tax breaks to his corporate cronies on the backs of the poor and middle class. Was Trump a liberal? How about Bush? Clinton (who was a Democrat) made substantial strides toward fixing the economy. But I guess he was a conservative? Idiots don't know the meanings of words. Next you'll tell us that socialism and communism are both the same thing and what liberals want for the country.
People upvoting this do not understand geopolitics.
People who think this is geopolitical don't know what "geo" means
Liberal economics be like let's get rid of capitalism
No, those are socialist economics.
To-may-to to-mah-to
Neo liberal, but yes.
How is a liberal not a capitalist supporter?
that's billions of tax payers money with the tax burden being disproportionately heavy for the 90% while the 10% pay less and less taxes the richer they are
I like how on lemmy you see both how much upvotes and downvotes you have, on reddit you could have a score of 1 and don’t know much has happened, but with lemmy you could have 50 upvotes and 49 downvotes, making you really think about it…
Not only that, but admins and kbinners can actually view which accounts upvoted and which downvoted each comment.
False, the bottom 90% paid about 25% of income taxes (in the US at least). https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/
it's about the percentage of income paid, not the net sum
Ok, so what percentage of income do the various income brackets pay?
Why don't you look it up?
reagan's a liberal?
He's a neoliberal which is an economic stance that promotes deregulation of the markets and support of free trade along with government austerity.
Once again, I blame the Chicago school of economics. Fuck that economic theory. It's exactly why we have the mega corporations of today, it's entire purpose was to neuter the Sherman antitrust act after Roosevelt's crusade against the trusts.