What Was Liberalism? #3 Neoliberalism | Philosophy Tube 

I love how neoliberalism says free market and competition is all that matters and then pays millions in subsidies to have some corporations stay afloat when they should just die already

The great thing about neoliberalism is that it allows us to blame every single structural problem of our society on either personal failures or too much government.

“When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will you realize that one cannot eat money.” Quote of victims of a genocide nobody talks about…..

Liberalism for the poor: "Too bad, personal responsibility" Liberalism for the rich: "All is forgiven, society will pay the bill"

The oddest thing I find when arguing with ancaps and neolibs is when I talk about wage-slavery. How the bus driver who gets paid minimum wage and has to work 12h/day in harsh conditions to simply put some bread on their family's table the next morning is basically impeded to seek anything else, and how proper welfare would allow them to at least guarantee a better future for their kids. The response is that the bus driver "is free" and "chooses" to be a wage-slave, because there is the alternative of not working and dying of hunger. (They literally said that. Their idea of freedom is that you can choose to die if you don't want to be work terrible conditions because you weren't born into a middle-class family)

To paraphrase Noam Chomsky: "Neoliberalism isn't liberal and, it isn't new"

>Maggie Thatcher in the thumbnail *spits on the screen*

As a disabled person I'm really glad you talked about disability and it's relation to neoliberalism as many people often forget about how important a point it is. I am not free as a disabled person under neoliberalism/capitalism. This is just a true statement regardless of your view point. Even with the class privilege I have from having had a relatively middle class upbringing I am still trapped. I'm 19 and in university and my family mostly look after me but what will happen when I inevitably have to move out? Will I be completely reliant on benefits (which are often not enough to live on?) Will I be working in a part time job where I'm constantly in pain and tired barely able to pay rent? Will my house be accessible? And with all these worries will I ever live a meaningful life? Or will I be living pay check to pay check in debt (after the NHS is privatised) and with pain my entire life? I know everybody has worries but I feel like it's more intensified when you have a disability. I've been worrying about this stuff since I was just entering high school and it is crushingly real and personal. If every person with a disability has to go through this I completely understand the suicide statistics - why would I live in a world that hates me? I'm sorry to be so depressing but this is why I hate when people dismiss it as "just a political opinion" or "not personal." It absolutely is personal. Thank you for bringing this stuff to people's attention - really enjoy your videos! Keep up the good work

I got the most excited when you insulted neoliberalism immediately.

"nowadays 'economic benefits' basically means rich people getting richer and everyone else working harder"

It's all personal responsibility until your the one that needs help XD

I love that Prager "U" is the ad for this content.

Those speeches from Thatcher and Reagan sure aged like milk.

0:29 ''a garbage idea for garbage Humans' is that a shout out for Sargon

Im so glad you talk about neoliberaism in this way. When I was learning about it in first year sociology it was presented without any refrence to the harms it brought. It was presented as if it was neutral. This put me, a working class person in a predominantly (but not entirely) middleclass environment, in the position of having to justify why my family using benifits was 'justified' rather than 'laziness'. For context, my mother had serious mental health issues- but I should not have to say that for our rights and moral fibre to be considered proper. It gave voice to a lot of blatent classism in my year mates, and reduced me to tears in the lecture. Thankyou for prioritising the harm of this ideology- and for pointing out how other forms of systemic oppression are ignored, and that there is nothing 'neutral' about framing neoliberalism on its own terms, and on it own playing field

"Choose with your dollars" My father lives where the ONLY general store for MANY miles is a Wal-mart. Just how much freaking frakkin choice is THAT?!?🤯🤯

You look like a put together British version of Shaggy from Scooby Doo.

I feel that most of this video was recorded through clenched teeth with many, many breaks for screaming in frustration

There's a good discussion to be had in how right-liberalism/conservatism/neoliberalism relate to aristocratic ideology. The obsession with "meritocracy" and genetics in particular, common to these three related ideologies(and how often its used to justify their flaws&failings), seems to be an important bridge(or political line, to be more cynical) for this connection.

Great video, really interesting and educational. Me and the rest of my friends love you videos and this is one of my favourites so far. I hope you are feeling a bit better

I realize Halloween is coming up, but did you HAVE to use Thatcher as the thumbnail?

So, for clarification, does this mean that Neoliberalism covers, specifically in America, the Democratic and Republican parties, and moreover, Neoliberalism would be the explicit ideology behind American Libertarianism which was fueled by Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek? I've never been a fan of American Right-Wing Libertarianism, and I once got into an argument at Barnes & Noble with one, yet I've never been able to articulate the problems of this Libertarianism and Neoliberalism. I know that it's problematic, wait extremely beyond problematic, but I've never been able to demonstrate to them how terrible of an idea it is that they hold.

Thank you Abi for keeping your old stuff up on your channel. This series is one of my favorite of yours.

Thank you for everything Olly, can't wait for the next episode

Neoliberalism is pretty much what caused me to have to leave the UK when they simply made it too difficult to survive as someone with a disability. I can consider myself unreasonably lucky in holding dual citizenship, and in the other country I have citizenship of not (yet) resorting to quite the same level of sadistic behaviour... But it certainly wasn't something that was reassuring... And I feel sorry for all the people in similar circumstances who had to somehow find a way to cope with it anyway...

Super happy to see you bring up care ethics and how the existence of relationships of care undermine the individualist focus of (neo)liberalism. Have you done a video on care ethics? If so I'll be watching it shortly. I wish you'd gone even farther and looked at the importance of un-paid or underpaid care labour in the foundation of capitalism, but I suppose that's tangential.

I needed a refresher on this for an exam, weird seeing Abigail like this, but thanks for keeping these shorter videos up! You're a saint 🙏🏻

Classical liberal here. I’ve never met one of my own kind that believed helping or caring for someone was bad. The mainstream school of thought was that it was bad to do it through the power of the state because it gives the central state more power that it uses to grow itself, and thus make more people dependent upon it.

Please sing more that made me smile. Also, great stuff as usual.

Thank you for being so up-front with your personal reservations before jumping into the analysis. Disclosure is important yo

Carbon trading puts a price tag on pollution. It helps to take externalities of consumption into account.

That point about competition is excellent, particularly in light of the growing neoliberal(and particularly Republican) defense of monopoly in the US. Really makes it clear how much market-claims are merely justifying rhetoric rather than actual principles or goals.

On October 26th in the year 2020, I posted the 1,001 comment on this video, and I'm thinking over all the incorrect things I was taught about politics throughout my childhood.

Neoliberalism does have a solution for the problem that some people lead lives that require more money to maintain or that are paid less for their labour - they die. I didn't say it was a **good** solution.

The end of this video was one of the most hilarious things I've seen lately. Perfection. Also this series is excellent and informative. Thank you. (P.S. I found out about you because of Contra.)

Thanks, Olly! I've meant to watch this Liberalism series for a while and finally started yesterday. 6:30 Difficulty navigating the job market specifically is the only real reason why I'm now on disability. I received an autism diagnosis in 2007, then again in 2008 and a third time when I applied for disability in 2009 because the state didn't feel the first two were enough (from a psychologist and a neurologist respectively). And because of damn neolibs, I worry every day that my disability is going to suddenly vanish. In the meantime, I'm using the time that I have the disability stipend to change careers from software engineer to comedian. I've been enjoying your work for a while now and am almost certainly going to use some clips in my upcoming work on subjects like American Libertarianism and the bs idea of "work life balance" that turns leisure into another form of work, along with the accompanying stress of work.

"you do not have a right to demand other people to provide you a decent living", which goes contrary, in my opinion, to your right to pursue happiness. You're completely right. If we had to take a "libertarian" angle to it (although I'm not libertarian), Denial of social welfare is as much as a serious violation of personal liberty as is denying someone access to the "market." - I have yet to see a neoliberal make any argument for a moral distinction between the two.

Chile:.. im a joke to you? Chile is the most neoliberalist country in the world, we have private water services got damn, and btw theres was a workers uprising during october 2019 and now because of the pandemic, we are on wait for a constitutional assambly to replace a constitution made in pinochet dictatorship in the 80´s, greatings olly.

Correction: Neoliberalism LOVES government spending (tax-generated revenues) on private companies, such as oil subsidies. Neoliberalism also loves government creating policy which avails private companies to enhance their profits such as consumption tax where children and pensioners pay tax, but employer status and off-shore loopholes ensure global companies pay little or no tax.

the arguments in this video were well justified and convincing imo, opens up a lot of interesting avenues of thought!!

Sees Maggie in the thumbnail Clicks Is sad because the video isn’t describing the horribleness of Maggie Thatcher enough🥺🥺

>neoliberalism >democracy you can only pick one

We have to appreciate Abigail’s masterful cosplay of Shaggy

7:19-8:06 is incredibly important in how neoliberalism shapes attitudes towards the entire spectrum of service industry workers.

Put some care ethics books in your next reading recommendation video please!

When you get the chance could you do one on conservatism?

I needed this humorous take right now. Thank you! Cheers.

Awesome video! I am taking everything with a pinch of salt like you said, but this was incredibly informative! I've been researching this because it appears to be the start of resistance towards environmental health in the US government

This is going to be good

LOOOLLLL so much shade. I feel like you've been watching Hbomberguy. Love the snark.

That cut at the end was amazing!

thanks Olly, I could relate more to your perspective in this video, especially because of that care ethics bit. People can be nice to each other even if systems don't allow them. But systems, if they're deliberately vague (unlike good philosophical discourse) become difficult to identify as being faulty. And the nice people end up suffering a lot of anguish because they're not able to determine the source of their problems even though it's really in front of them all the while.

I suggest you read "The Quest for Cosmic Justice" by Thomas Sowell.

Cap and trade works. I suggest you look into it before throwing shade.

I have a small issue here and that is that "neoliberalism" isn't a good term at all for what you're describing. It has no fixed definition, it is used exclusively pejoratively, and it can be used to describe absolutely any group of persons or policies one does not like for whatever reason. It is in fact primarily used in this way, further robbing it of whatever dubious value it had as a term in the first place. What you're describing seems to be mostly "market fundamentalism," and grows out of a misunderstanding that the economic idea (and theoretical, not presumptive, benefits) of "free markets" can be achieved by regulating markets poorly when in fact Free Markets are a theoretical abstraction and not achievable in any situation whatsoever. There is always a better term.

Loved the video! My only minor gripe is that it seemed to imply that neoliberalism was invented in the 80s, but it has been around as an ideology since at least the end of WWII.

Can't wait for the next lecture. I come from a postcommunist country in eastern EU and a critique of capitalism is always very quickly tagged as an expression of support for USSR and/or other totalitarian communist regimes. Hence I really enjoyed this lecture. I want to read a book about socialism now. So inspiring!

Nnnnaaaaaa I take issue with presenting carbon trading as an expression of neoliberalism. It's a market-based idea, yes, but its whole point is to restrict the freedom of companies to do enrich themselves at the expense of the environment by gradually increasing the cost of doing so. The end goal of a cap-and-trade system is a situation where emitting carbon is so costly that companies choose literally any other option. It's like that old myth about boiling a frog; you turn up the heat on the market gradually. (Strange metaphor in this context, sorry.) Cap-and-trade systems have gotten a bad reputation because the ones that have been implemented so far have been so lenient as to be ineffective. It looks like that may be about to change, however; for example, there's an ongoing push to raise the cost of carbon credits in the EU carbon trading system.

Hi, Abby! I literally just watched you in The Acolyte and then needed a primer on neoliberalism. Thanks for being both a great actress and a great educator. Also, weird to see the old you. I'd totally forgotten your old name tbh...

the first time I heard the word "neoliberalism" I was in undergrad and a friend of mine was using it to describe something, using a whole lot of academic language and I felt completely at sea and... a little talked down to, actually. Thanks for explaining it clearly as you do.

Do I detect some video editing styles from Contrapoints and Hbomberguy? :3

I agree with you, but it would be much more persuasive to people who disagree with you on neoliberalism if you took a more neutral tone.

Great video series

Whoa. I discovered this channel a week ago [or so] and honestly this is exciting. I somehow feel cheated that you have been here since 2013. But oh well, there is no regret-I have found you at last anyway. Lols. I am here to stay and keep following. God's Speed! Keep at it please

"If you put in regulations, and start demanding businesses pay wages people can actually live on, then they will just take the jobs to other countries" [IRELAND INTENSIFIES]

I think I hate neoliberalism just as much as the next guy. I'm pretty much in agreement with Noam Chomsky and Adam Curtis about it I think. The thing I most dislike is it's ostensible prizing of individualism and personal responsibilty, despite in practice leading to a kind of homogeneity in behaviour and thought (see Manufacturing Consent), and utter dependence on the market (which generally translates to utter dependence on faceless TNCs). There's something inhuman about it. All that said i would have liked Olly to make his best possible argument in favour of neoliberalism, which would have given his arguments against it much more power. I fear that many people will come away feeling that there is another side to this they haven't heard and that they are in fact correct.

The Contrapoints inspiration is very strong. I like it.

8:20 The way you took out that book without looking!

I was hoping the last episode would focus on solutions to getting out of this capitalist mess the entire world is in.

"Bourgeois democracy, although a great historical advance in comparison with medievalism, always remains, and under capitalism is bound to remain, restricted, truncated, false and hypocritical, a paradise for the rich and a snare and deception for the exploited, for the poor." - Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov

OMG THANK YOUUUUUUUU this is the first lesson i've found where i can finally understand what neoliberalism is

Mr. Lennard....Professor Lennard? Your video here, # 3 in your series "What Was Liberalism?" is excellent. You've defined neoliberalism about as succinctly and made it as understandable for us common folk as any I've seen. Well done. Queston: Why did you entitle the series as you did? Referring to Liberalism as something that"was", rather than something that is...? You don't see a chance in Hell it'll ever rebound, do you? Well, I agree. This situation us humanAfter this 40+ year wave of neoliberal corporatists/politicians is finished, so shall we all be. In the meantime, please keep on enlightning my leaded mind!

I understand you have stated to take this with a pinch of salt but I think it is important to understand how practical markets can be to discover, satisfy needs and disincentivise surplus. There is also incentive for production. Production helps be able to satify more people's needs and wants as well as gives us a better ability to sustain and secure human rights.

I’m disappointed, you said at the start you would try to give the positives, but that did not come across. I assume your beliefs were what made reaching that nuance difficult, so I appreciate you giving it a try anyway. Keep up the good work!

You define it as something great and I do not see how could this flawless idea fail.

Great thing about neoliberalism is that it makes you all a lot richer and happier than you otherwise would be, but provides you with the social and legal freedoms to express your miss-founded opposition to it.

You should discuss your views with Gary Edwards in a hangout. I would watch it. He's doing a response video to each of your videos. He is much friendlier to liberalism than you are.

How is carbon trading a neoliberal concept, when neoliberalism is all about deregulation? I disagree with neoliberalism for similar/same reasons as you stated, but that doesn't invalidate all markets.

This is excellent. Well done.

"Ronnie Raygun and the Milk Snatcher." Coming to every theater near you nonstop since the 80s whether you like it or not.

Neoliberalism is the perfect ideology for narcissists

"They assume that free markets mean competition. And competition means that quality is kept high, prices are kept low, and it drives innovation, distributes resources efficiently to the people that want them the most." That's... not specifically a neoliberal thing. That's capitalism in general. But OK... I'm inclined to mostly agree with this stated premise (might pick some different semantics but eh... close enough). You're going to tell me why I shouldn't. So let's see what you've got: "Have free markets resulted in a lot of competition everywhere? Or have some markets become dominated by a very small number of companies?" Yep... oligarchies happen. Ever notice that it tends to be in the most heavily regulated markets? Big companies with fat profit margins can survive regulations, small businesses and startups can't. The more you free the market, the easier it is for literally anyone with money, charisma, and/or a brilliant idea to spring up and carve off a big piece of the big guy's market share with a better product/service/resource for everyone. "Are resources as efficiently distributed as they could be?" Never. There's always room for improvement. But if we're to compare against existing examples capitalism does it faster, cheaper & overall better than the alternatives. "Do they always go to the people who want them the most?" They go to people able and willing to provide something of value in exchange. There's a lot of overlap between the two groups. But no. Some people don't get the resources they want because wanting something doesn't automatically mean you get it. Although even in a ruthless capitalist society of individualism people actually do still give a shit about their fellow man. Private charities are still perfectly functional capitalist entities (for profit or otherwise). "Is the innovation that is happening always useful?" No. People chase bad ideas all the time. But generally, people quickly lose interest and stop supporting bad ideas (or run out of money). At least in a capitalist setting bad ideas can die on their own merit of providing nothing in exchange for what you give them. Instead of being propped up by tax dollars people don't want to spend on a completely unsustainable pet project of some ego-centric politician and the slight majority he's convinced is not a bad enough reason to kick him out of office. "Is it allowed to benefit all of human kind when it is?" Who decides what is and isn't beneficial to all of human kind? Or are you simply referring to the fact that when someone creates something useful and new, it isn't immediately somehow provided to everyone who may want it? I can't help but notice there was weasel wording in every single one of these questions. As presented, you have to answer "no" to all of them because the question requires absolute total success in all cases in order to answer "yes" to any of them. "individualism ignores systemic privilege" Yea... so what? In what way does someone else being rich, good looking, charismatic, smart or skilled negatively affect you? Especially someone you never interact with? What it does not ignore is systemic discrimination. Stuff that actually negatively affects people in a quantifiable way. "individualism ignores or misvalues the role of care" Individuals still care about people. They still have friends and family. The only difference is that they are encouraged to take it upon themselves to see to the well being of themselves and the people they care about. Sure, you can be a shithead who burns every social bridge but you end up fucking yourself when hard times fall upon you. An individualist still has vested personal interest in maintaining good relationships with those around them for this very reason. Even when their motives are *completely* selfish. As individuals we are encouraged to make these connections ourselves as opposed to expecting some authority to forcibly extract our needs from strangers. Individuals care about other people, collectivists care about the *idea* of other people.

I like you taking contrapoints use of voice modulation. Also I want contrapoint to bring back the air horn. I didn't know that philosophy tube had air horns in this video when I made this comment.

absolutely love your videos!!!!

Normally great content, but please, please read an economic textbook before you talk about neoliberalism.

WAS???? we're living in it

I love the disclaimer in the first 30 secs!

“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

Great video, but I'm a bit worried how obviously one sided it is. I'm aware you used comedy to alleviate some of that rhetorically, but it's still there. Don't get me wrong, I'm on your side. But fundamentally, philosophy is about reasoned debate. It's the very core of philosophy. Philosophy should be apolitical (or should it? Dun dun duhhhhhh). I just don't want PhilosophyTube to become another shitposting channel. Lord knows we have enough of that. Remaining apolitical keeps the channel pure, no matter how hard that is at times. I think you're at a crossroads, where you have to decide exactly what this channel is. Is it OllieTube, or PhilosophyTube?

Can't wait for the Marxist indoctrination next episode!

I love your videos! I'm a physics major with philosophy minor. I'd love to work with you on a segment sometime :) and yes, I'm a gaming channel but I hope to expand. Keep up the fantastic work :)

One aspect of neoliberalism that isn't discussed here is that it conditions the political spectrum. In a standard social democratic capitalist society, the right represents the status quo and the left represents change. We either think society is good as it is, or we want to improve it for humans. That's how you get a main political distinction between leftists and liberals. In a standard neoliberal society, the left represents the status quo and the right represents change. We either think society is good as it is, or we want to make it worse for certain groups of humans. That's how you get a main political distinction between liberals and fascists. We see why the latter distinction is beneficial to capitalists: capitalists want the system to maintain itself, so they benefit from change being irrational and generally undesirable. It paints liberalism as the rational political ideology, versus the forces of unreason, and as the moral political ideology, versus the ghoulish forces of intolerance: of course both are very helpful rhetorically. It also makes it way harder for leftwing change to come about, as you have to fight both parties to get anything through instead of just one party. By its political mechanism, neoliberalism asserts that liberalism is the good and rational position, and takes the left hostage.

I agree with many of your attacks on neo-liberal economic thought, but the way you framed it - as an attack on liberalsim - made me weirdly defensive as someone who considers themselves a (social/progressive/radical/left-)liberal and given I wouldn't consider any British PM since Lloyd George a liberal. Thatcher was a conservative free-marketeer, not a liberal, and everyone after has just been a more watered down version of her. For example, the idea that liberals see human lives as less important than profit - I'd like to raise you one Martha Nussbaum. Or just the general idea that to be a liberal means being pro unfettered capitalism, what Soros has called 'market fundamentalism', I'd like to raise you a John Rawls and every social-liberal party in the world - including the actual party of British liberalism: the Lib Dems.

Olly, I have a massive man-crush on you, but I think you could have done a lot better on this. I think you needed to go a lot deeper and use a lot more evidence! Seemed a bit shallow and overly simplistic to me, not at all like your other work.

I love your comments about care. Reminds me of the notion of the happiness quotient. The metric for "success" doesn't have to be individual work and economic gain; it can be contribution and collective improvement. I'm a big believer in capitalism, btw, but it _has_ to be regulated because as raw intellectual concept, it does not take into account certain ill-directed human tendencies like greed, fear, and selfishness.

Love the Xenomorph reference! :D Might it also be a metaphor for the deadly and parasitic characteristics of neoliberalism? If so, it's a damn good one ;)

Iraq followed a similar path to, arguably, the birth place of neoliberalism...Pinochet's Chile.

You maybe alright when it comes to philosophy but please do more research over political ideologies.

this would've really helped my paper in english lol 😂 love ollys vids tho

Brilliant series. Was a bit put off by the goatie at first but I've got to say. This is great