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Mini: Neoliberalism · Why We Do What We Do

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to Why we Do what we do Mini. I'm your
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  Speaker 1: host Abraham and I'm Shane. We are a psychology podcast
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  Speaker 1: and on Mondays we release these short form little dives
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  Speaker 1: into topics that are like ten to fifteen minutes long,
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  Speaker 1: just to unpack them. Sometimes it's like etymology. Sometimes it's
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  Speaker 1: like a weird thing that you should know. Right now,
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  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about politics a little bit.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, we are going to spend a little bit of
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  Speaker 2: time talking about politics because you know, we are short winded.
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  Speaker 2: But it is a mini so we will we will
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  Speaker 2: do our best to keep it under the a lot
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  Speaker 2: of time that we have for it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're fairly quick. We will jump right into it.
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  Speaker 1: But first I'm going to tell you that if you
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  Speaker 1: like what you hear today, please consider going over to
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  Speaker 1: our Patreon and supporting us. You can like, subscribe, leave
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  Speaker 1: a rating, and review all those sorts of things. Thank
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  Speaker 1: you so much for being hear it all. We're happy
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  Speaker 1: to have you. And we are a psychology podcast that
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  Speaker 1: talks all about the things that people do, and today
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  Speaker 1: we're talking about the things that they do Liberal style
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  Speaker 1: kind of.
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  Speaker 2: Kind of yes, and so we are going to unpack
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  Speaker 2: the question what is neo liberalism? Yeah, which is a
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  Speaker 2: lot of syllables.
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  Speaker 1: It is and a term that people maybe have heard,
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  Speaker 1: maybe not, but you're going to hear it a lot
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  Speaker 1: today because we're going to we're going to be saying
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  Speaker 1: it's repeatedly. Now, you hear liberalism, that word, and you
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  Speaker 1: might you hear the embedded word in that liberal and
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  Speaker 1: so maybe you hear that and you think this is
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  Speaker 1: some sort of left leaning maybe even radical left leaning
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  Speaker 1: political orientation or policy right.
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  Speaker 2: Right, But your tone is a little bit off. Do
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  Speaker 2: you hear it?
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  Speaker 1: Do you hear it in my tone? My tone probably
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  Speaker 1: reveals that that is not, in fact what that means.
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  Speaker 1: That is the opposite of what that means.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So there seems to be a lack of consensus
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  Speaker 2: about what this actually means. In fact, just ten years ago,
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  Speaker 2: it was described by some scholar as an incoherent and
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  Speaker 2: crisis ridden term, which is that's honestly my that's how
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  Speaker 2: my life is described. So recently, work has emerged to
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  Speaker 2: more specifically apply a consistent set of definitions for the
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  Speaker 2: term neoliberalism. Blah blah blah. We've talked about an episode
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  Speaker 2: about babbling. So here we are blah blah.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, or at least we mentioned babbling. It wasn't all
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  Speaker 1: about battling. You will hear that actually after you hear
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  Speaker 1: this one. Yeah, okay. So the idea of this, this
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  Speaker 1: political orientation called neoliberalism, can be traced back to Adam
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  Speaker 1: Smith seventeen not nineteen seventy. It was long dead at
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  Speaker 1: that point. In seventeen seventy six book called Inquiry into
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  Speaker 1: the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations and
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  Speaker 1: the Idea of Las Fair Economics, So that was kind
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  Speaker 1: of where it was introduced, but the term wasn't actually
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  Speaker 1: coined until nineteen thirty eight by Austrian economists Ludwig von
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  Speaker 1: Macy's and Frederic von Hayek. As my attempt at those names.
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  Speaker 2: That's close. I mean I do like the egatta in
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  Speaker 2: your throat, like the Schwarzenegger accent, like you did, say
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  Speaker 2: ludl All right. So uh. This gained attention and interest
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  Speaker 2: from many politicians, including Jimmy Carter, Margaret Thatcher, Boo on
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  Speaker 2: the Reggae Boo, Bill Clinton. I'm just boom all but
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  Speaker 2: don't let that confusingly eclectic crowd of enthusiasts throw you off.
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  Speaker 2: As one journalist put it, the quote basic argument of
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  Speaker 2: neoliberalism can fit on a bumper sticker. Markets work, governments
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  Speaker 2: don't end.
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  Speaker 1: Quote Yes, So that essentially is sort of what it
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  Speaker 1: boils down to, and it's most general. As we said,
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  Speaker 1: it is a term with relatively little meaning. But the
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  Speaker 1: neoliberalist position can be thought of as a political and
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  Speaker 1: economic policy, if you will, that is essentially distilled into
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  Speaker 1: three main points. Okay, so here they are the three
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  Speaker 1: main points that sort of make up what has what
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  Speaker 1: this has become what maybe it always was?
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  Speaker 2: Right?
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  Speaker 1: First, that markets and businesses should be able to operate
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  Speaker 1: with little or no government oversight.
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  Speaker 2: Okay. Number two, That the government should handle few or
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  Speaker 2: no social programs or spend money on them. That taxes
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  Speaker 2: should be simple and broadly applied, like a flat tax.
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  Speaker 2: And point number three three.
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  Speaker 1: The government should be forced to keep a balanced budget
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  Speaker 1: that does not operate in a never ending spiral of
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  Speaker 1: debt and deficit. So there are those are the three
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  Speaker 1: main points. Now you could hear all of those and
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  Speaker 1: handle here at least some of them and think, yep,
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  Speaker 1: that definitely sounds like the way I feel about things,
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  Speaker 1: And that's fine. But let's go ahead and continue to
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  Speaker 1: discuss this just a wee bit after we play some
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  Speaker 1: you know what, the neoliberalist market says that we must
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  Speaker 1: in fact play these ads.
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  Speaker 2: That's true, that's what we hear.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, neoliberal gods, let's continue unpacking this.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, So the arguments for this are that it is
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  Speaker 2: the most fair because everyone has a chance to participate
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  Speaker 2: in the market, and that businesses and people fail or
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  Speaker 2: succeed on the merit of their work. So it's not
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  Speaker 2: just that they fail because of the woes of government
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  Speaker 2: or legal bindings. Not it's hey, it either worked or
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  Speaker 2: it didn't because of your it's your fault essentially.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's the argument. They argue that this creates
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  Speaker 1: equal opportunity for the best businesses to compete with prices
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  Speaker 1: and services, such that the consumers ultimately win by having
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  Speaker 1: choices and getting the best products for the best prices,
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  Speaker 1: because a market of competition means that people are trying
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  Speaker 1: to create are essentially trying to lure customers in. To
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  Speaker 1: do that, they'll have to sell the best things at
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  Speaker 1: the most competitive prices.
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  Speaker 2: Right, And so this view largely favors capitalism as the
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  Speaker 2: primary and best way to grow and advance economies and people.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so there is some language that gets used that
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  Speaker 1: the fairness quote unquote fairness of the neoliberal approach means
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  Speaker 1: that people get what they deserve, whether good or bad. Notice,
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  Speaker 1: there's sort of a lot of should type language in there.
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  Speaker 1: People should, you know, get people should get what they deserve.
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  Speaker 1: And so there's this idea that some people deserve more
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  Speaker 1: than others.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so this is essentially a libertarian idea. Like,
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  Speaker 2: so this idea of neoliberalism is really ultimately libertarian, Like
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  Speaker 2: it is open markets, free markets, little government intervention, personal autonomy. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, basically that's it. Now, there are, of course critics
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  Speaker 1: to this approach. I don't know if you could if
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  Speaker 1: you would hear that in our tone here, but sure.
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  Speaker 1: Essentially the critics here sort of point out that, like
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  Speaker 1: in the neoliberal approach, the government is very very very minimal.
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  Speaker 1: It's kind of just there to make sure things don't
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  Speaker 1: completely fall apart. Maybe maybe its role is to protect
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  Speaker 1: us from foreign enemies, but otherwise it should do nothing else.
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  Speaker 1: But the sort of critics will point out that a
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  Speaker 1: government is actually kind of needed because it can help
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  Speaker 1: prevent the fallout of what can happen if capitalism just
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  Speaker 1: kind of runs a muck. And so here's an example.
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  Speaker 1: What if shady business people illegally destroy or stifle competition
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  Speaker 1: from other businesses, right, and so like they essentially go
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  Speaker 1: out and do things that make it so that there
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  Speaker 1: isn't a competitive market. They get to control however that
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  Speaker 1: market goes, which means that they can charge whatever they
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  Speaker 1: want for things that people actually need.
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  Speaker 2: Right. And when you think about the word illegal in
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  Speaker 2: this context, the thing is is like neoliberalism says government
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  Speaker 2: shouldn't be involved, which means there really shouldn't be any laws.
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  Speaker 2: So like the technically like somebody could do anything they
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  Speaker 2: wanted because it's not illegal because the government doesn't have
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  Speaker 2: any intervention on it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you have like Bob's pharmacy on this corner
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  Speaker 1: and Sally's far parmacy on the other, and the neoliberal says, well, like,
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  Speaker 1: whichever one's the better pharmacist should be the one that succeeds.
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  Speaker 1: And then Sally goes to over and burns down Bob's.
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  Speaker 1: And so now people's only choice is to go to
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  Speaker 1: Sally and Bob will be shot on site. Right, They're like, great,
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  Speaker 1: that's how that should work. Just burn down whoever your
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  Speaker 1: competition is and then you just take over the market.
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  Speaker 2: It's a little intense, right. Also, businesses might wantonly destroy
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  Speaker 2: and exploit non renewable resources until they are completely gone.
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  Speaker 2: So government comes in and actually like helps regulate some
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  Speaker 2: of that piece. So without that we lose non renewable resources.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're gone because we said, well, they should be
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  Speaker 1: able to do whatever they wants to those things. And
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  Speaker 1: I'm like, well, those things make the planet run so high, planet, I.
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  Speaker 2: Guess yep, goodbye plant.
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  Speaker 1: Another one is when there are businesses that do compete,
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  Speaker 1: but instead they agree to price fix so that they
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  Speaker 1: won't have to compete and then have to push lower
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  Speaker 1: prices they can. Posts happened with food in the United
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  Speaker 1: States and probably other places. They were able to sort
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  Speaker 1: of price fix at higher rates and Post did record
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  Speaker 1: record profits during a time when there were severe supply
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  Speaker 1: chain issues. So I think that is an example of
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  Speaker 1: what happens when you have people with a lot of
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  Speaker 1: power and a lot of money to move to basically
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  Speaker 1: say we're just going to charge people a lot of
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  Speaker 1: money because we can right.
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  Speaker 2: This was a manufactured inflation. It wasn't something that happened naturally.
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  Speaker 2: So that's something to think about, you know when people
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  Speaker 2: talk about inflation. Yeah, the private companies did that, not government,
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  Speaker 2: all right. When our choices become limited by monopolies that
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  Speaker 2: can control the prices of everything and become so powerful
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  Speaker 2: as do drive the direction of culture. This Actually there's
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  Speaker 2: a really good example of this in Superior iron Man.
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  Speaker 2: So there's a storyline where Iron Man he gets his
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  Speaker 2: personality or reversed, and he becomes like a super capitalist
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  Speaker 2: and he creates an app that like makes people really
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  Speaker 2: happy and like makes them look how they want to look.
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  Speaker 2: But he charges ninety nine dollars per minute and gets
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  Speaker 2: people addicted to it, and then like causes all this
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  Speaker 2: chaos because people are addicted to his app and want
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  Speaker 2: his appened or like spending everything they have on it.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, and this is the Iron Man you said, Yeah, the.
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  Speaker 2: Run is called Superior iron Man. He something happens where
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  Speaker 2: everybody's personalities get switched. Like so like the good guys
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  Speaker 2: become evil and the evil guys become good. So like
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  Speaker 2: Carnage becomes a good guy and like is swinging around
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  Speaker 2: Dave in New York and then leaving notes it says
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  Speaker 2: your friendly neighborhood carnage or like Deadpool becomes zen Pool
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  Speaker 2: and he doesn't kill anybody. He just meditates and does yoga.
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  Speaker 2: Oh it's pretty great. Nice's actually like that very yeah
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  Speaker 2: yeah yeah, except like yeah, so he wears like gray
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  Speaker 2: and has like like Buddhist like accouter mont, so like
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  Speaker 2: he's a it's a very fun. Oh look there's another
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  Speaker 2: French word I know, akoutram. Like, there you go. I
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  Speaker 2: realized I know more friends than I thought from our
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  Speaker 2: last episode.
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  Speaker 1: Cool, all right, And then of course, sorry, I wanted
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  Speaker 1: to keep going, but I'm like, this is a mini
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  Speaker 1: so I need to go.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. That's true.
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  Speaker 1: And then the last thing here is when companies have
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  Speaker 1: a monopoly on something that is critical, such as like
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  Speaker 1: certain medicines, and they can just randomly decide to raise
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  Speaker 1: the price by four hundred percent and then people can't
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  Speaker 1: to buy that medicine anymore. Sometimes insurance is forced to
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  Speaker 1: pay for it. Sometimes that means that the government has
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  Speaker 1: to pay for that insurance that pays for it. Sometimes
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  Speaker 1: that means that taxes have to go up to cover
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  Speaker 1: the government funding that support for those medications, and that
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  Speaker 1: can raise the deficit. So there's like all kinds of
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  Speaker 1: issues with that system when there's just no oversight or regulation.
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  Speaker 1: So notice also that the things that we just said
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  Speaker 1: are not hypotheticals. Those are things that have actually happened
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  Speaker 1: and continue to happen in issues whether there it's just
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  Speaker 1: a what you might call the free market. So I
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  Speaker 1: think the real quick sort of summary on where we
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  Speaker 1: fall on this is just that, like, I think one
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  Speaker 1: thing that people hear is say like, well, what's your alternative?
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  Speaker 1: What would we do instead? And I think that's very fair,
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  Speaker 1: and I think it's worth unpacking that in a separate discussion,
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  Speaker 1: because essentially the alternative is to go to something where
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  Speaker 1: there is some other way of distributing resources and we don't,
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  Speaker 1: And there's a lot of ways that that could look
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  Speaker 1: that people have proposed that it's not worth trying to
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  Speaker 1: fit inside of the context of a mini The other
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  Speaker 1: thing I think to say as far as where we
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  Speaker 1: fall in this is just thinking about the end stage
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  Speaker 1: of a capital This is a competitive environment, and that
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  Speaker 1: means that somebody wins at the end, and so the
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  Speaker 1: end stage of a completely unfettered, unregulated system like that
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  Speaker 1: is that at the end, one person has everything and
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  Speaker 1: everyone else has nothing. Right, and so like, as we
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  Speaker 1: barrel toward that future, we see more and more in
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  Speaker 1: greater disparities in how resources are allocated. And we look
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  Speaker 1: at that and feel and look and say, like, we're
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  Speaker 1: all born on this planet, we're all humans, we all
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  Speaker 1: have a future here. Why does this make sense? Right, Like,
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  Speaker 1: why would it make sense to say that some people
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  Speaker 1: should have a lot more of those resources than other people.
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  Speaker 1: They're just people, right, And so instead of like thinking
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  Speaker 1: about how we take care of each other, how we
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  Speaker 1: take care of the planet, how we ensure this successful
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  Speaker 1: continued ongoing of our species, we say, how can we
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  Speaker 1: destroy what is left of humanity so that a few
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  Speaker 1: people can float to the surface of the ocean of
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  Speaker 1: corpses that they leave behind and say, like, yes, capitalism worked. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: The point of this is not to conclude this saying
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  Speaker 1: down with capitalism, although I think there's a probably a
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  Speaker 1: point to be made there somewhere.
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  Speaker 2: There's a flavor of that. Yeah, there's a ribbon of
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  Speaker 2: that in there. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: The point is we can't just let things go completely unregulated.
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  Speaker 1: Willy nilly because the end stage of that is that
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  Speaker 1: everyone loses except the one person at the top.
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  Speaker 2: Right, And I think that's you know, a perfect example
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  Speaker 2: of that to kind of like show where this is
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  Speaker 2: at that last example where he talked about like critical
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  Speaker 2: medicine being raised by four hundred percent, that has also
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  Speaker 2: resulted in not only people not being able to access medicine,
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  Speaker 2: but the guy, one of the guys that did that,
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  Speaker 2: got possession of the secret Wu Tang album, the Wu
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  Speaker 2: Tang Clan album, and has chose not to release it.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: He could have released it, he chose not to because
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  Speaker 2: he's a real prick.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, if nothing else, everybody lose. Yeah, everyone else lost
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  Speaker 1: out on Wu Tang Clan because that guy.
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  Speaker 2: That guy, but he lost it because he went to jail,
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  Speaker 2: So good.
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  Speaker 1: For him, So blame neoliberalism.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Anyway, that's I think what we have to say about that.
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  Speaker 1: Anything you would like to add or anything that we
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  Speaker 1: should that we need to say before we wrap up
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  Speaker 1: that I forgot.
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  Speaker 2: No, I think that covers it. I think that's all
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  Speaker 2: we needed to do in this one.
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  Speaker 1: Great, So that is what that is. Thank you so
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  Speaker 1: much for listening, Thank you for recording with me. Today Shane.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, if you would like to learn more about
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: this or other episodes, you can go to our website.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: You can reach out to us directly by contacting us
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: at via email, at info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com, or
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: on the other social media platforms. But as I said,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: you can always like, subscribe, review, join us on Patreon,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: all those sorts of things. Yep, I think that's all
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  Speaker 1: I've got. So Why We Do What we Do Mini
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: is out.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Bye.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: going to wwd wwdpodcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: we hope you have an awesome day.