Conservatism
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public, bad’. Neoliberalism is anti-statist. The state is regarded as a realm of coercion and unfreedom: collectivism restricts individual initiative and saps self-respect. Government, however benignly disposed, invariably has a damaging effect on human affairs. Instead, faith is placed in the individual and the market. Individuals should be encouraged to be self-reliant and to make rational choices in their own interests. The market is respected as a mechanism through which the sum of individual choices will lead to progress and general benefit. As such, neoliberalism has attempted to establish the dominance of libertarian ideas over paternalistic ones within conservative ideology.
KEY CONCEPT NEOLIBERALISM
capitalism delivers efficiency, growth and widespread prosperity, the ‘dead hand’ of the state saps initiative and discourages enterprise. In short, the neoliberal philosophy is: ‘market: good; state: bad’. Keyneoliberal policies include privatization, spending cuts (especially in social welfare), tax cuts (particularly corporate and direct taxes) and deregulation. Neoliberalism is often equated with a belief in market fundamentalism; that is, an absolute faith in the capacity of the market mechanismto solve all economic and social problems.
Neoliberalism (sometimes called ‘neoclassical liberalism’) is widely seen as an updated version of classical liberalism, particularly classical political economy. Its central theme is that the economy works best when left alone by government, reflecting a belief in free market economics and atomistic individualism. While unregulated market
The dominant theme within this anti-statist doctrine is an ideological commitment to the free market, particularly as revived in the work of economists such as Ayn Rand, Friedrich von Hayek (see p. 64) and Milton Friedman (1912–2006). In her essays and popular novels, Rand advanced a moral justification for private enterprise, proclaiming herself to be a ‘radical for capitalism’. Influenced in particular by Friedrich Nietzsche’s (see p. 154) concept of the ‘over-man’ or superman, Rand was a vigorous defender of the virtues of selfishness, sometimes seen as ‘ethical egoism’, seeing the central purpose of life as a quest for excellence, achieved by the exercise of rational self-interest. While selfishness allows people to exist in order to advance their life’s project by striving to be outstanding (wealth being the key measure of success in this respect), selflessness represents failure, a squandering of one’s chances of excellence. KEY FIGURE AYN RAND (1905–82)
A Russian-born writer and philosopher who emigrated to the USA when she was 21, Rand (Alice Rosenbaum) became a Hollywood screenwriter before developing a career as an essayist and novelist. Her philosophy of ‘objectivism’, which claimed to show people as they are (that is, as rationally self-interested creatures), rather than as we may like them to be, gave unabashed support to selfishness and condemned altruism. Rand defended pure, laissez-faire capitalism on the grounds that it both guarantees freedom and, by establishing untrammelled competition, provides for the emergence of the elites needed to govern society. Rand’s most influential works were her best-selling novels, The Fountainhead ([1943] 2007) and Atlas Shrugged (1947), the latter being a portrait of a dystopian USA.
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Neoliberal thinking nevertheless gained its greatest impetus from the revival of interest in free-market economic theories. Free-market ideas gained renewed credibility during the 1970s as governments experienced increasing difficulty in delivering economic stability
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