Mihail Pojarsky/Neoliberalism

Amusingly enough, the recent Kit (stylized as Кiт) newsletter proclaims Putin a “neoliberal”. In general, this article reveals just how difficult it is to pan “neoliberalism” without resorting to various misleading conceptions. For example, the ’74 Nobel Prize of Friedrich Hayek is presented as one of the symbols of the ‘neoliberal turn’, while the author forgets to mention the second recipient of the prize. It was Gunnar Myrdal - not a “neoliberal” at all, but one of the fathers of the “Nordic model”. Even the criticizm of Trump, whom one can accuse of multitudinous sins, is somewhat unsubstantiated. It is implied that Trump allegedly “put the non-partisan Supreme Court under the authority of the Republican Party,” meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats have struggled to change the ratio of Supreme Court judges in their favour since American politics began. And you can simply skip the third chapter - in a nutshell, it says that Putin is a neoliberal because... he simplified the tax system for individual entrepreneurs.   But the most interesting is the second chapter. There, the author, quoting Margaret Thatcher, accuses neoliberalism of striving to re-educate the individual:

The essence is the same: an individual with proper (that is, neoliberal) behavior must be “created” and guided. As Margaret Thatcher said, “Economics is only a method; the task is to change human souls.” How many would agree that one has to be paid to save lives on the operating table? That it is better to spend your Saturday working in the office? That some deserve to earn hundreds of times more than others? Not many enough. This is why a person with such views has to be literally “created”; one has to tirelessly explain to them: there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, life is what you make it, property inequality stems from the difference in abilities and diligence, etc. In short: a citizen should be discouraged from pursuing anything else except their personal happiness and the happiness of their family.

Fortunately enough, the author provided a reference for the quote , and we can easily take a look ourselves at what Thatcher really said:

What’s irritated me about the whole direction of politics in the last 30 years is that it’s always been towards the collectivist society. People have forgotten about the personal society. And they say: do I count, do I matter? To which the short answer is, yes. And therefore, it isn’t that I set out on economic policies; it’s that I set out really to change the approach, and changing the economics is the means of changing that approach. If you change the approach you really are after the heart and soul of the nation. Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul.

It’s obvious: Thatcher talked about changing the “soul and heart of the nation” (meaning by this a change from collectivism to individualism), and not at all about the re-education of the individual, as the author interprets it. I don’t want to offend the author by suggesting that he didn’t bother to read his own reference beyond the headline, so I’ll just stick with “deliberately misleading the reader.”

So, after deliberately distorting Thatcher’s words, the author indulges in his own speculations. And here we can counter his speculations with our speculations: no, you don’t need to “create” an individual convinced that the work of a surgeon should be well-paid or a person who voluntarily works in an office on his weekends can earn more than someone who is not. According to my observations, such statements are intuitively accepted by most people. On the contrary, it turns out that all the social engineering and smoke & mirrors are required to explain how a doctor’s work is evaluated as “free” (as in “free healthcare”) and why it is necessary to fight “social inequality” between hard-working men and slackers.

But most importantly, one question still boggles my mind: are there any non-cheating critics of neoliberalism out there? Honestly, I would read their works with great interest.

Mihail Pojarsky 2022-11-28