That’s not “liberal economics”, that’s just “Capitalism in practice”.
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.”
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.
I appreciate your effort, but my comment probably wasn’t what you would call “good faith”.
Even leaving aside the rather odd US scale, a liberal economic system is inherently capitalist, since capitalism is defined by private ownership of the means of production, wage labour, exploitation of workers and pricing in a market. All this is still present in what you call a liberal economic system (even if some of these effects are dampened) without touching the root of the problem, so it is indistinguishable from, or even equal to, capitalism, whether in an unregulated or regulated flavour.
“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.
What definition of liberal are you using here?
the one of (neo)liberalism. An economic state which is accepted and perpetuated by virtually all sides of the culture war
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?
Doesn’t matter what academics think or teach when this is what happens in the real world
Economists may not be like that, but politicians are, and they’re the ones that run the economy.
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.
Were you not alive during the 2008 global financial meltdown? Where the entire world had to subsidize the 1% because the banks they own sold garbage mortgages?
What about more recently with the bank runs that we had a month or so ago? The fed implented a new “insurance warranty” to make banks whole again “without using tax payer funds” but we both know that’s a load of bullshit…
Now we have this never ending inflation, interest rates only going up for who knows how long… Literally siphoning your money from whatever savings you have left and if you’re already broke, they are taking away any buying power you had and taking it down to nothing…
So yea, fuck whatever bullshit economic theory or whatever academic bullshit you are talking about, regardless of whatever “politics” it’s tagged under… Its the 1% snatching away any and all power that the people accumulated over this covid recovery (strong labour market, practically 0 interest during peak covid, work from home, etc)
Thanks for listening to my Ted talk…
*a word
aka “Reaganomics”
