Neoliberals took over the Democratic party leadership in the 1980s. There has been no truly liberal President since Carter. (Although some call him the grandfather of neoliberalism, because of all the deregulation he continued from Nixon's administration.)
They are now the majority, and what we call "progressives" are really old school liberals. That is how far to the right we have drifted. To call the Party "Left" is incorrect. Voters, however, are another thing altogether.
In a nutshell, neoliberalism believes that the "free market" should not be regulated except by the "will of the people." In other words, if you don't demand a raise and benefits, you must not want it. And who are they to interfere in your wants?
Neoliberalism gives capitalism the credit for all the advances technology has brought the world. ** And it credits that power to the "freemarket." (I keep putting it in quotes because a truly free market has never existed in capitalism outside of a few hundred years during the Islamic Golden Age.)
Neoliberals have masked many of their policies in New Deal liberalism. This is one of the things that confuses old school liberals.
DEI on the surface looks like civil rights and racial justice. But it's really just more diversity in the executive offices, board room, and positions of power.
When Barack Obama was elected president neoliberals declared that "racism was over." Dismantling institutionalized racism is not on the agenda.
Same with rights for any other group. That's why no one passed the ERA, or enshrined bodily autonomy. Neoliberalism is why we have the ACA instead of Medicare for all, and more loans for minority college students instead of free college.
You will never hear a neoliberal call Northwestern European countries "heavily regulated capitalism", even thought that is what they are. Instead, they will say "social-democratic", trying to hang onto that leftist sounding socialism while also distancing themselves the conservative definition of it that is too close to communism. ***
DEI is better than nothing, and they do support some safety nets. Neoliberals are better on climate change. But the problem is they will never do anything on their own unless they are pushed into by their moderate base.
Or if a third party ever gained enough traction to truly threaten them.
We are seeing that very clearly now. We can push them, but expecting them to act on their own or "save us" is fantasy.
NOTES
** They are true adherents to Smith in that. However, Smith's philosophy was deeply flawed, filled with colonialist fallacies that are laughable today, and grafted concepts like the "free market" that were borrowed from the Islamic Empire, whose market was based on completely different principles. Principles that were both at odds with European capitalism, and that were based in principles that did not exist in Europe.
*** In my experience very, few people have actually read Marx. There are no socialist countries in the world today, or communist- even Cuba and China are a stretch. And Marx actually saw Communism as the natural progression of capitalism, which I think has been soundly disproven in the last 50 years. At this point it is moot though, in my opinion because of climate change. Any sustainable economy at this point will need to be based on resources. A discussion for another time.
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