The term neoliberalism seems to be invariably a pejorative “boo word”. Those who use it all hate whatever they think it means. Yet, strangely, they disagree about whether the detested entity is alive (as maintained by Professor Bulent Gokay of Keele University, “Obituaries for neoliberalism are premature”, Letters, March 1) or dead, as per Rana Foroohar’s column “It’s not just the economy, stupid” (Opinion, February 21).
Gokay says neoliberalism has shaped the economy as we know it; and defines it in policy terms as “privatisation, tax cuts, inflation targeting and anti-trade union laws”.
Except for inflation targeting, all of these are relative terms. In the UK context, where we are heading for a peacetime record in the overall taxation burden, tax cuts are a distant memory — although they seemed to me favourable to economic growth when they last occurred.
By anti trade union laws, Gokay presumably means the legislative regime that has been kept in place with little change by governments of all the main UK national political parties for nearly four decades now. This is admittedly different from the extremes of legal immunity that were extended to strike calls without ballots, and to secondary industrial action, in the preceding decades of general decline in UK manufacturing industry.
What bemuses me is that the term neoliberalism is used at all by US commentators like Foroohar. There, “liberal” often denotes a political philosophy not sharply differentiated from socialism; and (like everywhere else) the prefix “neo-” does not mean “non-”.
Andy Thompson
Worcester Park, Surrey, UK
Letter: Debating the pejorative ‘boo word’— neoliberalism
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