Jane Slaughter describes what she calls the neoliberal assault on Michigan, and she adds in Wisconsin as well. The assault consists of a plan to end collective bargaining and to weaken the unions so they are unable to protect the benefits for working people.
I am not sure why she calls this movement “neoliberal,” as it seems that the main movers and shakers are far-right conservatives who always hated unions.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We can also add Ohio to those states. John Kasich is doing everything he can do to eventually eliminate public schools altogether. Kasich gives millions of dollars to charter schools, who do not have to play by the same rules as Ohio superintendents, principals, and teachers. Kasich’s new grading system on school systems, the new teacher evaluation system, and PARCC testing has all been created to prove that our public schools are a failure. He is trying to get the Ohio charters up and working to rescue the students from our awful public schools. I’m a registered Republican, but I’m so horrified that he will be getting 4 more years as our Ohio governor. It’s downright scary.
Dear Sad Teacher,
I also live in Ohio and I also am horrified by the thought of Kasich getting 4 more years. But I don’t kid myself that everything that comes out of Columbus in Kasich’s doing. The state legislature is majority Republican and they also promote the dismantling of the public schools, ridding the state of public sector unions, and so on.
Do you really think Kasich would be making as much headway if he had to fit the legislature every step of his way?
Let me make this even simpler: Don’t just vote against Kasich, vote against every other Republican as well. I know it is very, very hard to go against such an ingrained part of one’s identity, such as “I am a registered Republican.” But I think you are strong enough, honest enough, and smart enough to take that big step.
Good Luck on this new journey,
Barbara from Cincinnati
Thank you, Barbara, for your kind comments. I was a lifetime Democrat up until Obama mistreated Hillary. I loved Hillary. My husband and I was horrified that Obama became President. I did not vote for Obama either time. To distance myself from Obama, I changed from Democrat to Republican. I don’t identify with Republicans either, so I think I need to register as Independent. I feel both parties have done their share of damage to our country.
Well, I plan to vote for Bernie Sanders and I hope Elizabeth Warren.
I think it would be best to use less confusing language and simple call it the Corporate Assault, since that is all it really is. This is a push to create a Corporate State.
I believe “Neoliberal” comes from the ancient Roman times when it meant liberated from government regulations.
“I am not sure why she calls this movement “neoliberal,””
From Wiki:
“Neoliberalism is an updated version of ideas associated with economic liberalism,[1] which advocates — under reference to neoclassical economic theory — support for great economic liberalization, privatization, free trade, open markets, deregulation, and reductions in government spending in order to enhance the role of the private sector in the economy.[2][3][4]
Neoliberalism was an economic philosophy that emerged among European liberal scholars in the 1930s attempting to trace a so-called ‘Third’ or ‘Middle Way’ between the conflicting philosophies of classical liberalism and collectivist central planning.[5] The impetus for this development arose from a desire to avoid repeating the economic failures of the early 1930s which was mostly blamed on economic policy of classical liberalism. In the decades that followed, neoliberal theory tended to be at variance with the more laissez-faire doctrine of classical liberalism and promoted instead a market economy under the guidance and rules of a strong state, a model which came to be known as the social market economy.
In the 1960s, usage of the term “neoliberal” heavily declined. When the term was reintroduced in the 1980s in connection with Augusto Pinochet’s economic reforms in Chile, the usage of the term had shifted. It had not only become a term with negative connotations employed principally by critics of market reform, but it also had shifted in meaning from a moderate form of liberalism to a more radical and laissez-faire capitalist set of ideas. Scholars now tended to associate it with the theories of economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.[6] Once the new meaning of neoliberalism was established as a common usage among Spanish-speaking scholars, it diffused directly into the English-language study of political economy.[7] The term neoliberal is now used mainly by those who are critical of legislative initiatives that push for free trade, deregulation, enhanced privatization, and an overall reduction in government control of the economy.[8]
American scholar and Monthly Review co-editor Robert W. McChesney notes that the term neoliberalism, which he defines as “capitalism with the gloves off,” is largely unknown by the general public, especially in the United States.[9] Today the term is mostly used as a general condemnation of economic liberalization policies and their advocates.[8]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
What ever the definition is, and most given here seem reasomable to me, the truth is that “neoliberal” has really been a canard or smoke screen to destroy the democratic and populist movements that rose from the Great Depression, and allow the return of an aristocracy by enabling oligopolistic and monopolistic practices that had been outlawed.
The path was laid out by the likes of F.A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Ayn Rand with the lavish support of the wealthy families of the US, Britain, and Europe. What these people wanted was not truly free markets and free choices; require strong government intervention, support networks,and progressive taxation. They wanted a return to the Gilded Age. They’re succeeding quite well.
Neoliberal has nothing to do with being liberal.
Agreed, as that word is used today, and I don’t think I made that statement.
But you have to remember that the idea of “liberal” has changed over the years. The “liberals” of the 19th Century were those who wanted to have unfettered economic interactions.
My post wasn’t directed at you, moosesnsquirrels. I was speaking in general. None of the terms mean what they use to mean. People don’t even realize that today’s Democrats actually believe like Eisenhower. There has been about a 180 degree shift in thinking. The Tea Party has gone to right of right. Social conservatives do not equal political conservatives. Social liberals do not equal political liberals. Add to the mix “neocons” and “neoliberals” and it further messes with people’s minds. Some don’t bother to learn these things and they don’t vote on anything but the way their grandparents voted and continue the straight ticket insanity. You can’t believe politicians unless they have a track record to follow. I won’t go there with some of the races that I find appalling and the ads on tv that make me want to scream.
I saw a “Maxine” cartoon today that suits me to a T. She is sitting at her computer and says, “I keep hitting ‘escape’ but I am still here.” That is how I feel.
OH, I was just speaking in general, not directing that at you. I don’t like the way terms have been twisted over the year. The Democrats on many issues are Eisenhower Republicans. The Republicans, esp the Tea Partiers are far, far to the right of right. But, there are many, many people who still think that Dem and Rep are what they were in the 1950s, 60s, 70s. They are NOT the same. Then we top it off with “neocon” and “neoliberals” that stand for the opposite of the CURRENT ideas of conservative and liberal, and you have mass confusion. On top of that people continue to misrepresent what they WILL do and what their own reality is. AND, conservative and liberal social stances are very different from conservative and liberal monetary stances. But, we still have straight ticket, non-thinking people who vote the way their grandparents voted, and things continue to wax worse and worse … and worse.
In any case, whatever the politics, when those with big money have privatized everything because it is their “right” in a “free” America … obliterating the rights of everyone else … it will be a sad and unnecessary decline of America. Without the Middle Class, we have no hope of bright futures for our retirement or our children. This is not progress.
Bottom line: those with money will do what they will to keep it for themselves and their children, whichever party they subscribe to. The rest of us can just drop off the face of the Earth, I suppose.
As usual M&S, quite astute!
Diane, I am surprised that you find the term “neoliberal” to be perplexing. I could swear I learned the general definition of the term here on your blog, and some time ago.
As I understand it, the “liberal” in “neoliberal” is in reference to lax government control over business, as opposed to the private lives of individuals. I think it’s a term that came over from Europe after we here in the states started using the word “liberal” to refer to lax government control over people’s private lives.
From CorpWatch:
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=376
What is Neoliberalism?
A Brief Definition for Activists
by Elizabeth Martinez and Arnoldo Garcia, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
. . . A memorable definition of this process came from Subcomandante Marcos at the Zapatista-sponsored Encuentro Intercontinental por la Humanidad y contra el Neo-liberalismo (Inter-continental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neo-liberalism) of August 1996 in Chiapas when he said: “what the Right offers is to turn the world into one big mall where they can buy Indians here, women there ….” and he might have added, children, immigrants, workers or even a whole country like Mexico.”
The main points of neo-liberalism include:
THE RULE OF THE MARKET. Liberating “free” enterprise or private enterprise from any bonds imposed by the government (the state) no matter how much social damage this causes. Greater openness to international trade and investment, as in NAFTA. Reduce wages by de-unionizing workers and eliminating workers’ rights that had been won over many years of struggle. No more price controls. All in all, total freedom of movement for capital, goods and services. To convince us this is good for us, they say “an unregulated market is the best way to increase economic growth, which will ultimately benefit everyone.” It’s like Reagan’s “supply-side” and “trickle-down” economics — but somehow the wealth didn’t trickle down very much.
CUTTING PUBLIC EXPENDITURE FOR SOCIAL SERVICES like education and health care. REDUCING THE SAFETY-NET FOR THE POOR, and even maintenance of roads, bridges, water supply — again in the name of reducing government’s role. Of course, they don’t oppose government subsidies and tax benefits for business.
DEREGULATION. Reduce government regulation of everything that could diminsh profits, including protecting the environmentand safety on the job.
PRIVATIZATION. Sell state-owned enterprises, goods and services to private investors. This includes banks, key industries, railroads, toll highways, electricity, schools, hospitals and even fresh water. Although usually done in the name of greater efficiency, which is often needed, privatization has mainly had the effect of concentrating wealth even more in a few hands and making the public pay even more for its needs.
ELIMINATING THE CONCEPT OF “THE PUBLIC GOOD” or “COMMUNITY” and replacing it with “individual responsibility.” Pressuring the poorest people in a society to find solutions to their lack of health care, education and social security all by themselves — then blaming them, if they fail, as “lazy.”‘
Sounds exactly like what we are experiencing to me. It’s not traditional liberalism/conservatism in the US sense of political parties but rather an economic approach which explains why so many of the most ridiculous reforms came from economists like Petrilli, Hanushek, Chetty, et al.
Yet, this is the way the TEA PARTY believes, not liberals. Anyone hearing “neoliberalism” thinks “democrats” if they don’t research the facts. This disguises the truth. AND it causes people to vote as they do … against their own interests.
Teachers in NC made this clever video to educate teachers and the communities about neo-liberal economic theory. It connects education reforms to the basic tenets of the market driven society. If we don’t make structural changes in our political and economic theories we could lose the notion that humans should dictate the rules of society, not markets.
Liberalism in the 19th century was associated with economic laissez-faire. I thought as a historian you’d know that.
And in the 18th century it was associated with being anti-monarchy and for the people’s right to govern themselves. Conservative was to be pro-monarchy.
Naomi Kline on neoliberalism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKTmwu3ynOY
By the way, is anyone else aware of the “American Graduate Day” propaganda marathon taking place on PBS today?
Creepy is the word I would use to describe this bizarre program that has a goal of “90% graduation by 2020” redolent of the failed No Child Left Behind goals of 100% literacy next year.
http://americangraduate.org
“Copyright © 2014. American Graduate is supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in partnership with America’s Promise Alliance, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”
Opened by Arne Duncan telling his lies about the manufactured crisis over graduation rates and how reformist efforts will fix the crisis.
Allied with businesses and non-profits and the usual suspects it sets my teeth on edge.
What will a college degree mean when everyone has one?
I’m reminded of the villain Syndrome’s statement in the Disney/Pixar film, “The Incredibles” — “When everyone’s super — no one will be!”
The governor in the state of Utah has established a goal of 66% college graduates in the state by 2030 (he doesn’t have a degree, by the way). I keep wondering where all of the jobs for all of these graduates are going to come from.
Well, I guess when you have a site for teachers, you’re going to get a lot of people willing to teach. Here I was planning to explain neoliberalism, only to find that I’ve been beaten to it many times already. Many good explanations here.
Well, Investopedia defines “neoliberalism” in this way. To me, it confuses the way the average person thinks about conservative v liberal or progressive values. We have always had conflicting definitions about conservative v liberal politics and conservative v liberal personal morals and values. This simply adds to the confusion as does the term “neocon”.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/neoliberalism.asp
It’s a double whammy for working people, because at the same time lobbyists and their politicians are completely destroying labor unions and collective bargaining, they are ALSO putting more and more workers outside the ordinary state and federal protections and regulations.
Contract work is all the rage, and there’s a reason for that. It is very, very good for employers and shareholders:
“the benefit of opting for 1099 contractors over W-2 wage-earners is obvious. Doing so lowers your costs dramatically, since you only have to pay contract workers for the time they spend providing services, and not for their lunch breaks, commutes, and vacation time. Contract workers aren’t eligible for health benefits, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation, or retirement plans. And contractors don’t have to be fired if they mess up, since they were never employed in the first place. Instead, they’re simply removed from the network, and life goes on.”
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/09/silicon-valleys-contract-worker-problem.html
Currently, I am retired. My husband got laid off from his job and has been searching daily for a new one for a year. We ran out of his unemployment. We had to start getting ACA insurance. I am in poor health (hard to stand due to neuropathy in feet) but started to sub again for $75 per day. I did a little bit of math to see that my $75 per day would be only $13,500 per year if I had a sub opportunity every day. That is not much. Even that with my retirement wouldn’t be $40K per year.
Looking at my $75/day as similar to minimum wage, after taking out taxes and retirement, it doesn’t leave much. For my husband and I to even go to the doctor and pay co-pay of $25 per visit, it basically takes a day’s wage to pay for THAT. Then there is the cost of some prescriptions.
Our STRS doesn’t allow you to draw social security and it penalizes you for working. I haven’t done it long enough to know how this will impact my retirement, income taxes, etc.
My life has been brought to a halt, mostly because of the way corporations and privitization have taken advantage of people and the way so many in the country want to “blame” someone for not being in a “good place” financially. Guess I shouldn’t have been so altruistic along the way.
One of the 5000 ed reform bills in Ohio was about STEM charters. I was reading it, and I saw they had included a provision where the schools could employ independent contractors as teachers. The ostensible purpose was so that they could employ people like engineers, etc. and those temp teachers could move between teaching and their “other” career but, boy, once you make charter teachers contractors they don’t have any protections at all. That part of the bill didn’t survive, and was never passed.
Deb, You hang in there and please know that you are not alone. This world has become so much harder to live in. Utilities take such a big chunk out of our paychecks anymore, that it seems like that is all we pay for. Putting gas in our cars, buying groceries, paying insurances, paying medical bills……all take so much money..that it seems like there is not that much left over…My husband and I are still raising our two children…and we know that if we don’t help them as much as we can, even into their later adulthoods, ….they are not going to have a chance in this world. The American dream is a lot harder to get ahold of these days. It is going to be so much harder for our kids to get ahold of what we even got in life.
I told my husband that it seemed like life was much easier when our children were younger. My husband said that it was a much easier world to live in back then, compared to now. Things were much cheaper….and let’s face it….our paychecks have been frozen for so many years…and prices have tripled.
I wanted to write in and let you know, Deb, that you are not alone. I pray for all of us daily and in church on Sundays. Our world is not an easy place to live in these days.
Thanks. I wasn’t trying to get sympathy. I was just trying to get real. Admitting that we are in this situation after all these years is painful. It is NOT what I thought my life would be like … even 2 years ago when I retired how could I have known that the company where he worked would lay off 33% of its workforce, closing the machine for which he did the technical research and development? But, there it is … all gone, security, etc. YET, I have friends whose biggest concern is that they have to pay taxes on a $250K inheritance when their mom died. They have NO IDEA what we are going through.
And, I had no idea what it was like before this happened to me. I can say that if it happens to ANYONE they will think twice before they vote for anyone who supports corporate offshore tax sheltering and sending jobs to other countries to pay paupers’ wages. People are hung up on two or three social issues and they have turned off their brains. But, I suppose, as long as they are taking care of “me and mine” through whatever situation they are in, no one else matters.
There is no way I can feel any different since all this happened to me. And, yes, it was TO me. I didn’t do anything to get into this mess.
Sad teacher,
“The American dream. . .
. . . has been a nightmare for far too many* for far too long.”
*including the millions of dead from our many illegal wars of aggression since and including Viet Nam and the millions of grieving families.
Unfortunately, the national Democratic party is complicit in attacking the opportunities working people had to collectively bargain thus increasing safety & working conditions along with better wages. This has been happening since Jimmy Carter agreed to deregulate the trucking industry. Clinton carried on with NAFTA. Reagan talked us all into becoming a “service economy” & on & on. Wages in the US have been stagnant for over 30 years. Both parties worked to see this happen so corporations could reap record profits.
Well, around here, you’d think the Reagan was a Saint. The day he deregulated without any enforcement of letting money trickle down, I knew we were at the beginning of the end. The money has trickled into the pockets of the rich for the past 30 years. And, anyone who had a little savings or hope has lost it all now, unless they play the game the same way … and care only for those that they can control.
I just stood in line for thirty minutes to mail a package at my local post office. It is chronically understaffed. I was tempted to go next door to the UPS/Fed Ex place and use that service. It seems Congress is doing to the post office what it wants to do to public schools: discredit it by underfunding it and drive people to private providers. All part of the “neoliberal” master plan. (By the way, I dislike this jargony term. It’s on the tongues of every Berkeley grad student, but it’s opaque to the lay person.)
No doubt privatization is coming. The UK did it to the Royal Mail last October and it has resulted in a once venerable and reliable institution turning into a haphazard, unreliable rentier scheme, as always happened when public services are turned over to for-profit companies.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/01/royal-mail-privatisation-taxpayer-loser
Here is a list of links from my blog that will help people learn more about neoliberalism:
http://21stcenturytheater.wordpress.com/?s=neoliberalism
Reblogged this on 21st Century Theater.
The term is opaque. Here’s my attmept at a shorthand definition: it’s the politcians and economists who enable the 1%
Neoliberals is another way of saying libertarian.