Neoliberalism

 

We keep hearing about ‘neoliberalism’ (where private firms operate with little or no government interference, meaning increased insecurity for workers) as though it were something new. It isn’t. It was practised through the 19th and a good part of the 20th century, when it was simply called the free market.

For a time governments changed tack and practised increased intervention to try and ‘tame’ capitalism – to make it less prone to crises. It didn’t work so they moved back to what they had before, except they gave it a new name: neoliberalism.

But it’s not neoliberalism that’s the problem, it’s capitalism. It’s not a change of policy that’s required, but a change of socio-economic system.