1. Neoliberalism involves the privatization of state functions. Neoliberal countries, whether run by liberals or conservatives, do this extensively. It is nearly universal in the US, with (among others) health care, education, social services, transportation, and infrastructure becoming privatized.
2. Unfortunately, the companies assigned these functions generally operate for profit, and they quickly learn it is not profitable to provide essential services to everyone. They thus become selective about who gets them and who doesn't. They also cut corners on the services trying to save money.
3. This results in not only the growth of inequality, because functions of the state are now being done by private companies to enrich their owners, but also widespread failure of the social fabric. Education becomes too expensive, social services shrink or disappear, housing becomes unaffordable...
3a. ...health care becomes inaccessible, etc. It also makes peoples' savings, income, and wealth more unstable as it becomes more subject to the boom-and-bust cycle of a capitalist economy and more prone to loss during stock market crashes.
4. While wealth may rise, peoples' existence becomes more untenable. It becomes more difficult to save money, afford health care or housing, educate your children, rely on essential services, and so on. More and more people, especially working-class people, become desperate and worried.
5. Ordinarily, they would look to the government to fix the situation. But it is hard to claim essential services back from private firms once they have been privatized, and the government is now beholden to these firms to provide those services, and thus to the wealthy elites generally.
6. This creates a feedback loop where people need more and more help from the government, but the government cannot provide it, so, in order to meet the needs of an increasingly angry electorate, they farm out even more services to private companies, which cannot adequately meet those needs, etc.
7. The result of this feedback loop is that people lose confidence in private companies and, more importantly, the state. They stop believing, with good reason, that the government can or will do anything to help them. Faith in the system decays, voter turnout lesses, no one believes politicians.
8. This leaves a massive void in the political direction of the state. People look anywhere for someone who can - or who promises they can - fix the problems that are plaguing people and help them out of desperate situations. Very often, this someone is a fascist.
9. Fascists arise to fill the void left by the empty promises of neoliberalism. They promise to do away with corruption, rid society of do-nothing politicians, and return the country to a victorious state of triumph. They promise action and change instead of more of the same.
9a. It doesn't matter if these promises are lies, or if the fascist is a corrupt, greedy, and/or incompetent crook. People believe it, because they have seen the neoliberal state in action, and it has failed everyone but its wealthy elites. Neoliberalism creates the voids that fascism rises to fill.
That's why liberals want Healthcare, and education to be publicly funded, What stops them is Conservatives choking off funding, breaking these public institutions, and saying private enterprises can do it better.
Liberals may want state-funded health care and education, but the Democratic Party absolutely does not
No, that's conservatism. Conservatives have been trying to privatize state functions for decades. I've been watching them make that argument for years. You've got it backwards.
Are you seriously arguing the Democratic Party has not been engaging in privatization for the last 30+ years? Do you even know what "neoliberalism" means? Public-private partnerships have been a bedrock of the Democrats for decades! They're pro-charter schools! The ACA is privately administered!
Public-private partnerships are all over the 2024 Democratic platform! Dems ushered in the charter era, helped deregulate finance, are pro-business, and ended the welfare state! They're behind NAFTA, the WTO, and free trade! They push for entitlement reform, austerity, and means testing constantly!
Sorry, but if you think neoliberalism and privatization are exclusively the domain of conservative Republicans, you fundamentally misunderstand the political realities of this country, and there's nothing to be gained from arguing with you. Forget this rah-team bullshit and get a material analysis
Sounds like they don't get the neoliberalism IS the current strain of conservatism. Nor that it has shifted the Overton window and is bipartisan en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolibe...
I don't care it's just another conservative distortion.
Okay, that is just stupid. Conservatives renaming shit. Let's just call an apple an orange. Fuck them all.
I am seriously arguing that Conservatives blocked public welfare programs at every turn. Dems have been trying to get to Universal health care for decades. Dems don't support charter schools. We couldn't get a public option in the ACA due to the big $ Insurance lobby. Again, due to Conservatives.
Democrats supporting charter schools is literally in their 2024 platform. None of the last three Democratic presidential candidates have supported universal health care. You literally don't know what you're talking about.