'Neoliberal capitalism' has contributed to the rise of fascism, says Nobel laureate

Some might even call it ancap. Proto-fascism.

That's called autophagy, not keto.

Okay but how does AI/Automation/etc. cause a mass murder if the preoccupying assumption of automation is, quite literally, increase of technological efficiency and advancement?

China is way ahead on this kind of automation.

In a free market, aren't you free to collude with your competitors in order to fix prices?

In an unregulated market

There's no such thing. All markets are regulated. Even ones dominated by cartels. Markets do not meaningfully exist without regulation. The only question is how they're regulated.

“Free market” ideology is based on nonsense, they’ve proven this over and over.

The theoretical model of the free market relies on perfectly rational actors acting on perfect information. If those are given, then resource allocation indeed is perfect.

Those conditions of course don't exist in the real world, best we can do is to regulate away market failures to approach the theoretical ideal. That's the kind of thing ordoliberalism argues for, and it can indeed work very well in practice. Random example: You want companies to use packaging with less environmental impact. You could have a packaging ministry that decides which company uses what packaging for what, creating tons of state bureaucracy -- or you could say "producers, you're now paying for the disposal of packaging yourself". What previously was an externality for those companies suddenly appears on their balance sheet and they self-regulate to use way more cardboard, easily recyclable plastics, whatnot.

This is news to me! You got a link to a credible source? I’d love to read it so I can hopefully change my opinion some.

EDIT>> Found it on my own, and it's the FTC, not the FCC. And this was posted one day ago, so I would think I could be forgiven for that :) (Seems it's been in the works since March, at least) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/grocery-cost-inflation-investigation-b2594782.html

The best bureaucrat we have is Lina Khan and all the wealthy donors on both sides want her gone.

That joke was good, but it's old now. Everyone should understand that it was due to the peak of oil/gas prices due to the Ukraine war, that had cascade effects on the price of transportation, fertilizer, energy, groceries...which then compounded into general inflation with some price gouging too to keep it from going back as quickly.

If you want to keep that from happening again, gradually reduce your dependence on fossil fuels for your security, not just to "be green".

Many businesses in the US still cling to that trope, yes. We all understood that it was to a be a temporary issue in 2020 and 2021, but businesses took that to mean they could just never drop their prices now that people were willing, at the time, to pay for it. I'm not talking luxury goods either, I'm talking about staples to maintain life, such as meat, vegetables, and even water prices have risen. This is untenable for many, many people.

This is a problem with slogans and not just this slogan. Another one is "ACAB" which people get upset about because they know someone who is a cop and they don't think that cop is a bastard... But "policing has systemic issues that hurt marginalized people disproportionately, primarily exists at the intersection between haves and have nots in a way that mostly serves the capitalist ruling class rather than creating justice" doesn't fit in a sign.

good aesthetics and good vibes ≠ good intentions

and its the vibes that liberals really care about. its the obsession with feelings and aesthetics over truth. which is also why it's such fertile soil for fascism to grow in. scratch a liberal, break the good vibes, snap them out of it, make them look at a homeless person, and they go fasch real quick. they certainly do a lot of shit fascists would approve of, they just kick some sand over it after. for example: the homeless purges about to sweep through california were ordered by a liberal, with the broad approval of liberals.

the concentration camps for migrants were built as much under liberals and fascists. as long as they dont have to see it, any amount of horror is fine. if it helps them not see suffering, any amount of horror is encouraged. they're nice, they're pleasant, but they are not friends, and the assumption that we're natural allies, that they can behave as badly as they want and still count on left support is how american politics got as fucked as they are.

In order, but not quoting because mobile app and lazy:

Yes.

I said some.

They were both liberal, in that they were both proponents of liberalism, as in "liberal democracy." Not liberalism as left of center. Liberalism as in market economies and private property.

I'm also not necessarily associating liberalism as a whole to fascism. All zits are zots, but not all zots are zits, you dig? Fascism is an outgrowth of liberalism and capitalism, but it doesn't mean liberalism is fascistic or that it is inevitable. It means that when liberalism is threatened, in decline, backed into a corner by its own contradictions, fascism is one way that it defends itself so that the status quo can be maintained. It just depends on which part of the status society/the ruling class/those in charge value more. The personal freedom bit, the private property bit, the lifestyle of the rich bit? Social democracy is another way that liberalism defends itself, favored by those who value the other end of the spectrum. Fascism is a reaction to growing tensions around those contradictions and growing support for things like social democracy and actual socialism.

Also, this article specifically cites neo liberalism, an ideology of its own, and an outgrowth of liberalism, but liberalism itself. The shittiest form liberalism takes without going full fash IMHO, but it's hard to define "shitty" in any sort of academic sense. But fuck Reagan and Thatcher.

The term liberalism has a wide history, associating it as a whole to fascism sounds a stretch.

What specifically got called out was neoliberalism. While ordoliberalism was briefly called neoliberalism the general understanding of the term is "Whatever nefarious shit the Atlas network is currently up to". Things like conflating the free market with unregulated markets (which are anything but free), trickle-down economics, ludicrously excessive rent seeking behaviour, like say privatised pension funds, publishing ratings calling countries "nanny states" for having warnings on cigarettes because yes the tobacco lobby is very much part of that ilk, really the list is pretty endless: It's pure class war. War creates victims, those victims need handling, and misdirection of ire is a very convenient strategy, "It's not the billionaires who own everything who are at fault that you can't make rent, it's the immigrants".

It's not just Marx who is rotating in his grave, Adam Smith is very much spinning with at least the same RPM. It's after all his own work which gets abused by those people.

As to the more sensible liberalisms -- they largely got captured. The EU has a strong ordoliberal bent actually regulating markets ((it's in fact constitutionally a social market economy), but that neolib shit is still eating away at it and many people, even policy makers, can't really tell the difference.

The term liberalism has a wide history, associating it as a whole to fascism sounds a stretch.

Socialists seem rather illiberal about the definition and allowed use of the word and concept of liberal. They hear "a liberal?" and think "a fascist!". I suspect that this greatly plays into the polarization between tankies and limbrols here on lemmy.

For example a newer definition of fascism is 1. belief in inequality based on 2. a mythological identity (e.g. race which isn't real). That is useful to talk about trumpism vs the neoliberal democrats. But socialists completely refute that and insist it's both the same fascism because capitalism. And that is where any discussion ends in my experience. It's like we're dividing and conquering ourselves for the benefit of the fascists..

Of course they are right in terms of foreign policy, which is absolutely fascist towards "shithole countries" no matter who rules in the white house. Neoliberalism is: 1. belief in inequality based on 2. economic or class status 3. personal freedom to die in whatever way seems best to you.

And once the prosperity is distributed away with rising wealth inequality that does lead to plutocracy and then fascism. And I suspect the socialists are right that without an explicit socialist component in your ideology this outcome is inevitable.

But unfortunately their definitions are stuck based on outdated theories written before 1950.

Ah yes the vuvuzela argument. Much easier than analyzing what the ideologies actually incentivize and lead to or using your eyes to take a look at the state of the world.

Complete brain rot. If LLMs reacted this way to every mention of socialism we'd think they needed more training. Chat GPT would express more a more nuanced and understanding-demonstrating answer than this. You should consider feeling ashamed.

Fucking well put!

Colonialism was pursued under the economic theory of mercantilism and capitalist thinkers explicitly separated their ideas from it (among other things by emphasis on the idea that the best kind of wealth is tools instead of gold and as a result the pursuit of wealth can be cooperative instead of zero sum game), but otherwise sure it all looks the same in the end. It's not like capitalists ever stopped and said "No, don't invade that country for its natural resources, that goes against our principles of making more money."

Suffering as a means of production is the heart of capitalism

Just look at all the shit on Amazon to know that capitalism puts out a bunch of garbage all that stuff is a waste of resources.

Any form of capitalism that permits the accumulation of wealth will lead to deregulation and economic collapses with increasing frequency.

We’re beyond that. Capitalism is a disease.

Oddly, 1929-1945 and 2008-2024 are the same distance apart. Were you trying to do that or is it just eerie coincidence?

He is not taking a Marxist position

Precisely that's why it's taken him 80 years longer than Marxists to reach that conclusion.

Not every criticism of Capitalism is an endorsement of Marxism

Which is why non-marxist anti-capitalist movements such as Salvador Allende's socialism in Chile, or Mosaddegh's Iran, inevitably fail within a few years due to the lack of understanding of class struggle and the history of capitalism.

Late stage capitalism?

Fascist regimes generally came into existence in times of crisis, when economic elites, landowners and business owners feared that a revolution or uprising was imminent. Fascists allied themselves with the economic elites, promising to protect their social status and to suppress any potential socialist revolution.. Then Fascists allied themselves with the economic elites, promising to protect their social status and to suppress any potential socialist revolution. There's more specifics here if you want them.

The real world.

the level of cognitive dissonance we have

USA #1! EAT IT COMMMIES!

Pretty much sums up the UK since 2010.

Except "dismal science" wasn't meant as a critique.

I didn't support him nor imply that he was communist, only that his conclusions can be reached by anyone who has read theory with the difference being that someone who has read theory can both identify the problem and the true solution.

Hurrhurrhurr yes comrade us americans, we should learn to accept Xi Jinping into our hearts. /s

I wasn't calling Joseph Stiglitz a dictatorship, I was calling Russia and China dictatorships and they often use the same words to different ends. The fact that this is crossposted to Hexbear and lemmy ML isn't doing the post any favors, either, those places are flowing with pro-CCP propoganda.

As much as this can be a productive conversation analyzing the faults of the system we live in to reform and fix it, it can also be used as justification for voting against our interests, violence, and subterfuge. It's unfortunate, but that is our context.

Bernie's not saying "Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds" and insisting that all forms of capitalism inevitably lead to fascism. All forms of capitalism are bad (or, at least, worse than socialism), but the idea that fascism is just an outgrowth of liberalism, and of liberalism specifically, ignores... so goddamn much history. The atmosphere in here is very anti-SocDem.

Anti-intellectualism is a hallmark of fascism too :)

First, the definition of appeal to authority, since it's one of the most misunderstood fallacies. Citing someone based on their area of expertise is not appeal to authority. The problem is when you cite the stated opinion of someone, but their area of expertise is not directly relevant to that opinion. I'm a software developer, I could give you an expert opinion on various topics in that area. But outside of topics I am an export on, appeal to authority.

I didn't say he's necessarily wrong. But at the same time, he got his Nobel prize by being an economist who made a substantial contribution to economics. He is not an expert on fascism. His expert opinions in economics often run counter to many other credible expert economists, so you should consider those other expert opinions as well and not just listen to the person who tells you want you want to hear. That's certainly not anti-intellectual.

Experts and intellectuals should absolutely be considered to better understand a subject, but they're not some infallible oracle of truth. They contradict each other, are often limited by an ivory tower environment, and operating in the same societal context as everyone else.

As long as we keep antiquated monetary based economic and political systems there will be no emancipation of all. We don't need money and things to dictate who gets what. (shelter, food, water, love, community, education...) those should be already granted to everyone because we have the resource, knowledge, and capabilities to do so. We have people going without essentials only because the rich and powerful want it that way.

Max Weber would argue different.

Man has been around for thousands of years athis current sociointelligent level. It is not hard to extrapolate the current fascist mentalities back through the ages all the way through our barbarous past.

Eh, you're both wrong. Fascism is an invention of the 20th century and capitalism is mostly an invention of the 19th century (although The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776). Both ideologies have very deep roots that you're conflating with their dominant modern expressions. Capitalism is specific ideology built around market economics, but markets alone are not capitalism. Likewise fascism is a specific authoritarian ideology, but authoritarianism is not in itself fascism.

capitalism superceded mercantilism about 2 centuries ago. it's nowhere near as old as currency

What you're saying is at best debatable, and it's definitely not consensus in academia. Feudalism is substantially and fundamentally different from capitalism. Serfs worked the land not based on free contracts for a wage selling their labour as a commodity, but rather legally bound to their lord's land. Access to consumer goods wasn't through purchase as commodities in a free market, but through self-production and barter/debt within small communities. Peasants worked the land with their own means of production and made their own tools with their own means of production, and generally people weren't hired working other people's means of production.

Class struggle has existed for millennia, but capitalism is just the current predominant system of class struggle because through industrial development it overpowers preexisting systems that weren't capitalist.

Research about human history and you will know what I'm talking about, the same phenomenon it's seen in all the human history, it is just now it's at global scale but it will be the same when humans get into the space, far-left and far-right will keep fighting each other for resources and power.

Edit: There is no transcendence until you are a cold dead ass, until then you will need to pick a side, if you are smart enough you will pick the side of the winners.