That's not "liberal economics", that's just "Capitalism in practice".
this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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Where is the difference?
So if your question is in good faith let's break it down a little.
Capitalism is a economic system. It may have some liberal or conservative slant inherently, but in theory there isn't anything implicit.
A liberal or conservative economic policy would be how you manage that economic system. Liberal economic policy should tend to favor rules and regulations to account for the flaws of unchecked capitalism. Conservative policy tends towards less regulation, relying on the market system to set prices for goods and services.
Personally, I'm liberal because the ultimate goal for any capitalist is a monopoly. Often in that situation, you get an unequal power dynamic that allows a company to stay ahead of competition or bully them out of the market, preventing the market from setting prices. Additionally liberal policy tries to regulate negative externalities, such as companies dumping chemicals in a river (such as when the Ohio river caught on fire leading to the creation of the EPA). Frankly, these are real problems inherent in capitalism that conservative policy doesn't address because it makes the rich richer. It's pretty disingenuous to argue that liberal policy is there to benefit the rich.
Anyway, that's a super basic breakdown. None of that is say there isn't corruption from the rich and greedy in politics. Frankly, money equating to political influence is crazy and has allowed the weathly to completely shape world policy. If you want change, look to rank choice voting systems or other ways to move more choice and power back to voters.
I appreciate you trying to answer a question in good faith, but you're conflating 'liberal' with 'vaguely left-leaning', and none of what you've said makes any sense outside of current US political 'discourse' where 'Liberal' means 'slightly left-wing'.
What you describe as liberal economics is closer to Keynsianism or Social Democracy.
In economics, the 'Liberal' school of thought is generally against regulation and interference in the market, seeing it as being 'self-regulating'. In economic terms, Reagan and Thatcher were Liberals - hence them being associated with 'Neoliberalism'.
The whole thing you said about Capitalism tending towards monopoly is actually a very Marxist/Socialist idea - Liberal economic theory tends to argue that monopolies form because of government and that they wouldn't occur in a truly free market (although its more nuanced than that, there's major disagreements over 'Natural Monopolies' etc. within the Liberal school). Source: look up any Liberal economist/thinker and their view on monopolies. E.g Friedman, J.S Mill.
Capitalism being an economic system doesn't make it apolitical. 'In theory' Liberalism and Capitalism are very very closely intertwined, it's not implicit, it's absolutely explicit if you read any Liberal political or economic theory.
Economics is inherently political.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoliberalism/#Libe Sections 3 and 4 of this are a decent starting point.
Also the idea of slightly changing our voting systems as the way to drive change is quite hilarious. Sure, moving away from FPTP would probably help a bit, but it's not like countries with other systems are doing fine. These issues are more fundamental. And historically, fundamental change has never occured through small technical adjustments to political systems.
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"liberal economics" ? Seriously? This flowchart describes every POS robber baron capitalist for the last several centuries.
Economic liberalism is the economic theory of both American parties. Idk how it came to be applied to only the democratic party but that's incorrect. OP is presumably critiquing economic liberalism from a leftist perspective, of which the Democrats are not
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What definition of liberal are you using here?
the one of (neo)liberalism. An economic state which is accepted and perpetuated by virtually all sides of the culture war
Historically by the right wing then.
Historically by both, the democrats just give out a couple treats now and then to make themselves look progressive
Edit: unless of course you're using the actual definitions of left and right wing, but most people in this thread aren't so forgive me if I'm mistaken
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aka "Reaganomics"
There's 0 real economists who hold anything close to these views. What a stupid take. Before you downvote, I ask that you find a single source that contradicts my claim. Since all liberal economics is like that, it should be easy, right?
Doesn't matter what academics think or teach when this is what happens in the real world
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Economists may not be like that, but politicians are, and they're the ones that run the economy.
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Were you not alive during the 2008 global financial meltdown? Where the entire world had to subsidize the 1% because the banks they own sold garbage mortgages?
What about more recently with the bank runs that we had a month or so ago? The fed implented a new "insurance warranty" to make banks whole again "without using tax payer funds" but we both know that's a load of bullshit...
Now we have this never ending inflation, interest rates only going up for who knows how long... Literally siphoning your money from whatever savings you have left and if you're already broke, they are taking away any buying power you had and taking it down to nothing...
So yea, fuck whatever bullshit economic theory or whatever academic bullshit you are talking about, regardless of whatever "politics" it's tagged under... Its the 1% snatching away any and all power that the people accumulated over this covid recovery (strong labour market, practically 0 interest during peak covid, work from home, etc)
Thanks for listening to my Ted talk..
*a word
Sure, real economists don't explicitly hold those views. But the kinds of metrics and models liberal economists are fond of using basically lead to that flowchart.
FTFY:
good one
This is definitely not "Liberal Economics".
Neoliberal economics
"Further right than leftists" economics
I don't get it. Billionaires do billionaires things, but this meme being made the same week as a liberal policy requiring fair taxes for the rich to cover social security for the next 75 years makes this poster 100% out of touch.
The use of the word liberal here is not the same as the one used by the one commonly used in conversation. This meme is talking about neoliberalism which is the dominant economic idea in the US and UK right now.
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First of all, I don't know which country you are talking about which put these policies in place. And it does not matter as it does not alleviate the exploitation inherent in capitalism, it only puts a nice coat of paint over it...
They’re probably US-American, who thinks liberalism is the farthest you can get as a “leftist” and that liberalism is not just spiced up centre(-left).
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that's billions of tax payers money with the tax burden being disproportionately heavy for the 90% while the 10% pay less and less taxes the richer they are
I like how on lemmy you see both how much upvotes and downvotes you have, on reddit you could have a score of 1 and don’t know much has happened, but with lemmy you could have 50 upvotes and 49 downvotes, making you really think about it…
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Once again, I blame the Chicago school of economics. Fuck that economic theory. It's exactly why we have the mega corporations of today, it's entire purpose was to neuter the Sherman antitrust act after Roosevelt's crusade against the trusts.
the chicago school is just a natural development of capitalism. In competition instead of cooperation, the winner absorbs the looser and cetralizes production more and more into oligopolies. Even if you turned back the time before the era of "crony/coorperate capitalism" it would take but a bit of time to get back to the state we are in right now...
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