March 2nd Blog Post

In the reading the main discussed topic is the idea of neoliberalism and how it is affecting the United States economically, politically and socially. In the reading titled "A Brief Examination of Neoliberalism and Its Consequences", the author describes neoliberalism as "Heavily promoting market-based economies that highly value competition and efficiency, neoliberalism has moved countries closer to adopting social Darwinism." All of the articles seem to cast this idea of neoliberalism as a bad idea that will ruin America's economy by increasing the wealth gap between the rich and the poor as was stated in the reading titled "Blaming the Poor for Poverty", the author states that "Most of the poverty in the United States is artificially manufactured. It is poverty created in the pursuit of “free market ideals,” expressed in recent times by the imposition of neoliberal economic policies – the sort of policies that cut taxes on the wealthy, do away with fiscal and other business regulations, shred the social safety net, and erode middle-class stability – all while singing the praises of self-reliance and individual responsibility." This applies to many of the discussions we have had in class on whether or not it is the responsibility of the citizen to work hard to improve their position, if the structured process of upward mobility has become too exclusive or has developed a barrier to entry that needs to be reformed, or if race and gender affects your ability to move up the ladder socially and economically. This view of the idea of neoliberalism seems to be somewhat one sided, it doesn't mention that they also drive competition and efficiency, which are the two of the corner stones of what our capitalistic society is built on. The article paints these concepts as a bad thing while in reality they are ideas that keep the United States competing as a world power economically. Competition benefits our society because remaining competitive on the world scale both drives prices down and keeps jobs in America as opposed to shipping them off to a foreign country because costs are lowered. Efficiency is important to our economy because anywhere you can cut costs is money that can be reinvested into the economy, whether that means buying new equipment, hiring more workers, or expanding your business, all of these options stimulate the economy. The ideas of neoliberalism give off the idea much similar to the ideas of the American dream, that hard work and receiving an education to acquire skills that few have to market yourself to the workforce will enable you to ascend your class and accumulate more wealth than your parents before you. Objections to neoliberalism seem to be that it favors the wealthy and that it deepens the wealth gap in America. Arguments against neoliberalism also include the idea that upward mobility in America is almost impossible and that the poor become trapped by a capitalistic society. 

This video gives us a basic overview of how neoliberalism works and the the history behind it. In the video it mentions the idea of political isolation if countries who except IMF help don't go along with what the dominant group wants they will be cut of economically and politically from the majority of the developed world. This directly connects to the concept of social isolation we have talked about in class, about how if a minority group refuses to go along with the social norms and culture they become social outcasts, much like what we saw with when we talked about the groups with different sexual orientations and how they are on the fringes of society. This video also poses the question of how do you balance free market economics with enough regulation to protect but not too much as to limit economic growth?

The article put out on http://fee.org/freeman/detail/free-markets-are-regulated makes a very interesting argument that free markets are already regulated. The article states that the market is regulated by participants operating by the laws of economics which creates what are called pattern predictions, or sets of rules that we recognize and understand. The article then goes on to point out that having an outside force, such as a government, set prices could produce non-natural shortages or surpluses that could have been mitigated by allowing the free market to adjust for the increase or decrease in supply. This idea that letting consumers determine the market environment without the artificial creation of limits and prices by an outside force is the principle that the free market system runs on and this article makes a strong case for why letting economies flow naturally and be regulated by the consumers that make those economies up might be the solution to the problems faced economically right now.