Some republican legislator excited about Grump's support for deregulating the economy:
“There may be more bang for the buck in terms of growing our economy…making regulatory changes, get the impediments out of the way, let those job creators and entrepreneurs really be able to go to work.”
Letters from an American Historian
I liked Gary Gerstle's book The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order (2022), especially the history stuff about the fall of the New Deal (1932-1979) period and the rise of Neoliberal period (1980 to when remains a question), but the "fall" of the neoliberal order in his book title still seemed a tad presumptuous even after finishing his argument.
The recent election, for instance, was driven by revenge of the neoliberal order as much as it was culture war stupidity. Deregulatory hype like the above quote is Neolib reaction, pure and simple. They're back and never went away really.
And how many times have we heard this one: if only we'd get taxes and regulations off the backs of our enterprising captains of industry they'd create all the jobs and wealth and prosperity America could ever possibly need. Free market or halcyon deregulated business conditions are hyped as this romantic Shangri-La fantasy forever frustrated by government meddling. But, we already know what big businesses, corporations, will in fact do when unfettered by government regulations. We have nearly two centuries of evidence of what they do, actually.
We know what the free marketeers do when unregulated: 1) Big business interests will peddle products that are dangerous, poisonous, and addictive if not regulated. 2) Big employers will squeeze labor to the last drop, enslave workers if possible, and work children and adults for less than living wages, and then have the gall to construct an ideology out of these practices that contends that their business success and productive "efficiencies" depend on disciplining labor like this, most of whom would fall into lazy waste without the order their jobs provide. And 3) As much as they can get away with, large corporations have always "externalized" the expenses of doing business, their costs of production, pushing carbon emissions and other pollutants onto the community or public commons openly or if need be they will take extraordinary measures to dump their wastes into the environment to avoid the expense of disposing of them safely. Again, unless regulated this is what many so-called free market businesses will do and have been doing for 150 years routinely.
The free market dogma has gotten so bad of late that the billionaires and oligarchy are opposing green energy innovations and obstructing economic reforms with that old saw about how saving the planet is bad for the economy. One imagines making the planet uninhabitable won't be very good for the economy either.
Anyway, we do know what big corporations and private equity firms do when deregulated: they lowball and chisel labor, breaking unions, off-shoring labor, whatever they have to do, understaff and overstretch their frontline workers, externalize all the costs they can, and then skim off as much as they can in profits for as long as they can, and then sell off their remaining assets for parts. And just like they've never seen a tax or regulation they like, the profit margins from this process, their take, is never enough, of course. This go-go yuppie sales hustle hype is always in pursuit of the next bull market bubble and will most likely fizzle with a bunch of stock buybacks or another crypto bubble meltdown.
It's in the government's interest to increase commercial activity but not to leave the foxes guarding the henhouse. From a macro economic standpoint it's evident at this point that the neoliberal order isn't so much pro economic growth as it is class war redistribution and pro-billionaire wealth hoarding. If the richies had a pound of sense they'd be leaning hard into economic development in a green energy transition and pay living wages. But they don't.
And if nothing else, maybe this assassination of a healthcare CEO, I read today they found a backpack, presumably owned by the gunman, full of Monopoly money (not kidding), might give some sobering pause to the austerity Hawks lining up to turn the screws on health care and other essential services crucial to big super-majorities of the population.
Stay tuned.
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