The Hidden History of Neoliberalism

The Hidden History of Neoliberalism: How Reaganism Gutted America and How to Restore Its Greatness by Thom Hartmann

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

Left wing drivel.

If your politics are left of center you’ll enjoy this book. If you’re more to the right, you may as well pass it by.

If you do decide to read this thing, I recommend going to Wikipedia and reading the article on Neoliberalism there. You don’t have to read it first. Just read it sometime before you finish the book and it clears up a few things. As a word, it seems ‘Neoliberalism’ has a number of meanings. The one seemingly preferred by this author is Neoliberalism stands for anything he dislikes. For me the term seems to mean Corporate Capitalism but its definition may be broader.
The author’s particular gripe is with Martin Friedman’s economics and the Chicago Boys – students of Mr. Friedman’s. He’s convinced their beliefs are at the root of all problems in the United States and elsewhere today.

He distinguishes Neoliberalism from both Libertarianism and Ayn Rand’s Objectivism but as far as I can see, all three are pretty much synonymous with laisse-faire capitalism.

Surprisingly, there were a couple of points made by Mr. Hartmann I agreed with. He suggests free trade, specifically NAFTA, was a job killer and I think he was correct. Ironically, his objection was American jobs headed to low cost Mexico, whereas I objected to Canadian jobs headed to certain lower cost states in the US, but we lost jobs to Mexico as well. Overall, NAFTA was comparatively tame. Far more jobs and industries went to India and China I think than to Mexico. In any event, the industrial base of North America in its entirety was hit hard. The author goes on to make a very good point that it’s a really, really bad idea to have components needed by your military built by a foreign country, particularly one such as China which is less than enamored with western freedoms. He also points out that if China stopped exporting, American store shelves would be empty within two weeks.

Interestingly he believes Globalization is a right wing initiative, and it’s true, Nafta was started by President Regan; however, it seems the Democrats elbowed the Republicans out of the way. Forming a South-East Asia, Australia and American trading block was promoted hard by Hillary Clinton in the Obama administration. It was only scuttled at the last minute when Republicans backed by their supporters raised a hue and cry. Likewise it was You-Know-Who who forced renegotiation of Nafta and took steps to at least reduce the heavily skewed balance of trade with China. Frankly there are very few individuals who would regard the latter individual as being left of center.

If Mr. Hartmann believes neoliberalism (laisse fair capitalism) is bad – and the does – then he regards goodness as socialism and believes we should all follow the Scandinavian model. Being curious I took a look at the per-capita GDP between 1981 – when he argues Neoliberalism began in the US – and 2021. Did the Scandinavian countries outperform the USA? Norway certainly did and by a wide margin. Denmark was pretty much tied with the US and Sweden did quite a bit worse. This being the case it would seem there are a number of factors in play and socialism vs neoliberalism is likely just one.

One thing which seems pretty clear is any form of shock to an economy, whether It’s a 180 degree turn as in Russia after the fall of Communism or COVID-19, is a bad thing. In order to function well, it seems economies can tolerate change only gradually.

The author is a big fan of Bernie Sanders and anyone else who’s on the far left. Much of the remainder of the Democratic party he seems to see as conservative. It’s interesting to note he founded International Wholesale Travel and its retail subsidiary Sprayberry Travel in 1983 which went on to generate over a quarter of a billion dollars in revenue. Ah yes, another rich liberal bemoaning capitalism. Enjoy your lattes Mr. Hartmann.

I do not recommend this book; however, if you do want to read it I suggest you go with text as opposed to the audio version. The reader’s voice is quite unpleasant.





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