The Oz op-ed section has published some dumb stuff in its time, but for sheer mouth-breathing stupidity you couldn’t go past Oliver Marc Harwich’s article today, which discovers that whacko, Kevin Rudd’s hero, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was a neo-liberal. How do that? Well, a bunch of German economists and thinkers in the ’30s, whose work would later evolve into the “social market” movement — in which it is argued that the market must be accompanied by state planning, collective economic sectors, and a strong welfare net — called themselves “neo-liberals”.
The fact that the term ceased to be used for that philosophy, and was then revived in the ’70s and ’80s, to cover an entirely different philosophy — in which it is argued that market relations should dominate just about every sphere of social collective life — appears to be of no import. Hey dimwit — terms change their meaning, slowly or quickly. Lenin’s party used to be called “the social democrats”. “Conservatism” now (i.e. neo-liberalism + social conservatism) has little in common with the aristocratic conservatism of a de Maistre, or Oakeshott. Etc.
A pretty pathetic gotcha, as these things go. Apparently there’s a whole book of it from the CIS, who appears to be coping with the new era no better than most conservative (classical liberal? neo-conservative neo-liberal?) outfits.
Deep thinking there by Harwich.
Kinda like the hoary old argument that the Nazis were socialists because they had “socialist” in their name.
Oops, Godwin…but I wasn’t arguing!!
What a pathetically bad critique of Marc Hartwich’s op-ed in today’s Oz by Guy Rundle.
Hartwich makes perfectly plain that this is no ‘gotcha’ contrary to Rundle’s characteristically dishonest assertion.
Hartwich gives an excellent account of what ‘neoliberalism’ used mean and its abuse now to the point that it is little more than an ill defined ideological gainsay of what the term was understood to mean by Rudd’s supposed hero.
There was no pretence that Rudd’s ill defined “neo-liberalism” was anything other than very different from this original meaning.
“Neo-liberalism is a far richer, more thoughtful concept than it is mostly perceived today. To those criticising neo-liberalism today, the answer may well be just that: we need more of this kind of neo-liberalism that sets a good framework for a free economy. What we would need less of is only the rhetorical abuse of neo-liberalism for political purposes.”
The irony of Rundle accusing another of a petty “gotcha” in a article that is actually a vainglorious if poor attempt at precisely the same transgression is laughable.
Too ‘right’ Rundle?