Was Neoliberalism A Result of the Subjective Revenge Feeling of the Capitalist Class?  Neoliberalism and Its Essence

Prof. Wang Heming, Director in the Department of World Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, May 2005 

(I) What is neoliberalism?

1. Definitions of neoliberalism in Western academic circles

The following definitions of neoliberalism in foreign academic circles are more representative:
Noam Chomsky, author of Neoliberalism and Global Order, argues that neoliberalism is a new theoretical system established on the basis of Adam Smith’s classical liberal thought. This theoretical system emphasizes market orientation and is a theoretical and ideological system that includes a series of views on global order and advocates trade liberalization, market-oriented prices, and privatization. Its completed form is the so-called “Washington Consensus”.
Robert W. McGinnis pointed out in the introduction to Neoliberalism and Global Order that neoliberalism is a clear political and economic paradigm of our time – it refers to policies and processes that allow a considerable number of private owners to control as many social levels as possible and thus obtain the greatest personal benefits.
Cohen Cear, chairman of the French “Marx Garden Association”, argues that neoliberalism is the theoretical expression of capitalist ideology. Korkut Boratav from Turkey wrote: As the 1970s drew to a close, international capital decided to erode and reverse the gains of the Golden Age of the Western working classes and the Third World with a neoliberal counter-offensive. This neoliberal economic offensive was integrated with the aggression of imperialism.

2. Our definition of neoliberalism

We believe that neoliberalism is a theoretical trend, ideological system and policy proposition that is based on the inheritance of bourgeois classical liberal economic theory, with opposition and resistance to Keynesianism as its main feature, and neoliberalism theoretical trend, ideological system and policy propositions adapts to the requirements of the transformation of national monopoly capitalism to international monopoly capitalism.

Neoliberalism is both related to and different from classical liberal economic theory, and is known to the world for its “counter-revolution against the Keynesian revolution”. And the formation and implementation of the “Washington Consensus” in 1990 is the main sign of the transformation of neoliberalism from an academic theory to an economic paradigm and political program of international monopoly capitalism.

3. The main ideas and theoretical viewpoints of neoliberalism

After nearly a hundred years of development, neoliberalism has a large number of schools and complex ideological and theoretical systems. As far as the current mainstream neoliberal schools in the United States and Britain are concerned, their main viewpoints are as follows:
– In terms of economic theory: neoliberalism inherits the ideas of free operation and free trade in bourgeois classical liberal economic theory, and goes to extremes, vigorously promoting “three changes”. The first is “liberalization”. It argues that freedom is the premise of efficiency, and “if you want to make society stagnate, the most effective way is to impose a standard on everyone.” Second, privatization. In their view, private ownership means that people “can decide what we want to do as individuals”, thus becoming the basis for promoting economic development. Third, marketization. They believe that without the market, there is no economy, resources cannot be effectively allocated, and they oppose any form of state intervention.
———In terms of political theory: neoliberalism particularly emphasizes and insists on three “negations”. First, negation of public ownership. Almost all neoliberals agree that “when the scope of collectivization is expanded, the ‘economy’ becomes worse rather than having higher ‘productive forces'”, so public ownership cannot be carried out. Second, negation of socialism. In the view of neoliberals, socialism is a restriction and negation of freedom, which will inevitably lead to authoritarianism. “The tragedy of authoritarian thought is that it pushes rationality to the supreme position, but ends up destroying rationality because it misunderstands the process on which rational growth is based”, so it is a “road to slavery”. Third, negation of state intervention. In their view, any form of state intervention can only cause a loss of economic efficiency.
———In terms of strategy and policy: neoliberalism strongly advocates global integration led and controlled by superpowers. Economic globalization is an inevitable trend of human social development and a natural historical process. However, economic globalization does not exclude political and cultural diversity, nor does it mean global economic, political and cultural integration. Neoliberalism does not generally advocate economic globalization, but emphasizes the need to promote global economic, political and cultural integration led by superpowers, that is, led by global capitalism.

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