Neo-liberalism: What Is It? What Is Wrong with It? What Next?

https://www.globalresearch.ca/neo-liberalism-what-is-it-what-is-wrong-with-it-what-next/5678637?fbclid=IwAR0bgQ0SJZI7LYYB3IF_3PrErqTqAeXevzTFaSdpa5wWX6TpR-mM1yEXlXU
In this paper, I intend to share with the readers my honest concern for the future of neo-liberalism and the survival of the free-world capitalism. I am asking these questions. What is neo-liberalism? How destructive is it? What are the alternative doctrines?

    What is Neo-liberalism?

There is a basic difference between Keynesian remedy and neoliberal remedy of solving economic recession; the former relies on the demand side of the economy, while the latter, on the supply side. In fact, the postwar neo-liberalism is sometimes called the “supply-side economics”..

concept of “Washington Consensus”

they are tax cuts for firms, smaller government, free-market determined interest rate, competitive exchange rate, trade liberalization, liberalization of foreign investments, privatization of government-owned enterprises, and deregulation. There is one more part in the Washington Consensus, namely the Structural Adjustment Policy conceived by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) imposed on countries indebted to the IMF.

designed to let the private enterprises to make as much profit as they can without government interference.

the system of Structural Adjustment imposed by the neoliberal policy makers, especially the International Monetary Fund (IMF); this measure requires, as the condition of IMF loans, the transformation of the debtor country into neoliberal free market system economy.

   2. What is wrong with neo-liberalism?

In this section, I will deal with the impact of the following neoliberal measures: deregulation, privatization, free trade and structural adjustment and the global production chains.

2.1 Deregulation
2.2 Privatization of Government-Owned Enterprises (GOE)
2.3 Free Trade
2.3.1 Benefits of Tariff Removal
2.3.2 Absence of Trickle-Down Effects
2.3.3 Negative Effect on SMEs
2.3.4 Unfair Income Distribution
2.3.5 The Industry State Dispute Settlement System (ISDS)
2.4 The Structural Adjustment
2.5 Global Production Chain (GPC)

3. What Next?

The Washington version of neo-liberalism is, in reality, not a new liberalism; it is going back to the 19th-century laissez-faire regime in which the strong exploits the weak. In the laissez-faire regime, the market is governed by the “invisible hand”; it is the hand of price mechanism. Whenever there is demand-supply gap and the price departs from the original equilibrium position, the invisible hand intervenes and the original equilibrium price is restored. The invisible hand insures, in theory, the establishment of the market stability.

We need the free market but we need also strong government.
Thus, the very success of the neoliberal economic regime brings down the economy.