Neoliberalism Explained, or Why You’re Tired All the Time

For many of us growing up, “Christian” was synonymous with “Republican.” It was a given that we followers of Christ supported a political party that was not only anti-abortion, but pro-free market capitalism. Even long after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the menace of godless communists and their authoritarian regimes loom large in our collective imagination.

I was raised to believe in government incompetence as much as the American Dream. America was the great meritocracy, and a comfortable, middle-class life was available to anyone with the gumption to work for it.

In my young life, this proved true, again and again. Hard work and honesty pleased God and guaranteed to lead to material abundance under God’s preferred economic system: capitalism. Wasn’t my life proof of this? My parents worked hard and we had enough money for everything we needed. I worked hard in school and got good grades. If I wanted a spot in advanced choir or an afterschool job, my efforts always yielded results.

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I was born towards the end of Ronald Reagan’s first term, a time when Neoliberalism was ascendent at home as well as in the UK under Margaret Thatcher. Neoliberal politicians emphasized deregulation, privatization, free markets, and free trade, along with paring back social welfare programs.

“So what?” You may be asking. “I’m not an economist, why should I care about Neoliberalism?” Economics seems like one of those abstract topics only tenured nerds care about.

But Neoliberalism’s impacts go way beyond academia and politics. By shaping our economy, Neoliberalism has altered our incentives and our sense of security. In “The Cultural Contradictions of Neoliberalism,” a paper out of the progressive think tank The Roosevelt Institute, the authors argue that “The key tenets of neoliberalism…have shaped and been supported by a range of cultural practices, beliefs, and worldviews.”

In other words, Neoliberalism isn’t just an economic system, it’s a culture and a worldview.

What are these Neoliberal beliefs that shape our culture?

* The individual is the primary unit. This individual is rational and self-interested. Thatcher said, “there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first.”

* Free markets will solve all our problems. Once government regulations are removed, market efficiency will give us all the products and services we need. Reagan famously said, “Government is not a solution to our problem government is the problem.”

* Self-reliance and personal responsibility are the ultimate virtues. If the meritocracy is real, then the only thing standing between you and your dreams is hard work. Any obstacle, be it racism, sexism, poverty, or disability, just means you have to work harder. Fairness is not assured, nor should it be.

And how do we see these beliefs showing up in our culture?

* Everyone for themselves. If everything is a competition and there’s no social safety net, then you better look out for you and yours above everyone else. Intensive parenting is a direct response to Neoliberalism and the shrinking middle class. To paraphrase Nikole Hannah-Jones, even nice, Liberal parents want their children to have “every advantage.” Rarely do they stop to ask, “advantage over whom?”

This competition-over-cooperation mindset leads to distrust and weakened community ties.

* Your salary = your value. Remember when actors were just actors? It was enough to be a great artist; they didn’t sell tequila, books, or diapers. And why does every Real Housewife need to start a business, instead of just enjoying being, like, ridiculously rich?

Being rich used to be the goal, but it’s not enough anymore, we all need to prove our value by becoming an entrepreneur. Meanwhile, we don’t value unpaid work like caretaking, even though LITERALLY EVERY HUMAN BEING has needed/will need it at some time.

Likewise, if the meritocracy is correct, then unemployed/underpaid people simply aren’t trying hard enough. (Never mind that capitalism does actually require a certain percentage of unemployment to function.) Ergo, if they simply “refuse to work hard enough” then we don’t owe them any sort of social safety net.

* All institutions and pursuits ought to be modeled on business. Have you ever, upon joining a gym, been instructed to fill out a SMART goals worksheet? Or attended a church that was obsessed with growing its membership? Because we hold up free markets as the answer to all our problems, other institutions are slowly becoming business-ified. Likewise, social media and gig work pressure us into monetizing every hobby or passion.

* Consumer choice = freedom. Instead of acting like community members, we act like consumers. We treat choosing a school for our kids like buying a fridge, ignoring the fact that community demands more than passive consumption. I’ve heard many pastors complain about people “shopping” for their perfect church experience instead of investing in a community.

This passive consumption mentality also blinds us to our real lack of choices. Why are virtually all shoes made in factories that damage the environment and exploit their workers? Why is my health insurance company more beholden to shareholder profits than ensuring I get the medicine my doctor prescribed for me? Free market capitalism is uninterested in solving these sorts of problems.

* Wealth is next to godliness. Taking the meritocracy at face-value, the wealthiest people must be the hardest working, right? And while most churches outwardly deny the “Prosperity Gospel” of scam artists like Joel Osteen, many tacitly embrace wealth as an outward sign of God’s blessings. (Not to mention the complex math of being beholden to wealthy donors.)

This Neoliberal worldview is completely antithetical to the one espoused by Jesus. The Ol’ JC was an illegitimate child from a backwater town. He started out poor and he died poor. He valued the least productive members of society (children, women, disabled people) and told able-bodied young men to STOP WORKING to follow him. Jesus spoke far more often about the moral/spiritual dangers of wealth than he ever did about sex, though you’d never know it looking at our stupid culture wars.

You could argue that Neoliberalism is America’s primary religion, not Christianity. Most Christians probably hew closer to this Neoliberal worldview than the words of Jesus.

As for me, it wasn’t until my 20s that I started questioning my Neoliberal worldview. Getting to know people from different walks of life opened my eyes to how incredibly privileged I am. What I’d always taken as God’s blessing could often be explained by structural inequities that I, an able-bodied, middle-class white woman, benefitted from.

The American Dream began to feel less like a roadmap and more like a comforting fable. As I watched more and more of my peers fail to make the leap to financial security, I could no longer deny it: Neoliberalism wasn’t working, not for the majority of us.

But it’s one thing to find the flaws in the system, it’s another thing entirely to envision a better way forward. Still, next week we’ll look at some responses to Neoliberalism and bring back some abundance-thinking from The Serviceberry.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts and responses to my arguments. Do you believe in the meritocracy? How do see Neoliberalism showing up in our culture? What, if anything, do you do to push back against it?

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