The “Neo’s” — Neo-conservatism and Neo-liberalism in Brief
Neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism are two distinct, but complimentary philosophies. The both reside on the conservative side of the spectrum, but are different in origins and key beliefs. Neo-conservatism, dealing with moral de-evolution and its solution, endless war, is essentially a foreign policy philosophy. Neoliberalism, dealing with the inherent conflict between individual freedom and social responsibility, is inherently domestic and economic in nature.
Neo-conservatism, arising from the political philosophy of Leo Strauss at the University of Chicago, said in essence that the moral climate of the world was deteriorating into hedonism, and the solution for moral renewal was endless war. This philosophy lit the green light for political war hawks in successive Republican administrations back to Ronald Reagan to engage in military adventures.
Neo-conservatism also emphasized national interest, giving an economic justification (oil in Iraq) for their wars.
Interestingly enough, Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian studying in the U.S., arrived at the same conclusion as Strauss and the neo-conservatives, and went home to Egypt to join the Muslim Brotherhood, where he had a major influence on Ayman al-Zawahiri, the mentor to Osama Bin Ladin.
Neo-conservatism and Islamic Jihad seem made for each other. They are both conservative, aggressive, and tend to play out, at least in the case of neo-conservatism, in foreign and international policy.
The parallelism was recognized and developed in the breakthrough BBC documentary “The Power of Nightmares” which was not available in the U.S. for many years. I downloaded it using BitTorrent from a foreign source years ago, but I think you can now get it on DVD from Amazon.
Neoliberalism, on the other hand, is essentially a domestic and economic philosophy, grounded in the writings of Friedrich Von Hayek, a strident anti-communist who decried the evils of “collectivism” and the “new despotism of bureaucracy”.
Neo-liberalism was initially developed and articulated at a series of meetings called the Mont Pelerin Society, founded by Hayek in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. The Mont Pelerin Society saw the rise of unions and the middle class as a threat to “freedom,” which they defined in terms of private property and the competitive market.
Individualism became such a key piece of the neo-liberal doctrine that Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of Britain and an ardent Hayekian, famously (or infamously) declared that there was “no such thing as society, only individual men and women.” A key piece of neo-liberal thought is that a person is only responsible for themselves and no-one else. This becomes the core basis, aside from the “you’re not going to spend my money on those people” bleat, for conservative opposition to universal health care.
A regular attendee at the Mont Pelerin meetings was a young economist, Milton Friedman, who later, as Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago (!?!), wrote Capitalism and Freedom, arguing the neo-liberal case that privatizing services, de-regulating business and industry and destroying unions was the path to “freedom”.
Friedman also argued, unfortunately successfully, that the only obligation of an investor owned corporation was to enrich investors, famously arguing that if corporate managers wanted to do good things, they could use their own money. This has become the justification for corporations violating employee and environmental safety regulations because the profits generated more than offset the costs of fines and compensation claims.
Friedman’s theories became the doctrine of the Republican Party and are largely responsible for the current extreme disparities in wealth in this country.
Bibliography:
Friedman, Milton. Capitalism and Freedom. Univ. of Chicago Press. 1962, 2002.
Friedman, Milton. “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits”. The New York Times Magazine. Sept. 3, 1970. Pp. 12–15.
Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford Univ. Press. 2005.
Von Hayek, Friedrich. Freedom and the Economic System. Univ. of Chicago Press. 1939 (Reprinted 2012 by Martino Publishing. Mansfield Center, CT)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
