>>767136>it rests on the idea of neoliberalism (and the status quo) as a regression, rather than a local maximum. Not quite, and "local maximum" is kind of the crux of the issue; the point is, if neoliberalism is good because it's preferable to certain alternatives, why is the case for it restricted to those alternatives at all?
As I implied earlier in the thread, there isn't even really a neoliberal case against Nordic-style social democracy. When the case has to be made neolibs act much like the dull-headed leftslop socialists you were replying to earlier: they have to act like the happiest countries on Earth are these nanny-state dystopias and as if historically contingent problems in social democracy are insurmountable monsters that should make us afraid of ever even trying. They also, ironically, act as if welfare economics doesn't exist and isn't working on addressing all their fears daily. (None of this is a defense of social democracy per se, but it seems neoliberalism can't even properly justify itself as being "the worst system except for all the others".)
Hence my so what: yes, the thing is certainly better than feudalism or early capitalism, it's certainly not a
regression from those things, but that is not a sufficient case
for it when more and more people can see the alternatives from here.
The palliative care comment: the point is that alleviating poverty is not enough. We don't want people to be
less poor, we want them to
not be poor.
>it is not so much want of competence as want of a structure that can generate competenceWell, we certainly agree, then. I thought you were actually defending neoliberalism.