To us "neoliberal" points to people like Lester Thurow (who wrote The Zero Sum Society), i.e. liberal supporters of capitalism who believe it needs to be more highly regulated and augmented by large safety nets for those who don't fare well in a capitalist economy.
Internationally "neoliberal" means the economics of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, i.e. relatively unconstrained free markets with less regulation and smaller safety nets.
There will be confusion. Freepers will hate anything with the word "liberal" in it, but how can we hate something associated with Thatcher and Reagan?
There are those conservatives who lean neocon and/or libertarian who are very supportive of everything that Reagan tried to accomplish and only wish that he could have gone further in deregulating the economy, lowering taxes, etc. However, there are those of us who lean more to paleoconservatism that are skeptical of the supposed benefits or even possibility of a totally free market.
So Freepers who are happy to be called neocon or libertarian on FR should be happy to be called neoliberal in the international context.
Those of us who are more skeptical won't want to associate ourselves with any "neo" philosophy even if it was pushed by a Reagan administration infested by neocons or a Thatcher administration that accepted atrocities such as the NHS as a given.
Good points.
Thank you for your post. I have been saying for years that Consevatism has been hijacked by most Republicans, but that true Conservatism does not support Globalism.
Viva America. A sovereign nation again under Trump.
May the heyday of Mexican and American politicians destroying both nations with globalism be sent to the dustbin.