Neoliberalism — Believing To Believe in Something While Believing in Something Else

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Ironically, it is quite possible that a person dedicates her entire life to Catholicism yet never was a Catholic. A Catholic, say Susi, who is unaware of the full set of the central tenets of Catholic dogmatics only believes that she believes in Catholicism. By contrast, the expert of Catholic dogmatics knows that Susi does not believe in Catholicism, however strongly Susi feels that she does.

Likewise a neoliberal may consider himself a neoliberal, while he may not understand what neoliberal economics actually preaches. Hence, he too may only believe that he believes in neoliberalism. Those who take a closer look at the theory on which neoliberalism is based may discover either that the believer in neoliberalism, like Susi, (a) does not believe what she must be believing to be a neoliberal or (b) she genuinely believes in the right set of tenets, but then she is believing in something that is without consistent foundation and does not apply in any form to the world as it is. So again, she only believes to be believing in X when, in fact, she is believing in Y. She deems herself in the wrong world.

I think, (a) is pervasive, because few people who support free markets understand the elements that link up to a theory of a self-regulating economy. The way economics is taught does not encourage the student to demand a consistent presentation of the elements and links that are supposed to make for a coherent theory of a free market economy. They are distracted by the technicalities of fragments usually examined not in an order that would make it easier to corroborate whether matters coherently hang together and support compelling conclusions of the free market kind. They do not, and that is why they are not usually presented contiguously. 

Closer inspection pursued in an effort to restore the sequences of the argument reveals that the individual building blocks of the neoliberal conception of the economy are false no less than the theory that links up these elements. So, you may believe that you believe in free markets, but in fact you believe in something else — like a theory of labour markets that is not supported by the real world or a theory of how savings and investments lead to a equilibrium outcome which also is entirely contrary to what empirical evidence reveals of the economy as it actually operates.

In a subsequent post, conculding this series here, here, here, and here, I endeavour to sketch the building blocks of neoliberal economics, the way they are supposed to link up to bring about an overall equilibrium in the economy and the incoherence and untenability of both the building blocks themselves and their supposed equilibrating interaction.