Neoliberals Are Neither

If you're a liberal, the word "neoliberalism" sounds like a new, better liberalism -- based on liberal social policies, but with a stronger, more realistic twist. Right?

If you're a conservative, you probably assume that a "neoliberal" is a liberal trying to act respectable, maybe a hippie in a business suit. Right?

In reality, neoliberalism is not really liberal. Indeed, neoliberalism is as dissimilar to true liberal politics as neo-conservatism is to true conservative politics (if you don't know it, most leading neoconservatives are former followers of Trotsky communism).

Neoliberalism is, in fact, hostile to many of the things that democrats and liberals hold dear. As Wikipedia puts it:

"In international usage, President Ronald Reagan and the United States Republican Party are seen as leading proponents of neoliberalism. But Reagan was never described in this way in domestic US political discussion, where the term is most commonly applied to moderate Democrats like the Democratic Leadership Council." The DLC is who decides who gets elected on democratic tickets.

Indeed, leading neo-conservative strategist Robert Kagan recently said :

"Until now the liberal West's strategy has been to try to integrate these two powers into the international liberal order, to tame them and make them safe for liberalism."

And as Philip Giraldi writes: “Neoconservatives and neoliberals are really quite similar, so it doesn’t matter who gets elected in 2008. The American public, weary of preemptive attacks, democracy-promotion, and nation-building, will still get war either way”.

So neoconservatives are not conservative and neoliberals are not liberal. But neocons and neolibs are very similar. Neocons are arguably alot more similar to neolibs than to true conservatives; neolibs are more similar to neocons than to real liberals.

Do you get it? Both the republican and democratic party are now run by people with identical agendas: make the big corporations richer and expand the American empire.

There is only one party, which simply puts on different faces depending on which "branch" of the party is in power. If its the democratic branch, there is a slightly liberal social veneer to the mask: a little more funding for social programs, a little more nice guy talk, a little more of a laissez faire attitude towards minorities, and a little more patient push towards military conquest and empire.

If its the republican branch, the mask contains markings invoking conservative Christianity, there's a little more tough guy talk, quicker moves towards military empire, and more centralization of power in the president.

But there is only a single face behind both masks: the face of raw corporatism, greed and yearning for power and empire.

Until Americans stop getting distracted by the republican versus democratic melodrama, America will move steadily forward towards war, empire and -- inevitably as with any country which extends too far -- collapse.

Neoliberalism is neither "new" or liberal. Neoconservativism is neither new or conservative. They are just new labels for a very old agenda: serving the powers-that-be, consolidating power, controlling resources. Whether the iron fist has a velvet glove on it or not, it is still an iron fist.

A true opposition party is needed to counter the never-changing American agenda for military and corporate empire.

The title of this essay focuses on neoliberals since many Americans are already starting to wake up to the true nature of the neoconservatives. The true nature of neoliberalism has remained better hidden.