What Is Neoliberalism In The United States - Research Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages Unlike in other countries such as the Western Europe and Japan, the United States has been very successful in terms of the use of neoliberal policies in this country. This explains why the United States is considered the leader of imperialist countries (Dumenil and Levy 9). In general, the concept of neoliberalism is based on the classical liberal economic practice that was widely used in the United States for many years way before the Great Depression took place in 1930s (Dumenil and Levy 1, 12). However, between the mid-1930s up to mid-1970s, the US government decided to implement the use of the “interventionist” approach rather than the typical classical liberalism (Kotz). When Ronald Reagan was elected as the President of the United States back in 1980, the US government started supporting the use the classical liberalism in making public policies which aims to limit labor power, deregulate industries and agriculture within and outside the United States (Harvey). The main purpose of this study is to discuss the significance of neoliberalism in North Atlantic states particularly in the case of the United States. As part of analyzing the impact of neoliberalism in the U.S., this study will first discuss what neoliberalism is all about followed by discussing how neoliberalism in the United States has affected the developments in “deregulation” and “privatization” of public companies. What is Neoliberalism? According to Dumenil and Levy (5), neoliberalism is the “new phase in the evolution of capitalism”. Basically, the word “neoliberalism” is commonly used as a general term for economic liberalization of public policies and advocates (Fish; Boas and Gans-Morse). Since we are already in the era of globalization, a lot of academic institutions have considered neoliberalism as a “central guiding principle of economic thought and management” (Harvey). However, the question remains as to what neoliberalization really mean and why the United States has been very supportive of neoliberalism? As defined by Mirowski and Plehwe (13-14), neoliberalism is “the priority of the price mechanism, the free enterprise, the system of competition and a strong and impartial state”. It means that neoliberalism strongly believe in the idea that a society should never be considered as a product of natural development. Instead, people should continuously promote the importance of having a free society that is subject to a “free market economy” or an “unregulated capitalist system” (Harvey ; Kotz). In general, the neoliberals strongly believe that a free market competition could challenge each business entity to improve not only their knowledge in managing a business but also maximize the use of technology. By giving each person the freedom to choose, neoliberals explained that business people can support the increase in the country’s overall economic performance. It means that the business people are expected to become more focused in finding ways on how they can effectively increase their production efficiency and output, progress in the use of machineries and information technology, and promote distributional justice in order to increase the annual U.S. economic growth. As a free country that practices free trading, Kotz explained that the U.S. government has a limited role in its economic development. In general, the neoliberals consider the presence of state intervention as an external factor that can trigger more problems on the part of the business sectors. The public policy under neoliberalism ...Download file to see next pagesRead More