I think the reference to neoliberalism is in the motivation and direction for policy changes in those institutions in recent years, rather than the institutions themselves being neoliberal.

Is that _really_ the best examples he can come up with? Why not military support structures or privatized municipal services? I'm not sure two examples is sufficient to hold up his claims anyways, but the ones he chose were terrible.

Looking through the link, Davies seems to be arguing that even applying metrics to measure performance is somehow 'neoliberal'. He badly misreads Hayek (enjoying a bit of pointless psuedo-psychoanalysis), rather than reading or understanding the man's arguments.

Whenever anyone attempts to tell you that one group in particular was responsible for the US housing crisis, you can safely assume you're dealing with political ideologue. Davies falls completely into that category.

There appears to be this baseline assumption in certain leftist circles that "capitalism is based in greed, we see greed in western capitalist systems, therefore all examples of greed are due to capitalism". This would be a laughable syllogism if so many otherwise intelligent people didn't seem to take it seriously. Most of his "examples" are springing from this rather absurd belief.

Well that's the point: neoliberalism is when you start trying to push market-capitalist dynamics into domains people view, both traditionally and normatively, as not appropriate for those dynamics.

For instance, if you agree with the statement, "Students are not customers and should not be able to dictate to professors", you are saying something that is actually directly opposed to neoliberalism. You are saying that society needs to use material resources to create a space of non-market relations, and needs to withdraw resources from existing efforts to transform that space in the image of consumer markets.

Exactly, there's nothing free-market about government run Health Care or Schools.

This is another case of people using words they don't understand.

As a general rule, I'd be very cautious before assuming that a columnist for The Economist doesn't understand what he is talking about. You may disagree with his conclusions, but that's a different matter.

What I believe he's talking about is the introduction of free market dynamics to schools and single-payer health care, two institutions that have been resolutely socialist (in the classical sense of the word) for a long, long time. His belief is that these "modernizations" are destroying the institutions.

The author of the editorial is from the guardian, not the Economist.

The individual using the NHS/Schools as examples was the IMF author, not the editorial writer.

I never said either didn't understand economics. I said he didn't understand some of the words he was using. I was referring to the use of "neoliberalism" & "laissez faire"

> The author of the editorial is from the guardian, not the Economist.

True.

> The individual using the NHS/Schools as examples was the IMF author, not the editorial writer.

False. The NHS/Schools example comes (as is explicitly stated in the Guardian piece) from Will Davies, author of The Limits of Neoliberalism, a completely separate work from the IMF report.

(Disclaimer: I haven't read the article in depth)

My interpretation: neo-liberals have tried to bring market forces to bear on the NHS and Universities - and this is the 'overreach' he is referring to. i.e. the fault isn't with the author - it's with those with overly expansive interpretations of market economics.

I'd say your right about the author of the study (which I am not going to waste time reading) and his NHS/Uni examples - but wrong about the author of the editorial - because it's definitely an editorial, not a piece of reporting.

Applying free market principles to government run services that should be government run like health care, schools -- where profit and efficiency are not goals is neoliberal.

This is another case of people discussing articles they didn't read.