In some circles it was never a negative term to begin with. In other circles it will remain a negative term forever, regardless of what you do.

One interesting consequence of the Internet is that we're becoming very aware that for every label you could ascribe to yourself, there is some group out there who holds a deep, visceral hate for that label, so deep that they wish you would just cease to exist. I guess this was probably the case beforehand, but without instantaneous global communication, you generally weren't aware of the people who hated you. I remember that when I was growing up, terms like "American", "patriotic", "tolerant", and "generous" were unambiguously good, but now for each of those there is some group who considers them a dog-whistle for people they despise.

I don't talk about extremists.

The term itself was hardly known/in use to the general public before the crash 2008 and occupy. Since then it was only known as basically a different word for greed.

As another commenter (who obviously decided to delete his comment) wrote here, I also doubt that a re-branding will ever be successful. It's not like coming up with a new term in economy is something hard to do.

I doubt any of that matters to Stripe, whose customer base consists of small-to-midsize businesses who need to accept payments over the Internet, oftentimes for marketplace-based business models. By virtue of the problem that they want solved, this group is going to skew towards free markets, free trade, globalization, and all the tenets that r/neoliberalism embraces. They may not themselves want to adopt the label (particularly in front of their own customers, who bring their own baggage associated with it), but they'll be sympathetic to the ideas.

Also, the term is still not known/in use to the general public. The set of people who are politically active via Occupy, Tea Party, Trumpism, #Indivisible, etc. is a small subset of all people, and relatively disjoint from the set of people with successful Internet-based businesses.

You did not have to be active in Occupy or any of the other groups to hear the term. Hell, my mother knows is and won't connect anything good with it. The main reason is what happened 2008 and for those who cared a little bit: deregulation. People who take neoliberalism are not necessary anti free market. Those would be the extremists again.

> They may not themselves want to adopt the label (particularly in front of their own customers, who bring their own baggage associated with it), but they'll be sympathetic to the ideas.

So you agree that there was no rehabilitation then?

I still don't understand why you wouldn't just come up with a new term. Is this bad marketing knowledge or intentional?

FWIW, my mother certainly doesn't know what it is, and I just asked my wife and she has no idea. I'd heard the term in the rehabilitated, Sam Bowman sense, but had to go look up the Wikipedia page to see what the controversy was about. I don't particularly identify with any of the labels of mainstream (is there such a thing anymore?) political movements.

It's a really common mistake to assume that the people you hang around with are representative of all people. The U.S. (let alone the world) is a really big place, and we don't all read the same media anymore.

Alright, let's say here in Europe...although that doesn't make you and your wife look quite good here. I guess this is where the Europe vs. US memes grow. I mean, do you watch news? How could you have missed what were the poster words back then?

However,

> They may not themselves want to adopt the label (particularly in front of their own customers, who bring their own baggage associated with it), but they'll be sympathetic to the ideas.

still stands here. Just from a quick lookup on wikipedia, you got to this statement. So if this is even obvious to you, we don't really have to talk about any kind of rehabilitation. The real issue would be some terribly bad informed people.

Both my wife and I watch (well, read) plenty of news. Sometimes even German news. Neither of us particularly care how we'd look in Germany or the rest of Europe, though, since we have no intention of living there.

I'm reminded of something that I think I read here on Hacker News: if you want to see how you're being manipulated, read another country's newspapers. Not because they tell the truth, but because the propaganda in them is directed at the country's own inhabitants, and so it'll have no emotional importance for you. I look at the term "neoliberal" and view it neutrally, because the propaganda around it never really caught on in the U.S. out of certain very niche circles.

There are undoubtedly similar terms & issues in the U.S. where we get very much up in arms but an outsider would be "what's the big deal?" You could probably tell me what they are a lot better than I could (assuming you read U.S. news media), but I'd bet that things like "single payer", "gun control", and "social democracy" make the list, where half the U.S. population considers them a dirty word while most of the rest of the developed world is like "Duh, these are obviously good ideas. Why do you kill your own citizens?"

I don't consider myself or my mother a person that would have gone to the Occupy events back then.

> things like "single payer", "gun control", and "social democracy"

You may be aware that many over here are interested in US politics and culture. It's a historical thing but it's also quite entertaining. I can say that I'm more interested and know more about what's going on in the US then in France or the Netherlands. At least most of the time. We are aware that those three things are being perceived differently by pretty much half of your population. This is nothing abstract here.

The term is used in Germany as a battle cry against the enemies of social market democracy, perceived or real.

I don't think it's a thing in the US.

Occupy came from the US the crash happened there first. But yes, as we see above, there are people who probably don't watch news or watch selective news? I don't know. It's weird.

Good we have the Öffentlich Rechtlicher Rundfunk I guess ;)

I don't agree with you on this.

I think that the existence of the AMA itself proves that at least in some circles you can.

Look at the posts there, it's people having fun with people who identity as neoliberal without any sense of irony. Neoliberal is a dirty word among pretty much every group of contemporary politically minded folks.

You're not entirely wrong in that there is a tongue-in-cheek aspect. However there is also a serious tone and shared set of beliefs.

Take a look at this for example: https://twitter.com/r_neoliberal/status/974992740982370305?s...

Chief Neoliberal Shill is clearly a joke, but these people do believe in the positive consequences of what they're doing.

An AMA in a sub called "neoliberal" is hardly an indicator.

Participation by elites in a group that might at one point have had negative connotations is a sign of it being rehabilitated.

Participation by elites in neoliberalism was the reason why the term has a negative connotation in the first place...

My point is "they don't participate if it's inherently smearing". They are careful about their public selves.

This means that they must believe it has become defendable.

I understood you very well. But maybe we are not talking about the same "elites" because I have no idea how you get the idea. They didn't care about the connotation back then. Why should the negativity of it be relevant today?

I was thinking of financial elites btw.